“We’re here.”

By the time the dizzying scenery faded and Yuder’s vision returned to normal, there was suddenly a house before his eyes—so abruptly present it felt like a lie.

The place looked far too intact to have endured a thousand years. If he didn’t know this was Ghilandre Hill, he might’ve simply thought it was a small, charming villa nestled in a dense forest.

Looking around, the surrounding landscape didn’t seem much different from the Sanctuary Forest they’d just walked through. He could even spot the distant edge of the First Emperor’s statue in the background. It was clear now—they hadn’t actually left the Sanctuary Forest.

“It was this close all along, and no one ever knew?”

Even with high magic, was something like this truly possible? Seeing it with his own eyes, it still felt like a fabrication or illusion. If someone had just told him about a hidden place like this, he probably wouldn’t have believed it—especially not in his past life as Yudrain Aile.

Inon walked up to the house without hesitation, arms crossed, and let out a small huff.

“I’ll check if it’s safe to go in. Stay put.”

Yuder answered that he understood. As soon as Inon disappeared through the entrance, Kishiar stepped beside him, visibly fascinated.

“Did you sense it? The flow of mana on the way here—I wasn’t even doing anything, yet everything around us felt like it was changing. The direction of the wind and light, the weight of the air, the temperature... every sensory input. It felt like walking flat ground while being tricked into feeling like we were climbing. I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

Kishiar didn’t possess the Sight. So while he hadn’t seen what Yuder had, he had sensed the distortion in his own way.

“For me... it was a bit different. The eye with the Sight saw something completely different than the one without.”

“How so?”

“With the Sight, the sky and ground appeared inverted. But the other eye saw everything normally. The combination made it truly feel like climbing a hill.”

“Did it make you dizzy?”

Kishiar's concern surprised him. The ever-curious man always prioritized worry when it came to Yuder—it was oddly disarming.

“No. I was fine.”

“You saw it with the Sight? You really saw through its essence.”

At that moment, Inon returned and cut in with his usual flat tone.

“‘Ghilandre,’ from Ghilandre Hill, is the name of a fairy reflected in water. Luma once said he designed this space based on that image—partially hidden by mirroring perception. Anyone entering must go through a process of inverting their perception and senses correctly, which ends up making you feel like you’re going uphill.”

A reflection in water. Yes—that strange, blended dual-vision had been just like that.

“But when someone can perceive both the reversed and the normal simultaneously, like you, they can combine the phenomena and actually see the unreal landscape that the magic has constructed. The magical hill becomes visible in full.”

With Inon’s explanation, Yuder began to better understand what he’d seen.

“So it’s not really situated on a hill, but because of that, the name Ghilandre Hill stuck.”

“Exactly.”

Kishiar had once said the word “Ghilandre” sounded like an archaic term, but he hadn’t been sure. If it was the name of a now-forgotten fairy, it made sense that no one knew it anymore.

“A shame. If I’d studied magic more seriously, I might’ve been able to see the same thing.”

“It’s normal that you can’t. That guy’s just weird for being able to see it at all.”

Inon cut off Kishiar’s wistful comment with a blunt jab, then gave a nod as if to say follow me.

“Everything looks fine. Let’s head inside.”

Creaaaak. The door groaned like it hadn’t seen oil in years, revealing a dim interior.

Yuder stepped in behind Inon—and froze.

“...From the outside, it didn’t look this big.”

From the outside, the house had seemed like a simple one-story cabin made of wood. But inside, it was as spacious as a noble estate—large enough to include two floors, with staircases leading up and even down into a basement.

“Is this magic too?”

“Yeah. Distorting the difference between what’s seen and what is was Luma’s specialty. This is nothing.”

Inon replied casually as he looked around. Strange, unreadable emotions flickered in his bright yellow eyes.

“This place is exactly how I remember it. If you hadn’t followed me here, I might’ve thought I left just yesterday.”

“......”

“Well, anyway—this was the last place Luma officially stayed. And it’s also the place where I woke up.”

Inon slowly walked deeper inside. The still-lifes on the walls, the heavy curtains—all of it gave a sense that someone had been living here not long ago. Yet knowing it had been abandoned for a thousand years made everything feel eerily surreal.

They stopped in front of the stairs.

“Upstairs was the bedroom. Downstairs was the research lab and library. So we’re heading to the basement first.”

Inon descended without hesitation. It felt like going down just one floor, but when Yuder turned around, the stairs looked ten times longer than they had going down. They stretched upward into pitch darkness.

Even if this was Luma’s specialty, it was hard to get used to.

‘He really was a High Mage, no doubt about it.’

Modern mages struggled to summon a single fireball without magical artifacts. Most “spells” today were fueled by refined mana stones. Compared to that, this felt like compared to that, this felt like an entirely different system—almost as if the magic they used today # Nоvеlight # wasn’t even in the same category.

Inon stopped in front of the door leading to Luma’s research lab and placed his hand on it naturally. They expected it to open like everything else so far—but after a brief moment, Inon sharply drew his hand back as though he’d touched something burning, his brow furrowing.

“...What the hell?”

“What is it? Something wrong?”

Yuder instantly prepared himself, alert and ready to act.

“No one should have come here since I left... but the door’s already unlocked. That doesn’t make sense. Did I remember it wrong?”

“Or someone did come,” Kishiar said at last, breaking his long silence. “And if someone did, then the only one it could be is the owner of the house. You said you never returned here after leaving, but we don’t know whether the owner stayed away as well.”

“...No, that shouldn’t be it. Definitely not... Or maybe...”

Inon’s expression remained doubtful, uncharacteristically unsure. For once, he couldn’t say anything with certainty.

A moment later, he pressed the door open, now tense in a way he hadn’t been before.

The sight that hit them was unexpected.

A sharp brightness pierced their eyes, wholly out of place in such a deep, hidden underground space. Yuder instinctively raised a hand to shield his gaze, squinting until his vision adjusted.

They had expected something far more cold and bleak—a secret lab buried underground, like the sinister chamber hidden within the prison of Tainu, built by the first Duke of Ta-in.

But this was the complete opposite.

Warm-toned wooden walls and floors. Sunlight streamed in from high, narrow windows above. Along the walls stood stacks of carved wooden artifacts and sculptures.

An old desk. Scattered chairs. And at the center of the room—stood a tree.

...A tree?

The tree was taller than Kishiar, its branches bare and withered as though long dead. What stood out most was the gaping hole in its trunk.

That hollow was large—easily big enough for a person to hide inside.

“What’s that?”

“Oh, that?” Inon answered. “That’s where I was. Before I fully woke up.”

“You mean...?”

“Yeah. I was created there.”

It was the definitive answer to Yuder’s lingering question.