Chapter 53 — White Paper and Dark Water

The second-floor room of the inn was quiet except for the soft scratch of something completely foreign to this world.

Ren sat on the sofa, system interface open just long enough to make a small purchase. Five copper coins disappeared, and a stack of items materialized on the low table in front of him: several bound notebooks with pure white pages and a set of pens in different colors — black, blue, red, and green.

He picked up one notebook and opened it. The paper was smooth, evenly cut, and completely free of the yellowish tint that even the best parchment in this world carried. The pens required no ink pot. A simple click or twist brought the tip to life.

Lyra, who had been sitting cross-legged on the bed cleaning her wand, suddenly leaned forward. Her crimson eyes widened.

“What… is that?”

Silvia, standing near the window, turned as well. The moment her gaze fell on the open notebook, her usual composure cracked.

“The paper is pure white,” she said slowly, almost disbelieving. “No yellowing. No rough fibers. Even the royal court does not possess parchment of this quality. The king and queen themselves write on cream-colored sheets that still show the marks of the maker.”

Ren held up one of the pens and clicked it. A clean blue line appeared on the page with no need to dip anything into an ink pot.

Lyra’s ears stood straight up.

“It writes by itself? No quill? No ink bottle?”

Silvia stepped closer, violet eyes fixed on the pen as if it were a legendary artifact.

“Not even the dwarves or the high mages have created something like this. A writing tool that carries its own ink permanently… this would be considered a national treasure in most kingdoms.”

Ren tore a few blank pages from one notebook and handed a notebook and two pens to each woman.

“Use them. They’ll last a long time.”

Lyra accepted hers with open excitement. She immediately leaned in and kissed him firmly on the lips, tail swaying behind her.

“Thank you, husband.”

Silvia’s turn was quieter. A faint pink colored her chocolate-brown cheeks as she stepped closer, hesitated for half a second, then pressed a softer, shyer kiss to his mouth.

“Thank you.”

While both women were still close, Ren’s hands slid down and gave each of their asses a light, familiar squeeze — Lyra’s round and full, Silvia’s firm and athletic. Lyra made a small pleased sound against his lips. Silvia’s breath hitched, but she did not pull away.

After the brief affection they settled again. Ren spread a fresh notebook open on the table and began to draw.

He reconstructed the wall map from the Adventurer’s Guild from memory with precise lines. Roads, hills, the final fortress, and the marked positions of patrol routes took shape under the blue pen. Then he switched to red and black, overlaying the knowledge of a former Indian Army officer onto the terrain.

Most of the obvious paths across the border would already be known to the local knights. They were born in this region. They had patrolled these lands for years. Any route a common traveler or merchant might think of would be watched.

His pen stopped at a wide, irregular area marked on the original map only as a broad water feature.

A great lake formed by the slow change of a river’s course over decades. In military thinking, such ground was usually avoided — difficult to cross, easy to defend against, and often more dangerous than open terrain. That very fact made it worth considering.

He circled the lake in red and wrote a short note beside it:

**Possible crossing. Needs confirmation.**

Other less-used paths received similar marks, but the lake remained the most promising of the unconventional options.

Time passed quietly. The light outside the window gradually shifted toward evening.

Ren closed the notebook and looked at the two women.

“I’m going to the auction alone. Stay here. Keep the door locked. I won’t be long.”

Lyra’s ears flicked, but she nodded. Silvia simply inclined her head, though her violet eyes followed him all the way to the door.

Ren stepped out, closed the door firmly behind him, and went downstairs.

The inn’s common room was nearly empty. The owner stood behind the front desk, wiping a wooden surface that was already clean, the posture of a man who had little left to do except wait for the town to empty completely.

Ren approached and began with light conversation — asking which inland cities might still be safe if war broke out, how many people had already left, and whether the owner himself planned to close soon. The man answered freely, clearly glad for any distraction.

Only after several minutes of easy talk did Ren steer the discussion toward the surrounding region, framing his questions as those of an adventurer looking for dangerous work that still paid well.

“I’ve heard there are places near the border that most people avoid,” he said casually. “Areas where the risk is high but the rewards might match it. Anything like that around here?”

The owner scratched his chin.

“Plenty of dangerous ground, but most of it’s already picked clean or watched by soldiers now. The only place nobody touches is the great lake to the northwest. Formed when the river changed course years ago.”

Ren kept his expression mildly curious.

“Why does no one go there?”

The owner’s face darkened slightly.

“Three reasons. First, it’s quagmire for a long stretch around the edges. Step wrong and you’ll sink before you can shout. Second, things live under the water — poisonous creatures that come up the moment they feel footsteps or the touch of a boat. Third, the water itself is corrosive to wood. Any boat or raft starts rotting within hours. Clothes dissolve even faster if they stay wet. Metal lasts longer, but even that will corrode if left long enough. No one crosses it. No one even goes near it anymore.”

Ren listened carefully, filing every detail away.

“Only wood and cloth?” he asked. “Metal survives longer?”

“Yes. Metal takes a very long time to show damage. But that doesn’t help when the things in the water can kill you before you finish crossing.”

Ren nodded slowly, as if merely gathering general knowledge for future quests.

“Thank you. That’s useful to know.”

He left a small tip on the desk for the conversation, received a tired nod in return, and stepped out into the cooling evening air of the border town.

The streets were even quieter than before. Lanterns were being lit one by one, casting long pools of yellow light across empty cobblestones. Somewhere ahead, in a warehouse district that still clung to the last scraps of commerce, the slave auction would soon begin.

Ren adjusted his cloak, felt the familiar weight of the system storage at the edge of his awareness, and started walking toward the address written on the old blacksmith’s note.

Behind him, in the second-floor room of the last open inn, two women waited with notebooks of impossibly white paper and pens that needed no ink.

Ahead of him waited the auction — and beyond that, a lake that no one in this world believed could be crossed.