Lyra was still bent over the Travel Records from the Northern Territories when Rowan pulled his chair closer. Ever since they discovered the footer that had previously been hidden by the fold in the page, they had not left the table. The research notes they had found the day before remained open beside the manuscript, while Revision Seven lay spread across the center of the table, marked with several pencil lines Rowan had drawn to indicate the old route.
“This only became visible after the page was flattened,” Lyra said.
Lucien looked at the bottom of the page as well. Several ink strokes were extremely faint, almost blending into the color of the paper. “We really didn’t see it yesterday.”
“Because this section was folded.”
Lyra pointed to the writing they had already managed to read, then compared it with the newly discovered characters. “I just realized the shapes still follow the same pattern.”
Rowan took the chair on the other side of the table. “The same pattern as the previous footer?”
“Yes.”
Lyra opened several pages they had marked. She did not immediately try to translate the newly discovered writing, but compared the shapes of the characters one by one with writing they had already deciphered. Every so often, she copied a character onto a blank sheet of paper, then matched it against another character in a different section.
Lucien watched for a while before asking, “Are you looking for the same word?”
“Not the same word. The way it’s written.”
She pointed to two characters with different shapes but similar placement patterns.
“If we read this as an ordinary script, the result will be nonsense. We’ve found this pattern before. The symbols may differ, but the way they group and arrange them is almost the same.”
Lucien nodded. The explanation made more sense than their initial theory at the beginning of the investigation.
“So we have to read the system first.”
“Exactly.”
Rowan picked up a pencil and pointed to the footer. “Then don’t guess the missing word. Look for the pattern that remains.”
Lyra gave a faint smile. “That’s what I’m doing.”
She returned to tracing the writing. After several minutes, she stopped at a section where the ink was still fairly clear.
“I can read this part.”
Lucien and Rowan both leaned closer.
“What does it say?”
Lyra read the characters slowly.
“Do not follow...”
She stopped and looked at the next section, which had almost completely faded.
“...the road.”
Rowan immediately turned toward Revision Seven.
“‘Do not follow the road’?”
“Seems like it.”
Lyra did not rush to continue. She took out a copy of the research notes they had found yesterday and placed it beside the manuscript.
“This might be connected to what we found here.”
She pointed to the section of the report explaining that the old route through the region was no longer in use and that part of the route had changed over time.
Rowan read the section again.
“The route changed, but the region’s entry point is still the same.”
“Yes.”
Lyra returned to the footer.
“If the manuscript’s author really traveled along the same route, they might have known that the route shown on the map wasn’t the one to follow all the way to the end.”
Lucien picked up Revision Seven and opened it wider.
“What about the faded section?”
Rowan nodded.
He pointed to the line they had discovered two days earlier.
“The route is still visible here. After this point, the line starts to disappear.”
Lucien compared the map with the research notes.
“And the newer notes also say the old route has changed.”
“Exactly.”
Rowan took the pencil and marked the point where the old route met the region still documented in the latest research.
“So if we follow this line all the way to the end, we might not reach the place the author intended.”
Lyra reread the footer.
“We need to see what comes after it.”
She resumed examining the page.
Several characters looked like fragments of an incomplete sentence. Lyra copied the legible shapes, then searched for similar characters in the footer they had already deciphered.
Lucien looked at the notes beginning to fill the paper beside her.
“Still nothing?”
“Not all of it.”
“What about the part from before?”
Lyra nodded.
“The sentence is probably longer.”
Rowan leaned back slightly.
“Then don’t force it.”
Lyra raised her head.
“Why not?”
“We already know the route can’t be read all the way to the end from the map lines alone. We don’t need to force a translation just to make it look complete.”
Lucien nodded. “He’s right.”
Lyra looked back at the manuscript.
“There’s one section that seems clear enough to me.”
She pointed to several characters.
“After the word ‘road,’ there’s a word shaped similarly to one from another section we’ve read.”
“What does it mean?”
“Last seen.”
Rowan stared at the map.
“So the sentence is...”
Lyra rearranged the section they had managed to read.
“Do not follow the road last seen.”
The three of them fell silent.
Lucien read the sentence once more.
“Then this clue isn’t showing us the way.”
“No,” Lyra replied. “It’s more like it’s telling us when not to follow the route that’s there.”
Rowan looked at Revision Seven again. This time, he did not focus on the region as a whole, but on the point where the faded line ended.
“This explains why this section felt like it didn’t make sense.”
He pointed to the end of the route.
“If the author deliberately left behind a clue, they never intended for anyone to read this map like an ordinary travel map.”
Lucien frowned.
“Then how are we supposed to read it?”
“That’s what we don’t know yet.”
Rowan took the research notes they had found yesterday and placed them beside the map.
“At least we know one thing now. This route really did exist. The newer source proves it. So the line on Revision Seven isn’t a mistake.”
Lyra nodded.
“And the footer explains why the line stops.”
“Or why we shouldn’t assume the end of the line is the destination.”
Lucien looked at the symbol not far from the route.
“Then this symbol might tell us what to do after the road ends.”
Lyra looked at it as well.
“Maybe.”
Rowan gave a small shake of his head.
“Don’t jump to conclusions.”
Lucien smiled.
“You always say that.”
“Because so far, we still have more theories than answers.”
Lyra let out a small laugh before growing serious again. “But at least this theory has a foundation.”
She pointed to the three items on the table.
“Revision Seven shows the route. The newer research notes prove the route once existed. The manuscript tells us that the visible road isn’t the end of the journey.”
Lucien looked at the drawing of the gate on the manuscript page.
“And the gate?”
“That’s the part we haven’t figured out yet.”
“Including the Heir?”
Lyra nodded.
“I still don’t know whether it’s a name, a title, or something else.”
Rowan did not comment. He simply stared at the word for a long time.
“Don’t look for the answer in a single word.”
Lucien turned to him.
“Why?”
“Because we don’t know who wrote it or who the record was made for.”
He pointed to the manuscript.
“If we knew the context, the meaning of that word might become much clearer.”
Lucien nodded slowly.
It made sense.
They went back to work without saying much. Rowan began making a copy of the route from Revision Seven to compare with the newer map, while Lyra continued examining the footer. Lucien recorded the sections they had confirmed so that no information would change while they compared the next source.
A few minutes later, Lyra suddenly stopped.
“Lucien.”
“Hm?”
“Don’t close the map yet.”
Lucien held his hand in place.
“Why?”
Lyra pointed to the bottom of the manuscript page.
“There’s more writing.”
Rowan immediately moved closer.
“The part from before?”
“No.”
Lyra flattened the page again. This time, the small fold in the corner of the paper opened completely, revealing several characters that had previously been covered.
“This is a different section.”
She picked up the magnifying glass and read slowly. One character was still clear, the next two were nearly gone, followed by several strokes that could not be identified at all.
“Can it still be translated?”
“Not yet.”
“Then what made you stop?”
Lyra stared at the writing for a long time.
“Because it doesn’t look like directions.”
Lucien looked at it.
“Then what does it look like?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
She compared the characters with those in the previous footer again. After a while, she shook her head.
“This seems to be a warning.”
Rowan did not immediately disagree.
“A warning about what?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Lyra covered part of the page with her hand.
“This section is too damaged. If I force a translation, we could get it wrong.”
Lucien looked at the manuscript once more. They had found the route, found the same symbol in two sources, and now learned that the line visible on Revision Seven was not the end of the journey. Yet just when everything had begun to look clearer, the manuscript once again showed them that something had been deliberately concealed.
Rowan carefully folded the map.
“Then we have a new task.”
Lucien nodded.
“Reading that section.”
“And making sure we don’t misinterpret the route.”
Lyra was still staring at the unfinished footer.
“If I’m right, the person who wrote this wasn’t only telling someone where to go.”
She touched the faded section of writing.
“They were also warning what would happen if that person followed the clue incorrectly.”
The three of them fell silent again.
For now, that was all they could confirm.
The road on Revision Seven had indeed brought them closer to the region they were searching for. But after the final line disappeared, they could no longer rely on the map alone.
And the manuscript that had brought them this far still held one warning they had yet to decipher.