Whispers Forest—the vast primordial woodland stretching from east of Melvina Village to west of Solenia—had given way to a changed sky as they passed its southeastern edge. Beyond the trees, the rolling hills spread out in gray. Not green. Gray grass and twisted shrubs clustered together. The Vanishing—Vanari Kors—had left its mark most heavily here: the Hollow Hills. The aftermath of Arathun's disappearance eight hundred years ago remained carved into this land, unhealed. Elara stopped and looked at the landscape before her. Last night, after Orion fell asleep by the campfire, the earth-pattern ink had trembled. A pressure that seemed to possess intention, as if observing. She hadn't told him about it. Even now, she couldn't articulate a clear reason why. Only the sensation lingered in her fingertips even after dawn. "...It's far stranger than I imagined." Orion murmured beside her. His hand went to the frame of his glasses—his usual gesture. The surveying map he'd been carrying—the route he'd plotted to cross Whispers Forest—was already useless. Elara nodded silently. A time of few words had settled between them. It had been that way since yesterday, walking through Whispers Forest. They both sensed something, yet neither spoke of it. The grass beneath their feet returned an odd elasticity with each step. The ground was neither hard nor soft. A sensation as if something were displaced. Elara tried to read the ground's patterns with the earth-pattern ink on her fingertips. —Fracture. Not resonance, but a sensation like a severed string vibrating returned to her. The earth-patterns weren't properly connected. The veins of the land's magical power were broken everywhere in these hills. Each time she tried to read, body heat was stolen from her fingertips. Orion took out his notebook, attempting to record the terrain. He was writing something as they walked. But every two steps, he frowned and erased it. Rewrote. Erased again. "Are you getting it recorded?" "The ground's inclination changes every five steps." He closed his notebook with a bitter expression. "I've read several texts about gravitational distortion. But experiencing it firsthand—the direction the pen moves is completely different from what the literature described. For a second-year archaeology student's fieldwork... it was far too unexpected." Elara glanced at Orion's profile from the corner of her eye. It was the way he acknowledged his own limits. He made no attempt to hide his anxiety. Or perhaps he tried to, but Elara could tell. He'd realized that the knowledge he'd gained in two years at the Solenia Institute of Measurement wasn't enough here. That realization kept Orion's body slightly tense. (But he came.) Elara turned forward again. Using an emergency survey request as a loophole in the Ruin Sealing Edict—the law prohibiting unauthorized entry into ruins related to the Vanishing—he'd come, staking his own credentials. She couldn't bring herself to speak of it again. If she put it into words, the quality of this silence would change. The two continued walking side by side. ＊ The roar came without warning. A shock like "boom" came from beneath their feet, and in the next instant, the ground ahead heaved upward. Soil and rock split and rose, a dirt wall exceeding three meters in height completely blocking their path. Orion reflexively pulled Elara's arm, stepping back two paces. It wasn't a natural collapse. Elara felt the earth-pattern ink on her fingertips react violently. The flow of earth-patterns—was reversed. Normally, the veins of the land's magical power flowed according to the terrain. Now, following a practitioner's intent, the structure was being reorganized. The ground had moved with "intention." The highest rank of earth-pattern technique. She knew it as a concept from textbooks. Terrain manipulation. Not reading or recording, but moving the earth itself. That fewer than one percent of the population reached practical proficiency in "reading," and that something beyond that existed— Orion looked up at the wall's summit. A man stood there. Tall. Appearing to be in his mid-thirties. Yet his outline seemed slightly heavier than the surrounding air. Silver hair flowed down his back, with several thin braids tangled with dead leaves. His skin seemed faintly translucent in the sunlight. His complexion was pale. A glowing pattern was carved into the back of his hand. The city seal of Arathun—Elara had seen what that looked like in Evelyn's notes. Complex earth-patterns carved into skin by the influence of sealing magic. Signa Crouze—the forbidden application technique of earth-pattern magic, covering space itself with earth-patterns. The technique used on the night Arathun vanished eight hundred years ago. "—The map's owner has come." His voice was low. Like reciting poetry, quiet. Ancient Arathun dialect mixed with modern Eldorian speech. He hadn't called them by name. "The map's owner." Elara's thoughts raced to the parchment in her bag. That map—it had been sensed. Not her actions observed, but the map's existence detected, drawing her to this place as if by design— "Who are you?" Orion forced out the words. His voice trembled slightly. The man's amber eyes looked at Orion. A long silence. Then his gaze shifted to Elara. His eyes held no emotion. Not that he lacked emotion, but emotion—compressed by such vast spans of time, it had become invisible. "...Eight hundred years." Again, he spoke like reciting poetry. "Guarding this place for eight hundred years. I stopped counting intruders long ago." Elara processed the meaning of those words. Eight hundred years. The Vanishing had occurred approximately eight hundred years ago. The records of Arathun's Eternal Guardian—the title given to those who gained immortality in exchange for sealing magic—only one remained. "Arius." She spoke the name. Not as a guess, but as certainty. The man's eyebrow moved slightly. ＊ Arius didn't descend from the dirt wall. A silence continued, as if his gaze alone were probing inside Elara's bag. During that time, Orion repeatedly touched the frame of his glasses. "I won't eliminate you immediately." Arius finally spoke. "There is a reason." His gaze fell to Elara's fingertips. The fingertips stained with earth-pattern ink. He was observing the quality of their reaction. "The way that technique is used... I last saw it long ago." The words trailed off. That trailing wasn't intentional omission, but the weight of memory, and Elara understood. "I impose three trials." A quiet proclamation. "Those who overcome them have the right to hear my words. Those who cannot—will never leave this place again." "Wait, please." Orion stepped forward. He tried to put force into his voice, but it trembled slightly. "You have no authority to detain us. I am an archaeology student of the Solenia Institute of Measurement—Eldoria's greatest academic institution—and I have filed an emergency survey request with proper—" Arius's gaze turned toward Orion. That was all. Just his gaze turning. But Orion's words stopped mid-sentence. Not pressure, but something like gravity. As if the density of eight hundred years of time were seeping into the air— Elara stepped forward, placing herself in front of Orion. "Please clarify the conditions of the trials." Arius's gaze returned to Elara. (Buy time. Observe the opponent.) "What can we use? What is forbidden? Where must we reach to pass?" A few seconds of silence. Arius's amber eyes studied Elara's face. As if measuring something. "Only map, knowledge, and technique." "Cross that hill—and reach the outer boundary stone pillar of the Silent Dome. That is the first." The Silent Dome—a half-ruined structure located in the central part of the Hollow Hills. A stone dome approximately forty meters in diameter and fifteen meters in height. Presumed to have been an outer facility of Arathun. Elara looked ahead into the hills. The sensation of fractured earth-patterns reached her from further on. Ground subsidence, gravitational distortion, temporal disorientation—all the characteristics of dangerous zones recorded in documents were present here. Behind her, Orion exhaled quietly. Elara didn't turn around. Instead, she took a step forward. ＊ The interior of the hills was even more alien. The ground tilted in different directions with each step. Ten degrees right, then five degrees left with the next footfall. The body couldn't instantly judge which way to fall. Orion nearly stumbled twice. "I'm searching for stable zones with earth-patterns." Elara spoke while keeping her fingertips near the ground. She could read without touching, using the ink as a medium. But body heat was stolen. Already, sensation was fading from her fingertips. "The subsidence pattern—I've read about it in records." Orion opened his notebook. He couldn't write here. But he could retrieve from memory. "A report from a lost exploration team said the hills' subsidence had a certain periodicity. The places where earth-patterns fractured collapsed in sequence. Not random." "From which direction?" "South to north. But the interval between cycles varies—between thirty seconds and two minutes." "Understood. I'll search for places where earth-patterns are weak first. I'll use hand signals to tell you not to step there." "What kind of signals?" "Right hand up means stop. Left means detour." Orion nodded. He closed his notebook. This time, he closed it of his own accord. They would alternate between Elara's earth-pattern sensing and Orion's knowledge. Fewer words than their exchanges in Whispers Forest. Only brief confirmations before moving. They advanced. Elara's right hand rose. Orion stopped. Elara moved three steps right, and Orion followed. Six steps forward, and the ground trembled—the spot just ahead of Elara subsided. Soil collapsed into a dark hole, the sound disappearing into its depths. Orion looked at the hole's edge, then at Elara's back ahead of him. From using earth-pattern technique, Elara's body temperature was dropping. She continued reading while steadying her breathing. Not just her fingertips but her shoulders trembled faintly. He didn't tell her to stop. She didn't ask him to. They simply confirmed each other's positions and continued forward. Around the midpoint, the ground tilted sharply. Not a slope—the terrain itself tilted. Elara's foot slipped on the inclined ground. She tried to lower her body quickly, but wasn't fast enough—in that instant, Orion's hand grabbed her arm. Less than a second. Elara steadied herself and waited for the ground to level. Orion's hand had already released her. But separate from the cold from the earth-pattern technique, the warmth of Orion's hand remained on her arm. A faint sensation, but because her body was cold, it was imprinted vividly. Body heat. The warmth of a living human. (That just now...) There was no time to think. The sensation of fractured earth-patterns returned. She had to read ahead. She turned forward and continued walking. ＊ When they reached a stable rocky shelf, both sat down without a word. Elara steadied her breathing. Sensation was faint in her fingertips. Evelyn's notes had mentioned that prolonged use of earth-pattern technique stole body heat. This was exactly that state. Orion took out his recording notebook. A reflexive action. He tried to run his pen—and stopped. The pen flowed at an angle. The gravitational distortion continued faintly even on the rocky shelf. The letters he'd written weren't straight. "...What's the point of a notebook?" He murmured quietly and closed the notebook. "I thought archaeology students died if they didn't record." Orion looked up. "I wish that weren't true. Today's record would be pathetic." A short laugh emerged. Elara's mouth corners rose slightly too. The laughter was quickly absorbed into the hills' s