The morning after crossing the boundary with Kurone Cave, the three of them stood at the outer edge of Moss-Light Village. The stillness from the previous night—gathered around a campfire while drying their shoes in the shallows along the Blue-Stem River—still lingered within Natsuki. Tio continued writing numerical values in his notebook, while Liliý held her knees and gazed into the flames. None of the three spoke much. But they all understood: "We go tomorrow." That's why they didn't say it aloud. And now, the morning of the Emerald-Deep Tree Sea spread before them. However, the morning of the Emerald-Deep Tree Sea that Natsuki knew was slightly different. The phosphorescence of the luminescent moss had vanished. The ground surface that had glowed green with each step until now was simply dark. Tree roots ran across the earth in blackened streaks, and the smell of decay sank to the bottom of the air. The soil wasn't wet—it was rotting. The difference was distinguishable beneath his feet. Natsuki, who had walked carefully avoiding stepping on moss as Liliý had instructed in the third encounter, now faced the situation of "there being no moss to step on" for the first time. Liliý moved forward, her wings fluttering slightly. Natsuki watched her back. Her pale-green hair gathered with a small flower ornament. The scorched edge of her left wing, though slightly recovered since the third encounter, still lagged in its movements. Yet Liliý faced forward. She didn't stop. Tio began drawing measurement runes on his arm from diagonally behind Natsuki. The pattern resembled a succession of rings like tree rings, temporarily staining the caster's skin pale blue. Tio had previously explained that this was a basic-level measurement technique for quantifying miasma concentration. Midway through drawing the lines, Tio's hand stopped for just an instant. Natsuki saw that pause. The way his expression froze upon confirming the numbers—that feeling. Tio said nothing. He took out his notebook and quietly inscribed the values. He didn't voice it aloud. But inscribing it in the notebook meant he couldn't help but record it. Natsuki faced forward. At the outer edge of Moss-Light Village, a half-collapsed watchtower lay on the ground. The village where moss-wing fairies lived was built on the trunks and branches of giant trees, and the watchtower should have once been positioned about five meters above ground. Yet it had fallen. There were traces where the tree trunk itself had rotted away. The tower's boards were stained black. Liliý stopped for just a moment before that watchtower. That was all. Then she walked on. Natsuki tried to check his footing and lowered his waist slightly. Midway through that motion, his right foot suddenly turned toward a patch of moss that wasn't glowing. His body stopped of its own accord. And before he knew it, he was making a small bow toward that extinguished moss. Perhaps Liliý's repeated words of "treasure the moss" each time they entered the Emerald-Deep Tree Sea had seeped into him. But the moss no longer glowed. It had rotted and turned gray. Natsuki couldn't judge whether there was any meaning in bowing to it. Only after doing it did he realize, and Natsuki's face twisted bitterly. It was far too out of place for the weight of the moment. Tio caught it from the corner of his eye. He said nothing. He simply tapped his forehead once lightly with the corner of his notebook, then faced forward again. *** While heading toward the evacuation zone to the north, the giant trees of the southern grove came into view. They weren't standing. Seven giant trees lay felled from their roots. When trees of such scale lay on the ground, the word "fallen tree" was insufficient—it could only be described as a change in terrain. Giant trees with trunks more than ten times the girth of a human torso were snapped at their rotted roots and lay horizontal. The ground around them was stained black, and the remaining vegetation was beginning to turn gray. Liliý's feet stopped. This time it wasn't "just a moment." She stopped and didn't move. Natsuki stood beside Liliý. Before calling out to her, he bent his knees. From a line of sight close to the ground, he looked at Liliý's profile. The memory of that night in the second encounter—kneeling before Liliý who had tumbled into the café and taking out gauze—lived in his hands. There was no explainable reason. He simply thought that matching her line of sight came first. Liliý was looking at one of the seven fallen trees. That tree, blackened and rotted from its roots. Liliý slowly walked closer to the roots of that fallen tree. She placed her small hand flat against the surface of the horizontal trunk. He could tell she was using plant sensitivity—the ability of moss-wing fairies to understand a plant's condition by touching it. Until now, Liliý's fingertips would glow faintly the moment she made contact. Now, nothing glowed. Seconds passed. Liliý's hand slowly withdrew from the trunk. A tear fell. There was no sound. Rather than spilling over, it simply couldn't resist gravity, and Liliý wasn't trying to cry. There was simply no response. The tree was dead. Nothing came back when she touched it. That fact became a tear. Natsuki said nothing. Standing beside Liliý, he simply looked at the same trunk. With tears on her face, Liliý looked at Natsuki. Natsuki couldn't avert his gaze. He didn't understand why he would. Liliý's golden eyes were wet, and looking into them, Natsuki couldn't say anything. Before words like romance or friendship could be applied, he could only be there. It felt like that was enough. A grinding sound came. From Natsuki's backpack. The coffee grinder had shifted with the luggage, making a sound with the beans inside. In the silence, that distinctive gear-meshing sound echoed clearly. All three of them froze. "I-I'm sorry," Natsuki held his backpack with both hands in a small voice. Tio turned quietly and looked at Natsuki's backpack. "...What was that sound?" "A grinder. For grinding coffee beans. The luggage shifted," "I understand that. Why now?" "It wasn't intentional," Liliý wiped her tears with the back of her hand and spoke softly. "...That's very Grimoire of you," It wasn't laughter. But it wasn't anger or exasperation either. It was Liliý simply accepting that Natsuki was here. A café owner from another world coming to this world, standing in sadness before a village, and a coffee grinder sounds. That was "very Grimoire." Somehow, those words fell deep into Natsuki's chest. *** The three of them moved toward the center of the village. Tio went ahead, glancing at the measurement runes on his arm. The values kept rising. He didn't voice it, but his gaze fell on his notebook more frequently. Watching his back, Natsuki sensed that Tio was suppressing something. Not emotion, but probably judgment. Whether something should be said or not—that hesitation was being held back by reason. It was around the time the withered crown of a giant tree began to occupy the upper half of his field of vision. The measurement runes on Tio's arm changed color from blue to red. A warning. By the time Natsuki noticed, black mist was beginning to fall from between the branches. It wasn't slow. Condensing, the black mass seeping from between the branches began to take form at an alarming rate. An unnamed magical creature—a mysterious existence emerging from deep within the ancient forest, with a body surface like black mist, given no name—descended to the ground with an amorphous outline nearly three meters in height. The withered vegetation around it changed color without even being touched. Miasma was spreading through the air. Branches that still had leaves before decay turned gray before contact. Tio pointed his arm toward the ground. To activate a mid-level tree rune technique, he began drawing a pattern on the earth. A succession of rings more complex than the standard basic pattern ran across the soil. It would take more than ten seconds, not three. The pattern completed. It activated. The technique was absorbed by the mist. Tio's expression showed clear agitation for the first time. The sensation of being absorbed reaches the caster directly. Tio's body swayed backward for just a moment. Moreover, the mist expanded slightly and returned, having absorbed the technique. "The technique... doesn't work," The tone of his voice had changed. The voice that should have been led by reason now carried the heat of agitation for the first time. Tio began drawing a pattern on the ground again. This time it was a high-level rune. A complex figure that would take more than twenty seconds to draw. Tio's fingers moved. The succession of rings began to overlap in multiple layers—— His hand trembled. Natsuki was watching. That subtle tremor in Tio's hand that he'd noticed for just a moment when Tio repelled the decay-moss insects in the fourth encounter now appeared in a form that couldn't be hidden. One line of the half-drawn pattern curved. In high-level runes, the precision of every line is everything, and a single distortion collapses the entire structure. The pattern failed to activate. Only the cost of the technique returned to the caster. Body temperature dropped rapidly. The color drained from Tio's lips. "Liliý, get back!" Natsuki shielded Liliý and lowered his backpack. His thoughts raced. The single cup from the third encounter when he'd healed Liliý's wing floated in his mind. Emotion was at the forefront. If he could recreate that. That golden liquid. His hands moved. He took out the grinder. He took out the filter. He took out the bean canister. He took out the kettle. He lit a fire. He boiled water. (The materials are different. Not the water from the "Luminous Moss Spring" in Moss-Light Village. Water from my supplies. But——) Natsuki was already adding the grounds before thinking through that "but." Emotion overtook calculation. Liliý's village was before him. Liliý had cried. Tio was losing body heat. This mist was approaching. The feeling that something had to be done caused him to skip the first of the three elements: material selection. The liquid began to change color. Brown shifted toward gold—— The vessel shattered. From the inside. The pressure demanded by the liquid exceeded what the ceramic cup could withstand. The way emotion was poured in was excessive, the material's compatibility was wrong, the vessel's suitability was worst-case. A tea-cup master's power requires three things to align: emotion, material, and vessel. If they don't mesh, the backlash returns not to the drinker but to the caster. The recoil struck Natsuki directly. Sound vanished. Vision became fragmented. A young self. Father's broad back. The height of the café counter seen from below, Soji's hands. Those hands placing the帳鍵 around Natsuki's neck. The cool, heavy sensation of metal. "It's too early for you. But——someday," a voice that cut off midway. Natsuki's body collapsed. Liliý screamed. Her voice was distant. But he heard it clearly. Liliý's voice held Natsuki's consciousness just barely on the other side of a thin membrane. Tio fell back to support. His body temperature had dropped too much for his normal techniques, but he still drew minimal tree runes to buy time. Liliý grabbed Natsuki's clothing and backpack with both hands and dragged him. Moss-wing fairies were forty centimeters tall, but they had strength. It was desperately heavy, but she moved him. The mist didn't pursue. Even after the three retreated, the mist continued its slow encroachment toward the center. As if there was no need to chase. As if simply being there was the goal. *** The three of them had taken shelter in a tree hollow at the northern edge. The cavity created by a giant tree's roots in the earth was spacious enough for an adult to lie down in. Natural walls