The paper crackled softly as Shura unfolded it.
A faint nervousness crept into his expression despite himself. After everything it had taken to deliver this letter the train ride, the Keeper Station, the warnings, the betting, and the old man's refusal to even touch it—he found himself expecting something hidden within.
A second page.
A coded message.
Symbols.
Instructions.
Anything that would justify the strange weight everyone seemed to attach to it.
Instead, there was only a single word written in the center of the page.
Three.
Shura stared at it.
For several seconds, he genuinely wondered whether he had missed something. He turned the paper over.
Nothing.
Held it closer to the lantern light. Still nothing. The entire message consisted of one word.
Three.
Across the room, Halvic continued preparing tea as if none of this concerned him. Water simmered softly. Ceramic clicked against wood.
The old man didn't even glance in Shura's direction, and the lack of interest felt almost intentional, as though he already knew exactly what the letter contained.
Shura lowered his eyes back to the page.
Three.
The longer he looked at it, the less it felt like a message and the more it felt like a count.
Three people.
Three places.
Three events.
Three days.
A warning.
A deadline.
His thoughts wandered through possibilities while his eyes drifted around the room.
The house itself felt strange.
Not neglected. Edited.
Books lined the shelves, yet every title had been removed. Storage boxes sat neatly organized, but none carried labels. Even the drawers beneath the shelves were unmarked, as though someone had deliberately erased every category that once existed inside the house.
A picture frame rested face-down on a nearby table, untouched and unbroken, yet strangely turned away from the room.
Then his attention shifted toward the metal tray near the wall.
Burned documents.
Not ashes.
Fragments.
The papers had been damaged just enough to make them unreadable, but not enough to destroy them completely.
It was a strange choice.
Most people burned information because they wanted it gone. Halvic seemed content merely to make it impossible to understand.
The thought lingered.
And for reasons he couldn't fully explain, it connected itself to something else.
The missing records.
The disappearances.
The strange gaps he kept encountering throughout Ossuarium.
Evidence erased without being destroyed.
The same pattern appearing from different directions.
Shura frowned.
His thoughts slowly began arranging themselves.
Observer classifications.
Corruption cases.
Black veins.
The Registry.
Fragments of history that seemed intentionally broken. Individually, none of those things proved anything.
Together...
What emerged wasn't a conclusion or even a theory, but a connection he found increasingly difficult to ignore.
The words left his mouth before he could reconsider them.
"...Is this related to improper Viora use?"
The room froze in a way that felt almost physical, as every sound suddenly vanished.
The faint clink of ceramic stopped. The kettle ceased rattling. Even the quiet sounds of the house seemed to vanish.
Shura felt the change before he understood it.
Then came a metallic click.
Sharp.
Clean.
Unmistakable.
His eyes lifted.
A revolver was pointed directly between them.
For a moment, his mind simply failed to process what he was seeing. He hadn't seen Halvic move. The old man hadn't stood up.
Hadn't reached for anything. Hadn't shown the slightest warning. The weapon was simply there.
As though it had appeared between one heartbeat and the next.
"Who told you that?"
The question wasn't loud. That somehow made it worse. Shura stared at the barrel. His pulse immediately accelerated.
"What?"
"Who told you that?"
"I—"
"Who."
The single word cut through the room, delivered without anger or emotion, only a level of control that felt dangerous.
For the first time since arriving in Tapola, Shura understood why nobody seemed willing to test Halvic's patience.
The old man wasn't feared because he was loud. He was feared because he wasn't. A sharp pulse exploded behind Shura's eyes.
Pain flared through his skull without warning. His hand immediately rose to his forehead.
Not now.
Of all possible moments—
not now.
Fragments stirred at the edge of his thoughts.
A voice.
A hand running gently through his hair.
Warmth.
Safety.
The feeling vanished before he could reach it. Leaving only the headache behind.
"Nobody told me," Shura said.
Halvic's expression didn't change.
"Try again."
"I am."
The revolver remained perfectly steady. For several seconds, neither moved. Then Halvic spoke again.
"What things did you connect?"
Shura swallowed.
"The disappearances."
No reaction.
"The corruption cases."
A slight narrowing of the eyes.
"The black veins."
Silence. Heavy silence.
The kind that stretched time until every second felt longer than it should. Finally, Shura spoke again.
"People know Viora exists."
Halvic answered immediately.
"Not this part."
The words hit harder than the gun. Because they weren't a denial.
They weren't disbelief. They were confirmation. There was a line. A boundary.
And somehow Shura had crossed it without even realizing it existed.
A chill ran down his spine.
Halvic watched him quietly for another moment before his gaze shifted toward the hand pressed against Shura's forehead.
The headache hadn't gone unnoticed.
For the briefest instant, the old man's expression softened with what looked like recognition and regret, then disappeared just as quickly.
The revolver never lowered.
"Start from the beginning."
Shura blinked.
"What?"
"Everything."
Halvic's voice remained calm.
Unyielding.
"I want every conversation. Every rumor. Every person who pointed you in this direction. Every reason you connected those subjects together."
His eyes remained fixed on Shura.
Because now there was no trace of irritation left in them.
Only certainty.
"People don't arrive at that conclusion by accident."
The room fell silent.
Steam continued rising from the untouched cups, curling lazily toward the ceiling. The scent of tea suddenly felt absurdly out of place.
Shura could hear his own heartbeat.
The revolver remained fixed on him.
Waiting.
Not for an excuse.
For an answer.
And for the first time since entering the house, he wasn't entirely sure which response would make the old man lower the gun.