The sound of water flowing along the bottom of the waterway was rhythmic. Plop, plop—the repetition echoed off the concrete walls, growing slightly louder. The night before, when Kafka had slipped into this place after shaking off the Stellaron Hunters' pursuit, she'd found something oddly calming in that sound. Regularity settled the mind. She pressed deeper into the underground waterway. Rusted pipes hung from the ceiling, and through the gaps between them, thin orange light leaked through. The stone pavement beneath her feet was wet, and her shoe soles slid slightly with each step. The mingled scent of machine oil and moss. When she breathed in, a damp heaviness spread across her tongue. *(Was it further ahead?)* The moment Kafka peered into the darkness, something moved. In the gloom, there was white. Silver-white hair caught the thin light with a faint shimmer. Bound in a ponytail, it belonged to a girl sitting with her back against the waterway wall. She was perhaps one hundred sixty centimeters tall—small-framed, but with a body that suggested no wasted motion. A terminal rested on her knees, and she manipulated data while watching the screen. Tattoos like wolf markings framed her eyes, and her left eye was silver while her right was purple—heterochromia that glowed softly in the dim waterway. Kafka approached, but the girl didn't look up. "[gentle]Sister. I've been waiting." Her voice was calm, the emotional tone flat. Not angry. Not pleased. Simply confirming. That was the quality of it. Kafka crouched beside the girl and leaned in to look at the terminal screen. It displayed a map of Belobog's middle layer, patrol patterns of the Silvermane Guards, and location data marked with a red pin on what appeared to be a facility. "[serious]How long?" "Since last night. It took three hours to breach Belobog's information infrastructure—the internal network the city manages. The Silvermane Guard's security data used older encryption methods than expected." The girl spoke matter-of-factly while scrolling through the screen. The estimated position of the Stellaron facility displayed beneath the old mining ruins in the middle-layer commercial district. "There's a passage beneath the old mining ruins in the middle layer. I believe that's the entrance to the facility. Confidence level: seventy-eight percent." "[cold]Seventy-eight." "The remaining twenty-two percent requires on-site confirmation. Stay calm and composed, yes?" Kafka smiled slightly. The girl's habit of saying "stay calm"—she could never quite tell if it was directed at herself or at Kafka. But that was what made this girl who she was. Before taking the data, Kafka reached out and gently placed her hand on Silverwolf's head. One second. Two seconds. That was all. The girl didn't lift her eyes from the terminal. But her neck stilled, just slightly. That was enough. The real problem was how to reach the middle layer. ─────────────────────── Belobog's underground city was structured in three levels. The deepest lower level housed factories and the impoverished. Above that, the middle layer contained the commercial and residential districts. Higher still, the upper level was where administrative bodies and the wealthy lived. Between these three layers, checkpoints restricted movement. The reason was simple—the Silvermane Guards preferred that lower-level residents not move freely between layers. To move from the lower level to the middle layer, one needed a work certificate or equivalent identification. Without it, the checkpoint would turn you back. Silvermane soldiers checked each person individually, and those without documents were turned away without question. It was one of the systems that had persisted in this city for seven hundred years. Kafka and Silverwolf, of course, had no such documents. Before reaching the checkpoint entrance to the middle layer, Kafka stopped. The checkpoint was lit by thin orange lighting, and two Silvermane Guard soldiers stood in heavy cold-weather armor. A line had formed in front of them. Lower-level residents heading to the middle layer showed their documents one by one and passed through. In front of Kafka stood a young man. Perhaps just past twenty. He held out a piece of paper to the soldier, but the soldier shook his head. "No job classification listed. Invalid. Go back." "But the person at the upper factory said—" "Go back." The young man stood for a moment, looking at the soldier's face. Then he quietly lowered his head and retraced his steps. He wasn't angry. He didn't raise his voice or complain. Kafka watched his retreating figure. *Odd*, she thought. At that age, he should have been angry. He should have felt the injustice. But there was nothing in that young man's face. He was accepting it—or rather, as if anger had never existed there in the first place. "[whispers]Sister." Silverwolf spoke softly beside her. She held out two ID cards. Thin, card-shaped objects with Belobog's emblem, a photograph, and a name printed on the surface. "Middle-layer maintenance worker credentials. The photos have been altered. Even if facial recognition runs a check, they'll hold for an hour." Kafka took the card and confirmed her photograph was on it. Perfect. "[sarcastic]Your preparation is thorough." "Of course." The two of them lined up normally, and when their turn came, they presented their documents. The soldier ran the card through a terminal and checked the data. A few seconds of silence. Kafka's expression didn't change. Her eyes looked at the soldier's shoulder—not meeting his gaze, but not appearing vigilant either. "You may pass." They passed through the checkpoint. Wearing a mask of lies, slipping through the system. It was like a miniature of how Stigma's organization operated. ─────────────────────── Rivulet Street in the middle-layer commercial district was a different world from the lower level. The stone pavement was wider than below. The lighting was newer, white light illuminating the street evenly. Stalls lined the street, displaying clothing, food, and daily necessities. In front of restaurants, families formed lines to receive warm stew. The aroma of stew drifted through the air—a simple but warm scent of root vegetables and salt. Children ran through the plaza. A woman held fabric at a stall, comparing colors. An elderly man sat on a bench at the edge, eyes narrowed as he observed passersby. On the surface, it was peaceful. There was life. But—Kafka examined each person's face as she walked. A man waiting in line at a restaurant. The wait was long. Yet he showed no irritation. A woman shopping at a stall. After hearing the price, she paused briefly, as if considering. But her face showed no dissatisfaction. She simply accepted it quietly and paid. *(No one is frustrated.)* Kafka confirmed this internally. There was no anger. No yearning—the desire for something just out of reach. No curiosity about the wider world beyond. It wasn't that emotions were absent—there were people smiling, people talking. But certain emotions, as if they had never existed in the first place, were flattened. The Eternal Freeze's core. The wave emitted by Jarilo-VI's Stellaron didn't just stabilize the environment. It quietly, uniformly altered the emotions of its residents. It dulled anger. It numbed yearning. It put curiosity about the outside world to sleep. That was the hidden cost of its blessing. Kafka suddenly recalled a different memory. A back alley at Nabulus Spaceport. Rusted walls. Someone shouting. A crying child. Adults sharing food while laughing. Everyone was vividly alive. Dirty, loud, but living. Emotions were real. Because there was no Stellaron. Because no one had been leveled. The blessing of a Stellaron was something obtained at the price of this uniformity. *(Do they understand, these people?)* Kafka immediately pushed that question into the depths of her mind. They didn't understand. That was the answer. They had been made not to understand. "[whispers]Sister." Silverwolf spoke in a low voice. Her eyes remained on the terminal screen, but she turned her head slightly. "I can see the old mining ruins entrance." Kafka shifted her gaze. Down the street, between buildings, she saw a rusted iron door. The entrance to the abandoned mine—the entrance to an old, no-longer-used mining tunnel, embedded in a stone wall. There were people in front of it. Four Silvermane Guard patrol soldiers. Wearing heavy armor, they stood positioned to block the door. Passersby naturally took detours to avoid approaching. Kafka and Silverwolf moved into the shadows. They slipped into the shade of a stall at a street corner and observed the soldiers' movements. "[serious]Three cameras. East, west, and directly above the door." "Can you disable them?" "In forty seconds." Kafka considered for a moment. She observed the flow of pedestrians. She noted the direction of the soldiers' gazes. "Do it." Silverwolf began operating the terminal. Silent, but her fingers moved quickly. Kafka maintained a natural stance while observing the soldiers from the corner of her vision. "[gentle]Complete." All three cameras stopped simultaneously. Even as the feeds froze, the soldiers hadn't noticed yet. Kafka stepped out from the shadows. She walked down the street normally. Not hurrying. But not stopping. She approached the patrol soldiers. One of the soldiers turned his face toward her. In that instant—Kafka met his eyes. Chaos Flame. Kafka's unique ability. Through eye contact, she interfered with the target's consciousness. Her eyes flickered with a purple-black hue for just a moment. The soldier slowly collapsed from the knees. A silent fall. Consciousness drifted away quietly. The next soldier. Eye contact. The same collapse. The third. The fourth. All four soldiers lay asleep in front of the door. Silverwolf moved immediately, repositioning the soldiers against the wall. In a spot where passersby couldn't easily see them. Kafka placed her hand on the iron door. Then— A sensation like something piercing her temple shot through her. Sharp. Brief. But a definite pain. The backlash from interfering with four minds. It returned now. Kafka braced herself against the door, her posture faltering for just a moment. The back of her eyes burned with a dull heat. Seconds. That was all it took for the pain to fade. Kafka straightened her spine and formed a smile at the corner of her mouth. "[gentle]I'm fine." When she turned around, Silverwolf was looking at her. For just one second. Her eyes said nothing, but they saw something. The girl quickly looked ahead. "Let's go." ─────────────────────── The air inside the abandoned mine was different. The scent of machine oil had vanished. In its place, dry cold air and a faint mineral smell remained. The smell of stone. The smell of ancient stone. As they descended deeper into the tunnel, the temperature dropped. The ground beneath their feet was carved stone steps, and they progressed by the light of the terminal. The ceiling lowered. The walls drew closer. After some distance, the tunnel opened. It was a stone corridor. Not made for mining—the construction was different. Much older. Carefully assembled stone walls continued on both sides of the passage. Silverwolf began photographing the wall surface with the terminal's camera. Characters were carved into the wall. An inscription written in an ancient language, multiple lines of it arranged along the passage walls. "[serious]Seven hundred years old. Ancient language used in the declaration of isolation." Kafka walked while examining the carved characters. Some she could read, others she couldn't. Deeper into the passage. Deeper still. At the stone tablet at the very end, Kafka stopped. It was different from the others. The script was different. A single line, as if carved in afterward, was etch