“Another message··· from the Organization.”

  A faint tension threaded through Ivela’s voice.

  The meeting room seemed to stop for a moment, falling quiet, everyone’s eyes drawn to the sealed document in her hand.

  “Another?”

  Rynel pushed himself up from his chair.

  “We got one yesterday.”

  “Right. But today··· another one.”

  Ivela didn’t look away as she added,

  “And it says the complete opposite.”

  She broke the seal and unfolded the paper.

  Line by line, her lips moved as she read.

  “‘Approve the resumption of the temple investigation.

  If possible, re-enter as soon as you can.’”

  Rynel let out a disbelieving laugh.

  “It flips in a single day? What is this.”

  Aira folded her arms and tilted her head.

  “Maybe the Organization got urgent all of a sudden?

  They must’ve picked something up at the temple.”

  “···It’s strange.”

  Ivela stared down at the page, her voice low.

  “A decision doesn’t reverse overnight.”

  Aira shrugged.

  “Someone up top changed the sign-off.

  Or new intel came in. Something like that.”

  Ivela didn’t answer.

  The longer the silence stretched, the sharper that baseless unease became.

  “···Something’s tangled.”

  A moment later.

  The door opened quietly and Laken stepped in.

  For the first time, he came all the way into the room.

  He walked in like it was familiar territory and gave a brief nod.

  “What’s going on. None of you look great.”

  Ivela looked at him and said it simply.

  “We’re trying the temple again.

  Including the areas we couldn’t see last time.”

  “Again?··· Why, all of a sudden.”

  Laken propped his chin in his hand, thought for a beat, then added in a low voice,

  “Last time we got through because I filed the request, but··· that was basically luck. No guarantee it works twice.”

  “Just one more time.”

  Ivela’s tone was firm.

  She didn’t need to explain further. The meaning carried.

  Laken exhaled lightly.

  “···Fine.

  I’ve had a bad feeling too.”

  He lifted his gaze, looking over the three of them.

  His words twisted slightly at the end.

  “But if you’re digging this deep···

  you’re not ordinary adventurers.”

  Rynel answered with a faint smile.

  “We’re just··· curious travelers.”

  Ivela only smiled without speaking.

  Aira briefly avoided his eyes, then waved a hand, playful.

  The truth still didn’t come out.

  ◇

  Deep within the temple tower.

  In a chamber boxed in by stone walls, a single candle flame trembled faintly.

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  Even that light seemed small, as if aware of someone watching.

  A priest in a black robe stood in silence.

  He closed a book and murmured.

  “···It has been confirmed.”

  A voice answered from beyond the darkness.

  “A mana reaction.”

  “Yes. The statue made with the detection stone··· showed a clear response.”

  The priest lifted his eyes toward the blue light seeping in through a narrow window gap and continued.

  “To be precise··· ‘a child who is human, yet bears demonic mana.’

  When that presence stepped inside the temple, the statue reacted.”

  A brief silence.

  “···Then it’s nearly certain.”

  The priest nodded. His voice sank lower.

  “···That one, Rynel.

  I remember. When he entered, the mana flow warped in a subtle way.

  Not a pattern you see in ordinary humans.”

  He moved slowly toward the candle.

  The face the flame revealed was neat, but his eyes were cold and heavy.

  “There’s a demonic trace, yet··· outwardly human.

  What exactly is he.”

  A thin laugh slipped from the priest.

  “At this level··· he’s worth testing.”

  The voice in the dark asked,

  “Then what will you do.”

  The priest spoke as if the answer had already been decided.

  “The temple will issue a direct request.

  On the surface, it will be ‘structural instability inspection,’ but···”

  “···You mean to draw that child back inside.”

  The priest raised a palm to the candle, deepening the shadows.

  “As long as he comes in, everything after that goes the way we want.”

  He set a document on the desk.

  At the top, a name had already been written.

  Designated target: Rynel

  The priest pushed the bookshelf aside and looked up at the tower outside.

  “Just him··· we separate him from the rest.”

  The corner of his mouth lifted, slowly.

  The candle went out without any wind.

  The temperature in the room dropped, noticeably.

  ◇

  Darkness.

  A still, submerged feeling, like sinking beneath calm water.

  Rynel inhaled.

  The air felt light. And··· this scene, this sensation.

  This dream again.

  The night he first arrived in this village.

  The night before he took his first request, too.

  A sensation of floating in empty space.

  No ground, no sky, only a weightless drift.

  Then.

  Fragments fell in silence, pieces of light or memory he couldn’t tell apart.

  Beyond them, a shape formed.

  A voice reached him from somewhere.

  In that hazy space, someone called him.

  “···Orta.”

  A name he’d never heard, yet it rang as if he’d known it forever.

  It echoed deep in Rynel’s consciousness.

  Beyond the fragments.

  A woman stood there in a white robe.

  Long hair flowed down to her waist,

  and from a distance he couldn’t cross, she watched him quietly.

  A face he’d never seen··· yet it felt familiar.

  She neither cried nor smiled.

  Her lips didn’t move, but her eyes spoke clearly.

  You were there···

  Rynel tried to move, but there was nowhere for his feet to land.

  He couldn’t reach her.

  In an instant, the mural he’d seen in the temple surfaced in his mind.

  A figure portrayed like a holy goddess.

  That woman and the presence before him overlapped.

  Was this real. A dream.

  A memory. An omen.

  He couldn’t be sure, yet

  some part of him already knew this moment.

  She had been waiting for someone···

  and the end of that waiting seemed to be him.

  Rynel jolted upright, breathing hard.

  Daylight.

  Thin sunlight slipped through the window gap.

  But the afterimage of the dream wouldn’t fade.

  “···What the hell is this dream.”

  He pressed a hand to his forehead and exhaled.

  The memory was blurred, but the sensation was sharp.

  When he stepped out of the room,

  the morning sun was already high.

  A small note had been stuck to the door.

  Brief, and written in a familiar hand.

  [Guild summons]

  Rynel tightened his collar and muttered.

  “They’re calling early.”

  ◇

  Some time later.

  At the reception counter in the main guild hall.

  The receptionist’s face, usually bright, carried an odd tension.

  “Ah, Rynel··· you’re here.”

  “Yes. I heard you called for me.”

  She hesitated, then spoke carefully.

  “This one is··· a little unusual.

  The rank is E, but···”

  She held out the request document and lowered her voice.

  “The temple submitted a designated request.”

  Rynel’s brow lifted slightly.

  “Designated.”

  “Yes. To be exact···

  ‘Requesting an adventurer team composed of the same members who participated in the prior survey

  to inspect structural integrity and investigate abnormal phenomena.’”

  Aira leaned in to look and grinned.

  “That’s us. Completely.”

  “They didn’t write your names directly.”

  The receptionist lowered her voice further.

  “The request came in based on the report and the survey log you submitted last time.

  But the processing was··· oddly fast.”

  “Fast?”

  Rynel asked, and she nodded.

  “Most of the prior approval steps were practically skipped. It was approved immediately.”

  Rynel read the document slowly.

  His tone stayed calm, but his eyes didn’t miss a line.

  “E-rank, but internal anomalies···

  There’s definitely room to dig deeper.”

  Aira crossed her arms.

  “Low rank, high real danger.

  That smell, exactly.”

  The receptionist smiled awkwardly.

  “I’ll say it again, but the temple is sensitive territory.

  Please be careful. Even small actions can become issues.”

  Then Ivela stepped in quietly from behind.

  “All three of us are included.”

  “Yes.”

  The receptionist nodded.

  “They didn’t mention names, but the request was written according to your last survey log.”

  Ivela took the document.

  Her gaze moved slowly.

  Internal structural irregularities.

  Irregular mana reaction detected.

  Unidentified light residue.

  Dispatch: E-rank approved adventurers, three or more.

  “Good.”

  Rynel folded the paper.

  “We can go back in.”

  Aira nodded.

  “This time, we look deeper.”

  But Ivela said nothing.

  Her eyes stayed on the document longer than they should have.

  A designated request that didn’t write names, yet aimed at them exactly.

  Approval that was too fast.

  And··· the feeling that someone had marked Rynel.

  Ivela muttered silently to herself.

  It stinks.

  ◇

  On the road to the temple.

  The scenery wasn’t much different from the day before.

  But their steps were heavier.

  The sun hung high, the light harsh,

  yet the three of them walked without speaking for a while.

  “···This time,”

  Rynel spoke first,

  “don’t you feel like something’s going to happen.”

  Aira rested her forearms behind her head as she answered.

  “Yeah. Me too.

  Whatever it is··· the temple called us back. That’s obvious.”

  Rynel’s mouth curved slightly.

  “Anomalies, residual mana, structural issues··· all of it is packaging.

  The real purpose is something else.”

  Aira snorted softly.

  “What, they fell for us?

  Because our survey was too clean.”

  Ivela walked ahead.

  Her fingers crushed the document hard enough to wrinkle it.

  This isn’t just a request.

  Someone had targeted the three of them precisely.

  And··· Rynel.

  Pretending not to see it, even while feeling it.

  That was the response she chose for now.

  ◇

  At the same time. On a rooftop somewhere.

  Laken watched the temple in the distance and muttered.

  “···So a designated request really went through.”

  He checked a copied sheet of the submission and narrowed his eyes.

  “I didn’t file this··· so who moved.”

  He rose.

  His gaze ran quickly over the gear at his waist.

  A stealth-focused setup, built to keep noise down.

  He looked up at the temple tower and his expression hardened.

  From his pocket, he took something out, looked at it once,

  then shoved it deep into his bag.

  His lips tightened.

  “We’re here.”

  Rynel murmured as he looked up the temple’s stone steps.

  A grand stone structure.

  But the pressure seeping from beyond it felt colder, heavier than last time.

  As Aira climbed, she folded her arms.

  “···Is it just me. It’s quieter today.”

  Before the words even settled, footsteps came from the entrance.

  Clunk.

  The heavy door opened, and a man in a white robe appeared.

  Neither young nor old. Middle-aged.

  Hair slicked back, hands refined.

  Movements clean, without excess.

  “Welcome.

  Thank you for accepting the temple’s request.”

  The ending was gentle, but the tone was pressed cold.

  Rynel stepped forward.

  “Zeke the clerk··· isn’t here today.”

  The priest tilted his head slightly.

  “Clerk Zeke is currently away due to other duties.”

  “···I see.”

  Rynel answered briefly.

  Beside him, Ivela studied the priest, slowly.

  Robe buttons. Fingertips. Even the way his feet settled.

  A controlled exterior, measured speech.

  And yet··· something calculated.

  The priest held out prepared documents.

  “This request is for a reinspection of the temple’s internal structural stability.

  In addition to the prior survey area, a portion of the auxiliary altar section has been newly opened.

  We will begin there.”

  Rynel took the document and nodded.

  “Understood. Please lead the way.”

  The priest stepped aside quietly.

  Beyond the doorway, a darkness thicker than before waited for them.