The reason Signe had said it would take three hours to "walk" was discovered after trying various methods to shorten the time. There was a problem in this area where flying or using teleport would direct the caster to a different location than intended. If one used teleport targeting the fog-dense area, they would unexpectedly find the lake beneath their feet.
The phenomenon of repeatedly using magic only to be transported to an irrelevant place was similar to the characteristics of Celestia, the city in the sky. Since she had said compasses didn't work either, perhaps the two regions shared similar features. Like having differentiated magnetic field flows.
The problem was that even considering the considerable size of the lake, it was difficult to move beyond its vicinity by walking. Though it was clearly an open plain in all directions, it felt like circling the same spot as if trapped in a labyrinth. The result was the same regardless of the method used.
"Ah, I can't go any further—. Let's rest a bit before continuing."
Around two and a half hours after wandering near the lake. Signe, who had been boldly proclaiming her military spirit, sprawled out beside a stone tablet.
In fact, this was already her third rest, so Leonardo looked at her with disapproval rather than concern.
"Resting again?"
"Really, just 5 minutes, just 5 minutes."
Signe, who was alone drenched in sweat, wiped her face with her forearm and regulated her increasingly unstable breathing. Somehow, rather than being a guide, she seemed to have taken the position of package 3, following the two guys he had met on the peninsula.
The stone tablet placed beside her was serving the role of a signpost, and it was so small that most of its area would be covered if an adult spread both palms wide. Its height was much lower than Signe's upper body, which was rising and falling on the ground.
In the plain full of wildflowers, it was a size that could only be found by staring at the ground until one's eyes popped out. Such stone tablets were located throughout the land, with quite irregular spacing between them, and had some sentences engraved. Though they were worn and difficult to make out, they were generally in ancient language. If Signe hadn't told him, he would have probably recognized them as just common stones.
The marker that she claimed only she and her sister knew also existed on this stone tablet. The star-shaped mark made by scratching the blue-gray surface remained intact as a trace of young sisters enjoying adventures disguised as play in the vast field.
Leonardo, who was carefully examining the stone tablet that had appeared again, took his hands out of his pockets and knelt down in front of it.
'This isn't a rock that would be found in this area.'
Checking the cross-section of the broken edge, the rock forming the stone tablet was schist. Besides that, if one just looked around a bit, rocks or stone fragments made of schist could be seen rolling around on the field or by the stream. Schist, a type of metamorphic rock that has been subjected to heat and pressure for a long time, is not easy to find in a wide plain rather than a mountainous area.
Leonardo, who had been scanning the terrain, turned his head to Signe, who was still sprawled out. Soon, he muttered in a tone suggesting she was pathetic:
"You, who applied for the military, would you be like this in a minefield too?"
Seeing her panting in military uniform, the stern voice he used when training Nero came out naturally. Signe, who flinched, pressed the ground and raised her upper body hurriedly. But it seemed too much to stand on two feet, so she sat with her buttocks on the ground and pressed her trembling knees with her hands.
"Hey—, aren't you tired at all?"
"What's there to be tired about?"
"My legs are too heavy. It feels like the ground is pulling me down."
Signe, who was uncharacteristically whining, showed signs of reaching her physical limit, saying her legs were sinking more and more. It was quite a poor endurance for someone who had passed the military's test. Leonardo raised one eyebrow as he watched her about to lie down on the grass again.
"The ground is pulling you down?"
Then he needlessly tapped the grass with the sole of his foot. It was because he wondered if there might be a connection between the rumor about disappearing corpses and her statement.
'Is it really related to gravity or magnetic fields?'
But to Leonardo, who couldn't understand her physical exhaustion, nothing else felt different.
"Signe. Did you ever feel your body was heavy when you came here before?"
"Huh? Well... It was harder than usual when running around, but not to this extent. Damn... I'm enlisting tomorrow, what if I get sick like this?"
She seemed to have no intention of departing, as she sprawled out again, using the stone tablet beside her as a pillow.
"Ah... I feel like I might survive now that I'm lying down. But since you mentioned it, there's one thing I remember, my dad used to say that metal objects became heavier every time he came here. He was very sensitive to such things because his profession was a blacksmith."
"Metal objects became heavier?"
"Yeah. This area is particularly like that. When I was young, the axe blade used in a store near the station bent, and he found out while helping to fix it..."
Metal objects were representative materials affected by magnetic field flows. Leonardo instinctively felt that part of the hypothesis he had been unconsciously formulating was somewhat matching. Subsequently, with narrowed eyes, he listened to Signe's story and then created a lightning spear with sparks flying and grasped it in his hand.
As the threatening sound of "fizz" suddenly flickered, Signe, who had been muttering while blankly looking at the sky, rolled her eyes slightly. It was before she could show a surprised reaction. Leonardo threw the lightning in his hand straight up into the air.
The lightning spear, which had been shooting vertically toward the sky, wavered in form and soon split into several branches in the air, scattering in different directions. Though it was difficult to identify with the naked eye, it wasn't difficult for a mage to detect the flow of current created with their own mana.
'That's...'
The current flowed somewhere as if winding along distorted space-time. Generally, its end was in the middle of the lake or in the fog-dense area. Leonardo, who had been watching the phenomenon, twisted the corner of his mouth and chuckled softly.
"Now I understand a bit."
So this region, though it appeared to be just a wide plain on the surface, actually had tangled spaces. Evidence of this was the unstable magnetic field flow, the endless path no matter how far one went, and the anomalous phenomenon where teleport didn't work properly.
In other words, the scene before his eyes wasn't everything, but rather pieces of space were connected like irregular portals. Though he couldn't know the specific reason for this phenomenon, if there was one thing he could guess, it would be due to stronger gravity than other regions.
If gravity was strong, it made sense that the magnetic field would be affected and bend, and that space-time would be distorted. Though it was the opposite result of Celestia where anti-gravity was formed, the texture was similar. The principle of casting Pentagon, which he had briefly thought of earlier, would also be appropriate. If distortion occurred due to the action of gravity, it was theoretically understandable that time flowed differently only in this place.
"You, you could do that too?"
Signe, who had been sprawled out, opened her eyes wide as if newly realizing. Despite already having supported her and even used teleport, her reaction was quite intense each time he showed a new magic. Leonardo, who responded by shrugging his shoulders, extended his hand as if telling her to grab it and asked:
"Your father said metal objects became heavy only when he came here, right? That's probably due to the magnetic field and gravity. This area has distorted space, so the flow of the magnetic field is also tangled. Perhaps even the sudden disappearance of corpses might be related to that."
"...What? Magnetic field? Distorted space? What are you talking about?"
Signe frowned as soon as she heard the unfamiliar story and asked back. Leonardo explained the hypothesis he had been thinking about in a slightly simpler way. Even though he himself hadn't organized it yet, he wasn't sure if he could make the other person understand.
"...So, my legs becoming this heavy is because gravity is stronger."
"According to my guess."
"Then, is it not just a rumor but a really possible story? That dead people go missing?"
"There's teleport, there's portal. Even Bermuda where children emerge in the middle of a wasteland, so there's nothing impossible about corpses disappearing."
Signe, who had half-raised her upper body, opened and closed her mouth while barely grasping Leonardo's hand. Soon, she was pulled up in one breath by his strength. The other person seemed unaffected to the extent that her own wobbling appearance until just now became embarrassing. As if he were a being completely unaffected by that gravity.
"So this place is, in essence, a maze without visible barriers. In reality, it's more complex than a maze blocked by walls. You think you're going the right way, but you don't know where you're heading, and the only thing to rely on is this stone tablet, which isn't even arranged regularly. The fact that you and your sister were able to get there a few years ago might have just been because you were lucky."
Leonardo pointed with his chin to the foggy area that didn't seem too far away.
Signe and her sister had gradually approached the old castle in the fog by leaving marks on the stone tablets when they were young, and eventually succeeded in reaching the destination, she had said. The marks they were following now were those traces, but thinking about it now, Leonardo wasn't sure if the path the sisters had adventured on back then would still be valid today.
If even a tiny deformation had occurred in this place where space-time was distorted, their pioneering path would have quickly become useless.
Though he didn't say it explicitly, Signe seemed to roughly understand what he meant to convey, as she blankly turned her eyes to where the old castle would be. Leonardo looked at her and calmly added:
"Anyway, it's certain that we're lost now. If we continue like this, we'll just go deeper into the maze without any guarantee of reaching there. It's better to go back first."
"...."
"Your stamina is almost depleted, and you have less than 30 hours until enlistment. You know what happens if you don't get in on time, right?"
Leonardo said, looking down at the military watch tied to her wrist. It wasn't a path to navigate with package 3, who needed to be delivered within a set time, when it would be dangerous even for him alone.
Signe, who had been uncharacteristically silent, suddenly looked down at the stone tablet placed at her feet. As if recalling something from her memory, she blurted out:
"It wasn't because we were lucky."
She raised her head with a rather serious face.
"My sister said exactly the same thing as you. That this place is like a maze. We found the way knowing the path. My sister could read the content of the stone tablets."