"Idiots with what now?"
"Idiots with ADHD," Liscia replied smoothly.
She lifted her teacup toward her lips before taking a small sip, one eyebrow raised toward Anathasia.
"That aside… can we begin this discussion already?"
"Lena asked me to help deal with a troublesome Sovereign from a certain Image."
Anathasia's eyes twitched slightly as she stared at Liscia. But after a moment, she simply exhaled before turning toward everyone seated around the table.
"Jokes aside…"
"With the First Outer God of Continuity finally emerging…"
"And with Liscia's existence finally settling properly into place…"
A small smile formed across her lips.
"I think it's safe to say everything's finally stabilized, huh?"
"Rhea's settled too. Nobody's interfering with stories anymore."
She leaned back slightly in her chair.
"So honestly, I think we can finally sit back and take things slowly for once. Right?"
The pavilion fell quiet.
Roselia and Rania nodded softly in agreement.
Kagariel merely hummed to himself while Guang remained silent beside him, staring quietly into her tea as though trying not to draw attention to herself.
"Other than daily routines," Liscia cut in calmly while setting her teacup back onto its saucer.
Porcelain lightly clinked against porcelain.
"There's still Aegea's modernization to consider."
Anathasia tilted her head slightly.
"You already visited?"
Liscia's eyes narrowed faintly before she nodded.
"I did."
"It's fairly decent overall."
A brief pause followed.
"Excluding the continents outside the regions governed by Ishtar and Kazar."
That immediately drew Rania and Roselia's full attention.
Roselia quietly nodded.
"That is true…"
"Outside Fuendeum, regions such as The Woodlands and Heagviegiel remain overrun by deadly entities."
Her gaze drifted toward the surface of her tea.
"Rania and I already prohibited travel into those continents long ago."
"Biological mutation there appears accelerated by something embedded within those lands themselves."
Her expression darkened slightly.
"The Woodlands in particular…"
"…despite its name, remains completely barren."
"And somehow still teeming with life," Rania quietly added.
"Though calling them lifeforms would be inaccurate."
"They resemble something closer to Cosmic Gods."
"Or perhaps the Ancient Ones that emerged following Istaroth's disappearance."
Roselia let out a slow breath.
"Entities," she corrected softly.
"Not creatures."
Listening to them, I leaned back against my chair while rubbing my temple lightly.
"Entities, huh…"
I rested my cheek against my knuckle.
"But shouldn't you and Rania still be capable of handling them somehow?"
"You're both already outside conventional existence."
"And if I remember correctly, Outer Gods are fundamentally irreducible."
I glanced between the two of them.
"So biologically-based entities shouldn't really pose any threat to either of you, right?"
Roselia didn't answer immediately. She simply stared quietly into her tea while one hand loosely tangled itself into a handful of blonde hair.
Meanwhile, Rania calmly took another sip from her cup before setting it down.
"Our concern is not our own safety, Sir Kyle."
Her fingers folded neatly together atop the table.
"It is Aegea's population we are concerned for."
I tilted my head slightly.
"Those continents are really still completely unexplored?"
Rania nodded slowly.
"Even before my ascension as the Third Outer God of Equilibrium, yes."
"Heagviegiel has remained untouched ever since Istaroth—the Primordial Dragon—vanished."
"As for The Woodlands…"
A brief pause followed.
"Even Istaroth itself was never capable of settling there."
"Let alone fully exploring it."
Rania leaned forward slightly.
A faint holographic display materialized above the table shortly afterward.
Countless distorted entities appeared across its surface.
Things without limbs—
Yet somehow possessing joints.
Others possessed limbs—
Yet lacked any means of properly moving them aside from floating unnaturally through space.
And countless more forms that seemed fundamentally contradictory to existence itself.
Rania stared quietly at the projection while resting her clasped hands before her lips.
"They are entities born entirely from contradictions."
A brief pause followed.
"Against Outer Gods such as ourselves…"
"…they are insignificant."
"Especially against Miss Anathasia or Sir Kyle."
The projection shifted again.
Now displaying what looked like an endless wave of entities surging across a black ocean toward one of Aegea's distant continents.
"But for Aegea's population…" she trailed off, her voice lowered slightly.
"That becomes an entirely different matter, huh?" I finished quietly while watching the display.
Then my eyes narrowed slightly.
"…What's happening over there?"
Rania never looked away from the display.
Her expression remained calm and unreadable while the endless wave of entities surged toward the coastal city.
Then—
Every single entity vanished.
Instantly.
As though they had never existed to begin with.
The projection shifted again.
Now displaying the corpse of the same Cosmic God Grace had erased the moment it approached too closely.
At that point, I shot Anathasia a quick glance before looking back toward the feed.
"So that massive wall of water you erased back then…"
Rania gave a slow nod.
"Yes."
"It was never merely a wave of water."
Her eyes remained fixed on the display.
"It was a wave composed of those things."
A brief pause followed.
"If they can still even be classified as things."
Silence settled across the pavilion once more.
Kagariel had quietly shifted into conversation with Guang beside him.
Liscia simply stared outward toward the endless plains beyond the pavilion while Roselia absentmindedly stirred her tea.
Meanwhile, Anathasia and I continued watching the projection as it shifted again.
This time—
An overhead view of Aegea itself appeared from outside the planet.
And immediately, something felt wrong.
The Woodlands wasn't green.
Nor pale brown like a desert.
Nor white like a continent trapped beneath eternal snow.
Instead—
The entire landmass was dark brown.
Uniformly dark brown.
Every corner of the continent shared the exact same shade.
No visible environmental variation.
No climate distinction.
No difference in terrain.
It looked less like a continent and more like something painted over reality itself.
Rania suddenly spoke.
"As Miss Anathasia and Sir Kyle have likely already noticed…"
Her fingers lightly moved across the projection.
"The Woodlands maintains complete environmental consistency throughout its entirety."
"Weather systems should naturally interact with one another."
"Temperature shifts alter air pressure."
"Changes in air pressure influence climate and weather patterns."
"Geographical structures should also create environmental variation."
She zoomed further inward with a gentle pinch of her fingers.
"For example…"
"Parts of The Woodlands extend close to Aegea's polar regions."
The projection focused further.
"…Those areas should logically contain glaciers."
"Or at the very least, ice caps."
Her gaze narrowed slightly.
"And yet…"
"Every region remains identical."
"The same dark-brown coloration."
"The same atmospheric state."
"The same environmental conditions."
"It remains completely unaffected by Aegea's shifting climate systems altogether."
A brief silence followed.
Then Rania finally leaned back slightly.
"That alone should already say more than enough about how abnormal The Woodlands truly is."
"Almost like it exists inside an entirely separate world…" I murmured quietly.
My gaze remained fixed on the projection while I slowly folded my arms across my chest.
Thinking.
"Hm."
Liscia suddenly stood from her seat.
She leaned over the display before casually swiping across it with one hand, rewinding the projection backward.
The feed rapidly reversed through the footage until she stopped precisely at the scenes showing the crawling entities within The Woodlands.
Then again at the massive wave of entities.
Anathasia and I both glanced toward her.
"Did you notice something?" Anathasia asked.
Liscia remained silent for a moment.
Then she slowly shifted her gaze toward Anathasia before sitting back down fully against her chair.
"They're strangely similar to the things I saw inside the Contradictory Spheres back when I was crystallizing paradoxes into myself."
The pavilion grew quieter.
Liscia rested one arm against the armrest while continuing calmly.
"Entities with barely any proper form."
"Things that don't even properly qualify as *things.*"
Her gaze drifted briefly toward the display.
"I looked similar myself back then."
A faint shrug followed.
"At least during the period where paradoxes were still leaking out of me uncontrollably."
She spoke about it with alarming casualness.
Meanwhile, both Rania and Roselia quietly stared at her from across the table.
Liscia immediately noticed.
"…What?"
She raised an eyebrow slightly.
"Just because I bypassed your jurisdictions back then doesn't suddenly make either of you weak or inadequate."
Her gaze narrowed faintly.
"So stop looking at me like you're developing insecurities over it."
Liscia let out a quiet breath before dismissively waving one hand through the air.
Then she looked back toward the projection with the same deadpan expression as before.
"Anyway…"
"So we're doing investigations again, huh?"
She leaned slightly against the armrest.
"Who exactly is going to carry this one out if you actually plan on proceeding with it?"
A brief pause followed before her eyes shifted toward Anathasia.
"Or are you planning on sending Sovereigns into The Woodlands instead?"