Upon reag the back of the castle, Mirac caught sight of Carmen in the distance, her posture perfect as always.

  Behihe heavy wooden door had just closed with a soft creak that seemed to echo in the cold air.

  'Who was she talking to?' Miradered, scrutinizing carefully.

  But uo make out the figure that had just dissolved into the shadow of the door, Mirac gave up on his curiosity.

  Instead, with his usual slow but steady step, Mirac approached Carmen. The red-haired servant, sensing his preseurned gracefully toward him.

  "Good evening, young Prince," she said with her courteous smile, l herself slightly in a gesture that radiated resped propriety. "How was your training with Grand Knight Leonard?"

  Mirac shrugged, trying to appear more rexed tharuly felt.

  "It went well… everything's fine," he replied, his voieutral but slightly strained, betraying the thoughts he didn't want to reveal.

  Upon further thought, Mirac realized it was wiser to avoid talking about his vision.

  He didn't even know if it was somethiiful, something to be "proud" of, or something absolutely horrible that he o hide.

  As a precaution, Mirac decided simply not to tell anyone, while inside him, irritation grew, fueled by his disdain for Math, which had given him yet another problem to think about.

  Carmen tilted her head slightly, him with a look that bined curiosity and a veiled . Her eyes seemed to probe him, as if trying to read beyond the surface.

  "Young Prince, are you alright?" she asked, her tole but attentive. "You seem... troubled."

  Mirac looked away, f a smile and putting on an expression he hoped would seem ving.

  "Yes, yes, Carmen... I'm just a little tired, that's all."

  However, Carmen was not easy to deceive. In her eyes, there was a sharp intuition, honed by years of observation and tact.

  With her usual delicacy, she pced a hand on his shoulder, a ge reassuring touch.

  Then, as if guided by some maternal instinct, she began to massage his shoulders slowly, trying to ease the tension she clearly felt in his young body.

  Mirac didn't resist, surprised by the gentleness of the gesture. Little by little, his body began to rex uhat soft touch, and the invisible weight pressing down on him seemed to ease, at least partially.

  "Is it better?" Carmen asked, tinuing to smile, her eyes shining with uanding.

  "Yes, much better, thank you!" he replied sincerely.

  For a moment, a small smile lit up the young Prince's face.

  For some reason, he couldn't help but smile, feeling that small gesture like a caress to his turbulent soul.

  He didn't know whether it was the warmth of Carmen's hands or the simple sweetness of her pany. But at that moment, Mirac felt a little more at pead rexed.

  However, a sudden sound interrupted them.

  A clear and pierg cry, simir to that of a bird of prey, seemed to e from above.

  Slowly, they both instinctively looked up.

  A group of birds was flying above the castle, their slender bodies slig through the sky in perfect harmony. The feathers, white, red, and gold, shimmered in the light of the setting sun like iwihreads of silk.

  Their movements, so fluid and synized, captured Mirac's attention, and he remaiaring at them with a more rexed expression, almost captivated.

  Carmen, who had immediately noticed Mirac's i, smiled.

  "Those are the Siliums. A very particur species of bird," the servant said, slowly bringing her hands ba front of her. "They usually live in warm areas, like the Desert of Shakh. That's why it's very rare to see them! Especially here, in this part of the Ardorya Kingdom."

  Miraodded, listening with apparent attention, but something was stirring in his mind that he couldn't quite define.

  As Carmen spoke, a sudden piece of information invaded his mind, clear and vivid, as if it had emerged from nowhere.

  His mind, though uo grasp the reason, couldn't ig.

  Meanwhile, Carmen tinued:

  "Besides their shimmering plumage, one of the peculiarities of this species is that their flocks are always made up of-"

  "Forty-four birds..." Mirac murmured, almost without realizing it.

  Carmen stopped, surprised.

  "Oh, did you already know, young Prince?" she asked with a hint of curiosity.

  "Um, yes…" Mirac improvised, trying to hide the source of the answer. "Professor Shirkenn expi to me today…"

  But iy, that was a lie!

  No one had ever told him about the Siliums, let alohe number of birds in their flocks.

  Ahat certainty seemed to have emerged spontaneously within him, undeniable and without any apparent source.

  'How did I know that?' he worying to maintain a ral expression.

  He lowered his gaze, fused, but a refle in the window caught his attention. He found himself staring at it for a moment, mesmerized.

  In that indistinct refle, as he quickly g the round-floor windows—those he could see from his position—ahought leaped into his mind, clear and inexplicable:

  'Thirty-five windows on the ground floor…'

  Mirac pressed his lips together.

  He didn't remember ever ting the castle windows!

  Ahat certainty was there, rooted, absolute. As if he knew something he had never learned.

  A feeling that was, to say the least, uling.

  Without realizing it, he touched his temples, trying to uand:

  'What the hell is happening to me?!'

  "Young Prince, is everything alright?" Carmen asked, bringing him back to reality.

  Her voice, always calm, was filled with .

  Miraapped out of it, trying to ighe inner agitation.

  "Uh, yes, yes, sorry… I was just distracted," he replied, l his hand and f a smile.

  * * *

  Exg himself with the o finish his homework, Mirac gave Carmen a quiod and hurried toward his bedroom.

  As he climbed the stairs, a hought slipped into his mind, clear and unavoidable:

  'Twenty-six steps…'

  He hadn't ted them, he didn't o. It was as though the number had formed automatically in his mind, as precise as a calcution already solved.

  Mirac stopped for a moment, looking around with furrowed brows.

  After calming himself and slowing his breath, he tinued his ast, trying to ighe strange feeling he had.

  Upon reag the sed floor, where his room was located, his gaze absently sed the corridor.

  'Seventeen paintings hanging...'

  Once again, that sudden, lightning-fast certainty fshed through his mind.

  * * *

  After dinner, Mirac decided to lie down on the bed.

  It was the most sensible thing to do: try to sleep and put aside, at least until tomorrow, the straurmoil that was uling him.

  The fatigue accumuted throughout the day quickly dragged him into a deep sleep.

  But in the middle of the night, Mirac found himself once again in that endless night sky. There was no ground or walls, only a vast expanse of stars sparkling around him.

  'Damn it! I was having a nice dream!' Mirac thought, looking around in annoyance. 'What else do you want from me, Math?!'

  Almost as if in respoo his irritation, the white text reappeared before him, right where it had been interrupted by Mirac's sudden awakening.

  And, uo turn his view, close his eyes, or make any other movement that might helped him ighe messages from Math, he found himself forced to read every single word that appeared before him.

  [ gratutions! ]

  [ You have obtained: Instant ting ]

  [ Instant ting: You instantly know the exaumber of objects or elements in any se or situation with a single gnce ]

  [ Current Range of "Instant ting": 0 → 50 ]

  Mirac stared at the white, floati with increasing fusion.

  'Instant ting?'

  With that, as if it had pleted its task, the starry sky began to retreat again, this time more slowly.

  In the meantime, before Mirac's sciousness drifted bato sleep, a sudden realization struck him: it recisely thanks to this unknown power—Instant ting—that he had been able to know the exaumber of objects around him earlier!