Before dawn, Graovant always felt a little suffocating. The stone corridor was silent, and from the window of the corner room on the third floor, Meira Bay was still a vague blur where the dark sea and sky met. A single imperial supply ship rocked gently in the lighthouse beam. Rasco sat before his desk with his notebook open. "Shal——currently under investigation" The characters he'd written last night remained exactly as they were. Below the words "Translation pending. Requires review," there was blank space for today's date. Each time the lamp flame flickered, the shadows of the letters shifted slightly. Today was Hernan Valdo's appointment interview. Tunglaat Aile Branch Director Acting——the highest-ranking official of the Imperial Language Control Bureau in Aile——would arrive in Meira An today. The notice that he would request progress reports from all translators on his first day had arrived three days ago. (I can't write this in the report.) Rasco closed his notebook. The notebooks he'd accumulated over three weeks of vocabulary research were stacked on the right side of his desk. "Naal," "Peshu," "Dova," "Seri"——words with assigned translations lined up in meticulous handwriting. Only one word, "Shal," remained like a hole. He hadn't written it in the report. He'd used the phrase "under investigation" to fill the blank with different words. When he thought about how carefully he was choosing words, what that meant——his chest grew slightly heavy. Rasco aligned the stack of reports and bound them with string. He carefully matched the corners and straightened the knot. Then he put on his jacket and quietly checked his inner pocket. The corner of the wave-script paper touched his finger. He noticed only this morning, again with a slight delay, that this action had become a habit. When he stepped into the corridor, the stone walls were cool. As he was about to descend the stairs, a figure appeared from the opposite direction. It was Emera. Her long hair, a deep sea-blue color, was distinctly vivid even in the dim corridor. The wavy texture of her hair swayed slightly in the morning air. Her golden eyes met Rasco's and paused for a moment. Beneath her usual calm expression, something else flickered——not quite tension, but something harder than tension, like resolve. "I looked into Hernan Valdo a bit," She spoke briefly. Her voice was calm but lower than usual. "...Where," "There are records in imperial official documents. In the three conquered territories he's overseen, he's completed language transition in every region within five years," Rasco tried to respond to something. But looking into Emera's eyes, words wouldn't come. Those golden eyes weren't absorbing light this morning——they were looking directly at something. Rasco had no words to translate that expression. At that moment, Rasco looked down at the reports in his hands. The cover was facing backward. Emera silently pointed to the cover of the reports. She said nothing. With that tense, rigid expression still on her face, only her finger indicated the reports. That gap was indescribable to Rasco. Heavy air hung between them, yet the pointing gesture was oddly matter-of-fact, slightly absurd. "...I didn't notice," "You should rebind it," "I'll do it now," Rasco placed the reports on the window frame in the corridor, untied the string, flipped the cover, and bound it again. Emera watched the entire process with that same tense expression, quietly. Not angry, not laughing, just watching. Being observed rebinding the reports with such a serious face made him deeply uncomfortable. When he finished binding and looked up, Emera was already walking toward the opposite end of the corridor. Rasco gathered the reports again and descended the stairs alone. 　　◇ The Tunglaat Aile Branch headquarters was located in the imperial administrative district, about a five-minute walk from Graovant along the stone pavement. A three-story building constructed of gray granite, it had a different atmosphere from the old city of Meira An, which featured much white limestone. Heavy. Angular. When shown to the director's office, he could see Meira Bay in the morning light from the window. A thin glow was beginning to spread beyond the horizon. Hernan Valdo stood before his desk. It was the first time Rasco had seen his face. Silver short hair with slight recession at the temples. Sharp blue eyes that looked directly at Rasco. A refined face with stern brows. About 178 centimeters tall with perfectly straight posture. A small, old scar was visible on his left collarbone, peeking through the gap in his high-collared uniform. "The report," He spoke curtly. Rasco handed over the report. Hernan accepted it and read while standing. The room was quiet. From outside, the faint sound of ships moving in the direction of the harbor could be heard. Hernan looked up from the report. "Complete it within thirty days," "The entire Aile language dictionary in thirty days," Only after speaking did he notice his voice had risen slightly. Hernan's expression didn't change. "There are technical difficulties. Aile is a tonal language——the same syllable changes meaning based on vocal pitch. Much information is lost when transcribing to writing, and we must also proceed in parallel with deciphering the classical script——the wave-script writing system. Additionally, there are still words for which no translation has been found——," Hernan didn't interrupt. He simply listened until Rasco finished. Then he sat down slowly in the chair beside the desk. "Are you familiar with the Faigen region," "It's the first conquered territory where the empire completed language transition. Approximately sixty years ago," "At that time, there were twelve vocabulary items said to be untranslatable. Local researchers said translation was impossible. The cultural background was too different, the conceptual structure was different. Now, there is no conflict in that region. Language is unified. The twelve words that were said to be untranslatable now exist naturally within imperial language," Rasco couldn't say anything. "There are no words that cannot be translated. There is only a lack of will to translate," Those words pierced somewhere in his chest. They pierced because they had the same structure as what Rasco himself had once believed. When he studied at the Imperial Language Academy, he believed that. All words have translations. Words that cannot be translated are simply words for which we haven't yet found the translation. That's precisely why he couldn't argue back. "Language is a tool," Hernan stood and turned toward the window. He glanced at Meira Bay outside for a moment, then turned back to Rasco. "Sentimentality reduces translation accuracy," Those parting words lingered in his ears even after he stepped into the corridor. 　　◇ Rasco stood in the corridor, holding the report to his chest. The light outside had grown slightly stronger. The hallway of the headquarters was gray stone with few windows. It had an atmosphere separate from the white streets of Meira An. Around the corner of the corridor, Hernan and Emera met face to face. Rasco stopped in the shadows of the hallway. The two didn't notice him. Emera stood facing forward. She was small, more than a head shorter than Hernan. Yet her posture was perfectly straight. "Please stop the translation of Shal," Her voice was calm. But it didn't waver. Hernan paused for a moment before speaking. "How many lives specifically does sentimental attachment to Aile language save," His voice was emotionless. Only logic remained. Emera answered immediately. "Whose definition calls it 'being saved' when a human who has had their language stolen continues to live," The corridor fell silent. Hernan's expression moved, just barely. His eyebrows shifted, only slightly. That was all. One second, or two. Then Hernan said nothing and walked away, disappearing into the depths of the corridor. His footsteps faded. Emera remained standing in place for a moment, unmoving. Rasco watched the entire exchange from the shadows of the hallway. He felt it welling up from inside his chest——the realization that he was now physically standing between two kinds of rightness. Hernan had disappeared into the corridor. Emera stood in the foreground. Rasco was in the shadows between them. Emera turned around. Their eyes met. Emera showed no surprise. Her golden eyes simply looked at Rasco for a moment. The usual calm and the rigid resolve she'd shown in the corridor this morning were now mixed together. Her profile, which hadn't retreated even an inch, was still moving within Rasco. He realized only with a slight delay that he couldn't take his eyes off Emera's profile. Whether he was worried as a work colleague or something else entirely, he couldn't distinguish. Without resolving that, Emera turned the corner and disappeared. 　　◇ In the afternoon, Rasco walked with heavy steps toward Dova Square. Climbing one hundred twenty stone steps, he realized he hadn't counted them even once today. Reaching the top, he stepped onto the stone pavement. There were fewer people than in the morning. The water column stood beneath the cloudy sky. The smell of salt came from the direction of the fish market. At the east end of the square, there was a stone bench. An old man sat there. Perhaps in his seventies, or perhaps older. Sun-darkened skin and deep wrinkles. Short white hair. Dressed in a fisherman's work clothes, his hands were rough and calloused. He was looking toward Meira Bay. Only his eyes gazed into the distance. Rasco had heard this old man speak the word "Shal" in Dova Square in the first episode. He knew his name was Kairo, an old fisherman. Yet in three weeks of coming here, he'd never spoken to him directly. Rasco sat down on the bench. Kairo didn't speak to him. Looking toward the bay, he seemed to be waiting for Rasco to search for words. The wind came. The smell of salt. "What is Shal," Kairo paused for a moment, still facing the bay. "Why do you want to translate it," It was Aile. A low, quiet voice. Rasco almost said "because it's my job." He formed the words in his mouth and stopped halfway. Because it's my job. Three weeks ago, that would have sufficed. As a translator for the Imperial Language Control Bureau, completing the Aile language dictionary was his duty. Language is a tool, translation is a technique, untranslatable words are a matter of will——what Hernan had said this morning was almost identical to what Rasco had believed a month ago. But now, he couldn't speak those words. Something from these three weeks caught before that answer. The silence continued. The water column in the square remained silent. A bird's cry sounded somewhere. Unable to bear the awkwardness, Rasco opened his notebook. He needed to be doing something. He decided to try speaking to Kairo in Aile. There were words he'd practiced a little last night. "Kairo, you——," The tone was badly off. He could tell himself. The word Rasco had tried to use for "old fisherman" had become something completely different because of the tone. "Old stone." Emera had pointed this out before, and he'd been trying to be careful since, but when nervous, the tone slipped away. Kairo spoke for the first time. In imperial language. "Stone doesn't listen," Muttered, a single line. Rasco froze. He'd only just learned that Kairo understood imperial language. In three weeks of coming here, he'd assumed the old people didn't speak it. Or rather, he'd assumed they couldn't. And the dryness of Kairo's "stone doesn't listen" was indescribable. It wasn't angry or laughing, just stating a fact. "...I'm sorry. I got the tone wrong," Kairo turned back toward the bay. "The translator brought the worst words," With only that, he fell silent. Rasco turned that single line over in