The events at the Furnace Hall still lingered in the palm of her hand. Lilia gazed out the window, her eyes fixed on her right hand. The faint magical sigils tattooed on the backs of both hands—they should have been there since birth, yet only yesterday did she feel them truly "move" for the first time. That sensation of the spell lattice crumbling. A silence like scattering sand. (To break, then.) The words from her grandfather's grimoire and that sensation carried the same scent, unmistakably. But what it meant, she still didn't know. With her elbow propped against the window frame, Lilia exhaled softly. The fourth floor of the main building, north wing—the Ash-rank classroom was quiet this morning as always. Laughter and footsteps from other classes drifted from a distance, but by the time they reached this room, they had faded to nothing. --- When Instructor Fay Rustan entered the classroom, Lilia noticed immediately. A slender woman wearing thick-rimmed glasses. Her mouth was set firm, her expression always seeming slightly weary. Rather than "stern," it gave the impression of someone "accustomed to resignation"—perhaps a consequence of being homeroom teacher to the Ash-rank class. But today, there was someone else behind Fay. Tall. That was the first impression. Around 182 centimeters, with a lanky frame and silver hair that swayed faintly. Eyes of gold—or more precisely, a color colder than amber, transparent as ice. A small blue scar near his left temple. He wore the uniform, but his necktie was slightly askew, and he seemed entirely unbothered by it. From the moment he entered the classroom, he hadn't looked at his surroundings. Or rather—he was looking, but without interest. "A transfer student," Fay said. "Kyle Versell. Pleased to have you." That was all. Fay seemed about to say more, but the student in question opened his mouth first. "Kyle Versell. From Darge Village, south of the Clevas Mountain Range. That concludes my introduction." His voice was quiet. Devoid of inflection. Not so much businesslike as—his mouth was moving simply to transmit information. The classroom fell silent. "...Is there anything else?" "I've conveyed the necessary information." Kyle was already walking toward the back row. Without asking anyone, without waiting for Fay's response, he sat in the seat farthest from the door, by the window. He hooked his bag beside the desk, opened his notebook. Then silence. Fay inhaled deeply and slowly through her nose. She held it for three seconds, then exhaled gradually. Behind her glasses, her eyes had taken on the color of "this is going to be a long year." Stifled laughs rippled through the classroom, and someone whispered, "That's something." Lilia watched Kyle's profile and thought: (What is this guy?) It was discomfort. Not the feeling of being ignored, nor of rudeness—but the air that this person wasn't counting anyone at all, touching her skin with a slow, creeping unease. Yet at the same time, there was something strange about it. Line density three. A figure near the historical low, and she'd been pushed into this classroom as a "special admission for research purposes." Now came a genius rejected by every class for "severe lack of cooperation." The reasons were different. The forms were different. But the structure—having nowhere else to go and ending up here—was the same. (Well, not like we're comrades or anything.) With that thought, Lilia turned her gaze back to the window. --- After school, Fay called her over. Just "Come to the staff preparation room," with no explanation. Walking down the corridor, she saw a silver-haired back ahead of her, heading the same direction. (Ah... so he's being called too.) Lilia slowed her pace slightly. They weren't the sort to walk side by side. The staff preparation room was cramped, its shelves lined with stacks of documents and specimen jars of magical catalysts. The mineral powder inside the glass vessels caught the evening light, glowing faintly with an odd warmth. Fay stood before her desk and spoke once she confirmed both had entered. "The runaway incident at the Furnace Hall yesterday—residual spell traces remain. I need you to analyze them." Lilia flinched. Yesterday's "accident"—the collapse of the magic circle at the Furnace Hall—was still vivid in her memory. "Kyle, I'm assigning you the structural analysis of the residue. Can you trace the path of the spell collapse?" "No problem." "Grayvern. I want you to try doing the same thing as yesterday. Including whether it's reproducible." Lilia met Fay's eyes. "The same thing as yesterday"—meaning, to break it again. As an experiment, not an accident. "Understood." --- The practical training room at the Furnace Hall was quieter than yesterday. No other students. Evening light slanted through the high windows, illuminating the scorch marks of the magic circle on the floor. The residue—the traces of magical power left on floor and walls after spell collapse—was invisible to the eye, yet the air felt subtly different. The moment Lilia entered, her palms tingled. (It's there. Definitely there.) Kyle was already moving. Kneeling on the floor, his fingertips traced the edges of the scorch marks. His eyes were narrowed, as if reading something. His notebook lay beside his knee, a single pencil tucked behind his ear. "The origin point is here. The spell collapse wave spread outward from this location." It was unclear whether he was speaking to himself or to Lilia. "The origin point... here?" Lilia approached the center of the scorch marks. The "weight" of the air did feel different here. "Place your right hand on the residue at that location and describe the sensation. For approximately 1.2 seconds." Lilia stopped. "...Don't give me instructions in seconds." "It's for quantification." "You think you can manage bodily sensation by the second?" "I don't. But without a reference point, I can't compare." "That's not the issue—" "It's a meaningful instruction. Try it before complaining." His voice was calm. Not angry. Simply stating fact. And that, somehow, irritated Lilia even more. (There's a way to say things!) But—there was also a part of her that wanted to try. Her competitive streak surfaced reflexively. Lilia brought her right hand close to the residue's center. She touched it. The sensation came immediately. Something like a lattice. Crumbling in places, chipped, but the outline still remained. One second, two seconds—the moment she focused her awareness, the outline wavered. A premonition that pushing would cause it to collapse entirely. She withdrew her hand. "...A rough, lattice-like sensation. Crumbling. It felt like pushing would make it crumble more." Kyle wrote something quickly in his notebook. "The crumbling sections are where the spell's propagation pathways concentrate. Once more, at a different location." This repeated three times over. Kyle designated a location. Lilia touched it. She reported the sensation. Kyle recorded it. Bickering the whole while, they advanced the work steadily without realizing it. --- Midway through the investigation, Lilia reached toward a larger chunk of residue. It was deeper than she expected. The moment her fingertips made contact, the residue's lattice crumbled in a cascade. A chain reaction spread—wider and faster than her perception. By the time she realized it, a pale blue light raced along the wall, and the permanent magic circle inscribed there—the illumination spell for one section of the Furnace Hall—went dark without a sound. A soft pop. One section of space suddenly dimmed. "...Oops." Two seconds of silence. "The aftereffect was more than three times the expected magnitude." He said it while calmly writing in his notebook. Recording. Recording this situation. "Now you mention it?!" "It's a fact, so I stated it." "The wall light broke! The illumination!" "I can see that. But it's important data for our current investigation." Kyle stood and rummaged through his bag. He withdrew a small glass sphere—a magical light with spell work embedded inside. Gripping it lightly, soft white radiance seeped out. He held it toward Lilia. "Without illumination, work efficiency drops." That was his only reason. No ulterior motive. Simply a functional judgment, offering it to her. As Lilia reached to take it, in the dimness, Kyle's fingertips brushed against her hand. It was only a moment. Lilia reflexively started to pull back—then stopped. She stopped herself. She took the magical light and looked away from Kyle. (It's nothing. Just because it was dark.) That's what she thought. What she meant to think. Yet the sensation in her palm wouldn't fade. It had been warm—and that alone remained like a small foreign object in her chest. Kyle said nothing. He was already back to his notebook. --- As the investigation neared its end, Lilia glanced sideways. Kyle was writing equations in his analysis notebook. His face when concentrating—eyebrows slightly lowered, lips moving faintly. Not speaking aloud, but shaping words with his mouth alone. Rehearsing calculations silently. That gesture seemed—terribly lonely. Not for anyone to see. Not for anyone to verify. Just calculations running in his own private space. As if that were natural. "Did someone teach you to do it that way?" She hadn't meant to say it aloud. Kyle's pencil stopped. Just for a moment. "Self-taught." Brief. That was all. "...Your family?" "Irrelevant." The word came too quickly. Lilia said nothing. She didn't point it out. She just replied "I see" and turned back to the residue in front of her. But she understood the meaning of that speed. People who close off a question too fast usually carry an answer in the place they most want to keep closed. (Well, even if I asked, there's nothing I could do.) Lilia placed her right hand against the residue. What she could do now was finish the investigation. --- As Kyle compiled his report, he said quietly: "My initial hypothesis was wrong." Lilia's eyes snapped toward him. "Reverse-phase interference—the idea that a defective core spectrum accidentally disrupted magic—doesn't hold. Your core spectrum isn't malfunctioning. You're decoding and dismantling spell structures. Not a defect. An ability with no precedent in form." His tone was matter-of-fact. Emotionless. Simply stating the conclusion of his analysis. Lilia remained silent. (...Not a defect.) If asked whether she was happy, she couldn't have nodded immediately. This person had been the one to call it a "defect" first. Now he was reporting that correction in his notes without apology. There was friction in that. After a silence, Kyle added after a brief pause: "...Your power is worth researching." An expression of academic interest. Nothing more, nothing less. Yet that phrase split in two inside her chest. One half—"I'm being seen as a research subject." A sting of irritation. So I'm an interesting specimen? That feeling rose slowly. The other half—"For the first time, someone has said I'm not defective." An unsorted sensation. She couldn't recall a moment when anyone had affirmed her in the face of "line density three." The measurer had suggested retesting. Her classmates had smiled wryly. Even Instructor Fay had only said "you possess something." But this person—he'd said it plainly. Not a defect. (I'm irritated, but it's not just that.) Lilia couldn't quite put that contradiction into words. --- The next morning, the two of them headed to Fay's office. Kyle placed the analysis report on the desk. Fay turned pages while reading. During this, Kyle gazed out the window, and Lilia stood by the wall. Fay's movement stopped at one page. "What about this at the end?" "The residual spell traces from the runaway incident contain a complex structure unlikely to be naturally occurring. I recomme