“Oh,” “Ah,”

“Mmm,” “Ah—,”

It was Klaha-san.

The first one to speak among the four was Icca.

“You were awake too?”

“Just now. ...You were doing something, weren't you? You too.”

“Did you hear the sound?”

“I did. What were you doing, Klaha-san? You must be tired too.”

“Ah, no, I—”

“Klaha-san, would you like some ochazuke?”

The four were sitting in a simple dining room inside the dojo.

Usually, the night shift disciples would be having their meal here… but at this time of night, there was no one else around. The flickering light only cast shadows of the four on the walls.

In one corner, there were some pre-made rice balls lined up. Eagerly, Icca threw them into a bowl, poured some broth over them, and brought them over.

“It’s special!”

“...Icca, when it’s my turn, you make me do it, but for Klaha-san and others, you make it yourself?”

“Eh?”

“You sure have guts... my little junior disciple.”

While a slight squabble began in the background, Ziel and Klaha each thanked Icca and started eating the ochazuke with spoons.

After a while, the conversation continued.

“By the way, Chikano. What are we going to do about the duties starting tomorrow?”

“Ah, a lifeline has arrived...!”

“Once you’re off the ship, remember this. ...Well, I’m still thinking about it.”

Chewing the cold ochazuke, Chikano said.

“Valdfried-sensei brought something for us, right? Something like a ‘net’ from the church?”

“Ah, I think I’ve seen that. It’s the wide-area surveillance net, right? It’s really useful.”

“Yeah, that’s it. The people from the church who are staying with us will handle its operation. And if we can get Sensei to join the duty as well, it would significantly reduce the burden...”

“But...” Ziel said, agreeing.

“We still haven’t found a lead…”

“Until we find one...”

“What should we do, really?”

Chikano spoke again.

“According to Valdfried-sensei’s teaching, ‘Start by handling what you can,’ but...”

“Come to think of it, I realized something after you said that. Isn’t something strange about it?”

“What do you mean?”

“The outlying beasts, poison, and ‘Phase through’—they’re all essentially the same, right?”

“‘Phase through’?”

Yes, Ziel nodded.

“If we can figure out the ‘Phase through,’ we can solve everything with power.”

“Well, it’s only you who would solve it all with power, like dealing with demons or giant beasts. Are you confident in that?”

“Ah, um...”

Klaha raised her hand shyly.

“About the ‘Phase through’ thing, Valdfried-san talked about it last night...”

“Ah, that’s right.”

“Oh, yeah...”

Ziel said, remembering.

“So, is there some condition to it? When we dealt with the rats, Icca was able to handle them all without ‘Phase through,’ right?”

“Yeah.”

“Tomorrow, should we go and check it out? Ziel, will you come?”

“Yeah. I’ll make sure to push the duty onto the master somewhere… By the way, I wonder if that person actually has some clue about it.”

“It didn’t seem like it.”

Klaha answered Ziel’s question.

“We briefly discussed the ‘Phase through’ before dawn, but it didn’t seem to click for them...”

“I see,” Ziel said, acknowledging it.

“I see...” Chikano added in agreement.

It seemed like Icca had noticed something.

“...Klaha-san, is there something you want to say?”

“Eh?”

“Oh, what’s up? You’re observant, Icca.”

“No, I was just watching Ziel-senpai carefully, so...”

“Ah, it’s not like that,” Klaha waved her hands to deny it. But with Ziel’s direct words, “I’m interested in what Klaha has to say,” she became flustered, then hesitated, and finally said, shyly.

“It’s really unrelated, but... um, do you still have the letter from Eunice-san? The one I couldn’t read...”

While Klaha was insisting that it was completely unrelated, Ziel took the letter from his pocket, having been carrying it around.

“What’s this?”

“Wow... strange pattern.”

“It’s a letter from a friend. ...But it’s a bit unusual, so the content is in some sort of code.”

“Really weird person.”

“Don’t talk badly about strangers,” Icca scolded, tapping Chikano’s head.

Meanwhile, Ziel asked Klaha, “What’s this all about?”

“I understood it.”

“Eh?”

“The ‘start from what you can do’... made me remember this. It’s really unrelated, I’m sorry...”

Klaha shyly explained, “I’ve actually been thinking about it before bed...”

As Ziel trembled, hearing that she had been thinking about it all night.

“How did you figure it out?” Ziel asked.

Klaha pulled out a pen from her pocket and asked, “It’s an invisible ink pen, but is it alright if I add something to it?”

“If it’s an invisible ink pen, go ahead,” Ziel agreed.

Klaha smiled and said, “Then, excuse me,” and placed the letter in front of her, starting to draw on it.

Originally, the letter had circular patterns... resembling a magic circle, with symbols that didn’t look like letters. Klaha carefully added more markings.

“I read about this in a book once... I think this is a donut-shaped cipher.”

“A donut...?”

“It’s difficult to come up with the steps. But I think this is the type.”

Klaha carefully drew a circle inside the existing pattern, about half the size of the original. Then, inside that, she moved her pen back and forth quickly.

Then, one of the circular patterns inside was completely filled in.

“...Huh?”

“Hmm?”

Ziel looked at Klaha’s hands and then exclaimed loudly, “Oh! The readable part is there!”

“Ha, you really thought of this... Amazing.”

“Wow, Klaha, that’s awesome! You knew about this!”

As Klaha filled in the inner part of the pattern, the outside of the circle remained in a donut shape.

It wasn’t surprising... it was likely designed that way. By removing the unnecessary parts inside, it revealed that a special type of font had been used to write letters around the circle.

However...

“I see. By sticking the unnecessary parts together, it made it unreadable as letters... But even then, it’s not fully solved yet.”

“Yeah. I think the direction is right, though.”

Indeed, it was clear that it was some kind of text.

But there were still some unfamiliar characters mixed in.

“Ah,” Klaha exclaimed again, and it didn’t take long for her to realize.

“It’s mirror writing.”

She pulled out a mirror from her pocket.

“Does everything fit in there?” Icca asked, to which Klaha replied with “Not everything.”

Klaha then reflected the text in the mirror.

“Oh,” “Ah,” “Whoa.”

“Now, we can read it.”

By flipping the asymmetrical characters in the mirror, the text was revealed clearly.

So, she continued, rapidly filling in all the patterns into the donut shape.

Ziel, using the mirror he borrowed from Klaha, read each part, and the final text said:

“Since I’m at it, I tried making it in the shape of a clock.

Don’t you think I look like a clock in some way?

Thanks for reading this far.

I hope you enjoyed it.”

“He is a really weird person, but seem like a nice one.”

“...Hmm...”

This time, Chikano didn’t comment on Icca’s remark.

Heh, Ziel chuckled.

“I see, the clock idea... It’s interesting. And so elaborate.”

“Yeah, making this must have been much harder than just solving it.”

“Thanks for solving it, Klaha. If it was just me, I don’t think I would’ve figured it out.”

“If you want, you can tell me what book you read, I want to study too,” Ziel said.

“Of course,” Klaha said, shyly.

She took the mirror back from him and received it.

At that moment.

“...Klaha? What’s wrong?”

“...Um, Ziel-san.”

Klaha grabbed Ziel’s hand, still holding the mirror, firmly.

With an expression that seemed like she couldn’t believe it herself, she said:

“I think I might have understood. The ‘Phase through’ principle.”