Before dawn, in the outpost, Eutie Silvanus spread open her notebook. She transcribed the footprint data recorded the previous night—estimated eight to twelve individuals, armed, disciplined marching pattern, disappeared toward the northeast—into the margins of a map. A rocky mountain positioned roughly thirty-five kilometers northeast of Glentzer. The northern edge of the Schwarzwald Forest. What lay beyond, she still didn't know. [[<<Appraisal>>—Map and record data cross-referencing]] [[Terrain accuracy: 38%—Numerous estimations due to insufficient local information]] "...The accuracy is too low," Eutie murmured. She closed the notebook. There was no superior officer to report to. Dario Herbeck, the district commander, hadn't yet been assigned to Tularge—checking the official notice, his scheduled arrival was at the end of next month. Until then, all decisions fell to her alone. Eutie pulled her ability registration certificate from the drawer. A piece of paper recorded during the entrance examination at the Imperial Magic Academy seven years ago. "Appraisal—Grade E. Non-combat type, information specialist." The Empire's evaluation only measured the ability to "read" numerical values. The possibility of "rewriting" them lay outside the examiners' criteria. The memory of their dismissive laughter surfaced—then sank. The past was the past. There was work to do today. She confirmed the patrol route on the map. The outer edge of the Schwarzwald Forest, eastward direction. Mist-wrapping beetles—a chitinous magical beast that generates dense fog to confuse prey, weak individually but lethal in swarms of hundreds, capable of suffocating humans—had been reported multiple times in the past three weeks. It was an area that should be recorded as an official patrol zone. Before putting on her coat, her eyes caught on something behind the outpost door. The "Frontier Duty Guidelines"—a pamphlet compiled in article format covering basic regulations for solo workers in frontier areas, with the convention of posting it on walls or behind doors—was pasted there. Whether it was the meticulous work of a previous occupant or printed and distributed from the start, she couldn't tell. In any case, it was there. "Frontier Duty Guidelines, Article Forty-Two—Record your destination before patrol without fail. Clearly indicate your expected return time." (Even if no one reads it.) Eutie took out a pencil and wrote neatly on the wood behind the door. "Patrol—Outer edge, eastward direction—Expected return: before sunset" The pressure of the pencil was even. The person who would read this probably didn't exist. —Still, she didn't skip the procedure. After finishing, there was a brief pause, and Eutie tilted her head slightly. (…I'm being rather meticulous, aren't I?) It was probably the first time she'd thought that about herself. --- The outer edge of the Schwarzwald Forest was dim even in daylight. A canopy of mixed conifers and broadleaf trees blocked the light, and mist drifted just above the ground. In this region where the annual number of foggy days exceeded two hundred twenty, "fog" was far more commonplace than "clear skies." The humus beneath her feet was soft, absorbing her footsteps. About an hour into the patrol—the air changed. Sound disappeared. Bird calls, wind sounds, rustling leaves—as if the world's volume had been turned down, only silence remained. [[<<Appraisal>>—Environmental change detected]] [[Sound absorption rate: abnormally rising—estimated precursor of mist-wrapping beetles]] [[Fog density ahead of vision: rapidly increasing]] "They're here," Eutie said quietly. But inside, she was moving fast. She confirmed her retreat route—a fallen tree thirty meters behind, swampland to the left, a slope to the right. No escape. A wall of fog advanced from ahead. White, heavy fog. She deployed appraisal across a wide area. Countless life signatures appeared within the fog. [[Mist-wrapping beetle swarm—estimated individual count: 340–390 units]] [[Movement speed: 0.8m per second—encirclement forming]] [[Exoskeleton hardness value: each unit 72–88/100]] "…There are too many," Eutie said. This was different in scale from a single fang-jaw beast. That time, she only needed to rewrite one point. This time, over three hundred—if she tried to manipulate the values simultaneously, she had no idea how far her consciousness would scatter. She might suffocate before she could try. Eutie thought for one second. (Process them in blocks.) Don't try to rewrite everything at once. Divide by area, suppress them in stages. The logic was simple. After that, it was just a matter of whether her consciousness could hold up—that was all. The magic rune on her left hand grew hot. Appraisal at maximum deployment. Her vision was covered in layers of numbers. Countless red dots floating in the fog—each marked with an exoskeleton hardness value. First block: seventy units. Rewrite their exoskeleton hardness all at once—to zero. A dull thud echoed from within the fog. Seventy units falling to the ground simultaneously. But the cost came. A sensation like being struck on the back of her head with a blunt object. The edges of her vision blurred. (Next. Continue.) Second block: eighty units. Rewrite. They fall again. The headache intensifies. Her hands were trembling—but she didn't stop. Third block, fourth block. At the fifth block, her vision went completely white for an instant. (…!) She held back her knees from buckling, placing her hand against a tree trunk. Her breathing was ragged. Temporary vision loss. Her consciousness was approaching its limit. (Still about a hundred left.) She exhaled slowly. Don't panic. Make the blocks smaller. Fifty units, thirty units, twenty units—break it into finer stages and process them one by one. It took time. Subjectively, over ten minutes—though it might have been only three in reality. When the last unit fell to the ground, the fog began to clear. Silence returned, this time with a different meaning. Eutie remained leaning against the trunk, looking at her right hand. It was trembling finely. Not from fear. It was the trembling that came from touching the outline of her own limits for the first time with clarity. The upper limit of her power was still invisible—but today she learned something. That limit was, at the very least, far beyond where yesterday's self had imagined it to be. Then. From beyond the forest where the fog had completely cleared, an old man walked leisurely. A forest dweller, probably—one of the minority peoples who rejected incorporation into the Empire's registry system and continued their own way of life within the Schwarzwald Forest. Intimately familiar with the forest's terrain and ecology, treated by the Empire as effectively beyond its jurisdiction. Wrapped in a fur coat, eyes narrowed as he looked at the ground, muttering to himself. "…That's strange," the old man said. He stopped and looked around. At the mist-wrapping beetle corpses scattered on the ground—exoskeletons shattered, the remains of countless beetles spread across the earth—the old man fell silent for a moment. "This is a strange year," he said. Continuing his muttering. "All the insects on the outer edge died on the same day," he said. He continued walking and passed by Eutie's side. Their eyes didn't meet. Or rather, they did for just an instant—the old man looked at Eutie, showed no particular surprise, and with an expression that seemed to say "you've seen something rare too," he walked on. Eutie lost her chance to speak. After the old man's back disappeared into the forest depths, she took out her notebook and recorded it. "Forest dweller—sighting confirmed—details unknown." That was all she wrote. As she wrote, she thought something was slightly odd. --- She returned to Glentzer in the early afternoon. Walking along the stone-paved road, a woman carrying a water bucket turned around. Forty-something, sun-darkened face. Their eyes met. Eutie stopped and spoke plainly. "I've suppressed the mist-wrapping beetle swarm in the outer edge, eastward direction. Estimated over three hundred fifty units. I don't think they'll appear again for some time," Eutie said. The woman didn't move. She stared at Eutie, then turned her eyes to a man on the nearby terrace. The man seemed to have been listening and turned his face toward her. "…The new recruit from the Empire did it alone?" the man said. His tone didn't believe it from the start. "Mist-wrapping beetles move in swarms of hundreds," the woman said. "One person couldn't possibly do it." "He probably just got scared of the fog and ran back," another voice said. By now, three or four people had gathered. Residents of Glentzer. Their distrust of the Empire's frontier police—a de facto dumping ground where those who failed the selection or caused problems were exiled—was cemented by a history of previous officers leaving without accomplishing anything. Eutie couldn't measure that history in numbers, but she understood it now from the atmosphere. She didn't argue back. Emotional rebuttal wouldn't yield information—that was one reason. There was another, larger reason. She didn't want to prove the true nature of her power. An ability to rewrite numerical values must never be known to anyone. Under the Ability Registration Ordinance—all citizens are obligated to report and register their abilities to the Empire at age seven, with false declaration punishable by five years imprisonment—if it were discovered that she was exercising a completely different ability while registered as "Appraisal, Grade E," the consequences were unimaginable. Standing in silence, the residents' conversation rolled off in another direction on its own. "Speaking of which, the outer edge this year—" "It's the Fog God story. In tree spirit worship, there's a day once a year when the Fog God purifies the outer edge." "Isn't it around that time?" "So the Fog God moved?" "Then this year brings blessings." No one was looking at Eutie. The discussion progressed, and a complete conclusion was reached: "The Fog God purified the insects on the outer edge." The possibility that a new police officer from the Empire had suppressed over three hundred mist-wrapping beetles alone never even made it onto the table for consideration. Eutie listened to the conversation with an expressionless face. (The Fog God, then.) The moment she closed the outpost door, her right hand—slowly, so small it was barely noticeable—clenched. It wasn't anger, she thought. To be precise, she didn't know. Something just creaked. --- A knock on the outpost door came about an hour later. Eutie, who had been spreading a map at her desk, looked up. When she opened the door—Neela Volt was standing there. Pale green long hair tied back, a white apron worn beneath her coat. Golden eyes that wavered slightly as they met Eutie's, then fell to the ceramic bowl in her hands. White steam from medicinal herbs rose gently. "Um…" Neela hesitated slightly. Her gaze turned to Eutie's face, then quickly dropped to the ceramic bowl. "I heard you went to the outer edge. Your complexion didn't look very good, so…" Neela said. Eutie became aware of her own face. [[Current status: vision recovering—chronic fatigue accumulation—visible abnormalities: present]] (…I didn't even need appraisal for that.) "It's medicinal tea. I mixed calming grass and some herbs to help you sleep. Please drink it," Neela said. She held out the ceramic bowl. Not forceful, just offering—with neither pushiness nor hesitation, a strange way of handing something over. Eutie accepted it. It was warm. The scent of the medicinal tea entered her nostrils. The greenness of calming grass and the slightly sweet aroma of another herb. "…Thank you," Eutie said. She chose the minimum necessary words in response. Hearing them, Neela's expression seemed to soften sli