CHAPTER 201: CHAPTER-201

Kaya gently set the wooden horse aside and looked deeper into the box. There were a few more toys inside—a small wooden drum, clearly made for a child. But what really caught her attention was something tucked at the very back—a diary.

Paper.

She froze for a second, surprised. She reached in and pulled it out. The cover was made of worn leather, stitched together by hand. When she opened it, the pages felt rough under her fingers—nothing like the smooth paper she was used to. It looked homemade, uneven at the edges.

But that wasn’t what shocked her the most. Every page was filled with writing—lines and lines of neat characters in a language she didn’t understand. It looked like Japanese... or maybe Chinese. She wasn’t sure.

She flipped through the thick diary. Every single page was covered in those strange letters, written in a dark red ink. Or... maybe not ink. Whatever it was had dried long ago, leaving the words looking almost brown.

Kaya frowned. She couldn’t read a single word.

She bit her lip, thinking for a moment, then slid the diary into the inner pocket of her jacket.

"Okay," she said to Will, "let’s search somewhere else. There must be another place—this one’s already been turned upside down. There’s nothing here."

The third room they opened was almost identical to the first—just a little bigger, the bed wide enough for three or four people to sleep on. A small drawer sat in the corner, containing nothing but a few folded clothes. A hide lay crumpled at the foot of the bed, and a narrow window looked out onto the empty night. That was all.

Kaya and Veer came back downstairs. After searching the entire house, they’d found nothing useful. They weren’t even certain this had been Cutie’s mother’s home. Both of them were dead tired, but they knew this was the last place left to check. They had already combed the surrounding forest—there was nowhere else to look.

Kaya glanced at Veer, her expression serious.

"Let’s go."

Veer frowned, drawing out his words. "Why? We can just stay here. Looks good enough. Why not stay for the night?"

Kaya shook her head, taking his hand. "No. Let’s go."

That uneasy feeling had been clinging to her since the moment she stepped inside. The bats, the strange stillness... everything about the place screamed that it wasn’t safe. She wasn’t willing to spend a second longer here than necessary.

Without another word, Kaya and Will took off. Veer wrapped his arm firmly around Kaya’s waist, and with a single powerful leap, they soared into the air.

The night was beautiful. Cool air brushed against Kaya’s face as Veer held her close, his arms secure around her while they flew. The wind whispered past, but her mind was far away.

She couldn’t make sense of the diary’s contents—it wasn’t in a language she understood. Japanese, Chinese... she wasn’t sure. But the way it was written made one thing clear: the writer was educated. And in Kaya’s mind, the strongest possibility was that this person was from the modern world—just like her.

That thought unsettled her. Was she really the first to cross into this world? Or had it happened before? The words of QT and the others echoed in her memory—how they’d spoken of schools and learning that once existed, only to suddenly vanish. Could it be that modern people had come here before... perhaps often? But if so, why did it stop?

Kaya shook her head, trying to push away the spiraling questions.

"Hey.."

Suddenly, Veer’s voice cut through her thoughts. She turned to him and found his expression frozen in awe, his eyes wide as he pointed ahead.

"Look".

Kaya twisted to look—and her breath caught.

The moon hung impossibly large in the sky, luminous and close, as if they could reach out and touch it. The stars glittered sharply against the velvet dark, and for a moment, it felt like they were flying straight toward that silver giant.

Suspended in the open night, with nothing but the rush of air and the beat of wings, it was... breathtaking.

.

.

.

After they returned from their journey, Veer went straight to sleep.

Kaya, however, stayed awake. A glass of water sat on the stone table beside her, its surface catching the faint shimmer of the lamplight. Her diary lay open in front of her, and for a long moment she simply stared at its pages.

She turned one, then another, but the writing remained a wall she couldn’t climb.

"Damn it," she whispered to herself.

She had learned five languages in her life, yet neither Chinese nor Japanese was among them. And now—of all times—she regretted it.

Kaya didn’t know how long she had been staring at the diary before she slowly drifted off to sleep, her head resting on the stone table.

Veer, now awake, stepped out of his room and froze when he saw her sitting there. His expression shifted to surprise as he walked toward her quietly, his gaze falling to the open pages spread across the table.

Leaning in for a closer look, he barely had time to register the handwriting before Kaya jolted awake. In one swift motion, she grabbed the glass beside her and hurled it at him.

His wings flared open instantly—God knows where they had appeared from—and the water splashed harmlessly against them instead of his face.

He lowered his wings and said, "Kaya—"

Hearing his voice, she froze. Sweat still clung to her skin from the sudden rush, but her body slowly loosened in relief. She reached for her diary—only for him to speak again, his eyes still on the page.

"That day..."

Kaya blinked. "What the—? Wait... what?"

He read aloud, "That day I met her."

Her breath caught. "You... you can read this?"

Veer looked at her, hesitating for a moment before giving a single nod. "Yeah."

Kaya pointed at another line in the diary.

"Here. What’s this?"

Veer read aloud, "God of Beast, Benevolence."