How much time had passed since Elara Winters had driven back Selene's echo-form—a conscious fragment sent from afar by an entity trapped in the dimensional rift? Elara remained motionless, her hand still gripping the edge of the translation desk. The pale phosphorescent moss illuminating the stone walls gave off the same light as before. The Luminaur Deep's sanctum library—the dimensional layer of the subterranean world—was wrapped in the exact same silence as it had been before the battle. Yet it was not the same. The quality of the air was different. With each breath, it felt as though the lingering tension from moments ago was entering her lungs. Mira Solis crouched before a shelf, writing something on a handwritten list. Her silver-white long hair flowed down from her shoulders to the front. The phosphorescent ore ornament on her left ear swayed faintly as it caught the library's light. Her hands were steady, but Elara noticed that Mira's movements were slightly slower than usual. (She's tired too.) Kael Thorne sat with his back against the wall at the far end of the library, his knees drawn up to his chest. Short hair with navy base and red mesh, amber eyes. Those eyes were now looking at nowhere in particular. The time when adrenaline drains from the body—that sensation that comes to everyone. His mouth remained closed. The usual quips weren't coming. The three of them said nothing for a while. The silence was not merely exhaustion. What had just happened existed there before it could become words. Selene—an entity spoken of as both the executor and victim of the Great Erasure—had interfered through a tear in the veil. The Great Erasure was a large-scale knowledge obliteration event said to have occurred twelve hundred years ago, and the name Selene appeared repeatedly at the center of that event where records between dimensions were systematically lost. The veil—the invisible boundary membrane stretched between dimensions—had been torn by the echo-form's interference, and the wound remained even now. Elara had used the Chronicle Prism to drive back the echo-form. The veil's damage persisted. But at least in this moment, it was not collapsing. "The boundary readings are stabilizing," Mira said without looking up. "The dimensional veil's damage continues, but active collapse has stopped. It's stabilization, not repair," Mira continued. Elara and Kael's eyes met. Both felt their shoulders relax just slightly. Without words, something was shared between them. "So," Kael said, lifting only his head from the wall. "We managed it, right?" "That interpretation is not entirely accurate," Mira said, looking up from her list. Her pale violet eyes returned the answer with practical precision. "But it is not greatly mistaken." A dimple appeared on Kael's face for just a moment. It was only that, but Elara noticed the small change and felt something loosen slightly in her chest. --- Mira began checking the library's damage a few minutes later. Clutching her handwritten checklist to her chest, she confirmed each shelf one by one. The phosphorescent manuscripts—the library's greatest treasure, containing the records of the Palimpsest civilization—and what effects the dimensional disturbance had had on them. Mira's movements were careful and systematic. To Elara, it seemed less like a simple inspection and more like a kind of ritual. When a place one had guarded alone for years was wounded, confirming that wound with one's own hands was a way of accepting reality. That was how Mira moved. Kael leaned against the wall watching for about a minute, but it seemed to become uncomfortable, so he stood up. "I'll help," Kael said. "That's not necessary," Mira replied immediately. "I could at least check if the eastern shelf is tilted—" "Already confirmed." "Then the high shelves—" "I can reach them." Kael fell silent. About three seconds passed. "...Is there anything I can do?" "Could you please not stand in front of the shelves? You're in the way," Mira said. Elara rested her elbow on the translation desk and watched the scene unfold. A laugh wanted to come from deep in her chest, but it didn't seem like the right time. Caught between the two, only the corner of her mouth moved slightly. Kael turned and slowly walked toward Elara. "I don't think anyone's ever worried about whether Mira could reach the high shelves before," Kael said. "Mira is one hundred fifty-five centimeters tall," Elara replied. "She can reach that height?" "Who knows," Elara said. Even as they had this conversation, Mira didn't turn around. But Elara knew she could hear them. Her ears seemed to have turned slightly red. It might have been her imagination. But it might not have been. Kael stopped in the middle of the library. He stood with his arms crossed, looking idle. Elara had been noticing the way his left shoulder's clothing rubbed since earlier. She knew it was a wound from this battle. Kael had taken a direct hit to his left shoulder from contact with the echo-form—the residual dimensional energy burned human skin like fire when it touched. Kael wasn't showing it. Elara decided not to ask about it now. After a while, Mira reached up to a high shelf. She confirmed one manuscript and slowly returned it. Partway through that motion, she said quietly, "...The outer spine is slightly damaged. It's from the dimensional vibrations. But the interior is intact." It was said like a soliloquy. Not directed at Kael or Elara. But her voice carried something she needed to report. Kael said, "I see." That was all. But to Elara, that "I see" sounded like a proper response. --- While Mira continued her inspection, Elara gently placed the prism on the translation desk. The Chronicle Prism—an octahedral crystal that fit in the palm of one's hand, accumulating traces of the user's experiences and choices as layers of light within itself. Through Mira's manuscript analysis, its nature had been clarified. The liquid light inside swayed more softly than when they had left this place last time. Since Selene's echo-form had withdrawn, the light had changed. Rather than settling, it swayed as if waiting for something. Elara's father, Lucian Winters, had once possessed this prism. Seven years ago—at the end of summer when Elara was still twelve—her father had suddenly vanished. The next morning, her grandmother, Henrietta Winters—who ran an antique shop in Eldria—said that the prism that should have been on the shelf had moved. From the shelf's edge to the desk's surface. As if someone had taken it one last time and set it down again. Why her father had disappeared, where he had gone—even now, seven years later, she didn't know. But when Elara had visited this library last time, she had discovered fragmentary characters written in her father's abbreviation method—a unique shorthand he had created—within the light layers of the prism. Her father had left something in this prism. It felt as though there was still something deeper in the light layers. Elara picked up the prism and brought it close to the magnification device's lens. Mira's homemade instrument—a lens-shaped magnification device using phosphorescent ore as a light source—focused on the octahedron's interior. Pale blue light brought the deeper layers into view. The light shifted direction. The rhythm changed. Different from its usual regular pulsing, this was a more intentional movement. Elara felt something respond within her. The ability to "see" the gossamer threads—the energy that connected dimensions—moved without her conscious awareness. Structure appeared in the light layers. Coordinate fragments. Some kind of coordinate system indicating a location, and a set of words. Elara traced them with her eyes and decoded them in her mind. They matched her father's abbreviation method. But this fragment was in a deeper layer than the last one. A location's coordinates and a single phrase. It was not "do not go." Not "look" or "return." It was something more complex. Elara couldn't immediately determine whether it was a warning or a marker. But what was certain was that her father had deliberately left this here. This was not coincidence. It was written to be shown to someone. To Elara. Elara slowly lowered the prism and cradled it in both hands. (Father.) She called out in her heart. There was no answer. Of course not. But for the first time, the reality that her father had come to this place descended upon her not as imagination but as a fact with weight. Her father had been here. In this light layer. Holding the same prism, trying to see the same things. Sitting before this library's translation desk, using the same magnification device that Mira now leaned against, seeing the same pale blue light. And he had not returned. Elara remained still for a while. --- "Mira, Kael," Elara said. It took a moment for her voice to come. The two turned. Mira stopped her work, and Kael pulled away from the wall. "The prism has revealed another trace of my father. This time, coordinate fragments and a single word," Elara said. That was all she said. Mira approached the translation desk. Kael followed a step behind. Elara handed the prism to Mira. Mira refocused it in the magnification device. Her precise gaze read the light layers. "This coordinate notation—" Mira said, her voice lowered. "Two manuscripts in my collection contain references to regions matching this. However, those two manuscripts are—" Mira paused for a moment. It was rare for her to do so. "The most severely damaged in my collection. Pages are missing in places, and the remaining text is degraded. The cause was unknown. I suspected they had been affected by dimensional interference, but I couldn't explain why only those two were concentrated with such damage," Mira said. Kael crossed his arms. "So," Kael said. "They may have been deliberately erased," Mira said. Her voice was clear. Not emotional emphasis, but a conclusion drawn from data. "Records related to the location your father was investigating may have been intentionally damaged or destroyed. By Selene, or by something connected to Selene's activities," Mira said. The moment Elara heard this, she felt oddly calm. She was afraid. But the quality of her fear had changed. It had transformed from vague dread into fear of something with shape. Her father's disappearance was not coincidence. She had understood that intellectually, but in this moment, everything finally aligned on the same line. Kael said nothing. It was a moment when he usually would have said something. A quip, sarcasm, or a comment to redirect the conversation. But he remained silent. That silence sounded to Elara like a different kind of words. --- After a while, Elara spoke. "I don't know if I'm doing the right thing sometimes," Elara said. She wasn't speaking to anyone in particular. Just voicing it. "Moving toward the direction the prism shows, crossing the veil, fighting—is that courage, or am I just unable to stop?" Elara said. Kael spoke after a brief pause. "I'm pretty much the same," Kael said. His tone was not light. It was different from his usual levity—a voice with real weight. "When I'm moving toward something, I usually can't tell if I'm choosing it or if I just have no choice but to move," Kael said. Elara looked at Kael. His amber eyes, unusually, were looking directly at her. "It was like that before we went to the Ashen Archipelago too," Kael said. He didn't say more than that. The Ashen Archipelago—the place with ruins that Elara and Kael had first traveled to together, which had left something heavy with Kael. Elara remembered how Kael's expression had lost its smile the moment he spoke that name. She still didn't fully know what had happened in that place. But the fact that Kael had said "it was like that" was certain. That alone felt like something was being communicated. "Then why were you a