They left the village without ceremony, hooves muffled by the morning's cold dust. The researchers stayed behind like statues under veils, motionless in their doorways, not waving, not giving names—as if farewell itself were also a secret. The wind slipping between the refurbished houses carried the scent of stone rinsed at dawn and old metal. Soon the improvised palisade grew small, the mast with blue streamers shrank to a dot, and before them the expanse opened again.
They rode in a short file, Alexius at the front, Mia and Kidero beside him, the rest spaced as their mounts could manage. The sun, still low, cast the students' shadows in long strips over the dark ground. No insects croaked, no birds whistled—only the dry rhythm of hooves, the horses' breath, and, now and then, leather creaking.
— Sensei… — Ichika broke the silence, speaking softly, as if afraid to startle the air itself. — Yesterday, when we entered the village… I saw one of the researchers press something small into your hand. It looked like a crystal. Was it?
Alexius didn't answer at once. His jaw stayed set, his gaze sweeping the horizon like someone reading an invisible page.
— I saw it too — Ayame added, tightening her reins. — A quick glint. Like a seal… I don't know.
Only then did Alexius incline his head a fraction, without turning.
— Certain passages only recognize the right touch — he said, calm, tying each word off as if closing a knot. — And certain touches cost too much to explain.
Kidero snorted, half laugh, half disdain.
— Great. Besides monsters and shadows, now we have doors with moods.
— Doors with memory — Shirō corrected, not looking at him.
The conversation dissolved into the same silence it was born from. The terrain began to change: yellow sand yielded to a skin of black rock, cracked into uneven lozenges, and the light felt less warm there, as if the sun had to pass through thicker glass. Every ten or fifteen steps, patches of gray moss clung to the stone, shining faintly at the right angle—tiny life insisting on existing.
Arthur felt his sight "slip" once, as if the horizon line hopped half a finger downward and back. Blinking didn't help. The feeling passed, leaving a remnant of vertigo snagged behind his eyes.
Beside him, Kazuko was far too quiet. The venom that usually gave him a corner-smile irony had no strength for sarcasm today. His face was pale, his eyes sailing far away.
— Hey — Arthur called softly, nudging his horse a little closer. — Sleep?
— Sleep… — Kazuko let out a breath that wanted to be a laugh but wasn't. — Yeah, I closed my eyes. It wasn't rest.
— Nightmare?
Kazuko hesitated, as if weighing the shame of the answer.
— It wasn't a dream. It was… noise. A noise that says words. — He wet his lips, glanced at his gloved hands. — I… heard someone asking for help. And when I opened my eyes, I swear I felt the air vibrate, like when thunder misses its mark. And… — He fell silent a beat, tightening his jaw. — I was afraid of dying. In a… stupid way. Right next to everyone. And no one remembering.
Arthur didn't laugh. He didn't say it was an exaggeration. He only nodded, slowly.
— It's not stupid. — He stared at the ground ahead, remembering the worms' roar under the sand. — Not cowardice either. Fear is what keeps your foot on the right stone.
Kazuko blinked, surprised by the simplicity of the reply, and something in his shoulder eased.
— Thanks — he muttered. — If I run, you'll say it was strategy, then?
— I'll say it was a choice — Arthur answered, a corner-smile now. — And I'll run with you.
Up front, Kidero grumbled loudly, more to himself than the others:
— Nightmares are training for people who sleep too much.
— Or for those who fought enough for the body to charge interest — Mia returned, without heat.
Without breaking pace, Alexius slid a hand inside his tunic. The quick glint of the crystal seal bit the shade and vanished. Its sense, however, remained. A light tug, almost a compass, pulled at him: the circle was close.
The vale came into view like a stone basin. The side walls were low, sparse, like abandoned fences; the center, a flat court carpeted with dark dust and faded lines. There the wind simply gave up. Everything seemed suspended in a half-silence.
— We dismount here — said Alexius, and the horses obeyed, with a stifled whinny or two.
In the middle of the court, beneath a cover of fine sand, rings were carved into the ground. Not perfect circles: small teeth notched them, like gears drawn by patient hands. Between one ring and the next, signs that resembled letters and weren't; particles of luminous moss had settled in the seams, some trapped glow making the dust seem lighter there.
Alexius knelt, braced the edge of his hand in a groove, and pushed the sand aside as if sweeping a secret. Runes surfaced, cold, smooth. He took out the seal, a small bluish prism with a crack in its center, and set it into a socket that had been waiting for that exact shape.
The air vibrated. Not with sound, but with memory. As if the court remembered a voice and decided to imitate it. The rings lit from the inside out with a pale blue, breathing, pulsing, and the stone beneath them all grew a degree more alive.
— The circle transports; it does not choose — Alexius said, just to break the temptation of silence.
— And if it misses the destination? — Ichika asked, instinctive, hand on her sword hilt, as if naming a fear invited it to dance.
— Then we learn the meaning of disintegrating with elegance — he replied, dry.
A short laugh from Shirō died halfway. Ayame scratched her nape, nervous. Kidero rolled his wrist, kindling a tongue of flame along one side of his sword and snuffing it—habit.
Arthur, for his part, heard the voice. Not a voice entering through the ear: one born inside his head, not needing a path anymore.
NOT EVERY PASSAGE LEADS TO THE SAME PLACE.
He breathed through his mouth, searching for air that didn't seem to be missing. The world around him took a step back and returned. No one else reacted—except Kazuko, who raised his face like someone hearing a familiar whistle.
— Did you feel that? — Arthur asked quietly.
— Just cold — Kazuko said, though his skin shone with sweat.
— Stay on the inner rings — Alexius instructed, placing the students. — Keep your whole soles on the ground. Trust the edges. And…
He didn't finish. The wind vanished for good, as if someone had closed a door. The sunlight in there dulled a shade. Mia's hair went still. The suspended dust did not settle.
Moved by an instinct even he didn't understand, Kazuko turned his head back. And saw.
Far away, small enough to pass for imagination, lay the rock enclosure in the village. And inside it, for the length of one staggered breath, the cell with the imprisoned shadow. No longer seated. Standing. The thin outline of an impossible profile, the pointed ear cutting the glow. The hand that was not a hand stretched out—not in attack, but in mute supplication. Its tip slipped a thread beyond the arc of light that held it and, on touching, began to burn in silence. The shadow trembled without trembling, like an image on water. Help, it said without sound, dragging the plea through nothing. Kazuko turned to stone. His throat closed. His heart thudded in his mouth.
— Kazuko! — Arthur's voice came from very near and very far at once.
The circle's flare drew them all. It wasn't a shove; it was as if the floor had become a ramp into itself. Time snapped like a rope. Colors stepped aside. For a second, Arthur knew what it was to fit in two places and nowhere at all.
The fall ended before it began. The air had a different taste—finer, colder, with an iron undernote. The ground was now compact basalt that seemed to absorb light. Ahead stood Mount Arf.
Minuscule.
Kidero clicked his tongue.
— That's it? — he asked, lifting his chin, tugging on the world's pride. — That little hill is Turfázia's bogeyman?
— Looks like a tomb with pretensions — Ayame remarked, narrowing her eyes.
Arthur tightened his reins. The hill stayed small, even after they advanced fifty paces. Perspective refused to obey. The stones' shadows didn't match the hour. Something in his retina kept warning him the math was wrong, but couldn't find the number.
Mia, still sustaining a wisp of wind-lit glow, bit her lip.
— I don't feel the wind… shifting — she murmured. — It doesn't know where it's coming from.
Alexius slowed to a halt, eyes fixed on the "mount."
— It isn't the mount that's small — he said, tense. — It's space that lies.
The ground before them rippled without moving. The edges of vision shrank a finger, expanded two. A line in the sky curved where skies don't have lines. Arthur's body leaned forward on its own, as if the world had tugged his torso a step into a painting.
The disturbance burst without a sound—a bubble of nothing breaking. The horizon unfolded. What had been a hump became a wall. What had been a hill became a chasm of stone rising. Mount Arf revealed itself, not by growing but by being shown, like a veil yanked off a statue: a colossal mass of dark rock, its face marked by scars like the clawing of something ancient and far too large. Rifts climbed as if they were paths and weren't. Near the base, a lighter band of stone traced an irregular half-circle—ruins of a belt? Or teeth? Impossible to tell. The air there throbbed in a note one couldn't hear, only feel in the bone of the nose.
— So this is where… — Arthur whispered, not noticing he'd spoken aloud. — …the world starts to crack.
No one laughed. No one called it drama. Even Kidero lost the ready phrase for a moment and only stared, hand opening and closing on his sword hilt.
Alexius dismounted first, muscles obeying a routine the body thanked.
— Make camp a hundred meters from the mountain's foot — he ordered, voice practical again. — Low tents, covered fires. Cold rations. Tomorrow… no one comes back down the same.
— "Down"? — Ichika's eyes widened. — We're going up.
Alexius looked at her and didn't explain. Sometimes sparing logic is kinder than sparing effort.
Mia began handing out tasks with easy habit: who sets stakes, who organizes water, who checks the ropes. Shirō walked the perimeter, the shadow of his eyes weighing on the ground, counting paces, memorizing stones that would serve as reference if space decided to play again. Ayame opened her pack, checked her gloves, tested her boots, closed and reopened it, nervous without admitting it. Sanzu, still a bit uneasy after sharing a saddle, folded blankets with a care that made the gesture seem like prayer. Kidero, without being asked, started digging a shallow trench to shield the fire from the wind.
Kazuko, for his part, stood still a moment, looking at nothing. Arthur passed by him, brushed his arm lightly.
— If you want, I'll take first watch with you — he said, matter-of-fact.
Kazuko blinked like someone returning from the bottom of a well.
— I'll take it — he answered, simple. — Thanks.
The camp took shape discreetly. Low canvas, taut lines, two timid fires hidden behind stones, almost no smoke. When the sun began to drop, the "gold" of the light didn't grow warmer—it grew heavier. The wind there didn't smell of sand. It smelled of remembrance. As if every stone, every grain of dust, every cut in that mountain knew a story that doesn't end and decided to tell it to the nose of anyone bold enough to listen.
Arthur stepped two paces away from the ring of tents and looked again at the mountain's black bulk. His chest felt the same pressure as before, a soft shove from within. Dimensional Magic brushed his palm like a flame trying to remember how to ignite. He closed his fingers, breathed slowly, and the flame obeyed.
Mia came up without speaking, just leaned her shoulder against his for a second—sometimes that's how you say "I'm here."
Alexius moved through the camp with the eyes of a man who has already counted bodies instead of heads. Each student he saw, he numbered, silent, and only then moved on. At the end, he drove his own stake into the ground as if nailing a promise there.
— Tomorrow, work in pairs — he warned, already thinking aloud. — No solo bravado. If time twists, tie a rope. If a voice comes from nowhere, don't answer. If a stone seems to invite you, refuse.
Kidero lifted his gaze, thought to say something provocative, bit it back and swallowed. Shirō pretended not to notice. Ayame breathed, counting to three. Ichika tightened her knot one more time.
The sky began to pull stars to itself. The cold arrived fast, stretching stone shadows like spilled ink. A silence deeper than the circle's vale settled over them—not the silence of nothing, but the silence of a sleeping giant that, even asleep, weighs.
— Good night, if this thing accepts the name — Kazuko said, attempting humor that wouldn't come, and lay down beside his pack.
Arthur stayed awake a few minutes more, seeing more than he looked at, trying not to remember the voiceless plea. When he finally closed his eyes, he thought, without the courage to say it aloud: If you're trapped, I… He swallowed the sentence halfway; promises made to the dark tend to charge a steep price.
First watch began. The wind whispered wordless things. And Mount Arf remained there, enormous, true, cracking the world merely by standing.