Morning light filtered through the small window of the archive. Koko spread the old documents across the table and read through them again from the beginning. "……When the seventh day's moon rises, the seal activates, and the place where it is carved disappears." Reading it again, the same words stared back at her. (Disappears. The atelier. Disappears.) She traced the characters with her finger. The kanji for "disappears" looked unbearably heavy. She'd read it dozens of times since last night, and each time it sent a chill through her. The seal had appeared yesterday evening. Which meant today was the second day. Five days remaining… no, six. If she counted yesterday as day one, she had six days left. (I have to do something in six days.) Koko kicked her chair back and stood up. "I have to gather everyone!" She shouted it into the empty archive. She had to move. There was no way she could do this alone. The moment she remembered that sharp, electric sensation when she'd touched the seal yesterday, she knew this wasn't a joke. She bolted into the hallway. She tried to put on her shoes, but one was missing. She found it sitting on top of the shoe rack in the entrance. She had no idea why it was there, but she shoved her foot into it anyway. She opened the door. Stone steps stretched down the slope before her. Okay. Let's go. Three steps down, she realized what she was carrying was heavy. Looking at her arms, she'd brought three books from the archive. Both hands were full. "Oh—" She spun around to go back, and her foot slipped on the stone steps. The books flew through the air. Koko desperately caught her balance and crouched down. The three volumes scattered across the pavement with soft thuds. Pages fluttered open. The morning breeze carried the scent of dry ink. As Koko gathered the books, something finally occurred to her. (……Where was I even going?) She'd thought she needed to gather everyone and just ran out. But she hadn't actually thought about where everyone was right now. Agu had gone to the market again yesterday. Tete was working in an alley somewhere. Riche was… where? And Oruo? She stood frozen halfway down the slope. The sounds of the city drifted up from below. Merchants' voices from Mirto Market. Bird calls. Mezzaluna's morning was beginning peacefully, indifferent to Koko's panic. (What do I do!) As that thought crossed her mind, she glanced back at the atelier building. There was a figure on the rooftop terrace. The third-floor rooftop. The highest point of the atelier. From the roof of this building, nestled halfway up Mezzaluna's hill, you could see the entire city and the Tramont River flowing to the east. Koko loved the view from up there, but not many people climbed up there in the morning. Yet this figure stood there, looking out over the city. Silver hair caught the morning light, gleaming white. Tall. Something in his hand. A map. It was Oruo. "Oruo!" Still clutching the books, she ran up the stairs. One step, two steps, three steps—she pushed open the door to the third-floor rooftop. Oruo didn't turn around. His eyes remained fixed on the map as he spoke quietly. "You're loud for this hour of the morning." A tall young man with silver hair tied back in a single knot. Mismatched gray eyes—different colors in each socket—traced across the map. A thin silver earring in his left ear caught the morning light. Twenty-four years old. The oldest apprentice at the atelier, always listening to someone's troubles. Koko rushed to his side and spoke in one breathless rush. "[excited]That seal disappears in seven days or actually the atelier disappears and the documents mention the moon and I forgot my wallet yesterday but that's not important but anyway if we don't do something within seven days the atelier might vanish—!" Oruo slowly looked up. "……Wait a moment." "There's no time to wait—" "Koko." His voice was quiet. Not scolding. Just calm and heavy. Koko's mouth snapped shut. Oruo folded the map and pulled out a notepad and pencil from his inner pocket. "Don't panic. Tell me again from the beginning. Take your time." Koko took a deep breath. Then she told him everything in order. Finding the seal on the outer wall yesterday evening. The electric shock when she touched it. Reading the documents this morning. The passage about how the seal would activate on the seventh day and the marked place would disappear. Oruo took notes as he listened. Every so often he'd ask short questions: "When exactly was that?" "What's the title of the document?" Each time Koko answered, his pencil moved. "……So the seal on the outer wall activates in six days, then." "Yes! That's it!" "The wallet story is irrelevant." "Completely irrelevant, yeah, sorry." Oruo's mouth curved up slightly. Not a mean smile—a mixture of exasperation and relief. "Well, that can't be helped. Let's go." The two of them descended from the terrace and headed toward the atelier's outer wall. The seal was in the same place as yesterday. Beside the entrance. A pale blue pattern carved into the stone surface as if it had always been there. In the morning light, it looked slightly clearer than it had yesterday evening—or maybe it was just the light. But to Koko, it seemed to pulse slightly stronger than before. Oruo crouched in front of the seal and leaned in close. He didn't touch it. He just stared. His gray eyes traced each line of the pattern. A long silence. "……This isn't normal." "Right? I thought so too." "Drawn magic patterns are made from combinations of circles and lines that create meaning. The basic system was established four hundred years ago by a compounder named Farina, and it's still developing within that framework. But this—" Oruo traced the outline in the air with his finger, not touching it, just following the shape. "The construction is fundamentally different. It's not in any textbook." "Can you read it?" "I can't. Different system means different language. It's like knowing the words but having completely different grammar." Koko slowly absorbed those words. Drawn magic—the main magical system of this world, where you activate effects by drawing magic circles on paper or walls using special ink and a composition brush. Koko had been practicing it every day since entering the atelier. Illumination circles. Water purification circles. Heat-generating circles. The quality of the ink, the precision of the lines, and concentration all affected the results. But that seal was completely different from that system. "Let's go back to the archive." The two of them moved to the second-floor archive. They spread the documents Koko had brought and a dozen more that Oruo pulled from the shelves across the table. Morning light streamed through the window, illuminating the yellowed pages. The smell of dry ink and paper filled the air. Oruo opened "Compilation of Seals Outside the System" first. Koko flipped through "Records of the Mezzaluna Region," searching for the page she'd found yesterday. "Found it. Here." Oruo came over and looked at the page beside her. Their heads were close together. Silver hair entered the edge of Koko's vision. "……When the seventh day's moon rises, the seal activates, and the place where it is carved disappears." "Yeah. But there's a little more on the page before this—" She turned the page. The text was old and faded, with many unreadable sections. But a few lines were legible. "……Overwrite. It says something like you can stop it by overwriting it with something." "'Something like' won't do. Let's confirm it." Oruo brought over another book from the shelf: "Overview of Seal Interference Methods" and a thick pamphlet titled "Public Records of the Composition Council, Volume Seventeen." He flipped through them quickly. Koko divided the work and started reading other documents. Read, find nothing, grab another book. A bird called outside the window. Cheerful voices drifted up from the market direction. Thirty minutes later. "Found it." His voice was quiet. But certain. Koko looked up. The book Oruo had opened contained information about seals outside the system. There were many difficult characters, but as he extracted the key points, Oruo explained. "To stop a seal outside the system, you need to draw an overwrite magic circle using ink made from special materials. There are four types of materials needed." Oruo began writing on the notepad. "First, light moss from Velde Forest—it grows on damp rocks in the forest twelve kilometers northwest of Mezzaluna. It has the property of storing light. Second, blue stones from the bottom of the Tramont River—they're submerged in the deeper waters on the river's east bank. Third, ancient mineral powder from Mirto Market—it's the same type as what you saw at the market yesterday. It comes from very old geological layers. Fourth, night dew water collected on the rooftop during a full moon—literally, you place a container on the atelier's roof and collect the dew on a full moon night." Koko leaned in to look at the notes. "Night dew water… when's the full moon?" "Five days from now. So it fits within the seven-day limit, barely." "Barely…" Oruo pulled a map from his inner pocket and spread it across the archive table. Mezzaluna's hills and ridges, Velde Forest to the northwest, the Tramont River to the east, Mirto Market at the base. As Oruo marked each location with his pencil and wrote in the material collection sites, Koko watched. (Maps really make a difference at times like this.) She thought it as she watched. Oruo always carried a map. At first she'd wondered why he needed a map every day, but being able to instantly know "where is that" was powerful. "The forest and river are far. We can't make a round trip in one day. We need to split up and divide the work, or we won't make it." "So—" "Let's gather our friends and divide the roles. You alone can't—" "I'll do it all!" Oruo stopped writing. "……What?" "[serious]I found this problem. I'll handle it all. I don't want to trouble everyone." Silence. Oruo looked up from the map and met Koko's eyes directly. His mismatched gray eyes regarded her quietly. Not angry. But measuring something. "Koko." "What." "In six days, can you collect materials from four locations, design an overwrite magic circle, and compound four types of ink, all by yourself?" "……Maybe I can." "You can't." One word. Koko tried to argue. She opened her mouth. But no words came. The forest and river were far. Collecting materials would take time. She'd never compounded ink before. Designing a magic circle to overwrite a seal outside the system would be incredibly complex. Tete might know more about it. But that would mean relying on Tete. That wouldn't be doing it alone. Oruo continued. "Well, that can't be helped either. I understand wanting to do it yourself. But six days is short. You'll definitely fail." "……It's frustrating." "Good. Be honest." "But it really is trouble—" "This atelier is your home too, isn't it?" Koko fell silent. Home. That was it. Since coming to this atelier, she'd grown to love it. The smell of the archive, the oil and ink scents of the workshop, the morning dining hall—all of it. Maybe she loved it because everyone was here, but she loved the building itself too. "……Will you think it through with me?" Her voice had become small. Oruo nodded briefly. "That's the right call." The pencil moved across the map again. Who goes where. What happens on which day. Koko sat back down beside Oruo and started taking notes. The plan took shape gradually. Four material locations, six days, several friends. Agu had strength. Tete knew about inks. Riche had connections at the market. Koko was more of a runner than a coordinator. "First, who should we talk to? The easiest to mobilize would be—" Oruo looked up from the map. "Should we