The night air that lingered from when Kael said "If Mira wants to come, then let her come" still seemed to hang somewhere in the atmosphere. 　They set out from behind Ferin's city walls sometime after dawn. Magestones lamps—street lights fueled by magestones harvested from the Seam of Laments—bled orange across the cobblestones. As they extinguished one by one, the three began walking southeast. 　Kael had fallen to the rear. 　It was the opposite of usual. On every previous journey toward the Great Forest of Morine, he had always walked three steps ahead. Yet this morning, positioned behind Mira and Elara with some distance between them, he maintained a steady pace. If one looked back, his cyan eyes stared straight ahead—not at them, but at the road beyond. 　Mira walked forward without turning. Her chestnut-colored short bob, now that she'd traded her leather apron for traveling clothes, swayed slightly in the morning breeze. Elara could sense that the words Mira had wrung out in last night's alley still hadn't settled within her. "You have your smithing"—was that answer she'd given the right one, or merely an escape? Even now, she didn't know. 　There was no conversation between the three. 　When they entered the Great Forest of Morine, the quality of the air changed. 　Coniferous branches overlapped overhead, transforming sunlight into thin threads that fell to the ground. The damp smell of leaf litter, the low sound of branches rubbing in the wind. Elara's fingertips began to tingle faintly before they'd even gone half a ri further. （Again, it's leaking.） 　Without intention, light-magestones were seeping from the star-shaped mark on the back of her left hand. It had happened before—Kael had said it was evidence of advancing petrification. When the atmospheric magestone concentration rose, her own magical power was drawn out to the surface as if magnetized. She couldn't control it. 　Elara clenched her left hand. 　They crossed Greyhorn Pass—roughly thirty-five kilometers southeast of Ferin, once bustling with merchants and travelers as a major trade route, but abandoned over a decade ago due to repeated appearances of blight-beasts—in the early afternoon. Along the road, they saw the collapsed sign of the abandoned inn "The Rusty Horn Tavern." It must have welcomed travelers crossing the pass when the trade route was still active, but now that foot traffic had ceased, only its skeletal frame remained. Mira glanced at the sign and said, "I can't believe they managed to run a business here." It was the first time she'd spoken. Elara smiled a little. Kael said nothing. 　They broke the Seam Prohibition—an ordinance forbidding ordinary citizens from entering within five kilometers of the Seam of Laments, as the magestones released from it were said to have serious effects on the human body and mind, with boundary markers and wooden stakes set up in various places—after walking another half day further. 　An old marker driven into the ground was tilted. A wooden stake painted red with the character for "forbidden." The three stopped and looked at it. "We're going through," Kael said without turning around. That was all. 　Mira glanced at Elara. Elara nodded. 　The moment they crossed the stake, the air temperature dropped. Several degrees by feel. Mixed with the smell of leaf litter, something sharp like metal touched the back of her nose. The smell of magestones leaking from the Seam of Laments, Elara understood by instinct. 　Mist crawling along the ground came into view about five hundred meters from the Seam's edge. 　A purple-black haze—dark, but appearing deep violet depending on how the light hit it—flowed just above the ground. It moved like a living creature crawling. The three naturally came to a stop. "The magestone concentration is high," Kael said in a low voice. His right eye beneath the eyepatch tracked the flow of mist. 　Elara tried. She opened her left hand, attempting to draw in magestones—in that instant, control failed her. Light spilled not from her fingertips but from her entire arm. Twice the usual amount—no, more than that. A bundle of light spread beyond her will, being drawn into the mist. "Elara," Kael called. 　She heard his voice. 　The moment she thought she heard it—it vanished. 　Her left ear had no sound. 　Her right ear received the low sounds from within the mist. But the left side was silent. A sensation like being submerged in water, as if one side had been cut off. Kael was saying something. She could see his mouth moving. But it didn't reach her left ear. （What—） 　Elara stared directly at Kael's face. 　She never looked at him like this normally. If their eyes met, she'd look away immediately. But now, with sound absent from her left side, she received only Kael's face. The black of his eyepatch, a few strands of silver-gray hair fallen across his cheek, the deep line carved between his brows, the color of his cyan eyes—they appeared strangely vivid. Distant, yet close. 　Sound returned to her right ear. "Stop. Don't release it now," Kael commanded sharply. Elara pulled the light back. Her left hand was trembling. 　A sensation like temperature returned to her left ear. Hearing existed. It existed—for now. 　Then something touched her left arm. 　It was Mira. 　There were no words. Chestnut hair, emerald-green eyes looking at Elara—not jealousy, not sympathy, but something before that, as if her body had simply moved first. A palm scarred from smithing work lightly gripped Elara's left arm. 　It was warm. 　The temperature of Kael's voice and the temperature of Mira's palm remained on Elara's skin as separate contours. Despite it being only that, she couldn't erase either one. 　As they drew closer to the Seam, the mist grew denser. 　When they reached the nearest point—Elara's consciousness wavered. 　Her feet stopped. She felt the ground receding. Magestones pressed forward with increasing density—and simultaneously, something flowed in. 　Emotion. 　Not sorrow. Or rather, there was sorrow, but not only that. A memory of someone trying to make someone else laugh, the trace of laughter, the sensation of a hand extended toward someone—arriving as certain reality without knowing whose it was. A memory of having once loved something, a name now lost. 　A line from her mother's journal surfaced. "Light does not grow stronger through loss." 　She had never understood those words until now. But now—within the echoes of that emotion, there was something resembling the source of light. The memory of love that once existed might be the root of light. Not certainty. It stopped one step short. But her hand was nearly reaching it. 　Her left ear grew distant again. 　Her body tilted. Both hands touched the ground. The coldness of soil spread across her palms. 　At the same time, two hands touched Elara's shoulders. 　Right side was Kael, left side was Mira—she knew that. Her body's weight was supported. Kael's hand was cold and hard. Mira's hand was warm and rough. Both were certain. 　Hearing returned. 　A large blight-beast—an existence formed when magestones leaking from the Seam of Laments coagulated in response to human negative emotions, possessing a massive body capable of crushing houses, a Class A danger—approached from within the mist. 　Before sound, shadow swelled. 　Kael stood. He drew Frostbite. The moment the blade touched the blight-beast's darkness, magestones reacted with pale white light—fragments of magestone crystals that Mira had secretly forged into the blade the night before resonated in response. "Fall back," Kael commanded. Mira pulled Elara's arm. The two retreated. 　The blight-beast leaped. 　Its massive body split the mist. Kael rolled sideways, sweeping the blade horizontally. White light touched the black body, and the beast made a grinding sound—fragments of dark-purple magestone crystals scattered. But the body didn't disappear. It was large. One strike wasn't enough. 　Mira pulled something from the tool pouch at her waist. 　A thin iron stake with magestone crystals forged into it—a weapon created by a self-taught blacksmith, never given a name. She drove it into the blight-beast's flank. Magestones resonated, and the beast's outline trembled. "Now!" Mira cried. 　Elara was standing. 　Light poured from her left hand. An uncontrollable amount spilled forth—she wouldn't stop it now. She thought of that root she'd nearly touched in the emotional echoes of the Seam. The memory of love, the sensation of a hand extended from someone to someone—she used it as fuel for the light. Not a rampage, but a conduit. 　A channel. Not a furnace. 　White light pierced the blight-beast's body. 　The beast scattered into mist. Fragments of dark-purple crystals fell to the ground. 　Silence returned. 　Elara knelt. Her left ear grew distant again—this time for longer. She could sense Mira rushing over only through her right ear. 　Kael was standing. Or trying to. A new wound on his right arm. Still gripping Frostbite, his body tilted. The beast's impact had reverberated through him. 　Elara stood and moved to Kael's side. 　Mira gathered dry branches and began building a fire. Her movements were efficient—the fire-handling of a blacksmith, Elara thought. 　Elara wrapped cloth around Kael's right arm. The cloth she had was thin. But she did what she could now. Kael silently offered his arm. She could sense his usual control was slightly stripped away—his low body temperature reached her palm more intensely than ever. 　Low body temperature. She'd felt it on the night of EP3. That coldness transmitted through cloth—a place that must have once been warm, losing its temperature over a long span of time. That kind of coldness. 　Kael spoke briefly. "Your light," he said. 　There was a small pause. "resembles a light I know," he continued. 　That was all. There was no continuation. It wasn't an intentional disclosure—words that had fallen through the gap in his consciousness, which had become slightly hazy from the emotional surge. What "a light I know" meant, whose it was—Elara couldn't ask. She couldn't stop her hands from applying the cloth. 　Kael's body temperature remained low, not recovering. That fact settled in her palm and stayed. （Whose light could it be?） 　A question without a name began to take shape in the depths of her chest. 　Mira got the fire going. A small flame was born in the mist. Beside that flame, Mira placed a handmade lamp incorporating magestone crystals—the same self-taught technique as the stake. The dark-purple crystal responded to the flame's heat, spreading pale light across the ground. 　Mira, gazing at that light, spoke. "If I were to tell someone about today," she said. 　There was a small pause. "I wouldn't talk about my work," she continued. 　It was blunt, but certain. Not about magic, not about the Seam, not about the blight-beast—but about the fact that something she'd made had allowed her to fight. Elara heard it. Even with her left ear still distant, it reached her right ear. 　Elara lit a small light in her right hand. White, small, at her fingertips. She touched it to her left ear—hearing existed. It had returned. The progression of petrification hadn't stopped. But in this moment, it reached her. 　Three contours were placed in her chest. 　The premonition of a light's root that she'd nearly touched in the Seam's emotional echoes. The low body temperature of Kael's wound beneath the cloth she'd applied. The small skeleton Mira had created within the flame of her lamp. 　Not as certainty, but as something taking the form of a question. 　Kael, supported on both sides by Mira and Elara, began to move away from the Seam. The weight of the wounded Kael rested evenly on both their shoulders. Kael said nothing. Neither did Mira. 　Elara's left ear grew distant once more. 　It returned. 　The mist thinned. The forest's entrance drew near. Before nightfall, the three had left t