Stars led the way with their tiny light, granting the chaotic sky a radiant future.
And so it was named Starlight.
In the forest, milky-white fog enveloped everything, blurring the trees. As time passed, their branches slowly withered and blackened, forming ghostly silhouettes in the white mist—a boundless darkness, muddy ground, damp air, indistinguishable enemies. The things adventurers liked least.
"Pant... pant..." A hand encased in a leather glove suddenly seized a branch. With each breath and tightening grip, black and yellow grit filled the small tears in the glove. Wearing gloves was even more uncomfortable, but it was better than grabbing rough surfaces barehanded and suffering unnecessary injuries.
Survival always mattered more than comfort—not just in the forest.
The panting came from a petite figure hidden beneath a large hood. It was hard to imagine that, in such oppressive weather, she had even tucked every strand of hair away beneath it.
So it was no surprise that she struggled to walk along the rugged path.
"Are you all right?" Fortunately, she had a companion: a female adventurer who had loosened her cloak at the collar from the heat, revealing a leather jacket. She gave her companion a concerned look. "Lonai?"
"Pant... I'm fine." Fatenai answered softly, her breathing ragged. Then she took a waterskin from her hip. Her hand trembled as she brought its mouth to her lips, and a trickle of water slipped from the corner of her mouth as she drank.
For an adventurer new to the forest, a path like this was an excessive test of endurance. Without enough stamina, walking it was a struggle.
"If you're having a hard time, just say so. Why make things difficult for yourself?" Ed's voice came from above. The young, frail mage floated through the air with effortless ease. It looked easy, but this was no beginner's trick. Only Ed and Forresten could manage it here; Helise and Hubert had to rely on their own stamina.
Fatenai was unmoved by his words—or perhaps she was used to them. "It's touching to feel how much you care about your patient."
She never traded barbs with that genius mage, speaking to him with polite distance. Ed stopped paying her any mind. His concern, after all, had amounted to little more than a few words.
"Every time I see you talk to him like that, I'm surprised. I always thought you two were close." Helise couldn't help voicing her bewilderment. Fatenai and Ed seemed to get along because they had known each other for so long, yet they appeared more distant than ordinary friends.
"Excessive affection only hurts the relationship." Fatenai replied with a saying well known among nobles.
"You're so complicated inside." Helise said. Sometimes she felt Fatenai wasn't a twelve-year-old child at all, but a grown adult in her thirties or forties—especially at times like this.
The arduous journey and Fatenai's deliberate reserve soon brought the conversation to a halt, until Forresten spoke. "A familiar scent."
His words caught Helise's and Fatenai's attention. A glimmer of curiosity flickered in Fatenai's eyes. Before them stood only a beech tree. It looked no different from the others, equally rough and ancient, its trunk stained black by the encroaching Rose Month.
Forresten landed in front of the tree and spoke, plainly addressing Fatenai. "Stars led the way with their tiny light, granting the chaotic sky a radiant future—and so it was named Starlight. Starlight dwells in the mundane, so small that a bard must gather the finest fragment from some corner, then embellish it countless times before it can be fitted into the most ordinary verse."
"Ah, perhaps that's the beginning of an epic tribute. That's already wonderful." Fatenai stood where she was, catching her breath, her tone unexpectedly calm.
His dry hand gripped his staff. Head bowed, Forresten's enormous wizard's hat, which he had started wearing a few days earlier, hid his face. All they could see was the mage's tall figure from behind. His dark robes blended with the faint shadow on the ground, making his form seem utterly unreal.
The staff suddenly "fell" to one side, striking the tree trunk. The surroundings fell silent, and then—light appeared.
Yellow-white motes floated from the tip of the staff, spilling out endlessly and drifting through the air until they enveloped everyone. Fatenai felt them in wonder, sensing a faint "emotion" within, gradually forming a river of stars.
Forresten walked forward and vanished into the light. The others followed him, then Fatenai. The radiance before her felt like a kind of intoxicating temptation.
"I remember another saying: 'Curiosity is the real poison.'" Ed's voice suddenly sounded behind her as he landed beside Fatenai.
Fatenai frowned, but Ed continued forward, his figure soon disappearing into the light. He never considered how Fatenai felt.
Taking a deep breath, Fatenai stepped inside.
Her vision blurred.
The forest's chill and dampness abruptly gave way to heat. The smells were entirely different. The sudden change came without warning, and even her senses hadn't caught up. Everything before her eyes seemed unreal, as if it were an illusion.
Especially when Fatenai found herself in an alley, with a faint but warm glow of fire burning beyond it.
What was this...
"Welcome to Starlight." Only when she heard a familiar voice did the shattered sense of reality begin to settle. Helise looked back, waiting for her.
So this was... Starlight?
Fatenai was a little surprised. Her body followed her instincts forward, while several layers of images crystallized before her eyes. In the few seconds it took her to step out of the alley, the world sprang to life.
The ground was simply paved with stone, befitting Forresten's description of the mundane. It was a town, a town like Helurando—except it had far fewer taverns and was instead filled with alchemical tools considered taboo in ordinary cities. People in cloaks crowded the streets, with all manner of things floating beside them, some familiar to Fatenai and others not...
A place where the ordinary and the extraordinary intertwined, though its significance was not yet clear.
"This place..." Fatenai couldn't help speaking.
"The real thing is ahead." Helise pointed to the sky. "Our home, the hall of the mages—the brightest star among them."
Fatenai looked up, and the moment she raised her eyes, her gaze was drawn in. The sky during Rose Month held no stars or moon, but now it was covered in countless stars. At the far end stood a white fortress. Though only a sliver of it showed, the towering white structure gave her a sense of beginnings and endings.
And so this was the place where the stars led the way, and where they brought an end.
Before you continue