The sky before dawn was still dark. The eastern ridge had only just begun to take on the faintest hint of blue, and the stone walls and fields of Melvina Village still melted into shadow. The Whispering Forest—the dangerous zone that Solenia's scholars had recorded as having "unstable ground veins that distort one's sense of direction"—was visible just beyond the village's eastern edge. Black tree canopies stood in rows, cutting into the sky. Elara stood before the stone wall at the village boundary. Her deep chestnut hair was tied back in a single knot, and over it she wore a thin leather hat. On her shoulder hung a leather case of cartography tools. In the bag at her waist were the parchment and ground-vein ink—a special ink made from powdered monument crystals and tree sap from the Selvatura Mountains, serving as the medium for ground-vein techniques—already thinly applied to her fingertips. It was a habit before departure. The grass at her feet was wet with night dew. "Did you get the notification filed properly?" Orion, who had been checking supplies a little ways back, looked up. His dull golden hair fell across his forehead. The outer coat with the Solenia Monument Institute's archaeology division insignia sewn onto it looked stiff in the cold morning air. "I filed it." His right hand touched the breast pocket of his coat. The copy of the emergency investigation notice—a filing that could be submitted without formal permission by citing unusual ground-vein observations, but would result in credential revocation if deemed fraudulent—was in that pocket. His fingertips tapped it once, lightly. Elara saw that gesture. She said nothing. If she put it into words, the weight would become too heavy. She understood that he was staking his credentials as an archaeology student of the Monument Institute. She understood, and she had asked anyway. He had filed the notice without a single excuse. She didn't want to put that weight into words. Instead, Elara tightened the straps of her bag. She confirmed that the vial of ground-vein ink was secure in the depths. The two of them entered the forest in silence. ＊ The first fifty paces or so into the forest were unremarkable. Fallen leaves piled on the ground, air heavy with morning moisture, a bird singing somewhere. An ordinary forest. Yet gradually, there was a sense that something was changing. Orion walked ahead, his notebook open. It appeared to be a survey map he'd drawn beforehand—his own route plan, calculated from the outer edge of the Whispering Forest to the estimated position of the monument marker. "If we proceed at this angle, we should reach the mid-level zone in about two hours." With the instinct of a budding cartographer, Elara confirmed the survey map from the corner of her eye. It was proper work. The scale was accurate, and the contour lines were drawn without waste. The traces of two years of serious study at the Monument Institute were clearly visible. But. Elara's fingertips were reacting faintly. Not from touching the ground. The ground-vein ink applied to her fingertips was picking up the fluctuations of ground veins in the air. A faint, but definite resonance. Like feeling the flow of water through one's skin—except that flow was slightly offset from the direction Orion had indicated. "...I think it's a bit off." "Huh?" "The flow of the ground veins isn't that way, it's..." Elara extended her fingertips. In the air, she traced a line unconsciously. "This way. Five or ten degrees, more eastward." Orion's eyes fell to the survey map, and his brows furrowed. His hand went to the frame of his glasses. "Using the flow of ground veins to determine a route is... not a method covered in textbooks." "My grandmother taught me." Speaking briefly, Elara began walking in a direction slightly more eastward. Orion's gaze alternated between the survey map and Elara's back. His eyes wavered for a moment as if uncertain, then he folded up the map. ＊ About an hour into their journey, Orion's compass began to act strangely. "...The needle is wavering." "The ground veins in the Whispering Forest are unstable." Elara had already anticipated this. The references related to Arathun in the parchment, and Evelyn's notes, both mentioned the disturbance of ground veins in this forest. The compass couldn't be relied upon. Orion's survey map would become useless beyond this point. The only thing to rely on would be Elara's fingertips. Using ground-vein techniques consumed concentration and body heat. Prolonged use could produce symptoms close to hypothermia, according to Evelyn's notes. As a practical matter, Elara felt her fingertip sensations growing sharper bit by bit, while cold crept in from the extremities of her body. Steadying her breathing, she concentrated on the sensation in her fingertips. Reading the pulse of the earth. From where they were now, in which direction did the ground veins flow? Where did the density increase— "Elara." His voice was closer. When she noticed, Orion had come right beside her. He was unfastening the buttons of his coat, trying to slip it off his shoulders. Elara couldn't understand what was happening for a moment. The next instant, she realized her hands had turned white. Not just her fingertips, but the backs of her hands as well. Orion was trying to drape his coat over Elara's shoulders. "I'm fine. It will break my concentration." Elara drew her body back slightly. It was a reflexive motion. Not so much a rejection as a desire not to disturb her current mental state. Orion's hand stopped in midair. He said nothing for a moment. Still holding his coat, he looked at Elara's profile. A pause as if thinking. Then he folded the coat in his arms. "...I understand." It was a short statement. But within those words was the trace of Orion trying to understand, rather than simply backing down. (She is now prioritizing the precision of her ground-vein technique over her own cold.) That understanding awakened both respect and another, unnamed emotion in Orion's chest simultaneously. It felt like being respected and being kept at a distance. Both and neither. Elara concentrated on her fingertips again. Even as her extremities grew cold, the ground veins flowed on. ＊ The presence of the tree-roar beast—a large creature that lived in the depths of the Whispering Forest, camouflaging itself as a great tree to guard its territory—came suddenly. Elara's fingertips reacted sharply. A disturbance in the ground veins. An irregular fluctuation unique to living things. She quickly gave Orion a hand signal. Her right hand spread out to the side, then closed into a fist. It was meant to signify "stop." Orion continued forward. (No! Stop!) Just as Elara was about to cry out, the great tree ahead moved with a shudder. Bark-like skin. Eyes slowly opening. Orion noticed its presence and his feet stopped. But the distance was already too close. The tree-roar beast made a low sound in its throat. A warning. A final notice to the intruder in its territory. Orion's movements were swift. He pulled a fire starter from the side pocket of his pack and lit the torch at his waist. Just a few seconds. The flame caught. The tree-roar beast's gaze was drawn to the fire. In that moment, Elara read the ground veins. Where was the thin density now? What was the escape route? Her fingertips showed the path—three steps to the right, left of the large rock, ducking under low branches. "This way!" Orion swung the torch broadly to the side, keeping its gaze fixed while backing away. Elara ran. The large rock, low branches, a slope of fallen leaves—Orion caught up. The two of them ran. The sound of footsteps continued behind them, but soon faded. Once they left the creature's territory, the tree-roar beast wouldn't pursue. After a while, the two stopped in the shadow of a fallen log. Their breathing was ragged. Orion's glasses had slipped down. The torch still smoldered faintly. Silence. "...We should have confirmed the meaning of the hand signals beforehand." As he steadied his breathing, Orion spoke. It wasn't an excuse. It came from his mouth as a genuine reflection. Elara said nothing for a while. Then she spread her right hand to the side and closed it into a fist. "This means stop." Next, she turned her palm downward and waved twice. "Take cover." She pointed her index finger forward. "Advance." Orion watched seriously, confirming each one. He pushed his glasses up and repeated each gesture. "I've got it." "Next time, follow them." "Yeah." That was all the conversation was. Not an apology or comfort, just confirmation that led to what came next. It felt like it created the first shared language between them, and Elara's mouth corners moved slightly. ＊ The monument marker appeared about an hour later. A stone pillar covered in moss and ivy stood nestled against the roots of a great tree. About waist-high to Elara. The surface was weathered, but the carved patterns remained. Layers of ground-vein ink traces had accumulated, creating a complex design. Orion knelt and peered at the marker surface. His eyes sharpened behind his glasses. He pulled out his notebook and began taking notes. "It's ground-vein script in the Arathun style. The lower layer of characters is from before Arathun's disappearance... wait, this pattern system is different. They're mixed." His voice naturally quickened. Academic excitement seeped through. The knowledge he'd accumulated over two years at the Monument Institute was coming alive. But minutes later, his tone changed. His notebook notes stopped. "...I don't understand." His voice was quiet. Not ashamed, not angry. Simply stating a fact. "The standard Arathun style and another system are mixed together, and what their combination means—it's beyond my knowledge." Elara listened to those words from beside him. (Beyond knowledge, huh.) Orion had said "I don't understand." That was somewhat unexpected to Elara, and at the same time, it seemed right. She'd known since two years ago that he could narrow his vision from anxiety. But now, he didn't panic. He simply acknowledged that knowledge couldn't reach this place. Elara sat down in front of the marker surface. She gently placed her fingertips on the stone surface. The ground-vein ink made contact. In the next instant— The forest sang. To be precise, it didn't sing. But there was no other word for it. The leaves of the trees all tilted in the same direction at once. From deep beneath the moss on the ground, from the roots spreading through the soil, a faint light seeped out. A bluish light, the light of ground veins. It flowed from the marker surface through her fingertips into Elara. This is bad. The words formed in Elara's mind. She couldn't control it. The scale of the reaction she'd triggered had slipped from her hands. For a few seconds, the forest glowed. Then it faded. But a direction remained. Southeast. The tilt of the forest leaves, the traces of light on the ground, the lingering of ground veins. All of it pointed southeast. Elara slowly withdrew her fingertips. Both her hands were trembling slightly. Not just from the cold. Orion was standing right beside her. At some point, he'd raised himself to his knees and stood next to Elara. He'd watched her sitting in the glowing ground veins. For a while, neither of them spoke. "...What is that?" There was no criticism or amazement in Orion's voice. He was simply asking. He was trying to confirm anew what Elara was. "I don't know either." She answered honestly. She was the most shaken of all. It wasn't a reaction a sixteen-year-old practitioner should be capable of producing. There were no such cases in her grandmother's notes. But the direction southeast had been shown. ＊ The sun was sinking. Neither of them objected to spending the night in the forest. It had been anticipated be