The sky grew darker as the swathes of crimson at the western horizon faded, leaving shadows to spread across the land.
Old Bart built a small campfire and used torn cloth and burlap sacks to create a modest, enclosed space. Inside, he laid out soft blankets, assuming that Anmora, being a fragile young girl, would appreciate the comfort and rest.
However, Anmora didn't seem remotely interested in sleeping. She sat by the campfire, restless and fidgety.
"You should get some sleep," Old Bart said, his weathered face still carrying traces of his earlier sorrow, though he appeared in better spirits now. "You know, demons come for children who stay up late."
"I didn't know that," Anmora replied, reaching into the fire to grab a piece of charcoal. "But I feel like angels would be more interested in children. Why don't angels take them?"
"…" Old Bart paused, suddenly finding the question genuinely thought-provoking.
"Don't you have anything to write with?" Anmora asked, withdrawing her hand from the fire quickly as the heat singed her fingers.
Still lost in thought about angels and children, Old Bart barely registered her question. "What did you say?"
"Paper and a pen. I really need those right now," Anmora said, her open hand revealing a small blister as she stared at it. "More than I need food or water, I want to do something productive—like analyze the factors influencing the application of death radiation, design a simple bridge to cross the canal, or study those mutated creatures we've yet to encounter but surely exist…"
"No paper or pen," Old Bart replied stiffly, watching her with a mix of curiosity and dismay. He stirred the fire with a stick, making it burn brighter.
Anmora looked momentarily dejected but quickly perked up again. "That's fine. My mental calculations are pretty good."
Old Bart clutched his head in mock agony. "You're going to calculate a bridge in your head?"
"…Not exactly," Anmora admitted after a brief pause. Using her foot, she carefully hooked a piece of charcoal from the fire. "I meant for a magic formula."
She extinguished the coal with her boot and waited for it to cool. Seeing her burned earlier, Old Bart rummaged through the cart for some clean water and dampened a strip of cloth. He handed it to her. "For the blister on your hand…"
Anmora accepted the cloth but immediately used it to wrap the charcoal. She then started scribbling complex formulas on the ground.
Old Bart watched her, hands on his hips, as line after line of intricate and precise magical symbols emerged. Finally, he sighed and fetched another strip of cloth. "You should at least wrap your hand properly."
"Many military-grade magical constructs are designed for rapid bridge construction, like this one," Anmora said, sketching a large suspension bridge structure next to a series of arcane symbols. "Though it's tactical-level, it requires collaboration among multiple users. This construct has several components. I'll write them all out and see if it's possible to complete the energy framework through non-magical means."
Old Bart couldn't wrap his head around how quickly she was sketching diagrams and writing formulas. Everything about her was abnormal. Waving the damp cloth in front of her face, he snapped, "Put this on your hand before it hurts too much tomorrow!"
"Just let me simplify this equation first," Anmora replied, her head down, lost in a flurry of calculations.
Frustrated, Old Bart gave up and leaned back against the remains of the monument, promptly closing his eyes and falling asleep. Anmora, however, stayed seated by the campfire, her focus unbroken as she worked through the intricate arcane equations. The crackling of the fire was her only companion in the quiet night.
She didn't want her mind to go idle. An empty mind made her anxious. Perhaps influenced by Mengel, Anmora believed that a person who ceased to think was succumbing to a meaningless death—a life wasted, a barren existence yielding nothing of worth.
The formative years up to age fifteen were crucial for shaping a person's mental framework and were the ideal period for training mages. Anmora had been developed exceptionally in this regard. Her computational abilities rivaled certain civilian magical systems, and her grasp of magical theory was nothing short of astounding. Most who completed basic theoretical coursework at her age were already renowned across the continent, but Anmora had advanced well into higher-level studies.
She had the potential to surpass Mengel as a theoretical magic researcher—assuming nothing went awry.
By the time the moon was directly overhead, the ground around the campfire was littered with her scrawled notes. The handwriting was messy, but the logic was impeccable. Eventually, Anmora ran out of space near the fire and had to retreat a little further into the darkness, continuing to work on her unfinished constructs. As she toiled, she couldn't help but lament the absence of a magical system to assist her. Even the simplest military-grade magical system would have saved her a tremendous amount of effort.
Unaware of how far she had moved, she found herself on the edge of the firelight, still deeply engrossed in her calculations.
Tactical-level magical constructs were among the simplest in the military repertoire. For a mage, building them in the mental space was as effortless as a layperson imagining an apple or a pear. Constructing the magical framework was merely the preparatory phase of casting a spell; the formula alone held no power to affect reality. Once the framework was built, a magical system was needed to unfold it into the physical world.
This process involved the highly complex transformation of mental energy into tangible reality. Among mages of equivalent skill, the speed and effectiveness of spell deployment depended heavily on the quality of their magical systems.
Anmora, without the aid of a magical system, was forced to skip the step where the system unfolds the construct. Instead, she manually expanded the magical framework. If this computational workload were shifted from the mental space to the physical world, the drafts she would need to write could easily cover the entire plaza.
To most, drafting formulas to cover an entire plaza seemed far more complicated than simply cutting down a tree to float across the river. However, this meticulous approach was precisely the mindset of a true mage. Modern mages preferred to rely on the most precise calculations rather than resort to uncertain and risky improvisation. They might use the most complex constructs to obtain energy with the highest efficiency, even if the purpose was as mundane as boiling a pot of water—where a simple flame would suffice for most people.
As Anmora worked, her drafts stretched farther and farther. Eventually, she returned to the campfire to grab a half-burnt stick as a makeshift torch. She continued her calculations in the darkness, undeterred by the unknown specifics of the canal. Instead, she treated variables like the canal's height, width, and even the wind speed tomorrow as placeholders, ready to substitute them into the formula when the time came.
Magical theory permeates every aspect of life, offering insight into the workings of all things—a timeless discipline from ancient days to the present.
When her charcoal stick ran out, Anmora decided to return to the fire for another. By now, the sky was tinged with faint blue and white hues, signaling that sunrise was less than two hours away. She yawned, rubbing her tired eyes. But as she closed them briefly, she felt it—a gaze.
Cold, venomous, and ill-intentioned, like that of a serpent.
Anmora froze in her tracks.
She opened her eyes. The surroundings remained dim and tranquil, not even a mouse in sight. The ruins around her lay cloaked in shadow, perfectly shrouded in darkness. Old Bart snored loudly nearby, the large black horse equally fast asleep. Their fire, after burning all night, had dwindled to faint embers.
Everything appeared normal—except for a fleeting glimpse of a pair of feet behind the wagon. They belonged to an adult male. Anmora caught sight of them from her angle under the wagon: brown-black leather boots, man-made material, waterproof, and equipped with some energy filtration capability. The soles were reinforced with dense magical-resistant material. A row of studs along the outer boot gleamed faintly in the dark, reflecting light more intensely than regular steel. Most likely, they were alloyed with mithril.
Whoever it was, they had been standing still, perfectly balanced, with a posture that betrayed no wasted movement.
Well-equipped. Well-trained.
Anmora kept walking toward Old Bart without looking back at the wagon. Her expression remained weary, her gaze steady, and her steps deliberate, betraying no sign of alarm.
She reached the fire and quietly stared at Old Bart, still showing no inclination to glance at the wagon.
Old Bart woke up groggily, his blurry eyes meeting Anmora's subtle and meaningful gaze. Instantly, his mind sharpened. He was an old soldier who had seen real battlefields. Despite his age, his sensitivity to certain glances and situations remained acute.
Anmora was clearly trying to convey something.
"Didn't sleep all night?" Bart stretched, quietly sliding his hand axe beneath his coat. "What were you up to?"
Sitting cross-legged by the fire, Anmora's auburn hair shimmered warmly in the flickering light, giving her the appearance of an innocent little angel.
"Just finishing some calculations," Anmora said, her voice unusually calm in the quiet of the night. She picked up a piece of charcoal and began sketching on the ground. "The radiation levels in this area remain high. Standard anti-magic materials only reduce its intensity by a factor of 0.3. Here's the formula for the final damage. Look…"
She drew a skull on the ground and then an arrow pointing toward the wagon.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Bart glanced at the wagon out of the corner of his eye before swiftly erasing the skull and arrow with his hand.
Anmora continued poking at the ground with her charcoal. "This? It represents the radiation decay coefficient per kilometer. Even at this distance, the radiation remains lethal. Adding the 0.3 reduction from anti-magic materials extends a living organism's survival by approximately 48 hours. This is not a precise number since individual resilience varies."
"Oh…" Bart felt a headache creeping in, not just because of the potential threat hiding under the wagon but also due to Anmora's increasingly engrossed explanation.
"Hopefully, we can escape within that timeframe," Anmora added after a pause, though she still felt her explanation wasn't clear enough. "To clarify, while radiation intensity decreases as we move forward, the durability of the anti-magic materials also diminishes. I've calculated both rates of decline, and to stay on the safe side, we should aim to get out of the radiation zone within 48 hours."
"Understood." Bart's voice sounded weak, burdened by everything weighing on him.
At that moment, the black horse let out a restless neigh. Both Anmora and Bart turned their attention to it. Bart adjusted his coat and walked over, patting the horse's back. "What's wrong, buddy?"
"It's reminding us it's time to move," Anmora said, her eyes briefly scanning where Bart had hidden the axe before landing on the wagon.
The area behind the wagon remained eerily still.
And it was precisely that stillness that pressed an immense weight onto Anmora.
"…Want me to help you up?" Bart hesitated, sensing the tension hanging in the air.
The mysterious figure was standing behind the wagon. Since the backboard had been removed to fit more supplies, there was no barrier between them. If Bart were to help Anmora onto the wagon now, she might come face-to-face with the hidden observer. Bart hoped Anmora would instead sit up front with him until they were a safe distance away, at which point she could return to the back.
The figure remained motionless, likely waiting for them to leave.
"Thank you," Anmora said, her expression calm, though her heartbeat was steadily accelerating.
She understood Bart's reasoning: he believed the lurker was just a surviving petty thief looking to pilfer something from their wagon. Unfortunately, Anmora's unexpected return had cornered the thief. Leaving the wagon from the rear would expose him, so he had chosen to stay hidden behind the only cover—the wagon itself. If Bart and Anmora pretended not to notice and simply drove away, they could avoid a confrontation.
Bart, despite his temper, refrained from direct conflict, likely out of concern for Anmora. A scuffle could risk her getting hurt, and Bart wasn't willing to take that chance.
But Anmora's thoughts differed. To her, the figure seemed less like a petty thief and more like a soldier—well-equipped, highly skilled, and dangerous. Most concerning of all was the palpable malice she had felt in his gaze. It wasn't just suspicion or desperation—it carried the sharp edge of lethal intent. Whether conflict occurred or not wasn't up to them; it depended entirely on that man's intentions.
Anmora helped Bart gather their belongings from the ground, and the two squeezed into the front of the wagon. Bart cracked the whip, and the black horse began to move forward at a slow, deliberate pace.
For three to five minutes, they traveled east in silence. Anmora remained tense, her heart pounding unnervingly fast. She felt increasingly uneasy, yet nothing happened. The figure seemed to have let them go.
"It's all good now," Bart said, exhaling in relief. "You can move back."
Anmora didn't respond immediately. Something still felt wrong, though she couldn't pinpoint what. She climbed into the wagon and settled among the supplies, the quiet surrounding her filled only by the sound of her own breathing.
In that silence, the realization hit her.
The sound of the wagon's wheels on the ground had changed. The weight pressing on it had increased—by the mass of an adult man.