"Sis Alicia! Look over there!" Lian thrust her hand forward like loosing a silver arrow. A village had bloomed ahead, smoke curling like ink from brushstrokes—clearly lived in.

Alicia had noticed it too. By the Empire’s map, this road shouldn’t hold a village; yet one rose like a stone in a clear stream. That wasn’t simple.

"Umm... should we go check it out?"

Remi and the others followed their lady’s will, and Lian never let a curious spark die. The idea caught like tinder, and everyone agreed.

The carriage veered, its wheels cutting crescents through dust as they rolled toward the village.

—Arrival at the Village—

They drew the carriage to a slow halt at the gate, and stepped down like leaves settling after wind.

Alicia studied the moss-laced, timeworn doors, green like old jade and scored by years like tree rings. If it’s so old, why no mark on the map?

An answer strode out with a glint of iron. A soldier with a long spear emerged, the point lifting like a cold reed toward Alicia, wariness burning in his gaze.

"Outsiders! Where did you come from?"

Being stared down by steel didn’t anger Alicia. Like a guest on another’s threshold, she understood the prickled hackles.

"Please don’t be nervous. We just spotted a village and came to take a look."

Her warmth met a roar that beat the air like a drum. "Impossible! A great mage hid this place with magic! No one could find it! What’s your purpose?"

Alicia kept her voice calm, a hand smoothing a pond’s ripples. They hadn’t come to stir a hornet’s nest; they needed to learn, not provoke.

"Listen. We didn’t see any magic on our way in. That leaves two chances. Either the spell lost its mana and faded, or someone broke it. Either way’s bad news."

"Magic... gone? Then... the deadline the mage spoke of is here?! No... no! I don’t want to die!"

Terror climbed him like ivy. The spear clattered down like a fallen branch, and he spun, shoved the gate wide, and fled like a deer.

Left behind, they froze like frost-touched grass—really, Alicia froze; the others waited quietly for her breath to settle.

After about a minute, her thoughts aligned like beads on a string. "Lian... do you know what he meant by ‘the mage’s deadline’?"

"Let’s go look and find out."

"But—"

Lian didn’t wait on her hesitation. She caught Alicia’s hand and, with her born-and-bred strength, drew her through the not-quite-shut gate like a river pulling a leaf.

The moment they crossed, a storm of sound crashed in—shouts, screams, sobs, all whirling like startled sparrows.

News traveled here like wildfire on dry grass. Everyone had heard Alicia’s words—"the magic’s gone"—and they ran howling like the soldier, turning the village into a kicked anthill.

Lian pushed aside a man about to topple onto her, then looked at Alicia with a helpless tilt, like a cat in rain. "Sis Alicia, looks like trouble."

"Yeah... the village is already in chaos. What do we do?"

A tap landed on Alicia’s shoulder like a pebble on still water. She spun. An iron-clad figure stood there, a decent iron sword at his waist, helmet slit showing a single eye glowing red—an ember in a brazier.

Seeing her attention settle, the "iron man" spoke, voice hollow as a helm. "Adventurers from outside, please follow me. The village chief wishes to meet you."

The lines felt like a well-worn RPG to Lian, and she sighed inside like wind through bamboo. Alicia didn’t play games; she took it as a simple request and nodded.

With her agreement, the soldier led them on, their footsteps threading the lanes like a string through beads. Alicia’s group of four followed close.

He brought them to a house that counted as grand here—a three-story wooden place, its timbers smelling of resin. Then he withdrew like a tide.

A low, weathered voice drifted from above, heavy as old bells. "Honored adventurers, please come to the second floor. My health is poor; I can’t descend to greet you."

Alicia glanced at the three little ones behind her. They nodded like pecking sparrows, and the group climbed to the second floor.

A broad room opened up, spare yet vivid. Pelts and carved bones hung like trophies, simple pieces woven into a rough kind of splendor.

From the center came that same voice again, rising like steam. "Adventurers, why not come sit?"

Only then did they notice the elder at the center, sipping tea, hair white as frost.

Alicia lifted Lian into her lap and sat opposite, watching the elder set his cup down with a ripple. "Are you the village chief?"

"I am," he said, steady as an old tree. "How may I help you?"

"Then why can’t we find this village on the Empire’s maps?"

"To keep a monster’s invasion at bay, nothing more," he replied, words falling like stones in a pond.

Alicia felt a tug of strangeness. She sensed no monster’s breath here, no shadow under the sun.

Catching her doubt, the elder smiled, a thin crescent like a new moon. "Child, this place has stood for five hundred years, maybe more. When that monster still prowled, the Moser Empire was in turmoil, with no chance to aid us. Thinking on it now, the monster should be gone... and the Empire should’ve fallen. Only old bones like us, living by magic’s grace, remember."

The revelation hit like a thunderclap. Alicia realized the elder had weathered centuries, and as he said, the Moser Empire is only a hundred and nine years old. She was speaking across two eras.

"Don’t be too shocked, child," he said, voice like a dying ember. "I won’t last much longer. The village is nearing its end."

Alicia snapped back to herself and seized the burning question. "What do you mean, the village ending? I don’t see any fatal problem."

The elder sipped, calm as winter water, no trace of a man waiting for death. "The mage saved this place. The outer wards are hers. She foretold that if the magic vanished and no one broke the seal, we’d face annihilation."

"What seal?"

"A statue of the mage herself. She left the statue, and then she left us."

More than the statue, Alicia’s curiosity reached for the mage like a hand to lantern light. "What was the mage’s name?"

He took another sip and breathed out, steam fading like mist. "She called herself... Aer."