1

The rain fell.

It was a Memorial Shower—a ritualistic rain meant to cleanse the scars left in the wake of a great battle. Innumerable droplets rained down from the sky, beckoned by the timbre of the Meteoric Symphonia’s performance to wash away all the blood and enmity. Down on the ground, soldiers drenched in those clear raindrops swung their swords as a final farewell.

It was a training grounds in Central East Town, the same place where bands were formed and trained to conquer the Catacombs. In the midst of this mournful shower, each and every one of the countless Solists endeavored to strengthen their swords, silently performing practice swings or taking part in training matches with their legs covered in mud.

To them, this was the most fitting form of mourning and of celebrating their survival.

Belle was among them.

Gaff, her opponent.

The two Solists’ swords clashed, making a particularly loud sound that was heard by everyone in the training grounds.

Belle Lablac, the lead performer in the recent battle against Tiziano, and Gaff Shandy, an Arch-Solist of Schwertland. Schwertmusik performed by two such distinguished Solists was bound to draw a crowd. It wasn’t a betting match, so there was no loud cheering, but every time their swords clashed, onlookers let out gasps of admiration.

Their swords were not simply hunks of metal; each one was a life grown to take the shape of a weapon, the entirety of it a single flower. It was said that a Solist earned the right to wield their sword when they became able to grasp the numerous images that resonated in the sound it played. Or putting it in more general terms, when they could hear the voice of the metal.

Those witnessing Belle and Gaff’s Schwertmusik were filled with awe at the depth of the music they were playing. Even simply listening to such exquisite Schwertmusik was a way for them to refine their own prowess as Solists.

But the performance came to a sudden stop.

“You’re injured,” Belle said, sounding surprised.

She was talking about Gaff. The audience stared on in amazement; none of them had noticed anything off about him. However, Belle was extremely good at reading the images that echoed from swords clashing. In reading those sounds and becoming one with her sword, she could grasp the mental and physical state of her opponent.

“It hardly hurts anymore. I didn’t think you’d be able to tell,” Gaff said, rubbing his abdomen over his training garb. He seemed quite surprised himself.

“I didn’t notice until just now,” replied Belle. “How’d it happen? Did you fight someone? I don’t know too many Solists good enough to cut your dominant hand, then stab you in the stomach.”

Belle had not only determined where he was hurt, but even correctly guessed how his injuries had been sustained. It was truly a remarkable talent that spoke to the depth of her unity with Runding.

“…That battle polished your skills even further,” Gaff grumbled.

He seemed to sense that it was futile trying to keep secrets from Belle, because he lowered his sword and walked over to whisper in her ear.

“I faced the warden of the Catacombs. Tom Collins. He was a tough opponent.”

Gaff had said it casually, but his words made Belle feel as if she’d just been hit over the head with a hammer. She stared up into his face, wet from the rain, unable to believe what she’d just heard.

“Why…? The battle was over,” she said, her voice raspy. The sight she’d seen while exiting the cave flashed vividly through her mind.

By the time Belle and Adonis had made it out of the crimson confines of Tiziano’s stomach, Kitty had already left. They’d parted ways with the underdog Solists, then Adonis had guided the four remaining members of their band out of the cave: Adonis, Belle, Guinness—who’d lost his left arm—and the one-eyed Benet who was carrying him on his back.

When the four of them emerged, the looks on the faces of the worn-down Solists who’d been fighting that whole time to hold the cave entrance had changed instantly. Every one of them praised the quartet’s survival, and the Director, who’d given his all to keep the Catacombs safe, personally came to greet them and offer them healing. That was how moved they were by the sight of the four Solists returning from battle injured and maimed.

There were no grudges anymore; everyone shared in the pain and sorrow, caring for their injured comrades. It was only when she touched on that realization that Belle truly felt for the first time that the battle was over.

All that remained was for them to receive their reward money and report the events that had transpired inside the cave.

And yet…

“It wasn’t over. At least, it wasn’t at that point,” Gaff said, a hateful firmness in his voice. “Everything about the battle, down to the final band, was in accordance with the king’s divine proclamation.”

“What happened to Tom Collins?! Don’t tell me you…”

“I slew him.”

His voice was completely flat.

Belle was speechless. Thoughts flew noisily through her mind and anger flickered in her eyes. Something warm ran down her rain-wet cheeks.

Gaff was acting like he’d done nothing wrong. As if his actions were the obvious, right thing to do. That thought shook Belle to the core.

“…Your sword is the last thing I’d ever want to die to.”

The world around Belle seemed to blur. Only Gaff’s sword remained clear.

A flicker of anguish passed across the man’s face.

EMOCLEW

That pure, harsh blade, clear like rose-colored imperial topaz, was etched with a spell meaning “Kingdom.” Carved directly from the God Tree, Gaff’s sword signified his status as a top dog Arch-Solist and his position in charge of the ivory priests who managed the Hall of Blades.

“…Even with the final band, the Catacombs didn’t fall. As was predicted. However, regardless of the circumstances, I cannot draw my blade in opposition to the king’s divine words. I am permitted to wield my sword in the place of my many comrades who become priests and sealed their own.”

Gaff spoke in a tone Belle had never heard from him before. It felt like a mixture of pain and pride from having to endure something.

“Please understand, Belle. This is my fate, as royalty born in the castle.”

Seeing Gaff plead with her for the first time, Belle realized with a start how she was gripping her sword. Her blade was fixed on Gaff, and Runding howled with rage. Belle shook her head violently. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands, then glared at Gaff.

“…The only thing I understand is that a guy like you is going to become the king of Park.”

Gaff nodded firmly. The EMOCLEW spell was given to those who would succeed the throne.

“That is why I’m in this country. To try to live by my own sense of justice. That was why I couldn’t follow your teacher, or the one who forged your sword.”

…He’s the same, Belle thought.

Gaff’s words just now had the same quality as Belle’s oath to depart on her journey and Adonis’s goal of questioning God.

But at that moment, Belle didn’t have it in her to listen to him. She coldly returned his gaze and shook her head sternly.

“I don’t know why you’d go so far as to offer yourself up to the God Tree.”

“Belle…”

“Sorry, but I don’t feel like sparring with you any more today,” she said curtly, turning her back on Gaff and striding away. But after a few steps, Belle stopped and turned around. A stab of pain had gone through her heart.

The sight of Gaff standing all alone in the Memorial Shower made him feel so awfully far away.

“…Let me know when your wounds heal.”

Gaff smiled sadly at her in response.

Belle walked hunched over with her head hung low, but her steps were swift. Because of this, she ended up bumping into someone as she turned a corner. Looking up in surprise, Belle saw an unfamiliar woman sitting on her backside covering her face with her hands.

Blood trickled from the gaps between her fingers. It seemed like Runding’s pommel had struck her in the bridge of the nose. As Belle stood there, stunned, the woman looked up at her with teary eyes.

She was a Cateyes, and a dainty one at that. Running into her had felt like swiping a hand at a butterfly drawn to a lamp. She had that kind of fragile charm to her, which made Belle feel all the more apologetic.

“I’m sorry… It was an accident,” Belle said.

She offered the woman a hand, feeling ashamed that she hadn’t noticed her there. Belle had been so lost in thought after what Gaff had said.

I betrayed them…!

Emotion surged up within her, and she was helpless to stop it. Belle hadn’t actually done anything, of course, but while she’d been complacently thinking that the battle was over, the people who’d fought beside her had kept on fighting. She had simply been ignorant of it all. That pain and regret kept eating away at her.

“The city certainly is a place overflowing with pain, isn’t it?” the woman suddenly said.

Belle was shaken. It felt like the woman had just read her mind. But a person she’d never met before couldn’t have such insight into her feelings. The woman was simply ruminating on the pain she’d just felt.

“Yeah, sorry. It’s my fault for spacing out and not looking where I was going. Can you stand?”

But rather than take Belle’s hand, the woman stared at the blood on her own hands with curiosity. The white fabric of the gloves, which looked remarkably soft, was stained with blood. Then, for whatever reason, she licked the blood.

“It tastes of iron,” she said, looking up at Belle with a carefree smile.

It was the happiest expression Belle had ever seen on someone bleeding from their nose. She could only stare at the woman slack-jawed, unsure of what to make of any of this. The woman was still sitting on the flagstones.

“I suppose I’m just not used to walking around town. I’ve been falling over nonstop, you see. Bumping into people, tripping down stairs… But this is the first time I’ve been injured. That really surprised me! Who knew blood could come out of a person’s nose like that?” She put a hand to her cheek and giggled.

The woman lowered her hand. Her fur, a lotus-pink color fringed with pearly white, was dirtied with mud in a weird pattern.

She was so incredibly unconcerned by everything. The woman suddenly seemed to notice Belle’s outstretched hand and, with her muddy gloves, took it in both of hers, pulling herself up.

…I don’t think she did this to get even with me, Belle thought, looking at her hand, which was now spattered with mud.

“Goodness, what a large sword you have! You must be a Solist. You don’t much look the part, though,” the woman said, her innocent smile intact.

“Are you all right? You’re not hurt anywhere else, are you?”

Belle ignored the woman’s inquisitive gaze and took out a handkerchief. She wiped off her hand, then used it to clean the woman’s face of mud and caked blood. The blood, in particular, took some effort to get off. The woman just stood there, obediently letting Belle wipe her face, making Belle wonder who in the world she was. She wasn’t just being submissive or meek—it was more like she thought it was only natural that someone should wipe her face for her.

Is she royalty…?

She was probably from a wealthy, noble family, the likes of which had handmaids to look after their every need and practically never left the castle to venture into town. And because of that, she’d ended up as a person blissfully devoid of common sense.

“You on your own? Where are you off to without an umbrella?” Belle asked.

The woman looked at Belle, enthralled, apparently quite taken by her rough tone. She nodded excitedly.

“I was permitted to go outside for the first time. Walking around town all on your own is lovely, is it not? I was given an umbrella when I left the castle…but I didn’t know how to open it, so I threw it away.”

Belle was aghast. She didn’t even know how to open an umbrella? Belle couldn’t comprehend how the woman didn’t know something like that. Did she not know how unusual that lack of knowledge was? But even if Belle pointed that out, it’s not like it would get the point across.

Hearing that, Belle was positive: This woman had to be the daughter of some noble. Probably one of the members of the Art Symphonia who defended the castle. A sheltered noble lady, as it were. And considering how incredibly innocent, careless, and unconcerned she was, she had likely been given some sort of important position in the castle. Otherwise, they wouldn’t raise her like a bird in a gilded cage.

Feeling a bit fed up, Belle looked around. With Runding’s help, she used her naturally sharp senses to the fullest of their abilities to confirm that there were indeed people nearby, hiding and watching over the woman’s every step despite the rain pouring down. The young lady was the only one under any illusion that she was walking around town alone.

They’re not going to arrest me, are they…? On the charge of giving her a nosebleed?

Belle was seriously concerned. She was in a bad mood as it was, and if she ended up being blamed for something so trivial, she wasn’t sure she’d have the patience to retain her composure.

“Um, Madam Solist…?”

“What?” Belle replied in a high-pitched voice that surprised even her. “Call me Belle. That’s my name.”

“Oh!”

The woman put her hands over her mouth, leaving a new smear of mud on her jaw.

Is she stupid? Belle wondered as she sighed and wiped it off again. The woman looked at Belle as if she knew her.

“You’re Belle Lablac, aren’t you?”

Belle nodded. Apparently, she’d become more famous than she realized.

Come to think of it, the woman hadn’t reacted at all to Belle’s appearance, which didn’t coincide with any race. Instead, she just eyed her curiously—an action that rubbed Belle the wrong way. Having a woman who was the very picture of beauty stare at a strange-looking girl like her made her feel incredibly self-conscious.

However, the woman put her hands to her chest, visibly moved.

“You’re incredible!” she exclaimed with wonder.

Belle’s eyes bulged in their sockets.

“Wh-what…?”

“So gallant and noble… And you must be very strong. You’re every bit the person Shandy said you are!”

This time, Belle’s mouth hung open with shock. She almost felt like she was being made fun of, but the woman seemed far too guileless for that, like a single bright flower blooming in an empty field.

“Achoo!”

Suddenly, the woman sneezed loudly, bringing Belle back to her senses.

“You’ll catch a cold if you stay out here. Go back to the castle and ask them to show you how to open an umbrella,” Belle said, sounding half concerned and half sarcastic. Even Belle wasn’t sure which one she had intended.

The woman, however, narrowed her eyes and shook her head.

“I’m fine,” she said firmly.

Maybe she was more stubborn than Belle had assumed.

“I just feel a bit odd because I bumped my nose,” the woman continued. “This rain would never consider making an enemy of me. After all, it was my singing that beckoned it.”

Belle made a noncommittal sound and just bobbed her head amicably before the meaning of those words sank in.

“Wait… Your singing did?”

The woman nodded in affirmation, leaving Belle shocked once again. Apparently, her “sheltered young lady” guess had been right on the mark.

Memorial Showers were an important ritual performed by several groups, including the Meteoric Symphonia, the Farm Symphonia, and the Art Symphonia.

However, it was also a dangerous, elaborate performance that, with just a single mistake, could deal a crippling blow to Park City’s agriculture. For that reason, the castle Singer who oversaw the ritual was required to have transcendent abilities capable of making nature itself heed their call and the skill to incorporate all the Symphonies’ music into their own song.

And this woman had just said it was her voice that did that. It was an arrogant-sounding statement that only made sense if it came from the lips of the one leading the castle Singers.

“No way. Don’t tell me, you’re…”

It was only then that Belle registered the name of the Solist the woman had mentioned.

“Wait. By Shandy, you mean…?”

The woman’s eyes widened, as if she’d just remembered something.

“Oh, bother. That’s right. I came here to meet Shandy.” She looked around the streets anxiously, then turned to face Belle with a pleading expression. “Why, I’ve gotten completely turned around. Could you tell me how to get to the Solists’ training grounds?”

Belle was sure she was right about the woman’s identity. But she still needed to confirm it.

“I’ll walk you there to make up for bumping into you. In exchange, could you tell me your name and who you are to Shandy?”

The woman gasped, “Oh,” and clapped her muddied hands to her cheeks in embarrassment.

Belle didn’t even have a chance to stop her.

“My apologies for not introducing myself earlier. My name is Sherry. I came here to see Arch-Solist Gaff Shandy,” the princess said casually, unaware of the muddy handprints on her cheeks.

2

Belle had been right: The woman she’d bumped into was the princess.

Sherry, King Rawhide’s beloved daughter, who had been a songstress since she was a young girl and currently stood at the head of all other Singers.

That same woman was currently in Benet’s house.

“I can’t believe you just showed up here and dropped this troublesome situation right into my lap…,” the one-eyed archer said exasperatedly, looking very much put on the spot.

“Where else could I have gone?” Belle asked. “Gaff wasn’t around, and you’re the only person I know with clothes that’ll fit her.”

Most clothes for Mermaids were androgynous. Benet had a particularly large number of feminine clothes, though, since he’d spent a relatively long time as a female.

“What do you think would happen if rumors spread that the princess is wearing my clothes…? Just thinking about it makes me feel sick. I have my reputation to consider, Belle.”

Benet’s words were met with a burst of laughter. It was Guinness, smiling cheerfully with a glass in his hand, day drinking.

“In your case, it’s a bad reputation, Benet. Maybe people would buy it if she was a town noble, but who’s gonna believe you’re in bed with a member of royalty? You’ve only got yourself to blame for having no standards.”

In other words, Benet’s romantic exploits were so widely talked about that people thought he would sleep with just about anyone.

“Shut up, you drunk. You don’t know the hardships that come with being a Mermaid who can only live in a man’s body.”

Set on the table were food and bottles of liquor for two. Benet and Guinness had mostly been finished with their meal when Belle and Sherry got there. They had been venting their dissatisfaction with the castle and the top dog Solists and making fun of their hypocrisy, when Belle had arrived on their doorstep with the very symbol of the kingdom—Princess Sherry. Benet had looked at her with pity in his eyes, while Guinness had laughed out loud. It turned out the pair made for a maudlin drunk and a merry drunk.

Sherry was currently washing off the mud and warming up her cold body. But even getting her into the bath had been an endeavor.

Belle had come seeking help from the female Benedictine, only to find a pair of drunk men. She’d forced them into one corner of the house and forcibly occupied the bath, the section of hallway leading up to it, and a small room.

It was then that Sherry had opened her mouth again, dropping the bombshell that she didn’t know how to take off her clothes by herself. Even though her dress was quite elaborate, Belle thought there was no way she couldn’t remove her own clothes and left her to her own devices… Only to be rendered speechless when Sherry let out a yelp a couple minutes later, having been caught up in her muddied dress like a spider tangled in its own web. For a second, Belle had wanted to just cut the clothes off her with Runding, but she’d restrained herself and helped Sherry out of the dress.

When the princess stood in the bathroom, her translucent skin completely exposed, Belle couldn’t help but stare at her in amazement. It was the first time she’d ever looked at another woman and thought that she was beautiful. Sherry’s physique was markedly different from a Solist like Belle’s. She wasn’t curvy—but slender, soft, and willowy. In a word: refined.

Just then, Belle had heard a murmur of appreciation from behind her.

“Hey, stop that,” she whispered menacingly, turning around to glare at the men.

The two of them ran off at once. Belle had followed slowly, standing in the room and staring daggers at the drunks.

“I’m warning you. If you go into that room, you better be ready for—”

But before Belle was able to finish her sentence, the pair’s expressions had melted into improper grins.

“Say, Belle, what is this for?”

Belle put her hand to her head tiredly. Sherry was standing next to her, fully naked, holding a water crystal sealed with hot water. Benet and Guinness were leering shamelessly. Sherry had always been dressed by her handmaids, and her everyday actions were bound by social protocol and rules. With none of those influences present at the moment, she didn’t have a lick of common sense.

“You’re supposed to break it,” Belle had said, pushing her back into the bathroom. “When you do, hot water comes out…”

“Oh, so you break it?”

She didn’t have a chance to stop her. By the time Belle realized what she was doing, Sherry had smashed the water crystal, filled with enough hot water to fill an entire bathtub, on the floor. This particular crystal also had a piece of a bubble flower mixed into it, and in no time at all, the room had filled with steam, water had seeped beneath every door, and the entire house had filled with white citrus-scented bubbles.

Benet was speechless. The water crystal had been expensive enough by itself, but the carpet decorating the living room floor had been as high-quality as the one furnishing Adonis’s space inside Bamboo’s stomach. Yet it had only taken a single broken water crystal to ruin it beyond repair.

The shock of it all had sobered Benet up in an instant. Guinness, on the other hand, simply rolled around on the floor laughing.

“Is this not enough water to fill the bath?” Sherry had asked, confused.

Belle had been at a loss for words.

“You better take responsibility for this, Belle, and teach her how to do it. This is all clearly a mistake,” Benet said, looking as if he was moments away from bursting into tears.

“Oh… Sherry?”

“Yes?”

“Let’s go in together.”

Sherry nodded, looking absolutely delighted by the idea. Her smile was radiant, and Belle was completely at its mercy.

After another flurry of Sherry’s seemingly endless eccentric behavior, Belle had found herself sitting at the table with Benet and Guinness. She was wearing a shirt and pants she’d borrowed from Benet, her skin still flushed from the hot water and steam. Catching the two men sneaking glances at her, Belle felt a rising exasperation at how incorrigible they were.

Sherry, the most incorrigible of them all, was still in the bath. Belle had gotten out, unsure of what the point of being in there for long was, and Sherry had watched her with a sad look on her face, then said she’d stay in the bath for a bit longer.

“Anyway, I’ll tell Gaff. Directly. I don’t want to draw the attention of an Arch-Solist over this. You go wait with her at your place,” Benet said firmly to Belle.

“That’s real rich from someone who was peeking at her,” Belle retorted. “I don’t get why you were so curious. You’re half female.”

Benet shrugged, and Belle suddenly regretted saying that.

“There isn’t much I can do about that,” he said regrettably.

Ever since the battle in the Catacombs, Benet had lost the ability to change at will into a woman, forcing him to live as a man. It must be a painful blow for any Mermaid. He’d constantly have to grapple with it, like a disability of sorts.

“I’m still the same Benedictine, though,” he said, a hint of sadness in his expression.

It was possible that Benedictine the woman had truly died back there, along with his left eye. The thought filled Belle with sorrow. She wasn’t even sure why, because all her interactions with the female Benedictine had been negative and filled with abuse hurled at Belle.

“Is that your excuse for not being able to tell the difference between love and lust lately?” Guinness teased, letting out a laugh.

Benet frowned. “That’s a real sharp tongue you’ve got there. You’re one to talk, completely infatuated with that underdog girl. You’ve even picked up her foul-mouthed habits recently.”

The image of that cheerful Froggie girl flickered across the back of Belle’s mind.

Suddenly, Belle found herself unsure whether to bring up the battle in the Catacombs with these two. While they’d all thought the battle was over, the underdogs had still been fighting for their lives.

But then Sherry came out of the bath.

“Look, Belle. I managed to dress myself.”

She was standing there wearing the outfit Benet had provided, looking genuinely happy.

It seemed Kitty the Nothing was walking around outside in the rain, because he wasn’t in Belle’s room when she got there.

“Oh! You have the same furniture set as Shandy,” Sherry said the moment she walked in, wistfully running a hand over Belle’s desk.

“He lent it to me. Gaff’s been a lifesaver, honestly.”

“Well, you have been quite helpful to me, too.”

Belle was a bit surprised to hear her say that. She thought the princess would take the idea of people assisting her for granted.

“I wish I could do something to repay your kindness…”

Sherry spoke with a tone that gave the impression that she was some terribly powerless figure. Certainly not what one would expect from the Head Songstress.

“Sing me a song,” Belle said casually, sitting down on the bed.

“A song…?” Sherry asked, looking surprised.

“Yeah. I want to hear you sing.”

“What should I sing, though? Nothing in this room is broken, and the pillar looks quite sturdy… And I can’t stop the rain.”

Belle snickered, recalling the time when she’d said something similar to Kitty the All. In response, Kitty said that the woman they were listening to had just sung for the sake of singing.

“That’s fine. I’d like to hear any song you want. Even if it produces nothing.”

Sherry cocked her head, trying to make sense of Belle’s words. Eventually, she seemed to come to an answer she was satisfied with. Standing in the center of the room, she straightened her back and closed her eyes.

Sherry’s voice transformed into song. It was a dramatic moment. What was a speaking voice just moments earlier reverberated as a melody, countless sounds delicately and intricately weaving together. At times quiet, at others intense, her beautiful voice resounded through the room. It was an incredible performance, the likes of which impressed upon Belle that this was the power of the divine priestess who stood at the top of the castle Singers.

Something was stirring. The movement wasn’t visible to the eye, but objects seemed to take form and manifest at the guidance of Sherry’s voice—the wood that made up the desk, the threads of the carpet, the dimly lit surface of the glowstone lamps. Belle’s sword and the O’crock hanging from her neck trembled, resonating with the song, while her complexion improved, and her hair shone.

All things with form, retrace the memories of your original nature and be reborn.

That was the meaning of the song. The invisible will behind the shape of things, of the nature of wood and stone and flesh, was given form and allowed to manifest. At that moment, joy and sorrow mingled together, with the song drawing out the emotions of those materials.

In so doing, aging, decaying matter was allowed to be reborn by the will of its form. Yet this didn’t mean that the items reverted to their past state. Strangely, even though the scratches on the table faded away, even at a glance, you could tell they’d been there. The furniture reverted to being practically brand-new, but it remained old at heart. The contrast created a complex, pained atmosphere that spoke to the memory of how those wounds had been inflicted.

Belle listened to the song, engrossed. The din of the rain outside melted into the melody, blurring and twisting together, and when the song finally faded, only the pattering of raindrops lingered in her ears.

As the room settled into silence, the princess let out a tired sigh.

“Thank you,” Belle said. “That was wonderful.”

“It’s the first time someone has ever asked me to repay a favor with song.”

Sherry shrugged, smiling, and seeing this made Belle pity her for some reason. The words left her lips before she knew it, so spontaneous that, at first, Belle didn’t realize that she’d been the one to say them.

“Your singing sounds so pained.”

In an instant, Sherry’s expression changed. She looked frightened, as if Belle had just thrust a sword at her. Face-to-face with her, Belle was rendered speechless.

“Sherry…?”

Seeing Belle’s reaction, Sherry quickly gave her a smile. It seemed incredibly forced.

Overcome with anxiety, Belle got to her feet. She was worried the other woman might burst into tears or even faint. Sherry retreated half a step.

A knock at the door sounded, breaking the tension that had formed between them.

“Shandy…!”

The door opened, and an impressively built Cateyes man stood there. Belle’s shoulders dropped in relief. She wasn’t quite sure what she was so relieved about, though.

“There you are, Sherry. I never would’ve expected to find you here, at Belle’s place…”

“Forgive me. I imposed on her. But she’s just as you described: strong, gallant, and…” Sherry turned to face Belle. “Deeply empathic. Frighteningly perceptive.”

Belle could sense that behind her smile was a hint of genuine fear.

“Sorry, Belle,” Gaff said. “For all the trouble…”

“It’s fine.” Belle waved a hand and tried to keep her tone as cheerful as possible. “I’ve given you my fair share of trouble as well. If anything, I should be the one apologizing.”

“Thank you…”

Gaff put his arm around Sherry’s shoulders. In that moment, Belle realized even more acutely that the person she’d just been spending time alone with truly was the royal princess of the kingdom.

The two exited Belle’s room while nuzzling up to one another.

Left alone, Belle sat on the bed. She reached out for Runding almost unconsciously, pulling the sword into her embrace.

She heard a chime. Ring. The O’crock marked the time, turning the hue of the violet hour. Seeing that heather-colored stone made Belle feel terribly forlorn all of a sudden, as if she’d been left behind.

3

On that rainy evening, a lone figure stood without an umbrella under the cold, clear droplets. Despite that, his body wasn’t wet whatsoever. He was covered in formulas from top to bottom, meticulously calculated to keep the raindrops away.

Kitty the All.

His crimson eyes were coldly fixed on one corner of a wall surrounding three towns.

NNNOOOWWWHHHEEERRREEE…!

Wails of lamentation echoed incessantly in the dark. There, in that gloomy area where the sun didn’t reach, shadowy figures gathered to raise their voices in phantasmagoric howls.

They were those who had turned their backs on the world’s greatest Thema, pleasure, and rejected all light in their hearts, instead choosing to writhe in the dark. They stood outside the walls, calling to those who would become their comrades.

“How many will be beckoned by the dream of purgatory…?” Kitty mused. Just then, he sensed a presence behind him. “My word. You do have a penchant for appearing behind people’s backs, don’t you?”

Kitty turned, his icy red eyes reflecting the image of a mature Cateyes man. The man was dripping wet all over, from the top of his head down to his fingertips. He held a pipe to his lips, which curved in an indomitable smile as if he relished the chilly rain lashing down on him. The smoke he blew out was a magical illusion. He hadn’t actually smoked in a long time.

Kitty glanced at the sword hanging from the man’s waist. It was no poorly made weapon, but a powerful blade, the sharpness of which was visible even sheathed in its scabbard.

“I can’t draw this sword quite yet,” the man said, following Kitty’s gaze. “I will need your help a little while longer, wandering prince.”

“Do you ever truly intend to draw it? I was put through quite the predicament in those caves of the Catacombs, I’ll have you know. Albeit, I did get to grow closer to the Girl of Reason as a result.”

“There must be a Skeptic to Reason. A time will come when such a presence is necessary,” said the man, as if thanking Kitty for carrying out his mission during that battle.

Hearing the man’s cryptic-sounding response, Kitty’s crimson eyes glinted in the darkness and rainfall. His shapely harelip curled into a smile that was charming at first glance but, if one looked at it too long, it could come across as incredibly cruel.

“Now, then… The Girl of Reason has but one task left for her divine symphony. What shall it be?” Kitty asked in a whisper.

“Deus Ex Machina always craves Solists who seek to abandon it.”

“Hmm… Much like how the gods of yore left Earth behind and shattered their own bodies in the process?”

“Indeed. However, Yggdrasil seeks to achieve this using dying ashes.”

“Dying ashes, you say? Well then… What if I were to tell you that I have some on me?” Kitty said, suddenly placing a hand on one of the pockets of his red waistcoat.

“I don’t know how you came by them, but I hope you’ll give them to me before long,” the man said.

“Now, what would you do if I were to determine those who desire them to be ja?”

“Ja… I haven’t heard that in a long while. A word from Denariland. Here we call such evil Nidhogg, those who gnaw at the roots of the God Tree attempting to destroy it. And those who perish at the hands of Nidhogg, gaining eternity through never-ending death, are the Deus Ex Machina, wandering prince.”

Leaving himself defenselessly exposed to those red eyes, the man turned his gaze to the shadowy figures. His guard looked full of openings, yet at the same time, he was infuriatingly intimidating.

Kitty turned to look at the shadows as well. “You want to include those things in the Paradise Shift to bring about the coming era…?” he whispered.

“And yet,” the man continued undaunted, “it is ja and Nidhogg that lay waste to Deus Ex Machina, is it not? You know that the first recorded Paradise Shift gave birth to the Anti-Thema—to magic. It is by summoning Nidhogg that the world brings about change and reform. And if it’s to achieve that purpose…I will gladly betray even the Reason I raised.”

“But you called the Girl of Reason your hope, did you not? So why?”

“Why, indeed…? Perhaps my duty as Enola is compelling me to do so,” the man said with a carefree smile. “Hope is a flower that blooms in the swamp of despair. One that will be blown away when the wind comes, like a messenger flower.”

“A bird flower that carries the corpse of your words…?”

“Precisely. And one day, it will herald in the Paradox, who will turn their back on God’s Words. Whether they want to or not…”

“You’re an eccentric one. I struggle to grasp your ways.”

“That’s for the best,” the man said with a nod.

A fearless smile was painted across his face.

4

Belle felt troubled.

The world was incredibly dull. Yet she couldn’t quite put her finger on why it was dull. All she knew was that she’d been in this mood ever since Sherry had visited. The moment she’d seen Gaff put his arm around Sherry’s shoulders, Belle had felt something. She didn’t know what that feeling meant, though, and it left her extremely depressed.

It was the first time she’d ever felt like this.

Once the king revealed her final mission, Belle assumed her mood would instantly change and she’d focus on that. Unfortunately, however, the entire castle was currently in the middle of the memorial ceremony, which would continue for a while.

There were battles going on every day, but according to Gaff, Belle would only be selected for a major battle. That meant she spent her days avoiding spending time alone in her room, hanging out with Guinness and Benet instead. So naturally, they were the first people Belle turned to for advice.

“You’re in love,” Benet concluded right away, his voice firm.

Holding her head in her hands, Belle sighed. “You think I’m in love with Gaff? No way. I’d know if I was.”

“Uh-uh. Thinking you know when you actually don’t is part of being in love… Right?” Guinness said, turning to face Benet, who nodded gravely.

The two of them were drunk—and on Belle’s tab.

They were at On the Rocks. Belle had introduced them to the place after the battle in the Catacombs, and the pair had quickly become permanent fixtures. Kitty and Adonis joined the group every now and then, and Belle sometimes sat with them, but most of the time it was just Benet and Guinness.

Between the one-armed Guinness, one-eyed Benet, and featureless Belle, their table looked like a group of ostracized, injured soldiers licking their wounds. Losing an eye or an arm was certainly a career-ending injury for a soldier, but these two didn’t feel that way. To Benet and Guinness, while their impairments made life harder, they didn’t feel as if they’d suffered some great misfortune.

Belle didn’t know how hard or pained their days had become since the battle in the Catacombs. That said, when she sat there with them, she got the feeling she didn’t need to know. They were brimming with the will and determination to overcome any obstacles.

The one-armed Libretto, Guinness, had further honed the skills he’d displayed in the Catacombs and was gradually gaining a reputation for his tactical brilliance. Rumor had it that the day when his sword would be replaced for that of a Conductor was fast approaching. A Libretto being promoted to a Conductor was akin to a Solist being promoted to an Arch-Solist. Conductors’ swords could be swung in one hand, and this one factor had been the catalyst that caused Guinness’s tenacity and genius to blossom. It was hard to imagine that same man was currently drinking himself silly here.

The one-eyed archer Benet, on the other hand, was polishing his own talents as a Director, doing away with his former pretentious ways and developing his barrier skills. His once-average barriers were now steel walls that guarded the lives of Solists. At this point, Benet was also the only Director who could keep up with Guinness’s tactics. His barriers were ferociously strong and so natural that they could instantly adapt to whatever strange and sudden changes in formation the situation called for. Rumor had it that with Benet as Director, even battles that were doomed to fail ended up with fewer than half the casualties they would’ve had otherwise. Furthermore, rather than using his eyes, Benet relied on his keen hearing to aim, which allowed him to shoot opponents hiding in the dark or through walls.

People so well regarded as these two would by no means be considered ostracized, injured soldiers. Seeing the two of them drinking merrily, teasing Belle for coming to them for advice, honestly pleased her. They were all proud of having survived the battle for the Catacombs and had a firm resolve after what they’d lost. This was by no means a group of wounded soldiers licking their wounds and drinking to try to chase away the darkness.

Belle had been going to pay anyway, as an apology for Sherry ruining Benet’s room, but it seemed the two men were determined to drink so much she’d even have to pawn Runding off for some denari.

“I guess this is a tough problem even for a master tactician like you,” Benet joked.

“Now then, a script that would happily bind Arch-Solist Gaff with our brutish princess Belle…” Guinness put his hand to his forehead and hummed pensively for a moment, then noisily slammed the table. “It’s not impossible!”

Benet applauded him excitedly.

“Give me a break…,” Belle said with a sigh. She couldn’t remember how many times she’d said that today.

She knew they weren’t serious; they were just happy to have someone to joke around with. And teasing Belle in particular was Benet and Guinness’s favorite pastime when drinking. The two of them were ruthless.

They had been ribbing her the entire evening, but Belle wasn’t offended. After all, it just showed how fond of her they were. While she was grateful for that, of course, it did mean they were of no help to her when it came to actual advice.

The way Benet and Guinness saw it, whatever emotional turmoil Belle was going through, they were confident she could work it out on her own. By poking fun at her, they would teach Belle to laugh off her problems.

Since Belle couldn’t quite put her finger on what troubled her, though, she couldn’t laugh without a care in the world. It was unreasonable to ask the two men to help her figure that out, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself from trying.

And so the day after she went drinking with Benet and Guinness, Belle made her way to Adonis’s room. Even a day later, she still felt that strange sense of loneliness, which had only grown stronger.

“You’re asking why you feel so lonely…?” Adonis whispered, pondering the question seriously.

He was still for a long moment, glaring into space like Belle had just hit him with an incredibly difficult question. To this man, the very act of someone asking another person for the reason behind their emotions was baffling. Even so, the fact that he furrowed his brow earnestly trying to come up with an answer was evidence of his friendship with Belle. This man was surprisingly frank and sincere.

Belle had recently learned that Adonis was honest to a fault. He was not good at lying or concealing the truth, and for that very reason, he was especially protective of things he felt he had to keep secret—to the point of removing them from the world altogether, if need be.

Adonis was currently sitting on his bed, his red bandanna resting on his lap, and he grumbled briefly. He and Belle were inside Bamboo’s stomach. He had let Belle visit the place several times already, so she felt very relaxed. It was a ticklish sort of feeling that warmed her heart, as if the very loneliness and unease she’d come to ask him about were alleviated just by being there.

“That princess…,” Adonis finally said, picking his words carefully. “Do you think the reason you feel this way isn’t because of Gaff, but because of her instead?”

“You think I’m in love with the princess?” Belle asked dubiously.

It felt like a wild conclusion to arrive at. Adonis scrunched up his face and waved his hand dismissively.

“Could you move on from the whole being-in-love idea? What you just said gave me the weirdest mental image.”

“…Feel free to keep that to yourself.”

“Trust me, I don’t want to talk about it, either… Listen, the way I see it, you’ll never be like that princess,” he said in a manner that somehow felt scathing.

“What do you mean?” Belle asked.

“You’re featureless,” he replied curtly.

That clarified what he meant—with all the swiftness of a dagger to the ribs. He was trying to say that Belle felt so uneasy because she disliked the way she looked. It didn’t feel altogether wrong, honestly. Standing next to Sherry’s beauty had made Belle more keenly aware of how abnormal her own appearance was. Even if it didn’t fully explain the reason behind her feeling of isolation, it did feel like one factor behind it. Still, it was a bit cruel of Adonis to say it outright.

“You don’t have to say it like that. Choose your words a bit more carefully, would you?”

“Don’t complain. You’re the one asking for advice,” Adonis replied coolly.

Belle had no comeback for that.

“Tch. I’m not the one judging people by how they look. It’s always men who do that.”

“Don’t take it the wrong way. I like the way you look.”

“You do…?” Belle chuckled dryly, but her heart did skip a beat.

“Sometimes I wish I could shave my ears, nose, and beard so I could look like you.”

“That’s kinda scary, you saying something like that.”

“It’s just what I think.”

Adonis smiled suddenly. It didn’t look self-derisive—oddly enough, it seemed bashful.

“Still, only going out on her own for the first time when she’s halfway through her youth…,” Adonis murmured, folding his arms.

He was talking about Sherry. Most people outside the walls started working when they were still children. Belle couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to be raised as a sheltered princess.

Suddenly, Adonis’s blue eyes turned to Belle. “How old are you, by the way…?” he said, sounding like he’d only just thought to ask.

All Belle could do was shrug. She knew how many years it had been since she came out of the stone egg, but a person’s age depended on their race. And since there wasn’t anyone else like Belle, she had no way of knowing how old she was. In other races, age was indicated by fur growing, ears standing upright, tails detaching, or webbing disappearing between fingers, but none of those could be applied to Belle.

“But you’re past your red age, right? Or not yet?”

The red age was when a woman’s body matured enough to birth offspring. Adonis’s expression was serious, though, so he wasn’t asking out of some vulgar sense of curiosity. Still, his way of asking was too blunt, and Belle frowned and glared at him.

“I mean, I am… But don’t ask a woman that directly, idiot!”

“Really? It’s important, though.”

“Important how, exactly? It’s got nothing to do with you!”

The edges of Adonis’s lips curled up into a faint smile.

“What do you think about having my children someday?” he asked, perfectly composed.

For a moment, all of Belle’s thoughts screeched to a halt.

“Wh-wh-wha…?”

She couldn’t form a complete word and instantly lost sight of Adonis’s true intentions. Belle felt like her knees were buckling, and her heart thumped loudly in her ears. Her entire body was on fire, yet her mind was so calm it seemed completely barren.

Silence followed. It was similar to the hush that had settled over them before the battle for the Catacombs, yet also somehow different. A strange atmosphere, both quiet and loud at the same time.

Adonis’s voice cut through the silence.

“If you do…maybe my kids will end up looking like you.”

By that point, Belle had regained enough composure to speak in complete sentences.

“Wait, what? Is that what you meant by wanting to look like me? It’s not like your children are you, you know!”

Belle’s voice naturally took on a scathing tone, but Adonis brushed it off with an unbothered expression.

“Of course I know that. I’d like both a son and a daughter.”

When members of different races had children, the boys typically inherited the father’s race, and the girls often took after their mother.

“I’m saying I want to bed you,” Adonis said frankly.

“…What’s prompted all this?” Belle asked.

“I’m not saying it just to look good or on a whim.”

“If you were, I’d be furious.”

Belle glared daggers at him, but Adonis just chuckled. That calmness of his was infuriating.

He jerked his chin, urging Belle to answer.

“…If there’s love there, sure,” Belle eventually managed to reply.

She didn’t mention who would love whom, but Adonis nodded, seemingly satisfied.

“Truth be told, I’m not exactly sure what made me say that… But I’m serious,” he said with a wide grin. It looked like he was really enjoying himself.

Come to think of it, Adonis had been in a good mood since she’d arrived.

He wasn’t normally the type of guy to readily give people advice. There were so many things in his heart he tried to lock away and keep suppressed that he had no room left for other people’s problems or concerns.

But today, for once, he was unguarded and frank. Although they were in Bamboo’s stomach, which had no doors or windows, the windows of his own heart were wide open. Ever since they’d returned from the battle in the Catacombs, the shadow that seemed to hang over him had cleared.

Something good must have happened. Something significant. And whatever it was, it had pushed Adonis to confess.

This was it. That was what her intuition was telling her. If she let this moment slip away, Belle couldn’t be sure she would ever have another chance to get a glimpse into Adonis’s feelings. And before she could think it through any further, she spoke up.

“Listen, there’s something I want to ask you. About your swords…”

“My swords…?” Adonis looked at her, baffled.

Belle nodded seriously, only for his expression to become more puzzled.

“What about them?”

“You can’t raise a sword, can you?” Belle asked straightforwardly.

It was a question that had been on her mind ever since she met Adonis, and the moment she asked, it felt like a weight was pressing down on her heart. Adonis, for his part, stared at Belle as if he was surprised. By the look on his face, he seemed to wonder why she’d want to ask about a strange thing like that.

“Oh yeah,” he eventually murmured.

“Huh…?”

“Now that you mention it…”

“Wh-what? If you don’t want to answer, that’s fine…”

“No, it’s not like that,” Adonis said with a wave of his hand. “It’s just, I realized I never said anything about it.”

“Huh…?”

“I sort of feel like I’ve told you everything at one point or another.”

“What?!”

“But come to think of it, I never had the chance… I just feel so relaxed around you. You really are strange, you know that?” Adonis nodded solemnly with a broad smile.

If anyone’s strange here, it’s you, Belle nearly said out loud, but instead she simply shrugged. Her nerves from their earlier discussion had dissipated, leaving her too tired to say much more.

“Well, if you feel like talking about it now…,” she muttered, her expression sullen.

Adonis laughed out loud. It was an incredibly unusual sight. Once he’d settled down, he reached for the wall. Belle could see in his eyes that he was resolved to tell her everything.

“Bamboo.”

There was a sudden clang, and a peg holding a sword appeared on the wall next to the bed.

It was a young sword about as long as an arm with a pale blue blade. The metal looked supple, and depending on how it was tempered, it could grow into an outstanding weapon. Adonis’s Question mark was carved under its original spell, a reminder of his reputation as a sword thief.

Adonis picked up the sword. His skin was in direct contact with the hilt, having taken off the glove on his right hand.

“This is my curse. I’ve carried it since the day I was born.”

EEE…

Runding, resting besides Belle, let out a faint howl.

Suddenly, Belle heard a scream. It was coming from the man’s sword. The metal in Adonis’s hand let out a silent cry of agony that reverberated through Belle’s mind.

“How is this possible…?” Belle asked, dumbstruck.

The sword was wilting. The blade gradually clouded over and cracks formed on the surface as it grew into a warped shape. Adonis’s multitude of emotions transformed into a single red-hot current, which surged into the sword through his hand. It was a ferocious response. The weapon was quite literally turning into a part of his body, causing it to be directly exposed to this abnormal power from which there was no escape.

Belle recalled what Kitty had told her in the Catacombs: that the stronger Adonis’s feelings were, the faster and more intensely the object he held decayed and broke apart.

As the metal decayed, Adonis’s hands—or rather, his claws—also began to change. The more he seemed to react to the sword, the more his claws took on the color of rust. His five rust-red nails dug into the sword’s grip, and he appeared pained. He’d been seated on the bed the whole time, and now his gloved left hand was sunk deep into the flesh of his thigh, gripping it hard.

Adonis swung the sword through the air, and it snapped halfway down the blade with a clear, hollow sound, the tip flying off toward the wall. Fragments crumbled to the floor. It was incredibly fragile. What had been the smooth, supple metal of a young sword just moments ago had wilted entirely. The sword’s will had dissipated, leaving a corpse in its wake.

“It’s just like you said: I can’t raise a sword. This is the reason why,” Adonis said matter-of-factly.

He tossed away the shattered sword, which vanished along with the broken fragments, presumably disposed of by Bamboo. Would that sword, now just a wreck, be abandoned somewhere Belle couldn’t see? Just the thought of it sent a chill down her spine.

“How did this happen to you…?” Belle asked.

Goosebumps covered her skin, and her ears were still ringing from the sword’s silent scream.

“A Nomad’s curse.”

Belle’s eyes went wide as saucers, unable to hide her shock.

The Catacombs were a neutral sacred ground that transcended the boundary between top dogs and underdogs. The underdogs only happened to be more familiar with the structure of the caves because they were outsiders themselves. Anyone, even underdogs, who infringed upon the sanctity of the Catacombs was struck down by their wardens, the Collins clan. Likewise, anyone, including top dogs, was welcome to come and pay their respects to the dead laid to rest there.

One day, an elderly traveler visited the Catacombs. He wasn’t from a race native to Schwertland, and the Collins clan recognized him as a Nomad on sight. The man had sensed his death was fast approaching, and upon meeting the wardens, he told them he’d come there seeking a place to die and asked them to bury him.

The reason he had picked the Catacombs in which to die was because of the raven flowers. They sprouted as many flowers as the number of relatives a person had left and took flight to their homeland, to which they would never return, to inform loved ones of their passing. This was the end Nomads, who lived and died on the road, sought for themselves.

In exchange for his burial, the Nomad proposed to spend his last remaining days helping the Collins clan with their business. The Collinses agreed, and for a time, the Nomad fought off intruders to the Catacombs.

Everything about that man was unknown. Even now, Adonis knew nothing about him save that he was a man. He did not speak his name, his race, or his place of origin—only that he was a Nomad.

He used a special, nameless weapon to protect the graves, and just before his time was up, the man died in combat. Maybe that was how he preferred to go.

Adonis’s father, Tom Collins, who had been fighting in the same area at the time, discovered the man lying stabbed and bloodied in the dark caves. The Catacombs were divided into several areas, and ‘Collins’ didn’t refer to a single bloodline but was the title common to the protectors of those areas.

To Tom, the Nomad who had fought to protect the same area as him was akin to a member of his clan. His death brought him sorrow. All around him were the bodies of many Solists, and this brave man had held his ground alone against so many. The knowledge that he had done so much just to repay the debt for his burial stirred Tom’s heart.

This man was his brother-in-arms, so he decided to try to nurse him back to health. But as Tom tried to pick him up, the man looked at him and said something peculiar:

“You mustn’t touch my blood.”

Unfortunately, by that point, he was already cradling the man’s bloodied body in his arms. Having fought fiercely himself earlier, he was covered in wounds, too.

Tom shuddered. He could feel something flowing into his body from those wounds. That feeling that caused him to shudder ultimately saved Tom Collins’s life. The Nomad’s blood brought upon a curse—and with it, a trial. In conquering and accepting his fear, Tom didn’t experience the curse’s effects.

“A Nomad’s curse…,” the man said, his voice morose. “A Nomad’s curse is passed on by blood. Tell them to believe. That one day this curse will become a blessing…”

He didn’t specify to whom. And with that, the man expired in Tom Collins’s arms.

As promised, he was buried, and raven flower seeds were scattered over his grave. The flowers that bloomed from his remains flew off to the many people he had met over the course of his journey.

Adonis was born a few years after that. At first, no one noticed his abnormality. Everything he touched wilted. Withered. Decayed. Although deep down everyone thought it was strange, not one of them let it rise to the forefront of their mind.

In truth, Adonis knew something was wrong ever since he was little, even though he himself didn’t think there was anything unusual with his hands at all. Everyone treated him normally, so he never spoke of it to anyone.

His abnormality became apparent when he started learning how to wield a sword. Ironically, it was his unusual talent with the blade that illustrated the way his curse manifested. When he held a sword, his claws turned rust red, and the sword visibly started wilting and decaying.

When he saw it, Adonis’s father, Tom Collins, became dumbfounded.

“The Nomad’s curse…”

That must have been what the Nomad’s dying words indicated.

Adonis grew from a child into a youth and his tail naturally came off. He underwent the trial to rise to the status of top dog, which would allow him to live inside the castle, and successfully cleared it. He did it under Tom Collins’s instructions.

It almost felt like fate, Adonis becoming a top dog. His first reason for doing so was because he wanted sacred ashes. If there was anything that could cure the abnormality in his hands, that was it. However, the ashes failed to cure Adonis’s hands, indicating that it wasn’t a physical malady but a curse.

A curse was another dimension’s order, a price one takes on to escape God’s clutches. It could also be described as a Thema that applied to a single person and them alone. It wasn’t something that could be healed, but it had to be accepted. Accepted and overcome.

Accept it…but to what end? That was Adonis’s second goal and another thread of his fate, so he set out on a journey. To Adonis, who had been born with the Nomad’s curse, the only way to turn that curse into a blessing was to knock upon the Door of Journey and open it.

“I was born to become a Nomad, though I didn’t know what journey I’d go on, or why… I climbed the ranks of the hierarchy to knock on the Door of Journey, and without knowing why I was doing it, I made everyone fear me as a sword thief to keep them from realizing I have this curse. As I spent every day fighting meaningless battles, I realized no one knows why they’re alive. Still, I lived on, never opening that door, until eventually I started questioning why Yggdrasil seeks to live for eternity…”

Adonis said all this in a very dispassionate tone of voice, but it only conveyed the intense emotions that simmered within him every day. This was the reason he questioned everything.

His eyes reminded Belle of those of the pops—round and clear, questioning everything, and marveling at the world around them. They showed Adonis’s curiosity as to why he was born, why he had to be there, and why he had to depart on a journey.

None of those questions had any answers. They were curses in and of themselves, but not ones he would willingly accept.

It was at that moment Belle finally realized.

She felt her loneliness melt away. Watching Gaff hug Sherry around the shoulders had made her aware of it, but the truth was that she’d always felt it deep down inside her. And now she understood clearly what that feeling was:

I’m planning to go on a Journey…

Guinness’s and Benet’s faces came to mind. And Kitty’s, too. Belle wasn’t on her own. The way things were now, she was by no means alone. She had friends, irreplaceable brothers-in-arms. And Belle was about to leave them all behind.

I’m not alone. I had no idea how much that could hurt…

Belle remembered what she had told the king when he asked her reason for departing on her journey: “I…I want to find my roots! I want to meet others of my kind! I…I want to interact with the world!”

Those were her reasons for being alone—or so Belle had thought. But now that she wasn’t alone, was her resolve to set off on her journey wavering?

No.

If anything, it had only grown stronger. Up until now, she had wanted to set out on her journey because she was emotionally repressed, but now her will was firmer and more resolute. And it wasn’t that she felt obligated to go on a journey though she didn’t need to anymore. Through joy, sorrow, and her resolve, Belle had become aware of the meaning behind her desire to set forth and explore.

“Let’s go on a journey, Adonis,” Belle said.

Adonis looked at her with surprise.

“Open the Door of Journey with me.”

She spoke without even thinking, her tone unintentionally commanding and firm. Suddenly, Adonis narrowed his eyes and smiled softly.

“…What?” Belle asked. “If you don’t want to, just say so.”

“That’s not it.”

He gazed at the ceiling, looking as if he were trying to perceive something invisible.

“Ever since I was born, I haven’t been able to find any meaning to my curse. It was always just there. All this time, I was starved for a reason for my journey. A reason for me.”

Adonis’s voice was dry and dispassionate, but it was that quality that made it feel genuine and evoked sympathy. His blue eyes focused on Belle.

“But when you showed up, something changed.” He chuckled, like he’d just remembered something. “Remember those pops? When I saw you feeding them, I didn’t know what to make of you. Why feed them if you weren’t going to keep them as pets? Or more to the point, why feed pops meant for training at all? Seriously, why did you look so happy when all the pops were doing was sitting on your lap? Why…even though you were cursed, were you trying to go on a journey…? I felt like one of the pops. Like I was asking all these questions in their place. And before I knew it, I was stupidly getting myself beaten up in their place by the people who were trying out their swords on the pops.”

A momentary silence hung in the air.

It was followed by Adonis’s emotion-filled words.

“…If I’m with you, even after we depart on our journey, I’m sure lots of interesting things will happen,” he said with a bright smile.

5

After that, Adonis explained the reason behind his good mood.

“You’re awfully chipper today,” Belle teased, prompting him to explain. Not that she was pressing him for an answer.

“There was something I had to check, which I did. Surprisingly, that was all it took to put my heart at ease.”

And with that, Adonis launched into his story.

He’d been in a room with no chairs. This wasn’t to say that the place had been neglected—in fact, it was quite the opposite. The room was clean and free of anything unnecessary, and just by sitting there, one could feel a pleasant tension spread across the chest. It was a suitable home for a Solist. Although it was different from Gaff’s room or Bamboo’s stomach, it still gave off the impression that a top-ranking warrior lived there.

The room’s owner was one of Schwertland’s four Arch-Solists, Kir Rowal.

Kir was a Centaurus, and with his four-legged, equine body, he didn’t require a chair to sit. He simply bent his knees and rested directly on the floor, which was covered with rows of rectangular mats of woven rushes.

“What a powerful blow,” Kir had said, unable to hide his incredulity.

He sat before a black table with Adonis sitting across from him on the other side. Resting on the table was a sword cleaved cleanly in two. The spell LEGNA was just barely visible on the wilting surface of the blade. The Envoy—Tiziano’s mark.

“If this is Belle Lablac’s handiwork, then I’m no match for her anymore. Or at least, I can’t beat her now that I’ve lost the sword I raised.” His tone was rueful, yet clear and without pretense, just like the man himself.

Although he’d just said he couldn’t beat Belle, it was evident that Kir was racking his brain to come up with a way to best her. That’s just how it was for someone who lived by the blade. Even if his sword was shattered, Kir would pick up the fragments and fight to the very end trying to win. It wasn’t vindictive tenacity, but the sincere pride of a Solist. That tenacity had been cleanly cut down to size after fighting Belle twice—or so he had told Adonis.

“…Which reminds me,” Kir had said abruptly, as though he’d just remembered. “There’s been no end of awful rumors going around about you since your last fight. Did you know that?” His voice had held a hint of warning.

“Beats me. People have been spinning bad rumors about me ever since I became a top dog,” Adonis had answered with a bitter smile. That man, with his hard gloves and red bandanna, always hid his emotions from others, yet he ruthlessly picked up on other people’s true thoughts.

“You were born in the Catacombs, right? To the Collins family?” Kir had asked.

“…Yeah.”

“The rumors say that we lost that last battle because of your connection to the Collins family.”

Hearing this, a callous smile creased Adonis’s lips. It was clearly tinged with mockery—or perhaps one could call it pity.

“Would you really have fought your own flesh and blood?”

“It’s a courtesy to one’s family,” Adonis had replied sharply. “The task of cutting down my father and siblings falls to me. I wouldn’t let anyone else do it. I was serious about fighting them. The sole reason we worked together was because it was determined that Tiziano was our only enemy. And once Tiziano was dead, we had no more reason to fight.”

His smile was all but gone, replaced by an expression that firmly rejected anyone who tried to peer into his heart out of a foolish sense of curiosity.

Kir had slowly shaken his head as he silently observed Adonis.

“You’re so pure.”

He hadn’t been mocking the other man, nor admiring him. Instead, his tone was sympathetic.

“You would’ve come to the same conclusion if you were in my shoes,” Adonis said.

“Perhaps,” replied Kir, “but I wouldn’t wield my sword in such a sterile way.”

“Sterile…?”

“It’s the only word I can come up with to describe it. By that, I mean how hard it must be to swing your sword while rejecting the touch of everyone else.”

Like before, there was no mockery in his voice, nor was he upset by the other man’s disrespectful attitude. Kir wasn’t reprimanding him, either. He simply faced Adonis with a slightly troubled expression, unsure of how to handle the young man.

Maybe by looking at Adonis, he recalled himself in his younger days. There was a hint of nostalgic longing to his eyes, something Adonis has never seen in him before. Adonis could only speculate that the older man’s gaze had taken on that cast after his sword was shattered in the battle with Belle.

“These are words of a man haunted by his own ghosts until only recently,” Kir had said solemnly. “Keep them close to your heart.”

It was strange how funny the Centaurus man’s overly serious expression had looked. Adonis had snickered, cracking the first carefree smile he’d made since entering the room.

“You’re laughing?” Kir had asked with an embarrassed smile.

“…All your resentment has gone, hasn’t it?”

“Indeed.”

“Wiped away by Belle Lablac?”

“She truly is a blessed child. Crossing blades with her made me start doubting myself.”

“How so?”

“I began to wonder just who this person standing there was…” Kir’s words had trailed off and turned into a sigh. “That was the true battle. As I locked blades with her, my past self clashed with my present self. My younger self was destroyed, followed by my present self, leaving behind only the person I will be for the rest of time.”

There had been frustration in his voice, as if Kir knew that no matter how hard he tried to put his emotions into words, he couldn’t fully express how he felt to Adonis.

“A clash with Belle…”

Hearing this, Adonis genuinely envied Kir. The emotion had flared up inside him, and before he knew it, he’d reached for his red bandanna. A lock of his silver-white hair fell across his eyes.

“It feels like there’s a war going on inside me. I need to confirm something with you.”

Kir’s expression immediately tensed up. He knew full well that Adonis was about to bring up the main reason he’d come there. The older man remained appropriately serious and didn’t so much as lean in. He didn’t urge Adonis to speak, and after a moment of silence, Kir watched the red bandanna quietly slip from his fingers to the floor, like a mask removed.

“Have you heard of people called Examiners?”

Kir had nodded, confusion shining in his gray eyes. “I’ve heard of them. They’re messengers of the king who visit people whose swords are broken.”

“Exactly. I’m currently serving in that role.”

Kir’s eyes had widened in surprise.

“I want to tell you everything,” Adonis had said.

He’d told Kir that he couldn’t raise his own sword and how this was the result of a Nomad’s curse. It was a shocking revelation about an Arch-Solist at the top of the hierarchy, but Kir had listened silently, letting Adonis finish his story without interruption. It was truly an impressive feat.

“In exchange for receiving the sacred ashes, I had to agree to be the king’s Examiner,” Adonis had admitted.

This was the real reason he’d visited that day.

“The other condition was that I could only use the sacred ashes on myself and my family. I was also given another type, similar to sacred ashes called trial ashes, and told to visit people whose swords were broken and put their sense of good and evil to the test.”

“What do you mean, put it to the test…?” Kir had asked, finally speaking up.

“When a broken sword is reborn, it tests its wielder. The role of Examiner has been vacant for a long time. Before me, a man called Sian took up the mantle, but as you know, that man fled from any yoke that tried to bind him.”

“Sian…?”

Belle cocked her head, and Adonis peered into her face.

“You don’t remember him?” he asked, sounding surprised.

He likely already knew Belle’s situation, though. Adonis nodded and then explained.

“Sian was your Meister. He was originally castle royalty, holding the position of King Minor. He was a priest, but he escaped the priesthood by becoming an Enola, then escaped the country altogether by becoming a Nomad. That is the name of a man who was by far a bigger skeptic of this nation than I…”

Still, none of it felt real to Belle. Only vague fragments of memory floated in the depths of her mind, far beyond where the light of consciousness reached.

Adonis continued his story.

“So now the Examiner is here to see me…?” Kir had whispered, mostly to himself. “Then it must have been you who restored Tiziano’s sword after Gaff broke it…”

“That’s right. As Examiner, the reason I chose you as well was to confirm something about Tiziano’s sword.”

“A Nidhogg…”

Kir’s eyes were fixed on Tiziano’s sword sitting on the table.

Nidhogg were neither good nor evil, yet they were slain as enemies of the God Tree.

“Tiziano’s restored sword was what corrupted them and made them become a Nidhogg. It was during the battle for the Catacombs that I became convinced of that—and skeptical of it.”

“What do you mean?”

Kir had returned his gaze to Adonis. His expression looked less doubtful and more like he wanted to fully understand what Adonis was getting at.

“I mean, as part of its test. Does a restored sword test whether its wielder is a Nidhogg? That is to say, does the sword become capable of corrupting its wielder…? I always thought it was the other way around—that swords tested the true heart of their wielders, and in failing that test, the wielder is corrupted and becomes a Nidhogg.”

There was an audible pang of guilt in Adonis’s voice. If this was true, then he had unknowingly sent Tiziano tumbling down the path to delirium. It was a thought that hung heavily over the young man’s heart. He couldn’t erase that doubt. The weight of it still bore down on Adonis, even after he’d fought his hardest to defeat the Nidhogg Tiziano and save their true self. So when the Throne Room’s priests had handed down his next mission as Examiner, Adonis had become determined to confirm the truth.

“I will now restore your sword, along with Tiziano’s. That was the order the priests gave me,” Adonis had said, his tone calm yet echoing with a pained resolve. “If I determine that a restored sword corrupts its wielder and turns them into a Nidhogg…I will shatter it right away and demand an explanation from the priests. If it comes to that, I ask that you forgive me for breaking it again.”

Kir had been quiet. The look on Adonis’s face made it evident that he was being honest, which made Kir feel sorry for the young man.

“How painful,” Kir had murmured.

If this was confirmed, Adonis would single-handedly bear the blame for what had happened. Tiziano’s madness, all the tragedies that had brought with it, and the countless painful losses in the Catacombs would be mercilessly etched into the young man’s heart. The way Adonis saw it, not knowing the consequences of his actions wouldn’t absolve him of the role he’d played.

“Adonis, every battle follows the predetermined path to God’s words. It only makes sense to assume this also includes evil swords that give birth to Nidhogg being loosed upon the world. God’s will dictates all, so there’s no need for you to feel guilty over what happened.”

Kir’s words had been both an attempt at comforting Adonis and an admonishment not to overthink things. But Adonis had quickly shot him down.

“If I don’t hold on to this guilt, I’ll just be another puppet dancing to God’s tune, like those priests.”

Mental anguish was proof of having individual will. That was what Adonis was saying.

“What I want to ask is: What will you do if that does happen?” Adonis asked Kir.

“If the king’s divine proclamation bids it, I shall gladly take up my sword, no matter how evil it may be,” Kir had declared firmly.

Wielding the blade was Kir’s source of pride, and being bestowed an evil sword was proof that he had been chosen by God. If so, let him be corrupted. That same divine proclamation would see Kir become an enemy of God and let him fight in His name. For that was the true path of the Nidhogg.

“No!” Adonis had exclaimed vehemently, his expression contorted with rage. “You can’t. There’s no way I’ll let you do that. At least, so long as I’m involved,I’ll never let that happen. More than anything else, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself!”

His words had melted into the air, their pained echo lingering.

“So you’ll shatter it…?” Kir had looked at Adonis with sympathy.

If his restored sword became an evil weapon that produced Nidhogg, Adonis would be forced between two terrible choices. It would pain him to break the sword, just as it would to ignore the situation. And yet it was only in making that choice that Adonis could confirm that he was his own person, capable of acting of his own free will.

Who wouldn’t pity the young man?

“Fine,” Kir had eventually said. “You were the one who witnessed Tiziano’s final moments. Out of respect for that, I will do as you say.”

Using Tiziano as his excuse was an act of kindness on Kir’s behalf. In so doing, he took a little of the burden off Adonis’s shoulders. Kir had agreed to his blade being shattered out of respect for Tiziano, who had been controlled by an evil sword. He wouldn’t let himself be weighed down by the sins of the dead.

However, what neither of them realized was that, one day, this decision would become an inescapable trap for the both of them.

Kir rose from the table. He’d returned a few moments later carrying his broken sword and sat back down. The two broken, wilted swords had rested side by side on the table.

Kir’s LIVED—the Survivor.

Tiziano’s LEGNA—the Envoy.

Both spells had been shattered by Belle’s sword, and Adonis subconsciously felt that implied a bond of sorts between them—a vague connection that could almost be described as the will of God. But this wasn’t something he could actively think about at the time.

Adonis took several small bottles out of his pocket. Until then, the priests had only given him one bottle at a time, but this time they’d given him several. In addition, he’d also received a diagram with a spell circle drawn on it. This wasn’t grammar or mathematics magic, but a unique type of spell syntax called examination magic.

“I was told to spread the ashes according to this diagram.”

Adonis had kneeled down so his upper body was leaning over the table, then drew a line over the broken swords with the ashes. He followed the priests’ instructions, carefully tracing the diagram with the ashes, to create a pattern with the two swords intersecting the lines of the magic circle.

The ashes were similar to sacred ashes, but different—something that was obvious to the two Arch-Solists. Unlike the pure, refined impression sacred ashes gave off, what he now spread over the swords and the diagram looked rougher, like some sort of raw material.

Once he’d emptied a second bottle, Adonis put on his red bandanna to keep his hair and sweat from interrupting his work. That was how delicate a procedure it was.

As Adonis drew a clear pattern with the ashes, Kir watched on in silence. Suddenly, his gray eyes widened in surprise.

As the ashes were scattered over the diagram, the two men could feel an invisible force begin to take effect. As Solists, they had both learned the basics of magic, so they could tell when the steel and the examination spell began to resonate with each other.

“The song of restoration…,” Adonis had said as if deciphering the diagram, still spreading the ashes.

All things with form, retrace the memories of your original nature and be reborn. That was the meaning of the song that had been intricately woven into the diagram’s complicated pattern. It was the most fundamental song practiced by the castle Singers.

“But there’s more to it than that,” Kir had whispered, so as not to disturb the ashes. “It’s like it’s using the song of restoration to remake them into something else…”

He’d suddenly trailed off. An even more shocking phenomenon was occurring.

The two swords had begun falling apart. One by one, the cells of the steel seemed to flake off and crumble, only to move along a pattern of the diagram like they had a will of their own. Adonis hadn’t stopped, and as the swords melted away, he scattered more ashes over them, fixing the line and the spell. It was like he was silently singing to the swords. That soundless song he drew with the ashes disassembled the dead, lifeless swords and, in the process of reassembling them, imbued them with a new will, different from before.

Adonis emptied the final bottle. He’d used up all his ashes, and the diagram was complete. Adonis and Kir had watched the strange spell activate.

By then, the two swords had completely lost their shape. The lines of steel cells were eaten away as the cells formed clusters that took in the ashes spread over the diagram. As they did, the diagram changed accordingly, shrinking and converging as it shifted between forms. It seemed to bloom like a flower, then wilt, then bear fruit.

“Look, the spells…!” Kir had gasped.

The two swords’ spells, LIVED and LEGNA, were taken apart and reconstructed.

The transformation had quickened, and the two shattered swords had merged into one, their steel cells writhing in a strange dance. There wasn’t a single speck of the ashes left. The ashes, scattered to guide the steel cells to form a certain shape, had been fully absorbed by the metal, giving it a new will.

““How is this possible…?”” the two Arch-Solists had whispered in disbelief.

Before their very eyes, the two blades were reborn into a single sword.

It was heavy and thick, huge and long. A fearsome weapon that radiated with a terrifying sharpness. The pitch-black surface of the blade seemed to suck in the soul of any who laid eyes on it, and carved into it was a glowing crimson spell:

DILLEGNAVE.

The LIVED and LEGNA spells had been reassembled, forming an unknown word. Kir had extended his hand toward the sword, as if drawn to it. Adonis didn’t even have a chance to stop him. He’d come to his senses and been about to say something to Kir when the words on his lips transformed into an exclamation of amazement.

“Whoa…!”

Both men had cried out in delight.

The sword had reacted with a howl. It had released an explosion of power strong enough to make Kir, who gripped the sword, suddenly throw back his head. The two swords had been reborn into a new blade, which seemed to be crying out in joy like a newborn.

“Dillegnave, the Gospel-Bringer… A word in the dead tongue from the Age of the Gods,” Kir had said, understanding the meaning of the spell.

Both men were astounded. A sword manifesting its own spell and revealing the meaning to its wielder was unheard of. That alone attested to its unbelievable strength of will. Holding the weapon, Kir had seemed practically intoxicated by it.

“Do you really think such a wonderful sword could be evil?”

He gently placed it on the table, where the weapon settled with a sound like a beast’s fangs biting into something. At the same time, the thick table was cleaved cleanly in two and both halves noisily collapsed to the floor. The blade had cut through the table with its will alone. Just how sharp was it? Adonis had been so amazed that the fur on his body stood on end.

“It seems you were wrong,” Kir had said with a smile.

This wasn’t a sword that would turn its wielder into a Nidhogg. It would grant Kir unlimited power as a Solist and could never be corrupted. One might even call it innocent, strength of will incarnate.

In which case, Tiziano’s madness hadn’t been caused by their sword. As Adonis came to this tragic realization, he had shuddered and teared up. His doubts were gone, leaving behind only grief.

“Just now, Tiz finally died within me…” Adonis had grasped at his chest with a gloved hand, his voice trembling. “Along with my uncertainty.”

Kir had given him a gentle smile. “You have truly grieved the death of a comrade and, in the process, given me a new sword to replace the one I raised and lost. This was all a result of your brave decision. You have my thanks, Adonis.”

Adonis’s shoulders had slumped with relief, hearing the older Solist’s sincere praise. It looked like all the strength had drained from his body. A flicker of envy had crossed his mind seeing Kir hold that sword, but it also put his heart at ease.

“So that’s what happened…”

Belle couldn’t mask her shock. She’d had no idea Adonis felt so isolated until she heard his story. At the same time, Belle couldn’t believe how tumultuous his life had been—though she wasn’t one to talk.

“Kir probably intends to challenge you to Schwertmusik again soon,” Adonis said nonchalantly.

Belle crossed her arms and let out a groan.

“Swinging that sword seems like a monumental task, but I’m sure Kir will manage it,” he continued. “There’s a good chance you’ll also see that blade by the time the Memorial Shower ends.”

“It’s really that impressive?” she asked.

“It’ll give your sword a good run for its money. It’s certainly not something any ordinary Solist can wield.”

Belle cracked a smile. He was treating her like some kind of monster. She put a hand on Runding beside her and the sword let out a soft howl, like it was excited over what they’d just been talking about.

“We won’t lose.”

It was bound to be a pure dance of Schwertmusik.

6

Belle was at On the Rocks when the O’crock turned violet.

She was with the people she’d fought alongside during the battle for the Catacombs, as well as an unexpected guest. Seated at Belle’s table were Guinness and Benet—the two of whom were regulars there at that point—Adonis, who oddly enough had been the one to invite Belle, and Kitty the All. They were the members of the first band who had played the leading role in the battle.

Joining them was none other than Sherry, King Rawhide’s beloved daughter and the greatly admired songstress who led the castle Singers.

Sherry was there because of Belle. That day, the rain had begun to subside as the yellow hour rolled in, and by the time the O’crock was red, it was no more than a drizzle tapping at puddles.

Sherry had shown up at Belle’s place just as the O’crock was changing from yellow to red. She had come alone, holding an umbrella in her right hand and the clothes she’d borrowed from Benet neatly folded and wrapped in a satin cloth in her left. With a hint of regret in her voice, Sherry told Belle that she’d really wanted to wash the clothes herself but had been so bad at it that, in the end, she’d had to get her handmaids to do it for her.

“I see you learned how to open an umbrella, though,” Belle teased.

Sherry, however, nodded very seriously. “Yes. Shandy taught me. It was quite difficult at first.”

Even before Belle could ask her what was so difficult about it, Sherry cheerfully told her.

“It takes quite a bit of force to open an umbrella, it seems. It also isn’t easy holding it up straight. And fending off the buffeting wind and the pressure of the rain makes my arm go numb. But I’m trying really hard!”

She told Belle in great detail about how the umbrella kept slipping in her grip and that the pressure was too much for her at times, making it all sound like a grand feat. Belle had gotten used to Sherry’s behavior, and soon found it charming. It was only their second time interacting, but in no time at all, Belle opened up to the princess and talked to her like an old friend.

Belle secretly found it strange, but the more they talked, the more familiarly she spoke to Sherry. She wasn’t being presumptuous or simply didn’t care about holding back, but she felt a natural affection for the other woman. Belle wondered why that was, when their stations in life were so different, but even that doubt soon faded from her mind in the face of Sherry’s innocence.

However, halfway through the red hour, a dark shadow passed over Sherry’s expression. They had been talking nonstop for all that time. Kitty the Nothing was also there, which brought him up as a topic of conversation, but he suddenly disappeared when the rain ended.

“Actually…I wanted to see you, so I could ask you something,” Sherry said, visibly tensing.

Belle could immediately tell she’d had to work up a lot of courage to say that. Whatever Sherry’s question was, she couldn’t just laugh it off. Her expression hardened at once.

“When I sang in your room the other day…you said it sounded pained, remember?” Belle nodded with a tight smile. She was smiling mostly to help Sherry relax. “No one has ever said that to me before… Singing means everything to me. I’ve been singing since I was little, for both the castle and the people. If I couldn’t sing anymore, no one would ever spare another look at me. So when you said it sounded pained…”

Her words seemed to tremble in the air as Sherry trailed off, plunging them into silence. Belle thought she looked incredibly hurt.

Belle couldn’t tell why, but she suddenly felt very angry. No—not angry. But she couldn’t name the feeling.

“What’s wrong, Belle?” Sherry asked in a raspy voice, her gaze filled with concern.

That one word, pained, said offhandedly by Belle, had shaken this talented songstress to her core. It was a thought that horrified Belle and made Sherry seem all the more fragile.

She had to answer Sherry’s question, no matter what. It was a strong feeling Belle had based purely off intuition. The princess couldn’t turn to anyone around her for an answer—it had to be Belle. But how? What answer could she give? Was there even an answer? Why was a trivial thought that had crossed her mind so important to Sherry?

Formless thoughts raced through Belle’s head.

“Belle…?”

Sherry’s voice snapped her back to reality, and Belle looked into the princess’s anxious eyes.

“You have a guest?”

For a second, Belle didn’t quite grasp what Sherry was saying.

When she went to the door, sure enough, someone was there: Adonis. Belle looked at him in surprise, and beneath his bandanna, his face creased in an awkward smile.

Adonis glanced around the room. “I see there’s already someone here… Well, uh, I just thought you might want to grab a bite to eat at that inn,” he said with an apologetic tone, before adding as an excuse that Guinness and the others were probably there.

But Belle was too busy thinking about something else to notice Adonis’s awkwardness.

“That’s it!” she exclaimed.

For the second time that day, she was following her intuition. Adonis had mentioned On the Rocks, and therein lay the answer. Belle had the feeling that if they went there, then at the very least, she’d understand why she thought Sherry seemed so pained.

Ignoring Adonis’s confusion, she called out over her shoulder.

“Sherry! I think I’ve found our answer!”

Then she turned around to face Adonis again.

“Good job, Adonis!”

And just like she usually did to Runding at a crucial moment, Belle planted a kiss on his cheek. She did it completely without thinking. Adonis was left as dazed as if she’d just smacked him over the head, and he stumbled back to slump against the wall.

By then, Belle had already disappeared inside her room. A second later she reemerged, pulling Sherry by the hand.

“What a woman…,” Adonis whispered, overwhelmed.

On the way to the inn, Adonis and Sherry introduced themselves properly to each other, and after walking and chatting for a short while, Kitty the All appeared from out of nowhere. When Belle told him they were going to On the Rocks, Kitty happily tagged along.

When they arrived at the inn, they found Guinness and Benet already there, as expected. Spotting Belle, they waved her over to their table.

“You brought Princess Sherry with you?” Benet asked, surprised, but he gladly arranged a seat for her. He and Guinness weren’t timid around anyone, be it a member of royalty or a traveling Rabbitia, and before long, they were all chatting pleasantly.

Sherry didn’t eat much. She didn’t have a big appetite to begin with, but she was also forbidden from eating or drinking anything that might impede her singing. She had been told flower tea was bad for her throat, strong spices were forbidden, she didn’t drink alcohol, and her body couldn’t tolerate fruit milk. All she had was a bowl of soup and a few pieces of breadfruit.

Belle was shocked—Sherry was eating like a bird flower. Sitting next to her made Belle look like a glutton. Regardless, she didn’t hold back and ate her fill, while Sherry watched with astonishment.

“You have so many lovely friends,” she suddenly whispered to Belle.

Her voice was filled with unfathomable envy, like she was watching the merrymaking from afar and it was well out of her own reach.

She looks so sad… Belle felt a flicker of an emotion akin to anger.

“It’s up to you, but everyone here can be your friend as well,” she said bluntly.

Belle’s tone was by no means kind, but Sherry stared at her, wide-eyed. Her face was flushed. It almost looked like she was in love. At a loss for words, the princess eventually managed to will her trembling lips to move.

“Thank you…”

Everyone at the table saw her wipe the tears from her eyes, but no one said a word about it. They kept chatting as if nothing was out of the ordinary. They could all see now why Belle had invited the lonely princess to join them. Supported in ways she couldn’t see, Sherry had found what she most desired. Though it could also be said that it was only once Sherry found the support that she realized how much she’d been longing for it.

“There she is, Belle…,” Kitty said, tugging on her sleeve.

Finally, Belle thought, eagerly turning around. She’s here.

Belle called over a waiter and requested a song. She handed the man a denari, which he accepted with a nod, then walked off.

“I just ordered a song,” Belle whispered to Sherry.

The Swallowtail woman glanced at their table. Sherry turned around and their eyes met. The woman’s clear eyes fixed on Sherry from across the room, drawing her in. She read in Sherry’s eyes the song she desired. Belle now understood that was her power.

The chatter among the group stopped. And then—

Lone…

The woman gently strummed her instrument, and a hush fell over the entire inn. Everyone watched expectantly, focused on the Swallowtail woman, yet she ignored them completely and simply started to sing.

Her voice reverberated throughout the space. It was a song of journey, different from the one Kitty and Belle had heard her sing the first time, directed at those gathered in the inn. All who live in this world have a fundamental reason for their journey…said the lyrics, as the melody shifted between joy and sorrow.

The song filled the room, producing nothing. However, for that very reason, it drew out something else within the hearts of those who listened. Hearing it, Belle finally understood why Sherry seemed so pained, and why she had been driven to bring the princess there.

Everyone seated at their table had spent far too much time alone.

Some were considered inferior by virtue of their race, so they’d had to suppress their true abilities and stand in the shadows of others. Some had treated their heart as a reflection of the hearts of others and lost themselves in the process, unable to find happiness as, even in a group, they always felt alone. Some were always hostile to those around them, trying in vain to make their presence known and only succeeding in making themselves even more lonely.

Either out of resignation or anger, the truth was that they were all alone for a multitude of reasons. They accepted that loneliness was their lot in life, their natural pitch, and they were resigned to that fate. They had overcome it, understanding both the importance and sorrow of being alone.

That was the common thread that tied them all together—people of different races and standings, with varied goals, skills, and desires. They were anomalies who were proud of their solitude and, rather than reject it, embraced it as something that was only to be expected. It felt so normal it was hard to see, yet they still tried to understand it.

The traveling Troubadour sang. They would always be alone. They gathered there as solitary people to share a drink to their goals and desires, so that someday, they could set out alone again. So they could take the meaning of their journey and what they’d learned over the course of their travels to discover themselves. Such is the journey we call life. Even without setting out on a journey, as patrons of this inn, they were already Nomads. Because they were here, at On the Rocks, the watering hole for Nomads. Such was the song’s message.

Belle, who was on the verge of leaving on her journey, and Kitty, who had already set out on his—their presence reinforced the fact that everyone at their table was a Nomad in their own right. Some would be sent away, others had been welcomed home, and some were in the middle of their journey, but they were all Nomads who continued to seek out and defend their own natural pitch.

Living in Park City, under God’s Thema of Pleasure and the order it offered, while trying to slip away from it was a perilous state of mind to be in. Even so, they refused to give their pain and sorrow to Park’s Thema, instead deciding to shoulder the burden on their own. It was a song that praised their dangerous, proud way of life.

But what kind of talents are needed to lead such a life? Belle pondered that perhaps such a way of life was inevitable. But was any kind of Thema necessary for them to be there? Everything is nothing, and nothing is everything. To live as one’s true self, it was necessary to consume one’s false self, and there was nothing wrong with doing so. Belle felt this way whenever she listened to the songs in this inn. But then again, perhaps the fact that Belle thought so from the bottom of her heart was why people called her beastly.

The final plucked string of the instrument quavered and the song faded into the air, coming to an end. Applause erupted around the inn. Even though the song had no physical effect, it caused a ripple that stirred the hearts of its listeners, inspiring them to show their appreciation. As Belle clapped, she wondered what message Sherry had taken from the song. It couldn’t be the same as Belle’s, and even if Sherry were to put it into words, Belle likely wouldn’t understand. And yet in that moment, Belle longed for them to share their feelings with each other.

Looking over at Sherry, Belle saw that the princess was crying, large tears rolling down her cheeks. Too distracted to even applaud, she seemed confused by the tears spilling between her fingers as she shamefully covered her face, trying to hide from the Nomad Troubadour who was standing right next to her seat.

“I hate crying… It’s cowardly. I don’t want to cry to make myself feel better,” Sherry said, her voice as clear as a ringing bell. But the tears ran silently down her face all the same.

The Troubadour raised her glass to Sherry, then tossed back her drink. Her eyes were so translucent it was startling, and the Nomad woman smiled at her. She was silent, which made Sherry more puzzled.

“She can’t speak unless she’s singing. She’s deaf, too. It’s her Nomad’s curse,” Kitty explained offhandedly.

Hearing this, the floodgates opened, and Sherry broke down sobbing. She couldn’t stop it. Just how much emotion was swirling through that dainty body of hers? She just trembled silently, weeping profoundly.

“I’m a coward,” Sherry whispered as she watched the Troubadour leave.

“Why do you say that?” Adonis asked in a whisper.

His tone wasn’t appropriate for talking to royalty, but Belle knew that right now he was doing it to be kind to Sherry.

Sherry turned to Adonis with a vulnerable look in her eyes. “I mean, that lady doesn’t cry. I hate myself. As another Singer, I envy her and feel so frustrated and pathetic… But it makes me very happy to think I’m still capable of crying…”

Guinness snickered, earning him an elbow to the ribs from Benet.

“She said crying’s cowardly,” Guinness said.

“How foolish. That’s completely wrong. Depending on the reason, it can take a great deal of courage to cry,” Benet retorted dryly. After all, he himself had a habit of being a weepy drunk.

“What do you mean, ‘depending on the reason’?” Adonis asked, holding back laughter. “You mean like how you cry to get any woman you meet to do whatever you want?”

“I take offense to that. And this coming from you, who has a surprising crying habit.”

Belle giggled, watching the two of them bicker like children.

Sherry wiped her tears and smiled.

“…That reminds me, Belle,” Kitty remarked. “You cried the first time you heard a song here, too.”

Belle glared at him in alarm, and the expressions on the men’s faces suddenly changed. They all homed in on Belle, having found a new target to tease.

“If that was enough to make Belle cry, then of course the princess would fall into the same trap.”

“When Belle starts crying, she probably doesn’t stop until she’s cut down a few people.”

“I’ll lend you my shoulder to cry on—that is, as long as you put your sword down first.”

The three men each said their piece, their roasts merciless.

“There’s nothing wrong with crying, you numbskulls.” Belle cut them down, fed up with their taunts.

Sherry immediately reacted to Belle’s words, looking surprised.

“You cry, too…?” she asked, wide-eyed.

Belle was so taken aback she ended up smiling. “Sure I do. I get mad and cry whenever I feel like it. If I didn’t and just left someone else in charge of my feelings, who knows if I’d ever get them back, you know? Like with God or the general populace.”

It was a display of bravado and partly a joke—but not to the princess. To her, they were heart-piercing, earth-shaking words.

“You wouldn’t be able to get your feelings back…?” she mused quietly.

Even Belle could tell how seriously Sherry was taking it.

“Sorry. I think I got a bit carried away,” she said.

But Sherry grabbed Belle’s hands, clinging to her.

“I want to be needed. When people cry, they need someone, don’t they?”

Belle glanced around the table, and everyone shrugged, saying it was up to her to answer. She nodded subtly, then squeezed Sherry’s slender hands.

“If you do that, you’ll end up forgetting that you need people,” Belle said in a tone that bordered on casual. “And that would hurt, right?”

“…Yes.”

“But I don’t think you’ll have to be in pain for much longer.”

“Okay.”

“Er, I think I went too far again. Sorry.”

“That’s all right.”

“Ah, what I’m trying to say is that we want to be needed, too. You get that, right…? Sherry?”

Belle loosened her grip on Sherry’s hands, and the other woman immediately threw her arms around Belle in a hug. The princess, already halfway through her youth, clung to Belle’s neck sobbing like a child.

“Thank you, Belle.”

She said it over and over, and each time, Belle felt a strange weight to Sherry’s embrace.

Even if she doesn’t know herself at all, she’s still so sweet…

Who would ever call the princess’s tears unsightly when she was so earnest in her innocence?

She wouldn’t tell Sherry, but in that moment, Belle did envy her. She was painfully aware of how strange and foreign she looked compared to the other woman’s beauty. Belle was also aware that she felt joy and pity—and even a sense of superiority. Her emotions toward the princess were so varied and complex it almost felt like they belonged to someone else.

All of a sudden, the memory of leaving her foster parents flashed through Belle’s mind. She’d had to swallow her anger, accept the fact that she was different, and face her loneliness… That was what Belle had thought at the time, frustrated by her greed at simply wanting to stay there.

But now, as different as she was, Belle had people who relied on her, and she knew the hardships of trying to accept others and be accepted in turn… That idea stunned her, and when Belle thought about how lonely she’d feel leaving on her journey, Sherry’s body suddenly felt incredibly heavy.

Friends, huh…?

Summing it all up with that one word wasn’t as simple as she’d thought it would be. As she mulled over that, Belle stroked Sherry comfortingly on the back.

7

The days passed uneventfully, until, one day, Belle woke to find a letter bird had arrived for her. It was from Sherry, thanking Belle for the other day and inviting her to a ball in the castle. The message had bloomed into a bird flower the same lotus pink color as its sender.

Belle placed the flower on the table as she considered what to do, immediately prompting the Guidance to start narrating from its vast well of knowledge.

…The Ballroom is one of the three rooms that make up the Public of Justice. Located in Upper West, it presides over the Violet Hour Soiree, where Symphonists—primarily those from the castle—sing for rain and agricultural prosperity. This ball is also where the Divine Symphony is held, which supports Park City in tandem with Schwertmusik.

“Hmm.” Belle nodded to the voice in her head.

Recently, Belle had gotten so used to hearing it she’d even started actively asking it questions.

“What’s a ball, though?”

To someone who’d never heard the word before, it was an incredibly strange-sounding word. The other self inside Belle transmitted the exact information she’d asked for into her mind.

A ball is an event where Symphonists, as well as many other performers, play a Divine Symphony to celebrate the strength of the castle and the stability of Park City. A Solist being invited to such an occasion is tantamount to being promised a position as a high-ranking Solist. Many people also see it as a place to meet and become romantically involved with royalty.

“Well, knowing Sherry, I doubt she had that in mind.”

With that question answered, Belle left her room to see if the others had also received a similar invitation. She headed to Benet’s place first, still thinking of him as a member of the same sex. But Benedictine wasn’t a woman any longer.

Instead, she found Guinness and—surprisingly—Adonis there, talking to Benet about the invitations they’d all received. Adonis had become much more cheerful of late, and he seemed to be the one steering the conversation.

“We’re thinking of going in the same uniform we wore during the battle for the Catacombs,” Adonis said, before asking what Belle wanted to do.

Apparently, the three of them had come to this decision together. Hearing that, Belle couldn’t help but smile.

The torn sections of their uniforms had been patched up in a way that kept the shape of the rip, creating a pattern out of the scars left behind by the life-threatening battle. Areas stained dark by their own blood and that of their enemies were bordered in gold, which Belle considered gaudy and tasteless. However, one look at the men’s faces told her they were serious. These outfits served to criticize the king, but even more importantly, appealed to their sense of humor.

And if they were going to put on airs like this, a place full of royalty and nobles would be the best place to do it. Just the fact that they were mere Solists invited personally by the princess would be enough to earn them the ire and envy of the people there, so they’d decided to use that to their own ends.

Adonis aside, having the one-armed Guinness and the one-eyed Benet wear those uniforms would show off the intense bloodbath they’d made it through, creating a silent pressure that intimidated everyone around them. People would think that making a wrong remark would result in a sword being drawn on them, and that impression suited the trio just fine.

It was a joke of sorts. A prank. Just boys being boys. Their uniforms would stick out like a sore thumb worn somewhere so far removed from the battlefield like the Ballroom. That alone was reason enough for them to do it.

“I guess what we’re saying is that we want to put ourselves in your shoes and see what it’s like to be treated as a beastly brute,” Adonis said with a smile.

“Idiot,” Belle retorted with an exasperated look.

Deep down, she envied them, though. It seemed they’d gotten a different invitation from Belle’s regarding their outfits. Sherry had said that Belle’s dress for the ball would be prepared for her, and that she should come to the castle in ordinary clothes. It could be interpreted as a backhanded comment about how she didn’t expect Belle to have anything appropriate to wear, but Belle knew Sherry hadn’t meant that at all. She wanted to give Belle a dress as thanks for bringing her to On the Rocks, but more than that, she was simply doing it out of a sort of sisterly affection.

“With that princess as the host, you dressing like a man would make you stand out, wouldn’t it?” Adonis said with another smirk.

Belle never had been good at getting herself all dressed up.

“It’s not like I try to dress like a man. It just suits me better,” Belle said, slightly offended.

“I understand how the princess feels, though,” Benet said with a sigh. “If I were her, I’d certainly want to try…playing dress-up with you.”

“Yeah, I totally get that,” Guinness agreed with a laugh.

“I don’t even want to know what goes on in those minds of yours,” Belle said.

The way Benet was wiggling his fingers at her made Belle feel like she was actually being touched, which gave her goose bumps. She stuck out her tongue and crossed her arms, as if to say there was no way she’d let them touch her anyway, and everyone laughed.

These guys sure laugh a lot, Belle thought, chuckling as well.

But then she found her eyes drawn to their uniforms from the Catacombs.

Do they know the truth…?

That the battle had kept going even after they’d finished their own fight in the Catacombs? Belle worked up the courage to ask them but had her own question directed back at her.

“You knew…?” Adonis said, looking both surprised and relieved.

Guinness and Benet reacted the same way, looking disappointed that she already knew.

Belle was shocked.

“We thought you’d be better off not knowing…,” Adonis said by way of justification.

Come to think of it, of course Adonis would know. Even if he was prone to shutting himself away inside Bamboo, he was still an Arch-Solist who was kept up to date on such things.

“Seriously? So I was the only one worried over this?” Belle asked.

“S-sorry.”

“I know it looks like we weren’t being honest with you, but it’s not like that…”

“It’s our bad, Belle.”

The three of them apologized, and Belle enjoyed it so much she let it go to her head a little.

“Oh, right,” Adonis said, purposely changing the subject. “Gaff sent a message saying he needed to tell me something about that…”

Belle visibly tensed up.

“Belle, did Gaff tell you anything?”

“Maybe… It might be better for you to hear it from him,” Belle said, trying to stay composed despite her racing heart.

She was almost certain Gaff was going to tell Adonis about what had happened to his father. About how he had fought and killed Tom Collins.

So he doesn’t know about that…

Belle was confident of that. It was such a precarious situation, but she wasn’t in any position to tell him or do anything about it. All she could really do was pray that the tension between Gaff and Adonis didn’t turn violent.

I just hope neither of them says something they shouldn’t…

Adonis and Gaff had very different beliefs and values.

But if he’s going to ever tell him, now’s the time.

Adonis has been in a good mood recently, but that didn’t mean he was impervious to a tragedy like this. He was prone to mood swings, after all, so if his talk with Gaff went badly, he could end up becoming that much more depressed. He might even become manic.

Perhaps sensing Belle’s inner turmoil, Guinness said something that made her jolt.

“Gaff, huh…? You think two Arch-Solists can fight in the Ballroom, Adonis?”

“Hmm. He’ll make for a good opponent.”

They both sounded amused by the idea.

“Stop that. Do you want to ruin Sherry’s good name?” Belle said with a grim expression, her tone stern.

But what Benet asked next made it clear that none of the men were listening to her.

“If they do end up fighting, who will you cheer for, Belle?”

“Idiot,” Belle said in a low voice.

Why are all men children? They have no idea how other people feel. If it really comes down to it, I’ll have to discipline them with my sword.

Sensing the dangerous aura surrounding Belle, the trio shrugged like kids being scolded for a prank. But each man smiled.

They never learn.

Belle let out a deep sigh.

When the O’crock changed from red to violet, the doors to the Ballroom opened.

It was a wide, open space, but unlike both the Throne Room and the Hall of Blades, it had no spectator seats. There were some benches at the edges for people to rest on, but the center of the room consisted entirely of a spacious dance floor. Gigantic chandeliers hung from the ceiling while spells and O’crocks glittered on the roof, walls, and pillars, creating a sight for which even the words dazzling and gaudy seemed to be understatements.

There were two levels to the stage, the higher of which was a terrace where the Symphonists were already lined up singing reverently about the country’s justice. The princess wasn’t there yet, though. With their odd outfits, Adonis, Benet, and Guinness drew the attention of the crowd, who whispered words of praise and scorn in equal measure.

Meanwhile, Belle was in the antechamber with Sherry. There, however, she was the subject of even more praise and scorn than her three friends.

It had all started when Belle had shown the petals with the princess’s mark on them to the priests standing at the doors to the Ballroom.

“Belle Lablac. I am here at the invitation of Princess Sherry.”

She spoke with the tone of one called to the battlefield, causing the priests to flinch behind their violet masks. The Ballroom’s priests were all dressed in violet gowns and mantles. Incredibly, they were all women. This was why their reactions toward Belle were torn between the two extremes of hostility and praise. For both men and women, it’s easier to express one’s uninhibited feelings toward a member of the same sex.

The first priest Belle called out to looked like she was still a girl. She removed her mask to examine Belle’s face closely, revealing herself to be a Cateyes still too young to have had her tail cut off. Belle grinned at her, which made the girl flush and put her mask back on.

“The princess is right this way. Please, come in…”

The priest motioned for her to follow, and Belle walked behind her. All the way until she entered the antechamber—and after it, in fact—pairs of eyes were fixed on Belle. The obscenely large sword on her back generally did draw attention.

Belle always had Runding on her. It was her inseparable partner, a part of who she was. She paid no attention to the incredible pressure from the stares of everyone around her.

As soon as they entered the antechamber, another woman rebuked the young priest, who instantly drooped.

“How many times must I tell you not to let people in without waiting for me to say you can?!”

The woman had an awfully shrill voice, the kind Belle hated. It seemed she was a senior priest. The woman took off her mask and put it on her head like some sort of hair ornament. Perhaps violet priests had more freedom to remove their masks than the priests of the other chambers.

“And who are you?” she said coldly, turning to Belle this time. “Do you even know where you are, barging in here like this?” She didn’t even try to hide the mockery in her voice.

Belle wordlessly held up the petal with the princess’s mark on it. Apparently, this didn’t sit well with the woman, because she arched her brows angrily.

“That is not something a ruffian like you should have. Why don’t you try explaining just how it is you got your hands on it?”

She was treating Belle like a thief. Maybe this woman did know who Belle was and didn’t like her despite her private invitation from the princess—or perhaps because she had it. Belle got the feeling that the priest was taking advantage of this opportunity to chew her out, and that once it was clear her invitation was valid, she’d simply pretend nothing had happened and wouldn’t apologize. She’d probably even turn it around on Belle and say she was just doing her duty.

The older Cateyes priest glared at Belle.

“Enough!” Belle exclaimed.

Both young and senior priests took a step back in shock, and the whole antechamber immediately went quiet.

“Let me see Sherry. That’ll clear up everything.”

She intentionally called the princess by her first name, without any titles. The older woman’s eyes bulged and her lips trembled.

“How beastly…”

“You’re right; I’m a brute. And I may be crass at times and rough around the edges. But that does not make me a bad person. You’ll do well to remember that,” Belle said, almost at a yell.

The truth was, Belle had intended for everyone in the antechamber to hear this. She was used to this kind of obnoxious envy and knew better than to let it bother her every time it happened. She knew how to talk to people in Park.

“Thanks. For showing me in,” she said to the girl.

Belle gave her an extremely courteous, dashing bow. The girl froze up for a second, and Belle could hear a gasp behind her mask. Then she quickly separated herself from the two priests.

“Sherry?! Are you here?!” she called out loudly as she walked around.

It was incredibly disrespectful in a place like this, but her entire attitude expressed the idea that Belle herself would choose who deserved her respect. This is what had separated everyone in the room into the two extremes: praise and scorn. Belle didn’t care either way.

“I’m over here,” a voice called out, accompanied by a giggle.

Belle turned around to see Sherry standing there wearing a gorgeous dress. How did she manage to look so innocent and demure even wearing such an extravagant outfit? That was Belle’s first thought.

Sherry waved and ordered the priests serving her to give them some space.

“You were so loud when you called out my name, I got all happy. So happy, in fact, that I considered hiding from you so I could hear it a little while longer.”

“What? That’s so mean! You knew I was here the moment I first walked in, didn’t you?”

Sherry stuck out her tongue impishly and shrugged. It was such a natural gesture, so devoid of any ill will, that it came off as incredibly cute.

“Hee-hee. Come with me, Belle. I have some dresses for you to try on. There’s no way I’m letting you get out of this.”

Sherry made a face as if she’d just read Belle’s thoughts, then took her by the hand. She dragged Belle into the Symphonists’ changing room almost as if she were bullying her, not taking no for an answer.

The moment the two women vanished, the antechamber filled with laughter and praise, criticism and spite, as emotions bloomed like a multitude of flowers in various hues.

“You want me…to wear this…?” Belle asked, aghast.

She was standing in front of a large mirror with a white dress held in front of her, covering her from the bust down. The woman holding it up was a Mermaid designer. Belle thought she looked familiar, then realized it was the same woman who’d sewn her uniform for the battle in the Catacombs.

Talking to her, Belle found out that she’d also repaired Adonis’s, Benet’s, and Guinness’s outfits for today. She said that having them wear their uniforms for such a special occasion filled her with incredible pride as a designer.

The woman nodded as she held up one dress after another.

“The length is perfect, but I think this might go better with it…”

“It’s lovely, but don’t you think this is nicer?” Sherry chimed in.

“Hmm… But, Princess, given her hair, wouldn’t this color be best?”

“Oh, you’re right!”

The two of them buzzed around her, switching between pensive frowns to excited smiles. They made Belle try on many different pairs of gloves, as well as all sorts of different types of jewelry, shoes, and hairpins. They painted her nails, applied rouge to her cheeks, and put lipstick on her, working their way through a mountain of different tools.

Pressed between the pair, Belle was rooted in place like a scarecrow. While she stood there, dazed, they swiftly dolled her up. She didn’t even have a chance to interject and could only respond weakly to Sherry’s words.

“This is a dress I used to wear a lot when I was your age. I think it looks lovely on you.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, don’t you just love it? It really suits your hands. And this ring will go perfectly with it.”

“…Yeah.”

“Your hair is so pretty. I’m sure some silver will make it stand out. Let’s have your earrings match it, too.”

“…Sure.”

Runding had already been taken off her back and carefully placed in the corner of the dressing room. It was her precious sword, so Belle asked for it to be placed on a bench, but Runding’s incredible weight caused it to cut through its resting spot and sink into the floor. It had effectively remade the bench into a perfect sword rack.

Had the sword fallen, it would have caused quite the riot. No one but Belle could lift it up or even move it, and if it had landed on the dainty legs of one of the Symphonists, it would no doubt have crushed their bones. Considering that, a bench was a small price to pay, and resting on it effectively sheathed the weapon, putting everyone in the dressing room at ease.

“Perfection,” the designer eventually said, satisfied with her work.

“You really do look so beautiful, Belle. Like a swan flower,” Sherry said admiringly as she looked at Belle’s reflection in the mirror.

By this point, Belle was speechless. Mainly because she was so exhausted. She’d never known standing in one spot could be so tiring. But seeing how she looked now, even Belle had to admit all the work had been worth it. She looked so good, in fact, that it made her feel like anyone could shine in the right outfit.

“I guess I do feel like a bird,” Belle said. “My legs feel like all light…”

This was her way of saying she wanted her sword on her back, but it was lost on Sherry.

“Being light on your feet is important at a ball. Go out there and have fun tonight.”

Suddenly, the priests called Sherry over. They’d been calling her for a while, but Sherry had been so focused on dressing Belle that she’d almost entirely tuned them out. As the leader of the Symphonists, she was a busy person. Much like Gaff, she didn’t have time to focus on a personal matter at a time like this.

“Go on, Sherry. I’m satisfied,” Belle told her.

Sherry frowned wistfully. Just moments ago, she had been dressing up Belle like an elder sister, but their roles had suddenly reversed and now Belle was the one coddling Sherry. She gave Belle a smirk, then, realizing this, flushed a little.

“Belle, you know the priest you shouted at earlier…?” Sherry whispered. “She always nags me to practice singing. And no matter how much I sing or how loud, she never lets me stop. It’s probably because I don’t do it on my own. But I’ll follow your example from now on.”

She giggled, then turned around with a swish of her dress and left the room.

Belle smiled wryly. Looking at her reflection in the mirror, as elegant as a pure white flower, she very nearly laughed again.

It felt like a bad joke. Like she was a wolf running around wearing the feathers of a white swan.

As soon as she entered the Ballroom, Belle started feeling an awful floating sensation. Her feet seemed to lift off the ground, and she recalled the ground’s weak hold on her. She felt so out of place. She’d feel more at ease having Adonis by her side, but she was denied even that.

Adonis was slightly tipsy.

“You look like a bird flower. Delicious.”

This tactless remark was his reaction to seeing her, and Belle’s reaction was to sink a fist into his ribs. A moment later, Gaff came to say hi, then dragged Adonis away.

Guinness and Benet caused a stir in their own right, each man surrounded by a small crowd of women. Guinness, having only one arm, nimbly rested a plate on his knees, happily eating and drinking his fill. But even with his left sleeve dangling empty, he didn’t give off the impression of hurt fragility. Instead, he was bright and cheerful. Guinness naturally drew in Solists and nobles with an interest in warfare, who sat with him eating, drinking, and sharing stories about their own scripts.

Benet, on the other hand, did give off an air of melancholy over his missing eye, using his tearjerking story to draw the attention of women attracted to such vulnerable men. He told them in bits and pieces about how he was injured, clearly trying to tug on their heartstrings. The women were probably aware and went along with it anyway. At least, that was the impression Belle got when she thought about the feelings of the women surrounding Benet.

Both of them were incorrigible, just going around and doing whatever they wanted. Left all alone, Belle sulked a little and wandered around by herself.

Surprisingly, quite a few men approached Belle. She was invited to dance or take part in a toast; one man even asked her if she wanted to step out onto the terrace to get a breath of fresh air. You should really put a little more thought into choosing a partner, Belle wanted to warn them. At first she politely turned them down, but ruder men gradually started to turn up. Still, she was used to those sorts by now.

“Oh, so you’re the girl with the hulking sword I’ve heard so much about. I hear they call you the Sword Breaker. I find the rumors hard to believe, seeing how scrawny those arms of yours are.”

One man suddenly grabbed Belle’s arm and pulled her closer, a smile blooming across his face like a flower. He held her close enough that Belle could feel his breath on her face and made to pull her into his chest, his expression warping into a careless leer.

Men. Every single one of them really is such a child.

Belle gripped the hand holding hers, and within moments, the man’s face went very pale. His eyes widened in intense pain, and he tried to pull himself free from Belle’s grip, but she wouldn’t let go. Eventually, his wrist started to make a creaking noise. If she kept hold for much longer, she’d crush the bones in his hand.

The man was gripped by terror, but Belle maintained her sweet smile. Just as the man was on the verge of screaming, she suddenly let go of his hand. The man stumbled back a few steps, just barely keeping himself from falling on his backside.

“If you touch me, you better be prepared to lose an arm. I’ll tear it off with my teeth,” Belle said, her tone saccharine.

Countless men in the past had either frozen up at this threat or taken Belle at her word. Just as many had disparagingly called her a beastly woman. Here in the Ballroom, as well, Belle got both extremes. There really was no middle ground.

Ugh, what a drag.

But Belle just shrugged it off. The men who approached her likely did it out of idle curiosity. Be it due to her appearance, her unusual origins, the large sword she wielded, or her tumultuous life, Belle had had more than enough of being treated like an oddity. And even if she did agree to dance with someone, it would probably just become the topic of some vulgar conversation. Whatever sweet-talking these men might try, it paled in comparison to the intricate tactics that came with wielding her sword on the battlefield and was all too easy to see through. Simply put, it felt foolish.

Belle didn’t want to let anyone catch on to the fact that she felt like she was floating. It would be showing them a weakness they could take advantage of, so she kept to herself while she waited. What she was waiting for, Belle didn’t know for sure. She was just waiting. Waiting for Sherry to explain why she had called them here.

Belle had an idea what it was about, though, and when she saw Sherry climbing up to the terraced top stage with the other Symphonists in tow, she was sure of it. Sherry stood above the castle Symphonists and Meteoric Symphonists, with her back to the God Tree’s imposing figure.

“Glory be upon us! May God’s branches bring glory everlasting to our noble Public of Justice!”

Sherry’s hallowed words carried the same might as the king’s divine proclamation.

Everyone exclaimed in amazement. The murmuring in the hall suddenly became much louder as anticipation swept over the crowd. Sherry raised a hand to silence them, and the noise gradually subsided. Then, just when it seemed like the room would become completely silent, the song began, its timbre low and soft. The Symphonists gathered in the Ballroom began their performance, until eventually their chanting filled the room.

A chill ran down Belle’s spine and goose bumps prickled across her skin. It was overwhelming. Over a hundred Singers and Symphonists matched Sherry’s every action, playing the song. It was a wonderful performance, but Belle just couldn’t believe that the person standing there leading them in song was the same woman who had wept on her lap at On the Rocks.

Sherry’s visage, so fair and beautiful, looked divine in that moment, and Belle felt her heart skip a beat. But what tugged at her heartstrings even more was the song. It had a rich tone that was truly pleasant and reverberated solemnly throughout the room, emanating the intent for enjoyment. The grim resolve Belle had unconsciously started to feel at some point practically disappeared, and she almost seemed to shine.

This is it…, Belle thought, tears glistening in her eyes.

This was what Sherry had wanted to show her. By that, Belle didn’t mean Sherry had wanted to show off her position as the leader of the Singers and Symphonists, or the majesty befitting her status as princess. Having realized the reason for her anguish, Sherry wanted to answer Belle’s words to show she was no longer going to live her life in pain.

You really worked hard.

It was like if Adonis, Guinness, or Benet had been suffering day in and day out without Belle knowing and hadn’t shown so much as a hint of that pain when they saw her, then sheepishly told her that they were capable of something like this. Even with Sherry standing upon the grandest of stages, Belle still felt that level of intimacy and affection.

Partway through the song, Sherry’s eyes fluttered closed, absorbed in her performance. But even then she could faintly feel Belle. She leaned on Belle’s presence for support and soon forgot it was even there, singing her heart out from the center of the framework she’d been given.

Belle was so overjoyed, and even envious, that she started to tear up.

I can’t let you one-up me…

That restlessness that made her feel suspended like a bird in midair grew ever stronger, and a competitive spirit almost like jealousy flared up inside Belle.

In the end, I’m just a wolf running around on the ground wielding the fangs that are my sword. A bird’s graceful flight and song aren’t my domain. So long as I’m here, I’ll never be able to compete with Sherry.

Belle didn’t feel this way out of any pretentious sense of pride. Both she and Sherry were aware of their weaknesses and wanted to treat each other as equals. She had no doubt that was what they both wanted.

Sherry kept going, singing a second song, then a third, praising the kingdom and God in her magnificent, majestic voice. She went quiet after that, letting the performers take over and the dancing resume.

Belle figured there was no point in her being there anymore, so she turned her back to the stage and started to leave. Some men persistently reached out to Belle, inviting her to join them, but she nimbly danced around them as she made her way to the door. But before she could get there, someone slipped in front of Belle.

“Good evening, Belle Lablac. You look quite lovely tonight. The dress suits you wonderfully.”

The short figure wore a tuxedo, his shapely harelip curled into an adorable smile.

“You always appear from out of nowhere, Kitty the All,” Belle said with a smile.

She had thought he’d been invited as well and would decide to come.

“Oh my, it appears you’re leaving, dear child. And just when the festivities were really starting to kick off,” Kitty said, almost as if he was talking to himself.

There was disappointment in his voice, but his long ears were standing up straight and he looked at Belle with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

“There’s no reason for me to stay any longer,” Belle said.

“Oh, I think you’ll find you’re being hasty with your conclusions. Reason always trails after you like a shadow,” he said playfully.

Belle laughed, and Kitty grinned at her.

“Back in Denariland, we would call one such as you kuu. Empty.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“If you wish to know the meaning behind it…” Kitty offered his milky white hand to Belle with a very smooth, fluid gesture. “…I must ask you to dance with me.”

“…The last time I danced was when I was little, back at the Farm’s harvest festival.”

Belle meant it as a refusal, but she took Kitty’s hand without realizing it. Something about Kitty’s movements made her feel like it was the natural thing to do.

“Even flowers dance and animals frolic, so why would you be any exception, dear girl? You’ve come all this way and dressed up for the occasion, so I can hardly let you leave without experiencing the joys of a ball.”

With each word, he pulled Belle back to the center of the room. That action already made it feel like Kitty was leading her in the steps, and soon enough, they were dancing like flowers blown in the wind, like animals stalking their prey. Kitty made it seem innate, dancing with the same ease with which he’d shown casting his barriers in the Catacombs.

“You do not know the reason for the lightness you possess. Since birth, you have been partially freed from gravity’s yoke. I envy that with all my heart,” Kitty said with a smile.

As he spoke, Kitty strode around the dance floor, guiding Belle in the dance step by step. Everyone who had noticed Belle before then was gawking at them, but Kitty didn’t seem to mind. He just kept talking and swaying both himself and Belle in time with the music.

“So what’s the meaning behind kuu?”

“Free and unfettered,” Kitty said plainly. “Those who know who they are and are unbound by it. They escape all bonds, restrictions, and constraints, eventually overcoming the very idea of escaping.”

“And that’s being empty?”

“Everything is empty. All living things are originally free in the truest sense. Those who realize this, in particular, we call kuu.”

At some point, Belle had started to move in time with the music. It was like Schwertmusik, like a duel, yet also different from both. She was flying, dancing.

“The steps happen by chance, yet they are inevitable,” Kitty said in a whisper. “You cannot be born unless you take that first step forward, but in taking that step, you move closer to death. Kuu is everything. It frees you from everything and simultaneously binds you to everything. There is no resentment, no desire. Flowers flutter and dance, animals hunt, simply moving, going with the flow.”

Kitty’s words overlapped with the sound of Belle’s steps clicking against the floor, light and flowing. Her movements were so graceful it almost felt like she wasn’t the one dancing, so light it seemed like her body wasn’t really there.

She twirled and danced, letting go of his hand and taking it again, smiling, her hair billowing, her dress transforming into wings, elated and exhilarated. In the midst of it all, Belle started to feel like she was about to lift off the ground.

But just then, although it had been distant up until that point, the hand of gravity reached out as if it missed Belle. It gently wrapped around her body, then let go—and while surrounded by those flickering lights and the sinuous music, a thought suddenly crystallized inside her heart:

One day, I’ll even have to say good-bye to Runding…

Belle went pale with sorrow. Words hidden deep inside her spilled from her lips.

“No… Right now, at least, that kind of freedom doesn’t feel like freedom. No way. It’s too lonely… The solitude would make me lose my mind.”

Kitty smiled. He didn’t say another word, just guided Belle’s steps, drifting along with the music. Belle did the same, singing with her whole body as she flew across the floor.

In that moment, Belle knew the joy of being a bird. True, she’d already been feeling like a bird, but she hadn’t enjoyed it. It had just felt wrong. Imagine, for example, what a wolf that had run on the ground its whole life would do if it was suddenly stripped of its fangs and powerful legs and given wings instead. It wouldn’t know what to do with them, and the wings would probably feel so unnatural that it would try to tear them off with its teeth. It would be fundamentally wrong to assume that, having lost its purpose as a wolf, it would want to soar freely through the sky. In losing oneself, they would end up losing their desires.

But for the moment, Belle was a wolf with wings, singing and dancing with her entire body even though she was a Solist, not a Symphonist. She was a wolf who had held on to what it was while still flapping its wings.

The many emotions imbued in the word nimble became intimately familiar to her. Joy and unease, sorrow and anger, superiority and envy—all those feelings combined, solidifying into that one word like amber. It was why everyone avoided Belle. As well as why everyone admired her. Belle realized that now.

At some point during the dance, her steps had become lighter. The song flowed through her, its rhythm reaching a peak, before it seemed to disappear into the dark of night and melt into the atmosphere, fading away.

The song ended. The performers took a short break, and other members went to fill in for them to keep the music going for the people still dancing. Anyone who wanted to keep going could.

However, Kitty stopped moving his feet, and Belle came to a stop with relief. This was as far as the wolf who’d just learned to fly could go this time. Understanding how Belle was feeling, Kitty gave her a deep bow and gestured toward an empty bench.

Suddenly, Belle realized people were applauding. The noise had sounded distant until then, but it had gradually gotten closer. It was only now that it thundered in Kitty’s and Belle’s ears that she realized it was directed toward them.

“Bravo! What beastly beauty!”

“A traveling Rabbitia and the sword-shattering Solist… That dance was truly a sight to behold!”

“Did you see how calm and composed she was? She looked as if she’d just shattered the proud customs of our ball!”

There were some odd statements being thrown in the mix there, but that just made it clear that the praise being showered on them was genuine. Yet while half the crowd applauded them, the other half glared and whispered scornfully. The men Belle had brusquely turned down earlier were divided between the two groups, raising their voices with the rest of them.

Watching the Ballroom split in half put Belle in an incredibly good mood. It was nice, the way they were divided right down the middle. Being loved and hated in equal measure felt just right to her.

As she politely sat down on the bench, she spoke those thoughts aloud.

“It’s a scale. In the end, there’s one inside every person.”

As Kitty approached carrying two glasses filled to the brim, his eyes narrowed slightly in response. His harelip twitched nervously, but he then smiled, trying to cover it up. It looked like he’d decided to shrug off her remark.

Belle noticed his reaction but didn’t say anything. Being particularly sensitive to these things, she could tell Kitty wasn’t just interacting with her because he liked her. He was expecting something from Belle, or worse, trying to use her for something. That was the impression she got. But whatever his intentions were, Kitty said nothing, and Belle wasn’t going to ask. She just accepted the glass he gave her without a word and gulped it down.

Two Arch-Solists stood on the terrace, both of them Cateyes. One was a dignified middle-aged man with golden fur and a sturdy physique, and the other, a slender youth as sharp as a water-steel rapier with silver fur.

“I’ve taken the spot someone else should be standing in. Forgive me, Adonis.”

“You mean Belle? There’s no reason for you to apologize over something like that,” Adonis said, accepting Gaff’s words as coolly as the night breeze. He raised a glass to his lips, which curved into a sarcastic smile.

Gaff smiled, as well. He stared at Adonis, perhaps weighing the man to see if he was worthy of his sister apprentice. Such was the look in his eyes.

Adonis suddenly smiled. “More importantly, don’t you think some people might read too deeply into the reason you called me out here?”

The terrace was a spot where lovers exchanged words of affection, as well as a place for collusion and political scheming. In fact, Adonis had used this very location for such purposes more than once in his ascent to the rank of Arch-Solist.

He’d climbed the ranks purely because he found it interesting. He didn’t want power, so much as something he could focus on and completely lose himself in—what was largely a selfish Motif. The fact that Adonis managed to reach the coveted rank of Arch-Solist essentially for fun must have been incredibly frustrating and a source of great resentment. This was one of the main reasons why he was so hated by the majority of other Solists.

“You should tell those people that what you truly want is different.”

“That’s absurd. It’s not like they’d understand if I did tell them. And it’s not like I really want them to understand.”

“You’re the same as always.”

“Arrogant?”

Gaff shook his head. “In your shadow, I see a glimpse of my younger self…and perhaps also Tiziano.”

Kir had said something similar once. Regardless, it didn’t sound as if Gaff was teasing him.

Adonis’s smile faded. His eyes glinted below his red bandanna, trying to see through Gaff’s intentions.

“…You were the one who first broke Tiz’s sword, weren’t you?”

“It seemed to me like they wanted their sword shattered,” Gaff muttered.

“Because you wouldn’t sleep with them?”

“Yes,” Gaff said concisely and without pretense.

“You knew Tiz loved you, didn’t you?”

“Weren’t the rumors that you and Tiziano were lovers?” Gaff asked. He’d answered the question with one of his own, which was uncharacteristically indirect for him.

Adonis gave a pained smile. “In the end, Tiz always treated me like a child. I was the one who was comforted in that relationship.”

A sudden grin spread across Gaff’s face. “As for me, I already had my heart set on another woman.”

“I know. Tiz knew that, too, and so did everyone else. It’s not unusual for Mermaids to fall in love with someone who’s unavailable. I think Tiz was just…lonely.”

“Is that so…?”

“Yeah.”

“I couldn’t understand their sorrow. And in the end, that’s why I couldn’t save them. It’s unfortunate…”

Gaff never spoke of Tiziano as an evil Nidhogg. Even now, he saw them as a friend—a comrade—and regretted the fact that shattering their sword hadn’t been able to save them. Adonis knew all this, and his expression unconsciously softened below his red bandanna.

“That’s pretty passive for an Arch-Solist. You shattered their sword, and I restored it. Neither of us was able to save Tiz.”

His tone came out as more encouraging than he realized. He’d always been on guard around Gaff, so this was quite the departure.

“Is this what you brought me out here to talk about?” Adonis asked with a bemused smile.

“It’s not entirely unrelated. Your father…Tom Collins. I slew him in the Catacombs,” he said simply.

The words carried a weight like iron, but Adonis calmly let them blow past him with the nighttime breeze.

“I know.” The corners of his lips hinted at a quiet smile. Beneath the soft blue light of the Earthshine, the sound of the ice melting in Adonis’s glass filled the air. “The ravens told me.”

“I see…”

“I’m sure it was my father’s greatest wish to die defending the Catacombs. And to fall facing one of the castle’s Arch-Solists? It’s a much better way to go than choking on the miasma of death.”

A lull fell over them, broken by a nuanced smile from Adonis.

“You’re not the sort of guy to ask the relatives of someone you fought for forgiveness. What is it you really want?”

“Sharp as always,” Gaff murmured. But Adonis just ignored him, waiting. “…His sword.”

“What?”

“Your father left me with his sword.”

Adonis’s eyes narrowed, his gaze fixed on the melting ice instead of Gaff. It was a cold look that refused to understand the feelings of another.

“…What do I need to do to get that sword?”

“My condition is that you return all the swords you took from the dead to their bereaved families,” Gaff said.

“Is that your judgment as an Arch-Solist?”

“…Yes.”

“Then as a Solist, I request a duel with you.”

Adonis suddenly let go of his glass, dropping it to the floor, where it shattered and scattered across the terrace along with the ice. For a second, a pale violet light spread at their feet—the wine in the glass, red like blood. Adonis stepped on the ice melting into the red liquid, crushing it beneath his feet.

“A duel to take the sword from me?”

“So long as you hold it, I’ll never let go,” Adonis swore.

It was only then that he looked at Gaff. He fixed his frosty gaze on the other man’s kingly eyes.

“If we can’t resolve this with words, then I’m happy to resolve it with the blade… But why?”

“What do you mean why…?” Adonis asked.

“Why do you collect swords, even when it brands you as a sword thief? I just don’t understand…”

“There’s no way I’d tell you,” Adonis said, grinding the glass and ice under his foot. “Bamboo!”

He drew a sword, manifesting it out of thin air. The tip of the blade glinted with a cold bloodlust.

Adonis always fought to kill his opponent. That was why he never engaged in pointless duels that wouldn’t make him any denari, no matter how much he was beaten and taunted. There was a clear, bloody determination to his actions.

But Gaff didn’t so much as flinch. Instead, several ivory shadows swiftly ran up the steps to the terrace—the ivory priests of the Hall of Blades, who guarded Gaff’s person. They stood in Adonis’s way, shielding their charge and allowing no opportunity for attack.

Their hands rested on the grips of their chained swords, waiting for Gaff to command them to cut down the offender by order of divine proclamation. One of the priests threw back his cloak, blocking the entrance and stopping anyone from going out onto the terrace, leaving Adonis completely isolated. Another priest offered Gaff his sword, reverently holding it out hilt first.

“Looks like we’re the entertainment for the evening,” Adonis said coldly. “Arch-Solist, as a fellow warrior, I ask you to take up your sword.”

“I have no intention of entertaining your request for impromptu Schwertmusik. Try again another day…”

The end of his sentence suddenly tapered off. Gaff’s wise eyes turned to the staircase leading up to the terrace, where the priests had emerged from earlier.

A voice called out.

“What is this, you two? A duel?”

It was followed by the clicking of hooves on the stairs. Keeping the priests in his range of sight, Adonis followed Gaff’s gaze.

“Kir…”

With an amused smile, the red equine Solist came to stand between the two men. Both Adonis and Gaff were shocked by his odd appearance. Kir was dressed in a sleeveless, water-steel cloak like those Mermaids typically wore into battle. It was dyed black on the outside and lined in a fiery shade of oxblood red, under which he wore ornate Centaurus armor. Although both of his arms were hidden inside the cloak, he had a strange, dangerous atmosphere to him, as if he were gripping his sword beneath it unsheathed. All four legs were covered in metal greaves.

Kir was clearly dressed for battle. His entire body exuded an air of brutality that was in stark contrast to Adonis’s and Gaff’s good humor from earlier, ominous in its grandeur.

Yet he was smiling brightly as he looked at each of them in turn.

“You’re going to fight here? There are no spectators, no witnesses. It would be a waste.”

“No, Kir… We’re not,” Gaff said, exasperated.

He looked over Kir’s appearance with a face that seemed to say he should act his age.

“What? You’re not going to fight?”

“We’re not done talking yet.”

“Adonis has his sword out, though.”

“I, however, do not. It’s not your place to interrupt us.”

“You won’t draw your sword…?” Kir asked, cocking his head.

He was still smiling, but the look in his eyes abruptly changed.

“Then die.”

The slash came all too suddenly.

Both Gaff’s and Adonis’s eyes widened at once. Kir’s black cloak flapped open, its crimson lining tearing through the pale evening light of the Earthshine. In that moment, a blade even darker than night was loosed from the shadow of his cloak, savagely arcing toward Gaff.

Having sensed the strange atmosphere around Kir well in advance, Gaff stepped back far enough to dodge the blade. But just as he raised his voice to scold Kir for his audacity, something unusual happened.

A sound followed the path the blade had just carved. It was a vicious noise—like fangs sinking deep into flesh—that lingered in the air, and before anyone knew what was happening, an invisible blade had pierced Gaff’s chest.

“Hngh?!”

The mighty Arch-Solist fell to his knees, dripping vibrant crimson. He groaned, coughing up blood, and his voice left him. Although he’d been taken by surprise, the fact remained that he’d been rendered unable to stand with just a single blow.

The ivory priests bravely moved in to guard Gaff. They awaited his command, hands on their chained sword, but he wasn’t in any condition to speak. One of them took out a bottle of sacred ashes to treat Gaff.

But then—ting. The chains on the priests’ swords came undone with a sound like the chime of a bell. Gaff hadn’t given them any orders yet, which meant that God Himself wished for the priests to draw their blades. The priests were more shocked than anyone, but they let out a cry, practically a roar, of joy, and drew their swords as one.

With that, the Schwertmusik began.

Adonis was frozen to the spot. The moment he saw Kir gripping his sword, he was assaulted by an overwhelming sense of terror. He couldn’t move. He trembled violently. He could only watch in a daze as a massacre unfolded before his eyes.

It was an unusual, completely one-sided battle. The priests of the Hall of Blades had skills on par with Arch-Solists, yet with every flap of Kir’s cloak, he mowed them down with ease.

With each swing of his sword, Kir definitively cut down their number. He shattered them like a child breaking toys, sending them flying with severed limbs, their ivory mantles tearing like balloons full of blood and viscera. All the while, he howled with laughter. There was almost a sort of innocence to it. Drenched in the blood of his victims, the outside of Kir’s cloak became even blacker—and the inside, even more red.

There was that same noise, and something invisible sliced through the air. It was the sound of Kir’s intangible blade. Some of the priests tried to deflect his sword, but the moment they did, their bodies were cut in half. Another tried to jump out of the way, and it briefly looked like he’d managed to dodge it. But just as the man held up his sword again, his severed arms fell loudly to the floor of the terrace.

Through whatever magic he used, wherever Kir swung his sword, an invisible, intangible blade followed. There was no blocking nor escaping it. The moment a priest tried to attack him, they found themself hewn instead, and in the end, they all died even before they could cry out in pain.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the magnificent window, the festivities continued. No one noticed the massacre taking place out on the terrace. Only a single pane of glass stood between the bright ballroom and this dark scene of carnage.

“Pathetic.”

Finally, Kir turned around and faced Adonis, grinning. He wasn’t even short of breath. His hooves clicked against the floor, splashing drops around him with each step. The entire terrace was covered in blood, and the only survivor, Gaff, panted painfully in its center.

“So what do you think? It’s quite an impressive sword, don’t you think? Mastering it took quite the effort,” Kir said, his tone casual and carefree. The Centaurus’s wise, mature countenance was twisted into a boyish smile.

“Agh… Kir… Aaah…” Adonis struggled to get his words out through his grief. The stench of blood was suffocating. “How…? How could you…?”

He pointed at Kir’s hands with trembling fingers. The man’s right hand was engulfed by the weapon, and it was already impossible to tell where flesh ended and steel began. The blade, dark even against the night, glowed bright red with that cryptic spell:

DILLEGNAVE

That word from the lost age of gods now seemed to sneer at Adonis. The Gospel-Bringer—the one sent to spread God’s word. The sword had told its wielder the meaning behind the spell, but it was clear now that it was trying to spread the word of the God Tree by offering up its owner as tribute.

“How could you do this…?” Adonis said, his fingertips trembling.

But Kir read another meaning into his words. “What? This country has no need for someone who can’t wield a sword. I don’t know what happened between you and Gaff, but do as you please with him. Feel free to kill him however you’d like. Think of it as my thanks to you.”

It was absurd. It sounded like Kir was saying he’d just butchered the priests for fun. Seeing Kir standing there, filled with such innocence after his evil actions, Adonis felt his hackles rise.

Still trembling violently, his features transformed by grief, Adonis readied his sword. It was mostly instinctive. A shudder ran through the tip of the blade, and his trembling stopped. Adonis’s entire body tensed up like a spring, his fear and sorrow enveloped in a cold bloodlust, all doubts left behind.

A cry tore from his lips.

“Raaah!”

Adonis attacked swiftly, his blade skimming over the floor as he aimed for Kir’s equine body, trying to cut his legs and sever his right arm. But Kir flicked his wrist, making that same sound again—and Adonis’s sword cut without him feeling any impact.

He instantly drew another sword from Bamboo, but the moment he gripped it, that invisible blade shattered it from the base up. As Adonis made to draw a third sword, that intangible blade caressed his face. His red bandanna was slashed through at his forehead, and Adonis slipped backward, falling onto the blood-soaked floor. His silver hair spilled over his face, a bead of blood oozing from the shallow cut on his brow, dripping down to his jaw. He’d been planning on taking the fight to Kir but, instead, had been driven into a corner in seconds.

If he moved, he’d be slain. Adonis was consumed by bloodlust, yet he couldn’t even lift a finger.

“Child’s play.” Kir smiled, lovingly caressing the black blade consuming his arm. “Isn’t this sword wonderful?”

He’ll kill me…

As Adonis prepared to put his life on the line and unleash one last strike, Kir suddenly turned around and calmly began walking toward the ballroom.

“Wait, where do you think you’re going?!” Adonis cried out, his voice strained. He had his arms crossed, ready to draw a sword in either hand at any time.

“Belle Lablac is waiting for me,” Kir said gleefully. He sounded like a groom on his way to the altar—and at the same time, an inescapable grim reaper.

Adonis knew he couldn’t let Kir go into the ballroom. No matter what. But just as he was about to swing his sword, prepared to die if it meant taking Kir down with him—

“This is all thanks to you, Adonis. If it weren’t for you, this sword wouldn’t exist.”

The words shackled Adonis in place. Terror and sorrow coursed through him, causing every hair on his body to stand on end, and his expression turned to one of desperation. Yet still, Adonis couldn’t lift a finger.

Frozen stiff in the bloody puddle, Adonis could only watch in despair as Kir sauntered off toward the ballroom.

8

The singing suddenly trailed off.

It happened without warning. The other Symphonists stopped playing, and the people dancing all stopped in their tracks and went silent. The entire hall was enveloped in an eerie silence as everyone looked up at Sherry onstage, trying to keep their confusion from showing on their faces.

Sherry trembled, her face drained of color. Just moments ago, she had been singing and smiling, when all of a sudden she’d frozen up as if doused with icy water. Fear filled her eyes, as if some sort of terrifying sight was right in front of her. And indeed, Sherry was seeing something. She sensed its presence and heard a silent, wordless will.

The will of God, the absolute ruler. Sherry’s song conveying His word halted as she understood the message of His divine proclamation, trembling in alarm.

“No…!” Sherry shouted.

But her voice came out as a single, raspy breath, a pitiful excuse for a scream.

She was overcome with sorrow. Devastated, Sherry looked over the vast ballroom and spotted Belle in one corner. A helpless, desperate look filled her eyes.

Belle realized something was wrong right away and prepared to run up onto the stage if need be. But Sherry began to speak, almost deliriously, her gaze still fixed on Belle.

“I shall convey God’s divine proclamation in my own voice. Tonight, a Nidhogg who gnaws at the roots of God has been born into this world alongside an evil sword. He intends to swing his sword at this ballroom.”

The way her voice echoed throughout the silent room truly made it sound as if she was speaking God’s Thema.

Tension ran through the room, but Sherry carried on, her voice dry and devoid of emotion.

“The name of this Nidhogg is Kir Rowal, an Arch-Solist who grew intoxicated on his power… He shattered the swords of the priests who serve as God’s branches and raised his sword against fellow Arch-Solist Gaff Shandy in an attempt to take his life.”

The sorrow in Sherry’s eyes overflowed, and a single tear ran from each eye down her cheeks. But no more followed.

“I hereby decree that a duel will be held. Strike down the Nidhogg Kir Rowal and give him death. The one to fight in this duel shall be she who knocks upon the Door of Journey, Belle Lablac!”

Sherry trembled. For a second, Belle thought she looked tragic and vulnerable, like a butterfly caught in a spiderweb. Like a woman who, ever since birth, had been bound in threads of fate from which she couldn’t escape or untangle herself.

“Belle Lablac alone, no one else!” Sherry proclaimed loudly.

The moment those words left her lips, she was freed from God’s hand, which had gripped her from within. Sherry began to waver, unable to support her own weight anymore. She leaned against the railing of the stage, collapsing to her knees. The incredible mental strain had left her with a pounding headache. The violet priests quickly hurried over to support Sherry, holding her up as if they were handling fragile glass.

“Run!” But Sherry shook off the priests’ hands and shouted at Belle, her face drained of color. “Run, Belle! Run!”

The violet priests lifted their masks as one, their eyes wide. God’s divine proclamation was the absolute truth that made up the foundation of Schwertland. However, it had just been rejected by none other than the very person who had spoken it into the world. Doubtful of Sherry’s sanity, the priests were trying to calm her down, holding her in place like she was hysterical.

Belle, meanwhile, had no idea what any of this meant. All she could grasp was that God had just ordered her to fight Kir, but seeing Sherry’s reaction, the situation clearly wasn’t as simple as that.

She spun around toward Kitty.

“What’s a Nidhogg, and why do I have to run?! Am I really being told to fight here?”

She shouted at Kitty as if he was God Himself, urgency in her voice.

“The divine proclamation gave you your final task before you may depart on your journey.” Kitty hadn’t lost his cool, but he spoke quickly. “In this case, a Nidhogg would be one unhinged by God’s—”

But before Kitty could finish, screams erupted in one corner of the ballroom, drowning out his voice. They came from a married couple who, until now, had been chatting diagonally across from the bench on which Belle and Kitty were seated. Positioned where they were, close to the entrance of the terrace, the couple had finally noticed the massacre that had taken place behind them.

The woman’s shrill screech warned everyone of the presence of a murderer, and panic broke out as the message spread throughout the hall. The glass doors to the terrace swung open, and a Centaurus appeared from out of the darkness, prompting more screams.

Their reactions were completely natural. The man looked like a grim reaper, wearing a black cloak with crimson lining and a magnificent set of armor that was completely covered in blood. He looked around with an eerie smile, as if he was calmly choosing the next person who should die.

As Kir walked straight into the ballroom, he knocked over one woman who was frozen to the spot, unable to do anything but scream. Kir looked like he’d just walked through a shower of blood, and the sticky redness clung to the woman’s clothes and hair, causing her to shriek even louder. She couldn’t stop.

Kir’s gaze fell on the screaming lady on the floor, looking like he’d just realized for the first time that there was someone other than him in the room. His cloak flapped as he freed his right arm, holding his hand out to the woman. For a moment, it looked like he was offering to help her up—but then the tip of a blade cut through the air, sinking toward her bosom.

The thrust produced a terrible noise that drowned out the woman’s scream.

She fell silent.

“Cheers,” a smug voice said over the body of the unconscious woman.

It was Benet. He’d taken hold of the woman from behind, a glass in his other hand raised toward Kir as if spilling the drink inside. Somehow, he had been able to block Kir’s sword with the glass, using the liquid within as a catalyst to erect a small barrier that stopped the tip. That barrier, formed from such a tiny amount of liquid, had been enough to block Kir’s heavy, hulking sword.

Glass thrust forward, Benet’s eye was closed, as it often was in battle. He’d formed this strong barrier faster than one could blink, using his powerful sense of hearing to accurately pinpoint the location of the sword and position his glass accordingly.

Even Kir seemed shocked. But then he smiled with joy.

“So you’re the one-eyed archer everyone’s been talking about,” he murmured, swiftly withdrawing his sword.

The half-frozen liquid in the glass leaped after the blade. It grew rapidly like a vine, coiling around Kir’s sword and climbing up its length. Once it got to the hilt, the tip of the liquid turned into a sharp arrow that flew directly at Kir’s face. It was a surprise attack so swift and unexpected that even Kir had no chance to dodge it.

But just then, Benet heard a sinister noise. With his eyes closed, he could make out the presence of that fang all the more clearly. Benet’s keen hearing saved his life. The moment he sensed the danger, he jumped away to the side, still holding the woman in one arm. Something bit and crunched through the spot he’d occupied just a split second ago, and the ice coiling around Kir was cut to pieces, scattering droplets of wine in the air.

Mingling with the aroma of the wine was the strong scent of blood. Guinness had sneaked behind Kir and opened the window to the terrace, revealing the brutality there. Grimacing at the bloody sight, he picked up an unbroken sword dropped by one of the priests, securing a weapon.

Suddenly, he spotted a survivor.

“Adonis…”

But the man was frozen in place, his eyes fixed on Kir’s back.

“Hey, Adonis, are you okay? Ah, Sir Gaff…”

Guinness’s voice drew Kir’s attention, prompting him to turn around. Their eyes met.

“W-wait a second…” Guinness rested the priest’s sword on the shoulder of his one good arm. “According to God’s words, I’m not the one you’re supposed to fight…!”

The moment the words were out of his mouth, Guinness flung the sword at Kir, then immediately turned and ran. Kir easily dodged the sword and silently swung his own blade at Guinness’s fleeing figure—but before he could, he was attacked from behind.

It was Benet. Guinness hadn’t been throwing the sword at Kir, but instead he passed it to Benet, using himself as a decoy. Kir quickly turned around and deflected Benet’s attack, only for Guinness to pick up a sword and attack him as well.

“Impudent whelps!” Kir howled.

Even without using his invisible fang, he was easily able to knock the swords out of their hands. A blade held by someone who hadn’t raised it had no attachment to them.

“Adonis!”

Unarmed once again, Guinness shouted at the Cateyes man, scolding him. Adonis jolted and, dazed, turned to Guinness. It looked like he had no idea what was happening.

Seeing that, Guinness immediately removed Adonis from the scope of the battle. It shouldn’t even be a battle in the first place, as the divine proclamation had decreed that Kir was to duel Belle. If Kir withdrew his sword, Guinness and Benet would also have to back down, but at the very least, they had to keep this deranged Solist occupied until Belle could get her hands on Runding. And maybe, by then, they might be able to figure out a little bit about the properties of Kir’s mysterious sword.

Kir swung his sword savagely at Guinness, as if mocking that idea.

But just then—

“Kir! I’m over here!” Belle shouted without a hint of hesitation.

She picked up the bench she’d been sitting on and flung it at Kir. As the bench soared through the air, making its way toward Kir, it suddenly caught fire. Kitty had swiftly deployed a carefully calculated formula, turning the bench into a flaming battering ram.

Kir swung his sword violently, the sound of Belle’s voice making him grin with savage glee. Once again, the noise made by that invisible fang filled the air as the bench split in half, shattering the split glass doors. The glass fragments cut through the formula, disrupting the calculation, causing the spell to fizzle out into particles of light. And with it, the fire vanished.

“He severed my Mathematics…,” Kitty said in alarm.

It was a fearsome sword, on par with Runding. Anyone who faced Kir understood that his sword unleashed some kind of invisible fang, and they were all desperate to unveil the mystery of it.

Kir didn’t have eyes for Guinness or Benet at this point. His hooves clicked as he approached Belle. No one could stand in his way. All the guests scrambled to get out of Kir’s way, forming a path between them like the aisle of a wedding.

“Where’s your sword, Lablac? Get it, now. You’ll die if you don’t!” Kir shouted like a child throwing a tantrum. “Or are you telling me to kill you unarmed?! Will you betray me, Lablac?!”

He hardly sounded sane at this point.

“That’s no way to ask, is it?” Belle said, exasperated.

She didn’t need Kir urging her on—she’d been waiting for a chance to get her sword. However, it was possible that the moment she turned her back to go for it, Kir would fly into a frenzy and attack her, and he clearly wouldn’t listen if she asked him to wait.

“To hell with this!” Guinness suddenly shouted.

He picked up a sword, declaring his refusal of God’s divine proclamation. Benet followed suit. They were about to charge at Kir’s back, when the one person who could stand in his way stopped them.

“Allow me to keep you company until your proper opponent in this duel retrieves her weapon.”

It was Kitty. As soon as he said that, he deployed formulas over the floor and began calculating. As a traveling Rabbitia, Kitty was allowed the privileges given to all Nomads, meaning he could act in opposition to the divine proclamation.

Guinness swung his sword in salute.

“Out of my way!” Kir bellowed.

He charged ahead, only to be held back by Kitty’s calculations. At first, Belle thought flames were rising from the floor, but in fact, the spell used the flagstones as a catalyst to create a wall blocking Kir’s path, while daggers of ice rained down on him from the ceiling.

Seizing this chance, Belle took off to get Runding—but before she could, Kir’s blade blew away all Kitty’s calculations in a single swing.

She stared dumbfounded at Kir’s hand, which clutched that sword capable of producing intangible fangs.

“His arm…”

Why…?

Thoughts raced through Belle’s mind: Adonis’s smile when he’d talked about Kir’s sword; Tiziano’s tattered body. Tiziano hadn’t died no matter how many times they were cut down, yet their body was devoured from the inside out by a sword—an image that dominated Belle’s mind.

“Belle!” Kitty scolded, causing Belle to snap out of her thoughts with a jolt. “The divine proclamation chose you! This is your final trial before you can depart on your journey!”

He cried out with his back to her, continuously deploying more formulas. His voice lacked its usual composure.

It was only then that Belle finally grasped the situation. Until now, she’d thought that Kir had just stormed in and indiscriminately started attacking people, but Kitty’s words hammered home the importance of the duel.

“Get your sword while I keep him occupied!” Kitty yelled.

Belle turned around, her dress fluttering, and the crowd parted to open a path for her. Even those trying to escape through the narrow doors followed suit and got out of her way.

She started running.

The antechamber was empty. Runding was there, lodged inside that bench that served as a strange scabbard for it. Belle looked at the giant sword in surprise.

She was having jamais vu. It felt like she was meeting the sword for the very first time. Runding stood there just like it had when she’d found it that day now far in the past, shackled and left to wither in the castle’s treasure vault. The intense emotions she’d felt at their first meeting filled her heart, but it wasn’t a sense of nostalgia that moved her. This was a surprising new feeling.

EREHWON

Utopia. That spell from the ancient age of gods, the meaning of which had been lost, transcended the long years since they’d first met. It looked back at Belle, revealing its meaning for the first time in that very moment.

“So that’s why…,” Belle whispered, holding out a hand to Runding. “It’s not you who changed. It’s me.”

The sword howled, responding to Belle’s hand. The moment she touched the spell, the dark surface of the blade suddenly shone lily white. The bench creaked as the sword revealed its sharper, elegant form.

It was like the sword was forged of unripe steel, yet to bear fruit, that was being born anew before her eyes by the second. It howled, brimming with seemingly bottomless power.

Belle’s fingers slid over the surface of the blade toward the hilt. The sword trembled, its grip jumping toward Belle’s hand. She wrapped her fingers around it, then placed her other hand on it and picked up the sword like a wolf baring a vicious set of fangs.

An ecstatic smile played over her lips. She felt no more doubts or confusion about Kir’s change, just a resolve to wield her sword. She was determined not only to fight, but to knock on the Door of Journey. All her senses and emotions were focused on that wish, converging until they burned white-hot inside her. But despite that, Belle’s smile was the epitome of calmness.

“Let’s go, partner,” she quietly murmured. “Our audience is waiting with bated breath.”

Belle felt like she was finally whole again, just like when she’d visited the Hall of Blades with Gaff. Every part of her—her legs in stride, her hands gripping the sword, each individual cell in her eyes—was brimming with power and in perfect coordination.

As she left the antechamber, the wide ballroom spread out before her. But the whispers of the crowd, the sound of her own footsteps, the clashing of swords, and the shouts of her comrades were all drowned out by Runding’s howl.

“Fall back, Kitty the All! He’s mine!”

Kir turned to face Belle even faster than Kitty did.

“Belle, his fang!”

As Kir confidently turned his back to him, Kitty used that opening to chant a mathematics spell, raining fire on the Centaurus. Kir’s blade easily cut through the formula, leaving Kitty momentarily defenseless in the face of his invisible fang.

But Belle knew Kitty had done this on purpose, intentionally making it look like he’d fallen for Kir’s blatant taunt.

The sound of fangs sinking into flesh had filled the room as part of the formula was torn apart, vanishing. In so doing, the flames exposed Dillegnave’s invisible fang, which bit deeply into Kitty’s shoulder.

“The sword is imbued with the power of Rest au Rant—consuming magic! It’s a sword that tears through dimensions, meaning no shield can block it!” Kitty shouted as he tried to cast more formulas to defend himself.

He was gasping for breath. In the brief time Belle had been away from the ballroom, Kitty had become even more winded than she’d seen during their battle in the Catacombs. The fact that Kitty was in such a bad state spoke to just how fearsome Kir’s power was.

Belle swiftly raced through an opening in Kitty’s formulas and stood in Kir’s way, guarding the Rabbitia. It was a reversal of what had happened just minutes ago.

“Thanks, Kitty,” Belle said slightly bashfully, her back still to him. “It seems I really am useless without my sword.”

Belle took a step forward out of the formula, and Kitty quickly undid the spell. Behind them, Guinness hurried over carrying a bottle of sacred ashes. Benet stood beside them, watching over Belle and Kitty as the Rabbitia was treated.

Belle moved forward, close enough that she could cover the distance between her and Kir in a single bound.

I guess this is fate…, Belle whispered internally.

She silently faced down Kir, whose expression was one of unabashed joy. The crowd looked on fearfully, but as Belle steeled herself to fight this lonely battle, she found her heart was oddly calm.

Gaff once told me that I share a bond with Kir since the first time I took this sword…

Belle suddenly saw an illusory door, huge and heavy, standing behind Kir. It looked a lot like the door she’d run through all those years ago, trying to escape the castle with Runding in hand.

…I fought Kir for the right to knock on the Door of Journey. It was in the Hallof Blades…the place that governs over the yellow hour. Back then, the majority of my power came from my loneliness and anger.

Kir slowly raised his sword. He had no hand to grip it with, because everything from his elbow down was fused with the weapon, steel and flesh devouring each other.

A battle in the yellow hour—matinee…

“This will be a clash of swords,” Kir said abruptly. “You understand that, don’t you?”

Belle held Runding at the ready, silently staring at Kir.

And a battle in the violet hour—soiree…

Sorrow filled her heart.

Now, at the violet hour, here in the Ballroom, I will fight Kir, who has changed in body and mind like night and day… No. I’ve changed just as much as he has.

Belle got the feeling that she was the reason behind Kir’s current state. Thinking back, Kir’s life had been thrown off-kilter ever since she’d first broken his sword. Meeting Belle, fighting her, and having his sword shattered was what had driven this man to a breaking point.

But with that sad thought, the other Belle—the Guidance—chided her.

You must not aimlessly bask in sorrow.

Belle smiled a sad, forlorn smile, like a flower wet with evening dew.

The rain of sorrow will freeze you in place and starve you out.

“I know,” Belle answered loudly after a few moments of ruminating on the many feelings coursing through her.

Kir nodded, satisfied, and his expression filled with savage bloodlust. The two silently stared each other down from across the ballroom. They stood there, swords at the ready, for only the briefest of moments.

Against the expectations of her three friends watching on behind her, Belle and Kir charged at each other head-on.

“Heavens…!” Kitty’s eyes widened.

The two Solists shouted, hands gripping weapons, swords trembling as they collided, neither falling back a single step as the blades clashing against each other like music. The clash from that singular charge made the room shake violently.

Kir blocked Belle’s heavy blade and tried to cut it, but to his surprise, Runding deflected the invisible fangs and even kept them from reaching Belle’s hand with its incredible width.

“My dear girl, not only were you able to stop the sword that tears through dimensions, but you also even managed to cut it…,” Kitty whispered, his voice drowned out by the clanging of the swords.

As the two Solists blocked each other’s swords, they tried to outflank their opponent, changing positions before attacking again. They parried, then struck again. Kir, clad in armor as his hooves thundered against the floor, and Belle, her pure-white dress fluttering around her, looked like they were dueling and dancing all at once. They attacked, defended, deflected, dodged, jumped, swung their swords. Their skills honed to perfection, the two beasts—one, a horse person, and the other, a winged wolf—howled liked animals as they produced beautiful Schwertmusik.

The crowd watching their duel was both entranced and filled with fear. They could feel it against their skin that this battle was so intense, the attacks so sharp, that if they reached out too far toward it, their fingers would be cut off.

Belle didn’t shy away from throwing herself into her attacks and putting her life on the line, evading and diverting Kir’s attacks by the skin of her teeth. It was certainly risky, but that was how intense fights like this were. That was something the Catacombs had taught her—the resolve to live when one was on the edge of death. By accepting her mortality, Belle was able to stoke her desire to survive even hotter than before. It filled her with an intense energy combined with the tranquility of death, which made the heat inside her burn brighter—giving the cold a bitter edge.

“This is the sword you’re so proud of?! Is it really that much stronger than your old one?!” Belle shouted as they locked blades.

Kir’s expression turned furious. They had both discerned the nature of their opponent’s sword, and all that remained was to pit them against each other.

“Your old sword was incredible, and you replaced it with this?! Did it devour your soul as a Solist, too?!”

This was Belle’s honest impression. Even if she was cut down by Kir’s sword, she wouldn’t approve of this weapon. She felt no excitement fighting it, no joy. Only sorrow. Each time they exchanged blows and their Schwertmusik rang out, a sinking grief filled her heart. It made her slashes sharper and more merciless, which only made her sadder.

“Say something!” Belle cried out. “Is your sword incapable of speaking?!”

Growing desperate, Kir howled as he swung his sword, and Runding told Belle exactly what that sound meant. It was a string of single words, repeated harshly.

Hunger. Hunger. Hunger. Stronger, even stronger. It was a maddening lust for power. Devour. Devour. Kill. Kill. Pleasure. Glee. Joy. I want to bathe in blood. There’s no need to think. Just swing my sword as I please. That’s right. Whenever I want, wherever I want. After all, no one can stand against me.

His thoughts were bloodcurdling, innocent on the surface yet brimming with malice. Within that complicated mess, at its very core, Belle found the one firm idea that came from the sword:

I am Dillegnave—the Gospel-Bringer.

Belle’s mind raced.

Gospel means to spread the word of God…

DILLEGNAVE

That glowing red spell etched on the black blade reflected in Belle’s eyes, and in that moment, she realized who her true opponent in this duel was.

“Kir!” Belle shouted, blocking a blow that would have instantly killed her otherwise. “Kiiiiiiiir!”

But the Kir that Belle had once known was no more. All that remained was a pitiful Solist and the sword that had devoured his soul. In his efforts to entertain God and amuse himself, Kir had been consumed, body and soul, by that very same weapon intended to please God. It was so cruel Belle couldn’t come to terms with it.

“You bastard! Solists aren’t your prey to do with as you please!”

Grief and anger sped up Belle’s sword. She charged toward her foe, fully exposing herself to attack. Her dress was already in tatters and blood seeped from her wounds. Every one of the cuts was shallow, but even if they had all been deep enough to reach bone, Belle would have kept on fighting. She charged in again and tore through the invisible fangs with ease. With just one more tiny push, it seemed the balance of their duel would tip—and just when it seemed Kir would tear Belle apart, he rushed his strike ever so slightly, causing the tip of his sword to miss.

EEERRREEEHHH…!

Honed to perfection, Runding let out a high-pitched howl as it took advantage of this opening, racing forward to run Kir through. So far, all of Belle’s attacks had been aimed at Kir’s body, but this time she caught him off-guard by striking at his sword. There was no way to dodge it.

So instead, Kir raised his left arm, guarding his sword with his own flesh. Everything from the elbow down was severed and sent flying, rolling along the floor toward the crowd, who shrieked at the gory sight.

Belle looked at him with a savage expression.

“…Looks like I can cut you,” she murmured. But it was drowned out by the clashing of blades.

Kir, now fighting with only one arm, continued to swing his blade at Belle without showing any pain. She could only pity him. A bit of blood dripped from his severed arm, and something oozed and grew from the wound, flickering like a branch of the God Tree.

Seeing this deepened Belle’s sorrow. She didn’t want to hurt him any more than she already had. Her mind was solely focused on shattering that sword as quickly as possible.

She would cut off Kir’s right hand holding the sword. That determination, however, only put Belle at a disadvantage. With her sights fixed on the sword, her attacks became predictable and easy to block. Kir was able to read her intentions two steps ahead, and Belle was gradually pushed back.

As Belle exchanged blows with Kir, she dodged the invisible, dimension-cutting blade. Although she couldn’t see them, her deep connection with Runding allowed her to accurately pinpoint the slashes. The number of blades was gradually increasing as well, showing just how fast Kir was attacking. Every slash produced a dimension-cutting blade. The real blade and shadow blade attacking from another dimension came at her from either side, which Belle responded to by imagining she was fighting two opponents. But Kir’s slashes came so fast that he started to produce a shadow blade before the previous one had time to disappear—then another. By the time that shadow blade vanished, his real blade swung again. Belle had to guard and dodge against three or four attacks at once, with any of them capable of claiming her life.

Dealing with this flurry was incredibly difficult, and seeing an opening, Kir charged at Belle, unleashing the two types of blades. Belle swept her sword, but it only cut through air—a fatal miss. Kir thrust his real sword at Belle, the black blade plunging toward her chest.

Belle couldn’t dodge the attack unharmed. In a split-second decision, she threw up her left arm, sacrificing it to guard her vitals. Bright red blood spattered through the air. Kir’s blade cut Belle’s forearm open, followed immediately by his invisible blade arcing toward her throat.

But instead of retreating, Belle stepped into the attack, the only way to avoid death, and the invisible blade swept through the air just above Belle’s head.

Belle was so close to Kir now that Runding’s huge blade was pressed between their bodies. They thrust their swords forward at exactly the same time, and Belle’s left arm was cut to ribbons, while Runding tore through the chest piece of Kir’s armor, crushing it. Miraculously, Belle’s arm was still attached. Kir’s attack hadn’t gone all the way through the bone, but she had lost all sensation below the shoulder.

Her arm was burning. The pain was so intense it felt like her arm was on fire. Everything went white, and within that white world, Kir’s black form alone stood out.

Belle gripped her sword with just her right hand, her bloody left arm hanging limply by her side, her white dress, gloves, and rings all dyed crimson. But despite all that, her consciousness was sharpened to a keen edge, and a singular resolve hardened in Belle’s heart. She waited for the moment in which she could unleash the incredible power contained in Runding—and the moment she did, there was a good chance Belle’s right arm would be blown to bits along with Kir’s sword. Belle was fine with that. It was a sacrifice she was willing to make. There was nothing else she could think to do. She just stood there as a blazing heat swirled through her body.

The crowd cried out in despair, assuming Belle would be slaughtered in the next exchange, with some even giving voice to this nightmare scenario. Sherry had watched the battle in silence thus far, but suddenly she reacted violently.

“Somebody save her!” She shook off the priests holding her back. “Save Belle! Someone, please save her…!”

Kir reacted to the sound of her voice. He suddenly swung his sword in a wide arc, keeping Belle in check, and leaped backward to put some distance between them. Then, shockingly, he turned to Sherry with a furious expression.

“Don’t tarnish this fight!”

As he yelled, Kir took one huge leap toward the stage. The power in his jump was incredible. He soared over the crowd and swung his sword through the air in Sherry’s direction.

Belle leaped after Kir, but she was too late. She wouldn’t make it. And Sherry wasn’t making any attempt to flee. Her face was screwed up in terror, but she stood her ground, opening herself up to Kir’s attack.

Sherry was fully prepared to sacrifice herself to give the priests a chance to cut down Kir. The moment Belle realized this, she moved out of reflex, switching Runding to a backhand grip and hurling it through the air toward Kir.

EEERRREEEHHHWWWOOONNN!

With a mighty howl, Runding closed in on Kir with ferocious speed. Still in midair, Kir swung his sword to block Runding—but the moment he made contact, an explosive power was unleashed in his direction.

Kir’s hooves struck the floor, leaving cracks where he landed. He’d withstood the attack. Propelled backward with incredible force, Kir slid diagonally toward the front of the stage, still holding up his sword as he had to block Runding’s attack. All four of his hooves made a screeching noise against the floor, leaving a trail in their wake, and when he got to the edge, his back hit the stage railing, breaking it. The handrail was carried into the air by Kir’s momentum—and with it, the entire front of the stage collapsed. Kir let out a furious roar devoid of grief as he fell off the ballroom’s second floor along with Runding. And just as Kir was knocked off the stage, Belle landed on it.

“I’m all right, Sherry.” Belle turned around and gave Sherry an encouraging smile, the blood dripping from her wounds clear for the princess to see.

“Oh, Belle… This is awful…” Sherry covered her face with both hands, her eyes peering out between her fingers fixed on Belle’s shredded left hand. The sight of her white dress drenched in red was nearly enough to make Sherry faint on the spot.

This doesn’t really suit me, does it…?

Belle pressed her hand to her cheek, a quirk of Sherry’s. Realizing that she’d done it without thinking, her eyes clouded over for a moment. She held her hand out over the edge of the stage to call Runding—another action she did unconsciously by now.

She had to finish this. That much was clear to Belle, even as her world burned with pain and her thoughts grew hazy.

“Today, when you were singing, you looked like you were really enjoying yourself,” she whispered, and Sherry let out a whistling sort of sob.

The violet priests were saying something. Runding returned to Belle’s hand without anyone touching it. As if following its path, Kir jumped up onto the stage, his entire body covered in wounds.

He leaped over Belle’s head, landing behind her. By now, his cloak was in tatters and his armor smashed. Cuts covered his body, but they didn’t bleed. Instead, something grew out of them, flickering like the God Tree.

Kir stood with his back to the real God Tree. This massive tree pulsed with spells that seemed to constantly multiply and repeat, and the ceiling above the throne was open, exposing it to the sky. This was where the Meteoric Symphonists performed to the heavens, similar to the Celestial Graveyard in the Catacombs.

Countless shapeless thoughts swirled through Belle’s mind.

What was the God Tree trying to say? It had no flowers to spread its words. Only swords for its flowers and the bodies of Solists as its seedbeds to make cancerous swords go through uncontrolled growth.

The God Tree perpetually continued to grow and wilt, containing within it a God that ruled over all through His invisible will. The king was permitted to live inside it, and it consumed the bodies of the finest Solists in the country.

Is that God? Is something like that really this country’s God?

Weren’t Nidhoggs flowers that conveyed the word of the God Tree? In which case, did they try to eat away at the God Tree because it could only convey its message to itself?

Belle thought she could hear the voice of the Guidance in the gaps between her thoughts, but right now all she could think about was the battle with Kir. These vague thoughts simply filled Belle’s heart with a great sorrow. But from those thoughts, a singular conviction rose up, stirring Belle to perform her final piece of Schwertmusik.

Even now, the God Tree isn’t looking at me.

It doesn’t look at anyone.

Only itself…

Kir let out one final howl. He charged at Belle, holding his black sword aloft. Having lost one of his legs, his body tilted precariously to the right. Belle charged as well, flowing across the ground as she raced forward. She was also listing to the right, owing to burning pain in her left arm.

Sherry screamed. The priests murmured. The crowd held its breath.

Belle’s and Kir’s paths crossed atop the stage for just a moment, the Schwertmusik of their clashing swords ringing all the way to the heavens, before they slipped past each other.

As the echoes of their clash lingered, time froze. Belle and Kir stood still, their backs to each other and their swords outstretched. Surrounded by a silence like sinking to the bottom of the deep sea, Belle looked up at the God Tree. She stood there, sword raised, looking like she’d just cut through the tree.

And then, everything was washed over with red. She heard a snap as the hair clips on either side of her head split in two and fell to the ground, undoing her arranged hair. Blood flowed from her forehead over her eyelids, and crimson droplets bounced off her eyelashes.

Runding made a dull thud against the floor, still gripped in Belle’s hand. She’d collapsed, falling to one knee. Sherry let out a feeble scream and started to rush over to Belle, only to stop in her tracks.

Belle heard Kir’s voice.

“…You’re strong.”

Still on one knee, Belle sluggishly looked over her shoulder. She saw the hard lines of Kir’s back as he stood there emanating a sense of pride.

Suddenly, silently, Kir’s right arm separated from his body. The spell carved into the black blade shone crimson, then emitted what sounded like a dying scream as it shattered to pieces and fell to the floor.

“Don’t have any regrets,” Kir said, his back still turned.

Pride filled his voice. Perhaps Kir had taken up this sword knowing he was fated to become a Nidhogg. He looked over the hall, the light already gone from his eyes. Kir’s upper half slowly slid off his body, falling to the floor. His lower, equine half still stood on the stage, balanced on three legs.

Belle had cut his body in half, sword, right arm, and all. Kir’s upper half hit the floor with a wet thud, and his tattered cloak fluttered down, covering his remains beneath the red lining.

“Belle…”

Sherry timidly approached her. The moment she got to Belle, Sherry screamed out urgently ordering for a priest to come and treat her wounds, her face filled with fury and sorrow reflected in Belle’s eyes. Still sobbing, she apologized in a voice that was nearly inaudible.

“I’m sorry, Belle… Look at you… I’m so sorry…”

Sherry pled with Belle as a princess, as a priestess of God, and as a woman, and Belle replied by mustering what little strength she had remaining to smile. Her vision became blurry, but before everything went dark, she caught a glimpse of Kir’s body.

As the darkness settled over her mind, Belle continued to stare at Kir’s corpse, the top half of his body so neatly severed, as if trying to take him with her into her dreams.

The act of cutting someone down felt terribly lonely. Terribly cold.

1

The drizzle continued. Droplets fell from the clouds like the lingering echo after a funeral, forming a mist that gently covered the earth.

The sun had long since set. A white figure walked beneath a row of streetlights, appearing and disappearing in the patches of light and dark.

It was Kitty the All, his face fixed into an uncharacteristically serious expression.

He was walking along the wall on the outskirts of Lower East Town. As he stopped on a hill, he heard eerie wails beat loudly against his eardrums. A swarm of shadowy figures wandered among countless tents, incessantly crying out in grief.

The Dearth March. Their numbers had steadily grown since first arriving in Park, like black mold growing on the fruit that was the city.

Here, in this corner full of shadowy figures, atop the high ground that offered a view of the area, someone awaited Kitty. A mature Cateyes man, his white hair wet with rain. He looked out over the swarming silhouettes like someone gazing at the flowers in their garden, then exhaled a puff of illusory smoke and spoke without turning to face Kitty.

“Once again, you’ve helped me out, wandering prince.”

Kitty shrugged indifferently, standing next to the man and looking down at the shadowy figures.

“I did very little, truth be told. My dear daughter asked me to withdraw from the fight, barring me from doing much more,” he said, a tinge of sulkiness in his voice.

“That does sound like her,” the man said. He let out a laugh, then casually changed the topic, moving to the main issue at hand. “It appears the Reason called into question finally completed her trials.”

“Yes, the three Divine Performances. All that remains is for her to play the Key…”

“The Key won’t allow her to play it, though. Her soul is not yet mature enough to be engraved with the spell of adventure. And before it is, Deus Ex Machina will attempt to weave her soul into its predetermined harmony.”

Kitty’s crimson eyes glanced over at the man’s face.

“It won’t try to erase her…?”

“That God’s will is to dominate, not to erase. It will always choose to shackle something rather than remove it. Killing the people would make It lose Its purpose as a god, and that girl has already become too much a part of this country for God to erase her. So now, He is creating a preestablished program to dominate Reason and make her a part of this country forever.”

“So will this country’s God destroy the Key…?”

“No, I don’t think that’s likely. Even if the Key were right in front of Him, He would not be able to see it, nor hear it. From His perspective, a Nomad is someone who no longer exists in this world. After all, they should never have existed in the first place.”

“Hmm. By that, I assume you’re referring to the Paradise Shift, which the false gods are unable to interfere with. What kind of harmony does this country’s God seek to establish, then…?”

“The Four Rulers,” the man said, turning to look at Kitty for the first time. “The ideal form of this country’s monarchy should have a King Minor in the shadow of the King Major, and a Queen Minor in the shadow of the Queen Major. Light and darkness. The unfortunate prince as the fortunate prince’s shadow, and the unsightly princess as the beautiful princess’s shadow. Marrying elder to elder with younger to younger—Major with Major, Minor with Minor—is the natural state of the monarchy.”

“Well, well,” exclaimed Kitty. “Things are much the same in Denariland.”

“The structure of the false gods’ rule is similar in all countries. I once escaped the role of King Minor, while the one who likewise escaped the role of Queen Minor is now among those shadows.”

“Truly…?”

“The only way to contain and control Reason is to make her the Queen Minor. As proof, they’re trying to force that whelp Skeptic into the role of the King Minor. Right now, the King Major cannot reject God’s intentions. God would crush those children’s attempts at resistance one by one, and it’s only a matter of time before He starts planning to destroy the Door of Journey… However, so long as the King Major accepts the Door of Journey, the situation will remain unchanged, for better and for worse. The question is what the next King Major decides to do… That’s what we must ascertain.”

The man’s words, like a whispered soliloquy, melted into the darkness.

“…It’s a strange twist of fate. The Girl of Reason, who wields the sword of the former Queen Minor, is set to be made the current Queen Minor. I, the former King Minor, spurred her to become a Nomad, which led her to encounter the tragic youth set to become this age’s King Minor and sparked in him the desire to depart on a journey himself. The Guidance within her is always reporting to me… Such is her fate.”

“Fate, you say…,” Kitty murmured. “For one such as I, who was sent to observe Reason, that word is forbidden. My role is to keep watch over her… If ‘fate’ were to befall her, I would throw my life in the balance to prevent it.” His crimson eyes stared down the man. “I no longer protect her because of your request.”

The man smiled. “Among all the Rabbitia, who plot to rule this world in place of the gods, you might be the only one who can put a bird in a cage without making it cry, Your Highness. However, we cannot return that bird to its cage without questioning this world’s Reason. Until her longing for home shatters this world—”

Kitty cut him off with a severe expression.

“You, my good sir…are dangerous. You adhere too closely to that word fate and are willing to sacrifice too much for the sake of your hope. You do not reflect on your actions at all, and if you deem it necessary for your hope, you would kill hope itself. You…deserve death.” Kitty’s fur stood on end. His eyes were wide and his ears pointed straight up, as if shocked by his own words. “…Good sir, you will die cut down by the Girl of Reason.”

Kitty gritted his teeth, looking like he hadn’t said that of his own volition, his face filled with sadness.

“If you deem it so, Your Wandering Highness, then it must be true,” the man said, his voice almost gentle. “I’m a ghost. An actor who already died upon the stage yet continues to meander following fate. Nothing more.”

Kitty shook his head with a pained expression, but the man flashed a fearless smile.

“I have nothing else to say…” The man pointed at Kitty’s red vest. “Next time we meet, I’ll take those trial ashes.”

With that, the man walked away, surrounded by the Dearth March’s wails of grief that filled the rainy night.

2

Adonis had disappeared.

Ever since the night Kir took leave of his senses, he’d shut himself away inside Bamboo and refused to come out. No one knew where he’d gone, so they had no way of knowing what he was thinking.

Belle sat on the cold, dry bed in Adonis’s empty room. Silent, sullen, she frowned and looked up at the dirty ceiling, her sword resting against the side of the bed. Black petals floated in through the window, and Belle suddenly realized that the only reason Adonis kept it open was to let the raven flowers in.

“…This is too extreme, idiot.”

She had called out to Adonis many times already, knowing that if there was anywhere her voice could reach him, it was in that room. No other place came to mind. Every now and then, she got the feeling that Bamboo was straining its ears to listen, but he didn’t show himself.

Her wounds from Kir’s sword were mostly healed, all thanks to the sacred ashes. Soon even the faint, nearly indiscernible scars left would also be completely gone.

Belle had spent almost her entire convalescence waiting for Adonis in his room. There was so much she wanted to tell him about Kir’s sword and about departing on their journey.

“…Let’s leave on our journey together,” she called out into the empty air again, only to get no response.

Every time Belle mentioned leaving, something welled up deep inside her. It almost felt like lovesickness. Most of it came from a sense of victory. She was an outsider, someone forced to always be at odds with the world, but her moment of triumph was approaching. It wouldn’t be long until the king guided her to the Key to the Door of Journey.

The moment that thought went through her mind, Belle got the urge to scream. The sorrow of parting melded with the joy of departing on her journey, causing her to tremble. All of those emotions had converged and crystallized into a single shining light, and she needed to share them with someone who understood her.

Her usual conversation partner, Kitty, had been gone for a while, leaving only Kitty the Nothing. Gaff was bedridden from the injuries inflicted by Kir. His wounds had been severe enough to kill him, but he’d survived by drinking water with sacred ashes mixed in. The first time Belle had gone to see him after the battle, he hadn’t been in any condition to speak. The second time, Sherry had been by his side and Belle hadn’t been able to bring herself to enter the room.

The princess had been holding Gaff’s hand, sobbing softly.

“…I’m sorry,” she said, her voice terribly thin and forlorn. “My tears rusted your sword. I knew that, but somewhere deep down, I hoped it would keep you out of harm’s way…”

Stumbling to a stop in the doorway, Belle overheard Sherry’s complicated feelings. To the princess, Gaff was like a lifeline tying her to the castle and keeping her alive.

“It almost feels like the castle is trying to take away my joy of singing, so that I take away your joy of sword wielding. I don’t know what to do anymore… It feels like I’m making a grave mistake just by talking about this… Aaah, I wish I could see Belle. I wish she was here to share some of her strength with me. But I’m scared, Shandy… I forced Belle into that cruel battle. What if she resents me for it…?”

Gaff, who had remained silent up to that point, suddenly spoke up.

“…Sherry, until now, we’ve both craved being needed by people. We’ve relied too heavily on that necessity. My Meister, the previous King Minor, said that to be seen as necessary, one must exert control over those they’re needed by. It has only been recently…since Belle came here and became my guest, that I’ve come to understand what that means.”

Gaff gently placed his other hand on Sherry’s.

“We’re afraid of needing someone… That’s why you’re in so much pain, Sherry. Be brave…”

“Oh, Shandy…” The tremble in Sherry’s voice took on a different tone. “You always make me feel so brave.”

Hesitating in the doorway, Belle felt the two of them were about to convey their love for each other. Something about it made her feel like she’d been left behind.

I’ll go home…

Belle had made for the exit, believing she’d have been better off if she’d gone sooner.

As she walked away, a thought flickered through her mind:

I’d never say anything like that, even if my life depended on it…

And yet somehow, she also felt like she’d been thoroughly defeated by Sherry.

Belle hadn’t seen Sherry since. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to go and see her. Sherry wanted the two of them to need each other, while Belle wanted her to know how happy she was to leave on her journey. Those two things just didn’t align.

Belle saw Guinness and Benet fairly often, but both wanted to remain in Schwertland, which made it hard for her to bring up leaving.

So all she could do was wait for Adonis. She spent most of the day sitting curled up in his room in the barracks, her thoughts washing over her like waves. Her journey wasn’t the only thing on her mind; she also ruminated on what Adonis and Gaff had talked about on the night of the ball and whether it was related to why Adonis had sunk into despair now. The need to know grew stronger in Belle by the day.

There were a few things she was sure of. One was that Adonis was still in the country. It was said that in order to become a Nomad, a person needed to have an invisible spell carved upon their soul. Without that, they couldn’t pass the many barriers set by God, something the Guidance within Belle had explicitly told her.

She also knew there were beings that were the opposite counterparts to Nomads—the Dearth March. Since Adonis was so desperate to flee the country, there was the possibility that his despair would lead him to lose all pleasure in this world and he would be swallowed by that swarm of shadows. But Belle rejected that idea outright. Adonis wasn’t the kind of man who’d be easily swallowed up by the Dearth March, and he wasn’t in such despair that he would willingly cast himself into the shadows.

The reason Adonis cooped himself up inside Bamboo was because he was fighting a battle against himself and his own fastidious nature that prevented him from involving others in that fight. Those feelings just unnecessarily added to his pain. If he was simply lost in misery, nothing would hurt anymore, and he likely would have come out of Bamboo long before then.

What’s more, Belle was confident that if Adonis were to appear, it would be here, in his room in the barracks. Maybe that was just wishful thinking, though. Adonis had never told her about anywhere but here, but if he did have another hideaway…

Just imagining it made her stomach churn with anger.

That’s not fair, you oaf.

She hadn’t known Adonis for very long, but in their brief time together they’d fought side by side, survived, cheated death, and grown close enough to talk about leaving on a journey together. So why was he being so distant?

Keep running from everyone else for the rest of your life if that’s what you want. Idiot.

Adonis’s cursed hands came to mind. Alluring hands. She recalled those claws turning the color of rust and the sword in his grasp wilting away.

But his hands were only a source of his problem. Adonis’s real problem was that he couldn’t accept his curse, and it made him afraid to touch others and be touched in return. He rejected people, thinking that he wouldn’t have to worry about his hands if he was alone. He kept trying to go back to his childhood, to the days when he’d thought his hands were normal, but it always failed. That was Belle’s read on Adonis’s mental anguish.

If you keep dwelling on it, your only option will be to cut off your arms.

Not that that would solve anything.

At this point, the sight of Adonis wielding a weapon struck Belle as tragic. When he swung a sword, it seemed like his only thought was to kill his opponent and wipe them from the face of the earth. There was no joy crossing blades with someone like that.

One couldn’t duel that type of person. A battle in which both sides simply tried to reject each other’s existence was the furthest thing from pleasure. It was nothing more than a warped form of amusement and a means of earning coin. Couldn’t he at least have the courage to love the swords he wilted, if only for a brief moment?

Coward…

Belle’s pity turned into irritation, which soon gave way to anger. She felt bad for Adonis, but at the same time she was upset with him, and the root of that anger was the feeling that Adonis was rejecting her.

I guess, in the end, it’s just my own pride…

Belle realized that while she couldn’t grasp the extent of Adonis’s torment, she was furious for self-centered reasons. But now, in this moment, she allowed herself to feel that way.

Belle was no one. She was transparent.

Having finished her three tasks, she had no reason to participate in duels or Schwertmusik. That meant she wasn’t a Solist anymore, either. Just a featureless figure in the crowd with Runding on her back. She lacked features from any race and had no blood ties to anyone. There was nothing to distinguish her for who she was. Just as the curse on Adonis’s hands had no name, Belle became a nameless, transparent, featureless presence.

But now, for the first time, she was hoping she could become someone. Her body trembled with expectation. She was going to become a Nomad, and she felt that if she had Adonis by her side, it would take on real meaning. Though why she thought that, Belle couldn’t say.

A messenger bird flower arrived at Belle’s room. It was from Gaff, summoning her to the castle before the red hour on a certain day. Since she had completed her last task, the king was waiting with the Key to open the Door of Journey, where she would undergo the final trial. Once Belle cleared that, no one would be able to restrain her or treat her as an outsider anymore. She would gain her own personal Thema and become a full-fledged Nomad.

She could almost feel Gaff’s joy through his written words. He was as happy for her success as if it were his own.

The message went on to say that no one would accompany her, nobody was allowed to bear witness to this trial, and ended with an apology from Gaff that he couldn’t come to tell her in person, since he was still recovering.

He’d sent a similar letter to Adonis’s room, but incredibly, even that wasn’t enough to bring Adonis out of Bamboo. Even the day before the trial, he still hadn’t shown himself. Belle could hardly believe it.

“Come on, it’s tomorrow. What are you doing?”

Her pity and even her fury had become exasperation. She stood in Adonis’s empty room, talking to him and reading out the letter from Gaff over and over, unsure if he was even listening.

“I hope this isn’t just you being stubborn,” she whispered with a bitter smile.

It was then that Belle made up her mind.

Having gotten to this stage, she was going to sit there and wait out of sheer stubbornness. She’d wait right up until the time of the trial, or even past it if it came to that, all to show Adonis that she wouldn’t undergo the trial if he wouldn’t show himself. At this point, it felt like she needed to bully him out of his isolation. To forcibly remind Adonis of Belle’s presence and make him stop wallowing in his own problems.

“So long as you don’t come out, I’m not doing my trial. How do you like that, you big idiot?” Belle said provocatively at the empty space.

She went back to her own room to get a change of clothes, where she found Kitty the Nothing sitting idly. The meal she’d prepared for him was gone—eating utensils and all.

Belle nodded, satisfied. “Looks like you ate it all. Now, don’t just eat anything that’s on the table. Or the table itself, for that matter,” she added, pointing to one edge of the table that was missing a small chunk.

As always, Kitty’s expression remained blank as he looked at Belle. He said nothing, but by now Belle could tell that this didn’t mean he didn’t understand what she was saying.

“I won’t be home tonight, so don’t go out without locking the door.”

She got the feeling his bottomless red eyes flickered for a moment. Taking that as a sign that he understood, Belle packed up her things and left.

Still, though, Belle thought along the way. Why am I so fixated on Adonis? When did I start caring about what other people do?

There was no reason for her to care for the Rabbitia, or to go so far as to make it meals, but doing so did give her a sense of satisfaction. Maybe this was that same sense of pride, or maybe she did it out of loneliness. She couldn’t tell. Either way, this was a change Belle never would have believed she was capable of back when she first came to Park.

I guess a person’s heart can change, after all.

Still, it didn’t feel real.

Returning to Adonis’s room, she prepared a meal and sat on the bed to eat. The room had no chairs, so the bed was the only piece of furniture to sit on.

Belle had washed the sheets on the bed and swept the dust from the floor. She’d tidied up the desk and dining table and bought a few vases with flowers to decorate the place as she saw fit. She’d also washed the faded curtain—for what good it did—and cleaned the window. There was no wiping away how empty the room felt, but at least it felt lived-in now.

Belle hadn’t been planning on doing it; she’d simply needed a distraction. She had started tidying things up, bit by bit, and before she knew it, she had cleaned the whole place. She might have said it was necessary given the state of the room, but that would’ve been a bit brash.

Belle had also cleaned the bath, which looked like it had never been used. So once she finished eating, she broke a water crystal she’d bought on the way back from her place to fill the bath with hot water. As steam filled the bathroom, Belle suddenly turned around to look back into the main room. It felt like an invisible pair of eyes was watching her, which annoyed her a little.

If he peeks on me, I’ll cut him down no questions asked.

She was serious about it, too.

Belle closed the door to the bathroom and slowly took off her clothes. The wounds inflicted by Kir’s sword were mostly healed and she had countless other older injuries of varying degrees that had already healed. She traced the faint scars and remaining wounds with a finger, but they didn’t ache.

Suddenly, the thought occurred to her that maybe this healing was a sign of change—not just an emotional one but a physical one as well. She was maturing. As a living being or perhaps as a woman. She would grow taller, her bones would become harder, her muscles stronger and more supple. One day, her soft bosom, still childish as it was, would grow bigger.

She would bloom like a flower.

That thought made the idea of that change feel more real, even if ever so slightly. With a twinge of loneliness, feeling like she’d progressed past something important she could never return to, Belle sank into the tub. For a second, she had the urge to cry, but the moment soon passed.

Belle liked plopping a bubble flower into the tub directly. Enveloped by the faint smell of citrus, she stared up to the ceiling, and another irritating thought came to mind.

You’re the one who said you wanted to bed me.

Not that she had any intention of giving him her body, but Adonis made no sign of appearing now, either. The O’crock’s violet hue grew deeper, and it was completely dark out the window. After stepping out of the bath, Belle changed into her pajamas and climbed into bed. Hugging Runding with her right hand, she curled up her jacket into a pillow and pulled the blanket over herself. She reached out to the dial on the fluorescent stone lamp and switched the spell from aur to glacé, and a moment later, the light went out.

Darkness filled the room. As her eyes grew accustomed to it, the gloom faded, and she could make out the contours of the furniture. The silence felt heavy, and the moment she stopped moving, all the sound around her grew unnervingly distant.

All of a sudden, Belle felt like her very being was fading into the dark. It was different from her usual feeling of weightlessness. She gripped Runding tighter and heard the sword howl faintly, making her smile.

Suddenly remembering that this wasn’t her own room, she whispered, “I might just take this place for myself.”

The room, in its silence, told her in Adonis’s place to go ahead and claim it.

“Come on, it’s tomorrow. What are you going to do? Don’t tell me you don’t want to go on the journey anymore…”

This time, not even the silence of the room responded. Only the faint stirring of the wind seemed to answer. There was no rain, and the pale Earthshine filtered in through the windows, wrapping Belle and the darkness enveloping her in its pale-blue glow.

Belle waited, and waited, and eventually closed her eyes, falling fast asleep. One of her strengths was that no matter how anxious she felt, she could always bring herself to eat and sleep when need be. As time passed silently, the faint beams of light coming in through the curtains changed their angle.

How long had she been asleep? Belle didn’t know. She woke up to the sound of a howl from Runding, so faint she wouldn’t have been able to tell if she hadn’t been touching it. She awoke fully but an odd unease kept her eyes closed and her breathing rhythmic and slow, as if she was feigning sleep.

There was someone there, in the dark.

Confusion flooded her thoughts. She didn’t know where she was. When she realized she was in a certain man’s room, she realized she’d lost track of how long she’d been asleep. It felt like only a moment had passed since she’d dozed off.

She could hear fabric shifting, as someone gradually approached. The sound took on a sense of presence, soft footsteps marking its progress. Belle’s heart thumped in her ears, getting louder as the figure drew closer. But she kept her eyes squeezed shut, which made the sounds of her pulse echo through her entire body. Praying the figure wouldn’t hear it, she became acutely aware of her position on the bed.

She was lying face up, her right arm hugging her sword, her chin tilted up as she took in shallow breaths. All of a sudden, Belle got the feeling that what she’d done was incredibly brazen. This wasn’t her room, after all. The thoughts she’d had before going to sleep came swinging back like a pendulum, many times heavier than when they’d first crossed her mind. The shock of it made her lips tremble and her breath catch.

She could hear the footsteps stop in shock, stumbling a step or two. Did it notice her? Something between relief and frustration filled her. No more acting like a sleeping beauty, it seemed. Despair toyed with Belle as she thought the figure might fade away and leave—only for it to come closer than before.

It took her completely by surprise. At first, all she could feel was breath against her skin, and then a pair of soft lips brushed against her forehead, leaving her with a heat that spread through Belle’s body. She felt like she was burning up.

With her eyes still closed, she tried to make out what was going on past her eyelids. The image of the man kissing her was all too vivid yet had a fragility to it that made it seem like it would shatter at the slightest touch. He was enveloped in shadow to hide that fragility, meaning that even though he was close enough to touch, Belle couldn’t make out his features. His eyes alone shone blue under the Earthshine, full of emotion and doubt he refused to express.

Looking at him, Belle suddenly remembered someone else. It was a faint memory, like seeing the continuation of a dream.

Silver-white fur. Blue eyes. A collage of features that sank into the bottom of her consciousness, never to surface, with only bits and pieces drifting up.

This man looks just like him, Belle thought. But who is he…?

Lingering, soothing, the man’s lips traced the bridge of Belle’s nose and then moved down.

For the first time, Belle truly panicked. Her thoughts pulled away from fragments of memory on the cusp of unlocking, returning her to the situation she was in. She had never expected to be in this position. That on its own felt like a dream, and rather than fear or sweetness, unease and confusion were the most prominent feelings. It was like she was swimming through a still lake, only for it to suddenly start flowing, pulling her in an unexpected direction.

She felt resistance toward this, something on an instinctual level, but some other part of her thought that a kiss mattered little.

She was torn between intense embarrassment and a dry, cold emotion, equal parts wanting to embrace this person and to push him away and curse him out. Either way, her pulse was racing loudly, and as the heat of that person’s lips nearly touched her, an impulsive panic surged up from some deep part within her. She couldn’t predict what she’d do next—words were climbing up her throat, and before she could even understand what they were, they tumbled from her lips.

“I haven’t fallen in love with you yet, though.”

It was only once the words were out of her mouth that Belle realized what she’d said. It happened just as his lips were about to meet hers. Why did he stop there? Why did his warmth immediately turn cold? And why did she feel lonely, like she’d been left behind, when she was the one who’d stopped him?

The figure pulled away, slowly, like he was offended. He’d said nothing the whole time, and Belle kept her eyes closed. She heard the curtain sway as a soft breeze crept into the room and the presence retreated into the darkness.

Belle opened her eyes. Tilting her head, she looked for him in the deep blue of the night.

She felt a twinge of sorrow at the realization of what had occurred. That she’d pushed him away. It was only then that she finally saw him out of the corner of her eyes.

“Adonis…”

Adonis looked at her wordlessly. She couldn’t make out his expression, much like someone sitting in the light can’t see the face of someone in the dark. But she could tell from his posture that he was hurt.

“…At first I thought I walked into someone else’s place,” Adonis said in a whisper. “I was surprised at how warm the floor felt. A room can really feel different based on who’s living in it.” Suddenly, he added almost bashfully, “I’m not good at living. I always feel like everything to do with life is oppressing me…because I was born half dead.”

Belle silently looked at him and tilted her head questioningly.

“And so that someday I can be completely dead…I reject everything that lives, spending long years with these hands that wilt everything they touch, only alive by virtue of not being dead, waiting for the day when death will set me free… That’s the kind of life I’ve given myself.”

Belle shook her head. She could see his figure, enveloped with the blue glow of Earth.

“How can I learn to be as alive as you are?” he asked with a tone of complete acceptance.

Belle was suddenly flooded with annoyance. She was sad. She hadn’t waited here all this time to hear Adonis say something like that. The loneliness made her curl up into a ball.

“Just be reborn,” she whispered, looking at his silhouette. Her voice was calm, hiding her frustration. “I’ll help you be reborn.”

Deep down in her heart, Belle rebuked herself for her arrogant, insolent words. Her intuition was telling her that she’d regret it, but she hadn’t been able to stop the words from coming out of her mouth. If she didn’t say it, then she would never be rewarded.

“So…let’s go on a journey, Adonis. Together. If we do, then you’ll also be able to…”

Belle trailed off. This time, Adonis shook his head.

“At least until tomorrow, when I play the Key…”

He shook his head again.

“There’s something I still need to check,” Adonis said. “I can’t make any promises until I do.”

Whatever he needed to make sure of, his tone made it clear that he was fully intent on doing it, no matter what. And maybe, whatever that thing was that he had to check would mean he never left on their journey. Regardless, there was nothing Belle could do.

“Will you come tomorrow…?” she asked.

“That was always my plan.”

“…You’re not going to ask why I’m here?”

“Any room looks better with you living in it than me.”

“You think?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re a real idiot, you know that?”

“If you’re saying that, then it’s probably true.”

“You have to come. Tomorrow, for sure.”

“I will, but you don’t have to wait up. Go on ahead without me.”

“If only you should be so lucky, idiot. I don’t need you to tell me that.”

For some reason, Belle felt like crying, but she grinned impishly instead to hide it. She didn’t know why she felt that way.

Adonis smiled within the shadows. Why did Belle feel like the more she expected from him, the more he would just betray those expectations?

“…I’m sorry, Belle,” Adonis said.

The next moment, the door of Bamboo’s fangs appeared under Adonis’s feet and swallowed him up.

He was gone again.

Belle hadn’t even been able to follow him. She felt like she had an unlimited amount of time or number of opportunities to do so, yet this also illustrated the depth of the divide in their perceptions of life. One of them rejected the idea of understanding that divide, that difference, while the other wanted to understand it. And because of that, both ended up feeling betrayed. Even though neither of them had actually done anything to betray the other.

Belle remained completely still, feeling like she’d been left all alone to wallow in her loneliness in the dark of night.

“…I’m so stupid,” she whispered with a sigh.

Ring, the O’crock chimed, marking the hour. The sound freed Belle from the spell binding her in place.

“The hour’s already so blue.”

Belle stared at the stone for a long while before whispering again.

“I really am an idiot.”

3

The hour changed from yellow to red.

The Throne Room, which was usually open to the public and full of worshippers, was completely empty. Not a hint of a whisper, not a single footstep could be heard. Belle stood in front of its doors, feeling as if the entire castle had fallen silent.

On this day, at the start of a season when Earth disappeared in the sky, all the Farm and Construction Symphonists stopped playing and the castle settled into a silent state of rest. This was the only day when the scales blooming from the God Tree didn’t weigh anything—the one day that everything was in a state of total, undisturbed equilibrium that made it seem as if time stood still.

Swords were sheathed in their scabbards, and with that sound everything went quiet as both good and evil rested.

It was on this day that those seeking to become Nomads played the Key.

It’s almost like whoever does it just disappears…

There was no audience to watch over the proceedings, no one to bear witness. People of Park City left on their journey as if they’d just suddenly vanished.

The meaning of that dawned on Belle.

…Freedom.

Passing through the doors from this side to the other freed someone from something and left them open to becoming someone else. Being liberated from Park’s Thema to take on your own.

Kitty talked about this. Knowing who I am and not being bound by it. Trying to explore it further without being trapped… That strange word of theirs: kuu…

Maybe this was Kitty the All’s way of inviting her on a journey, just like Belle had done with Adonis. Not out of a fear of loneliness, but so they could both acknowledge one another as individuals. Both shouldered curses that kept them from understanding others and pursued a wish, wanting to ring out freely like a single clear sound.

Belle turned to look at the castle. As she scanned the halls and the landings to the stairs, she thought she could see Adonis even though he hadn’t arrived. It wasn’t just him, either. Her foster parents and all the other people she’d met thus far—even the shadows of Tiziano and Kir, who’d died by her hand—were there watching over her.

They were all people on this side of the door. In opening the door and passing through it, Belle would bid them farewell and meet them anew. As silence descended over her, the countless shadows appeared on the other side of the castle’s pillars, walls, and stairs, then faded.

“I will become a Nomad…,” she said aloud.

Her gaze wasn’t confirming the ones she was speaking to weren’t there, but rather seeing them despite their absence. Before long, Belle was all alone, but she came to a sudden understanding as to why she had invited Adonis along on her journey.

With a serene smile, she turned back to the door and placed both hands on it.

It was a lot like a door she’d seen once before. A door that always gave her a hint of the endless possibilities spreading beyond it, but always felt too distant, taunting her with how it was always out of reach. Right now she was reaching out to that door from her earliest memories, encouraged by the idea that she was about to open it.

I’m leaving. I don’t know where I’ll go, but it won’t be here…

That thought had remained ever since she’d first laid hands on Runding. It urged Belle on, alongside a sense of elation.

The slow, heavy grinding sound of the door opening broke the silence, and the Throne Room was revealed to her, surrounded by blue spectator seats. King Rawhide was already standing on the God Tree’s stage, his two sets of eyes fixed on the door, acknowledging her at last.

“Ye who enter the Throne Room, forgoing this day of repose. Speak thy name.”

“Belle Lablac. That is my name.”

As she identified herself, Belle stepped onto the passage leading up to the stage. The images of countless bird flowers in flight were chiseled into the sapphire floor, giving the illusion that the birds were soaring through the air in the transparent blue stone.

“Named one, for what purpose do you forgo repose to come to this Throne Room?”

“I come to leave Park and cross the border of the country demarcated by God. My reason for being here is to obtain the Key.”

As she walked down the sloping sapphire flower path to the stage, Belle felt something within her go quiet, like it was resting. The Guidance. Whenever Belle asked it a question, internally or externally, it would answer loudly in her thoughts. But today it said nothing.

Just what was the Key? What was the final trial before someone departed on their journey? She had no way of knowing until she saw it for herself.

“For what purpose do you wish to depart this country, refusing to rest to come here to this throne room?”

“To become a Nomad.” Belle stopped walking. “Everything I do, I do to learn who I really am.”

The steps up to the stage were already before her eyes, and at their end was that austere throne, which looked like a grave marker. Standing far above that was the God Tree and the king, whose two faces looked down on Belle.

Belle was under an intense pressure, greater than anything she’d felt on her first visit to the Throne Room. She didn’t resist it, though, and instead accepted it calmly and let the awe and fear become part of her heart.

Suddenly, Belle heard the door behind her, at the other end of the stone path up to the throne, slowly close shut. The moment the door fully closed, the entire hall trembled with a low rumble, followed by a complete and total silence the likes of which Belle had never heard before. Even so, Belle didn’t turn around or falter. She kept her chin up and her eyes on the king’s twin faces, her lips curled into a gentle smile even she wasn’t aware of.

She had nothing left to fear. Never before had Belle experienced being so alive, so whole, nor had she ever known she could feel this way. This complete silence taught her, through the sound of her heartbeat and the many pulsations within her, that so long as she lived she was a vessel, a living musical instrument in and of herself.

In that moment, with Belle and the king facing each other, they were the only two sources of sound in this silent, transparent blue world.

One, residing in the eternal sword tree, stood closest to God and ruled over the people, governing the balance of the scales. Embodying the Motif of ruling over every race in this country, he had the traits of each species. The sounds he created were that of a being both singular, yet all-encompassing, whose voice cut through the silence of the resting castle. The king.

The other, standing all alone, didn’t know her origins and lacked all racial traits. A featureless. She had appeared in this world seemingly as if she were the template all races were based on and was now trying to escape God’s control, a similarly unique yet empty, hollow sound.

Both were abnormal, and their strangeness shook the world. Suddenly, blue-mantled figures appeared between the two. Masked priests. It was like the blue space between the two suddenly came to life, and they all turned their masks, each with a subtly different design, to Belle.

She was slightly taken aback by their presence, eyeing them carefully. It was like a ghost story, as if they were hidden behind some kind of blue curtain or had been hiding in the walls somehow.

“Ye who tread upon the shadow of repose, what name dost thou wish to be called by this Throne Room?” the king’s two faces asked solemnly in unison.

The top face seemed to grow more handsome with time. It had the small, sharpened ears and nose of a Cateyes and the beautiful, water crystal–like blue eyes of a Mermaid, full of order and grace. The bottom face, by contrast, morphed and grew unsightly with time. It seemed to be wilting, melting. Its eye colors didn’t match and it had sharp, serrated teeth—a face of chaos.

And both are within God’s palm…, Belle thought, surprisingly curious.

Maybe this was Kitty the All’s influence rubbing off on her. Looking upon the king and the God Tree that struck inexplicable awe into the hearts of the people, Belle climbed up the steps to the stage. She walked step by step, eventually passing by the throne to stand in the center of the vast stage.

“I want to become a Nomad. That is my wish—and the most fitting name for me!” she announced loudly.

The moment Belle said that, the king’s body shook violently. Or maybe it just seemed that way to Belle, giving her the impression she had enraged him, but she soon relaxed, realizing that wasn’t the case. Belle wasn’t confident in her words anymore without the Guidance to advise her with precise information, but she was confident she’d said the right thing and knew that even if it wasn’t, there was nothing she could do. She felt she simply had to face up to this final trial no matter what. At worst, she wanted to respond to the king’s question with an answer she was satisfied with. And for now, that seemed to be bearing fruit. Belle wanted to praise herself for that.

Honestly, did you really have to surprise me like that…? Belle murmured silently, startled by the king’s reaction. But she soon managed to compose herself.

The king continued swaying and trembling, not seeming to notice Belle’s feelings in the slightest. What looked like countless arms, legs, and other appendages Belle couldn’t discern were growing out of the God Tree. One by one, the blue-mantled priests silently began to move, as if it had ordered them to bring something.

Still the king continued to shudder. Belle got the sudden impression that some huge, invisible creature was thrashing around behind him, and the king was trying his hardest to keep it in check while ordering the priests to hurry up and do what they needed to. Seeing that, something suddenly clicked in Belle’s mind.

The king is like an advocate for those leaving on journeys… An advocate against God.

The God Tree silently bellowed, not wanting to let any of its people leave the land, and the king struggled physically to keep it at bay. The mental image struck Belle as somewhat amusing.

That’s just overbearing, Belle thought with a wry smile. God’s just being selfish. People can go wherever they want.

As that carefree thought crossed her mind, the king finally spoke.

“In that case…play the Key, Little One. Whichever method you pick will suffice. Show the timbre of your soul. In so doing, a spell to cross all of God’s barriers shall be carved within you.”

With that, the priests brought something from the side of the stage. It approached with the rumble of rolling wheels, and as it got closer, it resolved into what looked like a single black mass, far exceeding all of Belle’s expectations. It reminded her of a large tube—or perhaps a seedling block used for agriculture.

In fact, it was a musical instrument.

It had taken several priests to push it, but the instrument itself stood like the very image of silence. The black box was supported by three legs, each equipped with a wheel at the end. It slowly made its way to the stage with a low rumble.

The instrument was placed before Belle, between her and the king. The priests adjusted where everything was, positioning the rectangular box so that one side of it curved toward the spectator seats.

On the side of the instrument was what looked like a long, thin desk, set to face the left side of the stage. Next to it was a small, backless bench with a red cushion. Once that was in place, the priests moved away with a flap of their blue mantles, their movements oddly stiff and unnatural as they retreated to the sides of the stage and vanished like ghosts.

“This…is the Key…?” Belle asked, overwhelmed.

How could she even describe it? Belle scrutinized the large box from every direction but couldn’t understand what was going on. What was it? What should she call it? How would she use it? She didn’t have the first clue.

“King Rawhide, what is this…?” Belle asked, confused.

“This is the Keyboard Vessel. The true Key to a journey, Little One,” the king said admonishingly. “Sit upon that bench and face the Key. Should it acknowledge you, the method of playing shall come to you.”

Still baffled and furrowing her brow in confusion, Belle started to take the sword off her back to sit on the bench. It clearly wasn’t designed to support Runding’s great weight. But as she did, the king spoke.

“There is no need to remove your sword.”

Belle looked up at the king, surprised.

“The Key accepts those who play it in their entirety.”

“You’re telling me to sit like this?” Belle confirmed as she carefully settled onto the bench, Runding still on her back.

They better not disqualify me from the trial because the chair broke or something…

Resting her full weight on the chair, Belle was genuinely surprised. Even with the sword’s full heft, it didn’t so much as creak. It simply supported Belle and her sword as if they weighed nothing at all.

“Wow…”

This is convenient…, Belle thought, as inappropriate as it was at a time like this. Given the trouble she’d had daily with the issue of Runding’s weight, however, it was only natural she would feel this way. Nothing save some special magic could make a seat this durable. Examining the spell engraved on the bench, she could only tell is that it was very old magic, drawn very delicately.

But as Belle was preoccupied with the chair, something opened noisily. Two lids unfurled before her like a seed suddenly sprouting. One opened over what she thought was the desk and the other seemed to be a curved lid that covered the entirety of the box. As it opened, a rod rose up, supporting the open lid and holding it in place.

“Ah… The Key recognizes that one who shall play it has approached and acknowledges their touch,” the king said, his voice full of wonder.

But none of this made the situation any clearer to Belle. Inside the larger lid she could see the instrument’s many strings, and what she’d thought was the desk was lined with beautifully cut black-and-white objects in a row like teeth. Each of those teeth was connected or attached to one of the strings through some mechanism, and there were several pedals at her feet.

She could tell each tooth was somehow connected to a string, meaning that pressing on a tooth would make its string play. But even knowing that didn’t mean she knew how to play it. Belle thought carefully, warning herself not to be careless, then touched the instrument, gently running her fingers over it.

“The black-and-white keys you see before you are the reason it is called a Keyboard,” the king explained. “Even I do not know how to play it. You are free to do whatever feels right.”

“That doesn’t really help much…”

Suddenly, Belle noticed there was something inscribed on the back of the lid. It was hidden in the dark black of the box so she hadn’t noticed it, but as she looked at it, it became clearer.

It was a strange spell:

MOONWORK

“What’s this?”

Belle had never seen a spell as strange as this and didn’t even know how to read it. She could hardly tell if it was even a spell at all. The Guidance was still silent, and Belle herself knew very little about such things.

Instead, the answer came from beside Belle, spoken by the king’s twin faces.

“Moonwork—an ancient spell from the Age of the Gods, Little One. It means to do as the moon does.”

“Moonwork…” Mouthing the word, Belle felt a strange nagging feeling.

A “moon” was a spiral shape that spread outward while also infinitely falling inward. It stood for expanse and return, to continually grow while holding on to one’s center, a spiral that always had an ending.

Moonwork, or “as the moon does,” seemed to refer to things like the cycle of the seasons, the shifting of the constellations, the waxing and waning of Earth, and the state of life in the world passing from birth unto death. Things changing from one second to the next, constantly expanding yet reverting to their original state even though they were no longer the same, like the shifting colors of an O’crock, the eyes of a Cateyes, or the way a Mauti’s fangs are said to keep growing even after death. The change that comes with the passage of time. That was the meaning of Moonwork.

“The moon…,” Belle murmured. The word felt strange, and she was unable to grasp its significance on its own. “What does that even mean?”

Belle looked up at the king, her lips forming the question. She wasn’t asking for an answer, but to confirm that there wasn’t one.

“…It is a mystery from the Age of the Gods, unknown to all by now,” the king replied, confirming Belle’s suspicion. “It was passed down as a meaning for a spiral as a way to explain the nature of the world. However, its original, true meaning from the Age of the Gods is lost to us.”

“A word from the Age of the Gods…”

Looking at the spell carved into the black instrument, Belle repeated the king’s words, imprinting them in her mind.

Normally, this wouldn’t be something she’d worry over, but not only was the word carved into the Key to the Door of Journey, but it had also left a shocking impression on Belle’s heart, stirring a deep-rooted emotion within her.

It can’t be…

It was similar, somehow. She couldn’t put her finger on how, but there was something about the sound of that word—and maybe something more fundamental about its very existence…

I knew the answer when I was just born… The language I spoke, without anyone having taught me…

When Belle had first been born from the stone egg, it was said she spoke a strange language. It was perhaps a sign of her origins, known to her when she’d first come into this world.

What is this feeling…? It’s like when I met Runding. It’s strange but oddly comforting, like I somehow just know…

It was similar to her first encounter with the ancient word carved into Runding’s blade—a mythical spell no one knew the meaning to. That profound emotion had touched on something fundamental inside her.

What was it called? This unrestrainable emotion surging up within her.

Homesickness…, she said silently to herself, recalling the name given to that feeling.

When…did I start calling it that? A long time ago, so distant from now… At the time, I knew what that feeling was called, and what it meant. A feeling toward one’s home, a yearning for utopia, the pain of a heart that can’t love where it is now…

Belle couldn’t remember who had taught her that, and she never would. Even so, she tried her hardest to recall, her heart trembling.

Slowly, it led her to a singular conviction:

I wasn’t wrong…

In this situation where nothing was clear, this was the one thing she knew for sure. That emotion made her want to shout out loud.

Going on this journey, meeting Runding, coming to Park—none of them diverted me from the path of knowing myself. I wasn’t wrong to do all that. Not at all…

This was an anxiety that always lurked deep in her heart, even if it never rose to the surface. But holding on to the belief that following the Guidance or her own intuition would lead her to heal her homesickness was what had pushed Belle to come this far.

Had she made mistakes along the way? Was she wrong? Even if she held those doubts, she had no way of knowing. The only thing she could do was keep believing, and that faith was what supported her.

But now, for the first time, Belle felt a firm sense of vindication.

This was the right path to take…

And with that conviction, Belle faced the black instrument, spurred to make her choice to use the Key to open the Door of Journey.

Belle extended her fingers toward the keys, the index finger on her right hand floating over the two white keys in the center of the board. When she’d touched it earlier, Belle had realized that each individual key was inscribed with countless small spells, and touching it now, she could tell just how many spells had been painstakingly, intricately woven into each key. The entire instrument was a living thing without a pulse that tested those about to depart on their journey.

Belle went along with it, relinquishing herself to the reactions of the spells and coming to understand the meaning they contained.

I’m free…

The king’s words from earlier swirled in her head as Belle slowly, carefully pressed down on the key.

Dum…

She played the first decisive note.

A tremble, like a gust of wind, passed Belle as she sat at the instrument, creating an invisible spiral throughout the room. A shudder ran down Belle’s spine, and her hair stood on end. It was much like the song of the Swallowtail woman from On the Rocks, that was so different from the symphonies performed in the country. Music that produced nothing.

This black instrument had no intent whatsoever. It didn’t play to the earth or the sky, nor heal the body of illness. But that was because this was an instrument that beckoned rather than produced. It didn’t create or wither but stirred the hearts of those who heard it, causing them to eventually reach a different state of mind that they’d not experienced before.

Belle understood all that in just a moment.

And at the same time, she became more confused than ever. She took her finger off the key, unable to do anything else.

“The Key hails you, playing the ancient magic of Journey…”

Though Belle was dumbfounded, the king’s twin faces spoke from above. “It will bring upon the spell that will allow you to depart on the journey, God’s Anti-Thema. It is also known as the Final Spell, Little One.”

“The final spell…?”

“Yes. Since the age of the great Paradise Shift, it was this Anti-Thema that was accepted by the kings of all countries as an outside force between gods and their people. That is the Key to the Door of Journey…”

The king was trying to convey something to Belle. His tone sounded less like he was attempting to persuade her and more like he was speaking out of excitement. This gave Belle a sense of premonition for what he was about to say next.

Eventually, the king’s top face—the one that stood for order—spoke.

“That which is necessary to play the Key is already within you, and it is by channeling that which influences you from without that the Key is played. This is what is called coincidence.”

“Someone has said that to me before, as well. Does this mean that whether I get to go on my journey is decided by chance?”

“Not so, Little One. However…in a certain sense, you could say that.” The king carried on, his tone grave. “Coincidence refers to the things we can only describe using that word, like the progression and reversion of Moonwork. If it was inevitable that you would depart on a journey, then it would have been naught but a refrain and a variation of the Thema of Park, yet another part of the place you reside in now. But that is not what departing on a journey means. If God’s Thema for Park is harmonized to be an inevitability, then to escape it, you must believe in coincidence and encounter it by chance.”

“So…if I were to encounter this coincidence, would I naturally be able to play the Key?”

“Not quite, ye without race,” replied the lower face, the embodiment of chaos. “And yet…in a sense, one could say that it is. The name of that which you must find to do so is ‘means and method.’ Without this, no one can play it.”

Even his voice was like a group of instruments of different registers playing a dissonant harmony. Yet at the same time, it felt strange, like a multitude of voices speaking one after the other.

“What do you mean?” Belle frowned at the lower face. “You’re saying that if I have this ‘means and method,’ I’ll be able to coincidentally play the Key?”

The king’s lower face scoffed at her loudly, his low rumbling voice turning into a beautiful tone. “A means is but a tool to manifest that which is within. A method is but a way to accept that which is without. A means is a road to the method, a manner with which to achieve your goal. That is what brings up the curse of those who exist outside the gods—and what turns that curse into a blessing… Without that, one cannot so much as reach the Key.”

“If that’s the case, then I already have this ‘means and method.’ I mean, I’m sitting in front of the Key right now, and I played the first tone…”

“But you must know what it is, in and of itself,” the top face said. “Otherwise, you will not know where your path will lead you and will wander forever, unaware. That is what we call humanity.”

“Humanity…?”

It was a completely unfamiliar word to Belle.

“Humanity refers to all things that possess gestalt, a shape to their heart. It can refer to anything, even trees and rocks. All things that possess gestalt—or in other words, all things with a personality—are considered part of humanity.”

Belle thought back to the time she was attacked by a gnome in the Quartz Forest, where O’crocks are produced. The guardian spirit of the forest didn’t have a proper body, but it changed its physical form according to the shape of its will.

“…Humanity,” Belle said, still confused. “So what you’re saying is this: In understanding humanity, I’ll be able to find the means and method, which I can use to meet coincidence… And after all that, the Key will play…?”

The more she talked, the less sense it made. But oddly enough, she wasn’t annoyed.

I think the king is trying to convey one major, fundamental thing, but he can’t say it directly. So he keeps alluding to it and burying it underneath everything else, hoping I’ll get the gist of it…

Feeling that this explained the king’s behavior, Belle made an effort not to get annoyed with the dizzying flurry of words and terms, and she just put up with them.

But then the lower face brought up another term.

“However, hear this, ye without kin. To understand humanity, you must first grasp its nature—something called ‘Now Here.’”

There’s more…?

But as Belle whispered that to herself, exhausted, something clicked into place. Her eyes lit up as she waited for the king to keep going.

“Now Here is the name of the Spell of Journey. In exiling yourself from God’s law, you take on a grand curse, condemning yourself to believe that it will one day become a blessing. Wherever you go, the spell will force on you the loneliness of being here and now—”

“Durchbohren—drill through the world!” Belle shouted, cutting off the king. “Howl out in my own pitch… When I do that, I’ll carve out a hole in the earth. I will carve the spell that is my name into the world. Only then will my existence truly bloom. This is what my sword taught me. Ah, so this is what you meant… It’s a lot like what you’re saying, King Rawhide.”

This time, the king went silent, awaiting Belle’s words. But Belle, too, went speechless, realizing what conclusion her words had led her to. Belle was confused and unusually flustered, and she turned her eyes to the Key, like she was asking for help.

The black instrument stood silent, as if indicating what she must do next.

Belle bit her lip.

“But I… I don’t know what that is yet… No. I get the feeling I shouldn’t understand…”

And only once she said that did Belle realize the situation she was in. It was too early. The instrument she was now touching was asking her what that silence meant, and Belle only had a vague understanding. Yet in it, Belle sensed a deep abyss that made her unconsciously pull away from the question. In the face of that abyss, she felt like all she could do was stand stock-still in fear.

“When I first played the Key, I thought the instrument was playing on its own. And it probably was. All I did was place my fingers on the Key… No, not even that; I only wished for it. If I truly wanted to, even me swinging my sword down on this instrument would have made this instrument play itself. The Key permits everything… But even so…”

Despite this, Belle couldn’t play the Key any longer. She couldn’t bring the Key to play and express who she was.

“I can’t… Not yet…”

This was the vast solitude she learned of when she had danced with Kitty the All during the ball. It was a definitive sense of who she was, a despairing loneliness brought upon by the fact that her existence was independent and isolated from the world.

“Right now…I can’t see the freedom this instrument offers as ‘freedom.’ It’s lonely… So lonely it would make me lose my mind.”

In that moment, she realized the Key had gone completely silent.

“In that case, Little One, do you forfeit this trial…?” the king’s two faces asked solemnly.

The hint of disappointment in his voice hurt Belle, but even so, she couldn’t do anything different.

“Well, I mean…”

With doubt and dread—as well as a certain resignation—Belle pressed her finger down on the keys. But the only sound it made was a hollow clunk, like a stone thrown into a still lake. The noise was soon swallowed by silence, scattering meaninglessly into the air.

Such a heavy sound…, Belle thought, feeling it in its entirety.

It was the shock of having to contain the endless possibilities hidden within the abyssal silence inside her one body—a shock so inexplicable that Belle came to the realization that this was far too premature for her. That depth of possibility was the melody of the spell that would be performed by the Key, and at the same time, it was Belle’s life. And no matter how multifaceted and nigh infinite that life may have been, Belle would be all alone.

Just her, singularly, contrasted against infinity—her existence, diminutive to the point of being nearly null. The comparison weighed heavily on Belle’s heart, leaving her terrified. But despite that shock, she wasn’t one to simply give it all up for Park or God or a Thema. She knew she had to bear that weight on her own. Leaving on a journey meant being sustained by one’s own Thema, and so long as that was her aspiration, no one but her could bear the weight of the silence that was her life.

In a sense, that weight was her mental preparation, the conviction of where her soul was. And unable to support this weight she had picked up, Belle chose to give up and put it down.

I get the feeling this has been happening to me a lot lately…, Belle thought, letting out a deep sigh.

Opening this door again didn’t strike her as completely impossible—but it would be terribly hard. If nothing else, she couldn’t do it as she was now.

She turned a reproachful gaze at the Key, but the black instrument simply stood there indifferently, tacitly implying that not playing this was also a part of freedom.

5

At the same time, in the early afternoon…

On the road leading from Central East Town to the noble area in the center of the city, a tumbler raced through the streets with speed that didn’t match its hulking size. It was a type of carriage flower—a gigantic eight-legged turtle with room for twenty people, guided by the playing of a string Symphonist coach driver.

This particular tumbler had been modified with a specially made roof set on the shell and simple seats in rows underneath it. Sitting there were Solists and Symphonists of various races, along with their instruments. Among them were young girls who, free from their studies owing to the Day of Respite, were chatting and considering where to go out that day.

One passenger, however, was a man wearing strange attire. He hid his expression beneath a red bandanna and, despite not carrying a sword, gave off the sharp air of a Solist.

Adonis.

He was in his formalwear, but it was unbuttoned, he’d removed his tie, and it looked unkempt on the whole. It was the same uniform he’d worn during the battle for the Catacombs, woven from water steel and dyed in camellia colors, repaired so as to incorporate the damage he’d taken during the battle into the design with the bloodstains surrounded in golden thread. It bordered on distasteful, but it did suit him, mostly because his body was tense and his figure was naturally supple and lithe. Yet he always carried himself in a way that seemed carefree, like he never engaged with anything unnecessary, so this distinctive attire seemed to highlight his good points.

That said, it did stand out like a sore thumb.

The tumbler came to a stop, and the coach driver’s song fell quiet. Adonis silently got to his feet, and the moment he stepped off the shell, people started whispering about his attire.

“How pretentious…”

“Did you see his eyes? He looks dangerous…”

“No way. If he’s a Solist, then he’s really trying to show off…”

Adonis could hear them, but he didn’t really care. He walked out of the mercantile area, which was silent on the Day of Respite, and passed by the pubs, which by contrast were incredibly lively. He crossed the plaza and training grounds, where many Solists were resting on their day off.

His clothing naturally drew attention, and he could hear people wondering about why he was so overdressed, but it was the scent of a stir, not their voices, that made his nose twitch nervously.

It was within that stir, and between the people refocusing on their time of repose, that he suddenly noticed another presence.

Them again…

Adonis’s lips warped into an eerie smile. As he walked casually through town, there were people who spotted him in the crowd and followed him. They exchanged glances, nodded, and then moved with swift steps. Adonis could feel their movements, sense their faint presence on his skin.

One… Two…

Adonis counted under his breath, hiding his expression beneath his bandanna. The bandanna had turned a shade redder since Kir had cut him, and it stood out against his silver fur and clear blue eyes. More than ever before, Adonis’s expression was sharp like freshly whetted steel, and his gaze was so chilling it made it seem unlikely that there was any emotion within him at all. His hands, covered in rough gloves, hung loosely at his side. He didn’t carry any weapons on him, so he didn’t look threatening, but instead terribly defenseless. It was the behavior of prey that, while expecting to be hunted at any moment, was completely unguarded.

The way he was looking around while unarmed gradually drew more attention, and he could feel additional gazes on his back as time went on.

Four… Five… Six…

That unnerving smile spread on his face.

Adonis continued walking silently down a tree-lined path leading up to the castle.

He strolled carelessly between the trees, and whenever he hit a fork in the road, it looked like he’d pick a direction at random, eventually leading him to a dim, extremely unpopulated area.

The sound of footsteps against the flagstones disappeared. Adonis got off the road and trod on the lawn, heading toward a lush, forested area. A gentle breeze blew past his path, the sound of the leaves rustling softly filling the area, and the wind toyed with his hair.

But then Adonis suddenly ducked, as if to hide himself from the wind. He raised his head and leaped forward nimbly. The next moment, something swept violently across where Adonis had just been standing—a sheathed sword. The grip was tied with a thread, and it was swung hard through the air, without drawing the blade.

The hand holding the hilt of the sword appeared from behind a tree, while a second man stood where Adonis had been just seconds ago. A black-furred Cateyes with a scary expression turned to look at Adonis—and spat in his direction.

With this as their signal, other Cateyes and Centaurus men emerged from the nearby trees and surrounded Adonis. There were eight of them, and they all had swords. Their stances suggested Solist training.

“It’s a day of rest, you know,” Adonis said.

The men let out low chuckles. That noise sounded far too menacing for this to be the usual level of harassment. It was clear what they were after: They wanted Adonis to return swords that belonged to their families, but at this point, they had no intention of talking things out.

Adonis looked around at the men, his expression unchanged.

“It’s not like you guys need to steal swords from me.”

The men were all holding swords, and even sheathed, it was clear that they were honed, matured weapons.

“What are you saying?! If you’d just hand them over, we wouldn’t have to go through all this trouble!” the black-furred man howled, swinging his sword through the air in a show of force. The sheath had been crafted with a layer of water steel wrapped around it, making that in itself a blunt weapon of considerable heft.

“And since you showed your face…I’m gonna assume you’re prepared for what’s to come.”

The man drew his blade viciously, like a wolf licking its chops. The fact that Gaff was injured and wouldn’t be coming to stop them probably emboldened them, or perhaps they really were that incensed with Adonis, who hardly ever showed his face in public. They closed in on him, believing their superior numbers would help them win.

Adonis glanced around the group and said with complete indifference, “Fine. Give me the names of the spells of the swords you want.”

The black-furred Cateyes man frowned, his triangular ears twitching. He tapped his sheathed sword against his hand, exchanging a glance with the other men. His gaze moved from Adonis to his cronies and back again, filled with a mixture of suspicion and disappointment.

“The spell was…”

Still eyeing Adonis with suspicion, the man told him the spell of the sword he wanted.

“Bamboo…,” Adonis called out, and a sword appeared out of thin air. Grasping the hilt, he told the man, “I don’t have a sheath for it, so you’ll have to arrange that yourself.”

With that, Adonis threw the sword halfway between himself and the man. The tip embedded itself into the ground, and the man gingerly picked up the weapon. He didn’t react to the Question mark on it but simply leveled a cold, distrustful look at Adonis.

“What else?” Adonis asked, turning to face the others.

The men listed the spells they needed, and Adonis went around calling up the swords and thrusting them into the ground.

“That’s some weird magic you’ve got there… No wonder we couldn’t find where you were hiding them,” one of the men said, his gaze shifting between his newly recovered weapon and Adonis.

Familiars like Bamboo were a type of beast flower rarely found in Schwertland. It had been bequeathed to Adonis when he was still a young boy by a Nomad who’d visited the Catacombs, having brought Bamboo with him when he came to Park. The very same nameless Nomad who had met Tom Collins and asked to have the news of his death delivered, inadvertently passing his curse to Adonis—or rather, on to Tom, the effects of which revealed themselves solely in Adonis. Everyone in his life had taken it in stride. However, the men surrounding Adonis now didn’t know or care about it. They only saw that Adonis was strange and thought that his strangeness meant they could abuse him all they liked without the public’s reproach. On top of that, they had the luxury of outnumbering him.

“Looks like we’re done here,” Adonis said. He made to walk past the leader of the group, but the black-furred Cateyes stood in his way.

“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.”

The man grinned viciously and aimed the sword he’d just reclaimed at Adonis. Compared to his sheathed sword from earlier, it was of much higher quality, and clearly a lot of time and effort had gone into training it. Even without looking at him, Adonis could tell the man was smirking. The others did the same, holding up their swords and glaring menacingly at Adonis.

“All the swords you’re hiding, spit ’em out now. And pay us their weight in denari. Also, get rid of this thing you carved into our swords,” he demanded, tapping a finger on the Question mark on the blade.

“You want me to hand over all of them?”

“That’s right.”

“And what are you going to do with them?”

“That’s a stupid question. I’ll take the position you rose to. No matter how bad they are with a sword, any other Solist is more worthy of being an Arch-Solist than a thief like you.”

“Like you could ever,” Adonis said, slipping past him.

It took a second for the man to process what Adonis had just said. The moment he did, he turned on him in a rage and tried to run Adonis through from behind, shouting something.

But his shout quickly turned into a full-bodied scream.

The sword dropped from his hand, followed by a number of smaller objects that scattered across the ground—the man’s severed fingers.

A sword with the Question mark had appeared in Adonis’s hand. As the man turned to attack him, Adonis had chopped off the fingers on his sword hand, leaving only the thumb. It was a blindingly swift slash, faster than the eye could follow.

“You son of a—!” the black-furred man shrieked.

Severed fingers could be reattached with sacred ashes, meaning he wasn’t outraged by the injury, so much as screaming out of frustration and fury. He picked up his sword with his other hand and charged at Adonis.

But Adonis moved several times faster. He passed by the man again, adroitly dodging the attack, his sword not moving to intercept the slash but flashed through the air like the wind. The other men’s eyes widened in shock as they stood there frozen to the spot. They couldn’t believe what just happened. Their leader stumbled, only to stop dead still where he stood. A sword was protruding from his back.

The man turned, dumbfounded. The arm that should have been holding his sword was gone—instead, dangling in front of him, his hand clenched around the hilt of the sword thrust into his chest.

Blood gushed out from between his clenched teeth. His mouth fell open, unable to stop the torrent. He coughed up his guts, a raw stench hanging in the air.

“Hrrrk…”

A moist sound left the man’s lips—just as his body suddenly burst into flames. The sword’s spell had activated. The other men were too stunned by what had just happened to do anything. It should be impossible for a sword to turn on its wielder. Even if he’d only just reclaimed it, it was originally his family sword, bound to him by blood. It was inconceivable that it would harm him.

Yet standing there, watching their burning friend, they couldn’t say that. Even if the man wanted to draw a weapon, his arm and fingers had already been cut off. He screamed and floundered on the ground, burning painfully, but the more he thrashed and convulsed, the faster he lost what remained of his strength.

No one helped him. No one was in a state of mind to even consider it. Having moved past the leader, dispatching the man with astounding skill, Adonis swiftly twisted his body and stabbed another man deep through the stomach.

How had he done that so quickly? Of course—when Adonis had gone around giving the men their swords, he’d gone in order of the men who surrounded him, positioning them along the gentle slope. They tried to surround him again, but Adonis raced between the thick trees too swiftly, and none of them could catch up.

“I knew it would turn out like this,” Adonis said, stabbing another one.

“I knew someday things would end up like this. Today just happens to be that day,” he whispered to a fatally wounded man he’d just cruelly cut down.

Ultimately—or in fact, to begin with—Adonis had shown his face in town for this exact reason. The men understood this and became enraged. Yet even then, they couldn’t help but dance to Adonis’s tune. He brutally killed them, one by one, and the more of them that died, the more panicked and afraid the rest became.

They hadn’t underestimated Adonis’s skill with the sword. That was why they had confronted him with so many people and tried to surround him. But they hadn’t expected him to be this good. It was a fact they realized far too late, and it sent a shiver down their spines. Adonis was on a whole other level. He had been born with a talent for the sword and grown up in the Collins family, the wardens of the Catacombs, learning their intricate sword techniques.

He wasn’t like them, who’d only become Solists because it paid well. Adonis differed from them by his very nature. In their eyes, he looked like an aberration. Normally, being able to freely wield another person’s sword without a bond of blood connecting them to the wielder required a high level of resonance with the sword. For that reason, the emotion Adonis harbored for these swords was what scared them the most.

The greater one’s resonance with a sword, the greater their pain or shock was if they lost their sword or it became unusable. It would leave a scar on their heart. But this young man, with his heart shut off to the outside, had blocked that emotion.

Adonis hardly ever sparred with or fought fellow Solists. He didn’t trust the swords enough. The fundamental idea of Schwertmusik was to let the swords ring out and play music with one another. It was only by crossing blades, by clashing with other swords, that they could be used as both a sword and an instrument. Only in doing so could the weapons and the Solists who wielded them grow.

Adonis’s fighting style completely disregarded that. He didn’t try to raise the swords he wielded, instead using them as disposable objects. He saw them not as subjects to empathize with, but tools to kill.

He accepted this loneliness, which isolated him even from the swords he held, like it was perfectly natural—no, at this point, he didn’t even feel that. His heart was so shut off it had become like a machine, discarding any will for pleasure. All he sought was to tear into his opponents and end their lives, with the only change in Adonis’s expression being a twisted, gleeful smile.

This ghostly visage and his bold way of living that seemed to acknowledge he was no longer a person struck fear into them. But there was no escaping anymore.

Even so, one of them turned around and tried to run away—and the moment he did, he was gripped by a terror several times stronger. He ran, crying with regret at having turned his back, but still, Adonis’s blade pierced him where he was most vulnerable.

The man screamed, and Adonis moved swiftly, flinging the sword in his hand. He didn’t just throw it, though; the sword reacted violently, leaping out of his hand like an arrow. It struck the man dead in the back of the head, pinning his face to a tree trunk.

The sword then exhibited the effect of its spell, vibrating violently and tearing the man’s head apart from the inside out using air pressure. His skull and brain spattered against the tree, having burst apart like overripe fruit.

With his head crushed, the man’s body slumped to the ground, sliding against the tree, spasming in its death throes. The sword stuck into the tree had also been affected by the spell’s effects and was heavily damaged. It cracked, then shattered, scattering fragments over the corpse’s back.

Adonis didn’t even turn to look at it. Activating a spell with the sword skewered into an opponent’s body was a skill that took a great deal of resolve in the first place. The powerful effect of its spell could severely affect the sword itself, and even the wielder. But Adonis discarded his swords and sometimes even broke them himself, injuring and destroying his blades just as he did to the body of his opponent.

The sword’s silent, wordless scream, and the agonized howl of the fatally wounded Solists on the ground echoed around him, stirring the treetops. Leaves and grass were dyed in red, and that suffocating stench of blood hung in the air, riding the wind to spread through the woods as more and more Solists were slain and left to die.

It was a picture of hell. A war of swords—brutal, utterly devoid of pleasure, where he killed people for the sake of murder and maimed people just to inflict pain. And throughout the massacre, not a single drop of blood fell on Adonis.

When he was the only one left standing, a strange cry echoed through the trees.

It was his own voice.

The emotion Adonis had been holding back thus far released like a dam breaking. His stone-faced expression collapsed, his glistening eyes became almost perfect circles, and his mouth opened so wide it looked like it would tear his jaw off as he screamed with his fangs exposed.

The lone survivor, a Minotaurus man, went pale from the terrifying sight. In one moment, Adonis was laughing and crying, gripped by rage and drunk with glee. His emotions exploded, and the sword in his hands screamed. By now, his gloves were tattered and falling apart, and his ten clawed digits had turned that eerie rust-like red as they gripped the hilt. Held in his bare hand, the sword rapidly dulled, a dark stain spreading across it. The blade contorted, the tip split apart, and the grip twisted into a hideous shape.

“I knew this would happen!” Adonis howled. “Ever since the day I first came to Park! Since the moment I became a Solist!”

The Minotaurus man jolted, freezing up. He knew that he would be killed for sure should he turn around, so with his last bit of tragic resolve, he held up his ax and shouted back.

“You think we’d ever consider you a Solist?! You’re a monster! A devil lower than any beast—!”

Adonis slashed the air with his sword. The warped, bending sword whistled like a broken instrument—and the man’s words trailed off.

“What is a Solist?” Adonis asked in a low, muffled voice as he took a step toward the man. “What is a sword?”

Another step.

“Who are you? What are you? What creature? What do you live for? What would you die for? Show me.”

Dying like this would be nothing short of absurd. Adonis’s voice, expression, and posture grew colder with each step, a frosty edge to his bloodlust. He was like the frozen, sharp edge of an icicle, rejecting anything he touched, tearing and destroying all that tried to hurt him. He had no clear goals, with only the question spell burning bright as the original letters decayed and distorted.

“I knew it would turn out like this. I knew I’d be forced into this. But I never fought back, trying to put it off for as long as possible. But the one thing I learned is that, in Park, even pain feels like an illusion. None of it feels real to me,” Adonis said in a low whisper.

He approached the man, all pretenses put aside. As soon as he was within striking range, the man’s thick arm swelled with flexed muscle and he let out a roar, whipping it toward Adonis.

Adonis took the attack head-on, defending against it by raising his left arm.

He wore this outfit for combat for a reason. The finely woven water steel threads were pliant and blocked the man’s blade, while enchanted metal fixings he’d had installed when it was repaired easily resisted the attack.

A deep disappointment filled Adonis’s eyes. Grinding his teeth, he closed in on the man resentfully.

The man let out a ragged scream. As he tried to pull back, one of his arms was severed. The warped sword dismembered the limb—everything below the elbow, leaving a jagged slash like an animal had bitten off his arm. That was the last thing the man ever saw.

His head flew from his body. His torn wound spurted blood and emitted an intense stench. Adonis was bathed in blood, and his sword shattered. He quickly discarded the weapon, as if he didn’t want to hear its final cries.

The Centaurus man’s body crumbled to the ground with a thud. Adonis turned and looked around.

“I knew this would happen…”

Standing there all alone, he quietly murmured those words, as if trying to convince himself.

“I finally did it,” he whispered in resignation—and resentment. This was why he avoided personal battles. The result before his eyes spoke for itself.

The more he polished his skills, the worse it became. The more his swords became nothing but tools of murder, which Adonis himself resented.

All he had to live for was the sword. Yet those swords were like fireflies, luring him into a mire of personal resentment. They led him toward gloomy potential murder scenes to create those scenes of bloodshed and death with his own two hands.

Now that he’d crossed that threshold, there was no going back. He would either have to keep killing Schwertland Solists who flocked to him for revenge, or eventually succumb to their attacks himself. He wasn’t cornered to that extent yet, but the situation would eventually reach that point. He was certain it would.

And for that precise reason, Adonis burned with elation, a sense of deep-seated achievement. For the first time, he was able to come to terms with the despair of being a killer, and in the embrace of that despair he found pleasure that burned within him like fire. That fear—the dread killers feel toward what they would become—had been replaced by despair that eventually transformed into a burning pleasure. He’d felt it vividly in the midst of battle.

Yet now, with everything silent and the scenery dyed with bloodshed and death, Adonis was overcome with a deep, muddled, unendurable emptiness. The void left in the wake of that momentary rush of glee washed over him like a deluge of water.

Adonis stared at the sight, his eyes wide. His body was trembling, and he was overcome with intense nausea.

“Bamboo… A sword… Any sword I can use. And a new pair of gloves.” He managed to give the order despite the irritation in his heart.

He covered his hands in a new pair of leather gloves. Leaving behind the littered remains of swords and Solists on the ground, Adonis, now an impassioned murderer, walked away with unsteady steps. Thankfully, no one had noticed the battle yet. There was nobody nearby, and feeling a deep loneliness, like he’d been left behind by everyone, Adonis trembled as he continued down the road to the castle.

“I knew this would happen… I knew it would eventually turn out like this… And that something would come to an end when it does. That the pain would end. That I would end. What should I do? Let myself be killed? Or try to survive? Which should I wish for? Should I scream, asking for someone to end my life?”

Adonis wandered around like a man who’d lost his way, shaken, biting his lip as his eyes darted about.

“I knew this would happen. I have to calm down. Or am I already calm? It’s only the beginning; I just got started. Shit, I need to figure this out. Am I alive? Or am I about to be killed? Can I go to anyone for help? Damn it, I have to check, to make sure…”

Just then, Adonis realized that he’d emerged from the woods and come out into a garden. The canopy of trees above him was gone, and now in their place was the towering castle, inlaid with the finest O’crocks.

Adonis stopped in his tracks, and his body stopped trembling. His expression automatically tensed up, and a gruesome smile spread across his lips. His eyes were wide as he looked at the castle ravenously.

“I knew this would happen…,” Adonis whispered softly, heading toward the castle as if something was luring him there.

Adonis glanced around, then entered the castle with light steps.

He used short, quick strides. His eyes were downcast, making it hard to read his expression, and his shoulders were raised as if he was shrugging or upset at something. It was difficult to deduce what he might do next.

It was clear that today would be a turning point for Adonis. At least, that was what he’d expected when he left Bamboo and came to the castle. No matter how challenging life was in the outside world, he couldn’t spend the rest of his days shut inside Bamboo until he shriveled up and died. He knew that.

However, he could feel that no matter how much he tried to resist it, he’d end up caught in someone’s—or rather, God’s—preordained harmony. Adonis had climbed to the rank of Arch-Solist, and until then, he’d felt as if he was under the yoke of God’s Thema. The fact that he had grown wealthy, gained influence, and risen to the highest rank simply meant that he, the heretical outsider that he was, was adapting and therefore subservient to Park City.

And maybe that would have been fine. But the problem was that he didn’t feel the slightest bit like he belonged there. All he had was closed-off solitude with no refuge. He’d never had a reason to oppose Park’s Thema in the first place. If Adonis had to say, he’d only done so because that was a fundamental part of who he was. His doubts had deepened by the day, until at some point he’d vaguely realized that he felt some sort of antagonism toward God, the king, and the city itself.

The many battles he’d fought opposing God had produced no defeats or victories. Adonis had always felt compelled to fight. It was just the way it was, producing results with no real significance.

He was scared. He wasn’t actually seeking or pursuing anything, and he lacked the capacity and drive to seek or pursue his own goals from the very start. Deep down, he felt a debilitating fear.

To confirm this and to beat that dread, he had to act, to leave Bamboo behind and step out into reality. He understood this, but for what? What was he even acting against? What was he meant to do? And once he was finished with this, what would he do then? Could this action actually yield an outcome of substance?

He was trapped in a vicious cycle of one doubt leading to another. And that in itself—making those doubts his goal—was the only way for him to harmonize with the world.

He was a skeptic of the world, and on that point alone, he wasn’t fully detached from it, nor was he truly alone. If nothing else, he at least had a target for his uncertainties, even if that target was a nameless, shapeless city…

He had no other choice. He didn’t believe he could do anything else. This was much more preferable and comforting than foolishly fighting a goalless battle against reality.

At least, it was until now. Until he met that girl.

She said, all too easily—almost indifferently—that she would set out on a journey, firmly accepting fear for what it was, shining with life.

She’s completely, truly alive…

It was only when he’d met her that Adonis had felt for the first time that maybe he could truly seek something out. The cursed child of a grave keeper clan, who had abandoned his family and been cast out into this world without meaning or purpose felt, for the first time, that he was drawn to someone.

If only he could grasp what he was seeking, he could live on even without Bamboo. If he could understand that, even a half-dead man like him could really live. Looking at her gave him that impression, and it pushed Adonis to assertively attempt this cruel clash with reality.

He had never engaged in personal fights, but today he’d endeavored to, been despaired by it, and dragged himself out of it, coming here. And now, Adonis finally stood before the door to the Throne Room, where he saw that person who was like life itself.

Belle. So close he could touch her if he just reached out. She stood with both hands on her waist, like she was waiting for him to show up. Her expression was sterner than usual, carefully watching Adonis.

But then, suddenly, a relieved smile flickered across his lips. It really was a relief, seeing her. The tension drained from his body, making him feel lighter. Just by having this completely living being stand there, looking at him, filled Adonis with genuine relief.

Belle, on the other hand, looked taken aback by his smile. After failing her trial, she’d waited for Adonis for half an hour. There was a lot she wanted to say to him—most of it insults and complaints. Like how their talks always seemed to get off track, or how the way he feels and acts is unhealthy and how she wants to change that.

But above all else, she wanted the situation between them right now—this awkward state where she didn’t know what to say—to change.

And in the midst of all that, he started grinning at her like an idiot. It caught Belle off guard, like everything she was thinking was inconsequential.

She was also a bit mad at herself for smiling back at him.

“Did you already do your trial?” Adonis asked hesitantly.

He stood a short distance away from Belle, looking oddly ill at ease, bashful even, so it was hard to make sense of how he felt.

Belle, on the other hand, nodded indifferently. “I failed. I can’t open that door yet,” she said with a laugh.

Adonis looked at Belle with a hint of surprise. In truth, he was a bit relieved. The fear that she had already opened the Door of Journey and was about to leave him behind had been lurking deep in his heart. He found that surprising, along with Belle’s open admission of failure. Based on how calm she was, she seemed to be very much at peace with it.

“Knowing you, you’ll open it in no time,” Adonis said.

He wasn’t placating her; he believed it with all his heart.

“Honestly, hearing you say that helps. I’m feeling pretty lost right now.”

Belle’s tone was cheerful, and she grinned at him, her expression the furthest thing from despair. Adonis wordlessly drew closer to her, smiling back. She stood before the door, and he pressed his body against Belle’s, nestling into her like he was seeking her warmth. Belle’s expression reflexively hardened, which made Adonis stop. For a second, he looked hurt, but Belle didn’t notice it. Something else had caught her attention.

“You reek of blood…,” Belle said, pinching her nose.

“I’m a Solist,” Adonis said by way of answer.

He didn’t intend to hide anything, and some part of him wanted to flaunt what he’d done.

“You smell a bit like blood, too,” he added teasingly.

And indeed, he was teasing her. Belle’s body did seem to give off a faint scent of blood, but it wasn’t a gruesome stench. It was the clean, pure scent of life.

Belle’s expression clouded over, which, to Adonis, looked like she’d been offended. They both knew Belle wasn’t one to linger on things like this, but she’d been reminded that the scent of blood that naturally clung to Solists contained within it the grief they directed toward those they defeated. That was all.

“I’m not sure why, but in your case, even the smell of blood is pleasant,” Adonis said, touching Belle’s hair. He moved his face closer, to sniff it.

His hands were covered in thick leather gloves as always, but Belle could tell he was trying to connect with her in his own way.

“Doofus.” She laughed, his touch tickling her.

Adonis’s eyes met Belle’s, and he drew closer. The scent of blood grew stronger, which Belle assumed was because it was clinging to his clothes. This was, after all, the same uniform he’d worn in the Catacombs, so it was covered in bloodstains, painting the fabric’s camellia-red color even darker.

Still, somewhere deep down, Belle had an ominous feeling. It was like a premonition, a signal warning her of something dangerous. But before she could fully grasp what it was, Adonis’s face had gone out of sight. He had moved even closer, his head right next to her cheek. Adonis bent down, stopping just short of wrapping his arms around Belle. All she could see was his shoulders—which were surprisingly broad.

A different sort of heat filled her, overtaking the premonition, numbing Belle’s body in seconds like a fever.

“It hurts… A lot…,” Adonis whispered into her ear. “Before I realize what’s happening, everything around me goes dark. I can’t touch anything to figure out where I am. Did you see the Key? That magic? To me, it looks like nothing but a tool for exiling yourself. Not to any one place, but simply to drive yourself away from where you are now. Without purpose… If I play that, it’ll be like executing myself, like losing everything I have. That’s all I’ll find there.”

It was clearly a cry for help. Belle had seen this once before, during the Battle for the Catacombs, and it made her feel driven to comfort him. But this time, she couldn’t tell where or to whom his gaze was directed.

“The suffering you’re feeling now will someday be your lifeblood,” she told him.

Her voice had come out raspier than she’d expected. Why was that? Feeling oddly flustered, Belle tried to act as cheerful as she could.

“Your father…Tom Collins told me this. You have to believe you can see in the dark, to entrust yourself to that blackness, to become the darkness itself. And if you let yourself be pulled along with it, you’ll find something to guide you. You’re his son, so I know you will…”

Belle tried to comfort Adonis and, at the same time, hoped to get a read on Gaff’s situation by mentioning Tom’s name. After all, Gaff had defeated and killed his father in the Battle for the Catacombs. But halfway through her sentence, she’d realized Adonis sincerely wanted to hear what she had to say, so she stopped prying unnecessarily.

This, however, made Belle go quiet. She didn’t know what to say. She felt that somewhere inside her were the words that would help console Adonis, but a part of her deep down was telling her she mustn’t say them.

“Why?” She couldn’t ask because it would only validate Adonis’s solitude and risk-taking. It would encourage him to shut himself off in Bamboo and tell him that the fighting style she’d seen him use in the Catacombs, focused solely on killing, was correct. Belle didn’t want to say it. She couldn’t.

Adonis remained still. He waited for Belle’s words, but at some point he seemed to forget he was waiting and simply nestled against her. But even standing so close together, his hands never touched her. The pair stood, listening to each other’s breathing, near enough to feel one another’s warmth.

Belle was grateful for that moment, but she was also frustrated. It seemed like such a contrast to the situation that had put a wall up between them.

“Thank you,” Adonis whispered. He pulled away from Belle and looked at her with a relieved smile.

“Adonis—”

“I can’t be like you,” he said, cutting Belle off. “So in my own way, I’ll try to fight back.”

“…You won’t turn out like me.”

Was this menial attitude an attempt at reassuring her? Belle couldn’t tell. Adonis nodded and smiled, looking at ease.

“It’s my turn,” he told her.

Belle walked past him, never taking her eyes off his face. The imposing doors to the Throne Room towered before Adonis. As she watched him step up to them, Belle suddenly felt that maybe it was Adonis who would end up going ahead and leaving her behind. That didn’t necessarily mean he’d leave on a journey, but something was clearly about to happen. Belle’s intuition told her as much. And whatever it was would surely spur her to action, as well.

That was the feeling she got.

That was how intense Adonis’s smile was—even if he wasn’t aware of it.

Adonis placed his hands on the doors and pushed them open. Before Belle could call out to him, he crossed over to the other side. The doors closed behind him with a heavy grinding sound and a thud that shook the palace, and at that exact moment, the sword on Belle’s back let out a faint howl.

“Runding…?”

Belle’s hand jumped to the sword’s grip in surprise. The sword’s howl soon died down, regaining its equilibrium. Belle trembled, an inexplicable chill running through her. With the doors closed, Belle wouldn’t hear a thing no matter what happened in the Throne Room. The trial to play the Key didn’t allow any companions.

“Adonis…” Belle looked at the door for a moment and eventually shook her head, as if to shrug something off. “I’ll be waiting in your room.”

She knew her voice wouldn’t reach him, but she still said it.

Belle resolutely turned around and left the palace.

6

The moment the door closed behind him with a heavy thud, Adonis’s expression transformed. His eyes glinted sharply, and he looked up at the stage with his fangs bared. Atop the stage, the king had emerged from the God Tree, his two faces looking upon the one to take the trial with appraising eyes. Glinting black beneath him like crystallized silence was the Key, situated directly behind the throne.

In a departure from Belle’s trial, two blue-mantled priests approached him from both sides with swaying steps. The king remained silent, asking nothing, and the only sounds disturbing the quiet were the priests’ faint footsteps.

Perhaps the priests had emerged ahead of time because the king somehow knew of Adonis’s actions. But that didn’t matter to Adonis. The two priests stopped beside him, flanking Adonis to restrict his movements. Both were covered in blue from head to toe, their masks glinting. Their masks each had different shapes, and their mantles were also slightly different shades of blue.

The king turned to look at the two masked priests, confirming something, and at that moment—

“Bamboo!” Adonis roared, and a slash tore through the silence. The masked priests’ heads separated from their bodies and were flung into the air—still masked—before landing with a wet thud. Their bodies crumbled to the sapphire floor, blue robes besmirched by red, and the two masked heads rolled off the stage toward Adonis.

A river of vibrant crimson flowed in their wake.

Adonis stepped into the pool of blood.

“King, let me ask you now!” he bellowed.

Droplets of red spattered his legs as he raced toward the stage, his sights set on the throne. In both hands, Adonis wielded swords engraved with Question marks. A group of priests promptly emerged from the spectator seats and hurried toward Adonis from all directions.

Cling. A sound like the chiming of a bell echoed around the room as the divine chains holding the priests’ swords sealed came undone. They drew them as one, a forest of azure swords.

Adonis’s charge didn’t stop. As he tried to run through them, the priests pointed the tips of their blades toward Adonis like the jaw of a gigantic blue monster and leaped forward. With the steps to the stage right before him, Adonis clashed with the priests.

Adonis’s movements were agile, and any sword that came his way he blocked, parried, or dodged with frightening accuracy. He raced up the steps, but just as he reached the top, priests ambushed him there as well. He flung his swords at them, unleashing them with all the resonance he could muster. They hit the priests like catapult bolts, crushing their limbs.

By that point, Adonis had jumped high into the air, soaring ahead. Tucking his knees into his chest in midair, he somersaulted, landing spectacularly past the priests that had been rushing toward him. He drew two more swords, swinging with all his might to cut down the group of priests behind him before they had a chance to turn and face him. Two more priests tried to intercept, but Adonis gave them no chance to regain their bearings and stabbed them through their chests, twisting the blades.

“Can you see these skeptical blades?! Now is the time for you to answer their questions, King!”

Swords engraved with Question marks pierced the priests’ backs, aimed at the king.

“What are trial ashes?! What are those who have their swords shattered tested for?!” he shouted sharply, letting go of the swords.

Faster than the stabbed priests could hit the ground, he’d already drawn new swords out of thin air. In one fluid motion, he cut down another two priests, the swords rapidly wilting, only to be swiftly discarded and replaced by new ones. The thick gloves on his hands were tattered, decaying rapidly.

“What are sacred ashes?! Where do they come from?! How are they related to trial ashes?!”

Releasing a barrage of questions, Adonis cut down more and more priests using sword techniques he had wished he’d never have to use. He shattered his swords, throwing them, sacrificing them, while intentionally targeting the priests’ most vulnerable spots. He secured the most beneficial footing against his opponents, never exchanging blows but only deflecting their swords to narrowly avoid the tips, striking to kill—denying the priests’ very existence.

He wasn’t doing this to arrogantly boast about his strength. No, this was the brutal desperation of a man driven into a corner.

“What are swords?! What is the meaning of Solists?! For what reason would God have us wield swords?! You say it’s dictated by the Thema, but what even is that?!”

As Adonis shouted, every question was punctuated by an overwhelmingly swift slash that cut down a priest. His attacks no longer seemed like normal techniques, and the wounds inflicted by his warped, decaying swords looked like the bite marks of a wild animal. The sound of the slashes cutting into the victims’ flesh produced unusual popping sounds, like balloons bursting. His gloves crumbled away to ashes, revealing the red, tainted claws underneath. With every blow, his swords would quickly wither and crumble away.

“What are cancerous swords?! Why do they drive Solists to delirium?! What are Nidhogg?! Why does God create them?! Why did Tiziano have to lose his mind?! And Kir?! Why did you have me go around spreading the trial ashes?! Can you hear my skepticism, King?!”

It was practically a wail. Each time Adonis swung his sword, another priest was torn apart. The steps leading up to the stage were covered in blood now, with corpses piled on top of each other. But then one of those dead bodies suddenly rose, grabbing on to Adonis’s knee. Near his waist, the priest’s mask flew back and blood gushed out of his neck. Adonis had driven a sword deep into his back.

Still, the priest wouldn’t let go, and one by one, more joined in. For a moment, it seemed like they’d completely stopped Adonis’s movements, when one of them hurtled away from Adonis. His chest was black, like it had been burned—but it wasn’t fire. Adonis’s bare left hand grabbed another priest by his mask, and a dark stain moved over it, charring and distorting it.

The priest shuddered. With Adonis’s grip on his mask, the man’s hands fell limply to his sides, and his body twitched as he crumbled to the floor. Adonis did the same to the other priests. His rust-colored claws swept them away, causing flesh, cloth, and metal alike to decay.

He roared. Adonis let out a cry that erupted from his throat, which was losing the ability to form words. Within that desperate, guttural howl, he spoke his final question.

“What is God—Deus Ex Machina?!”

At that moment, everything suddenly went completely silent. The priests said nothing, not even screaming as he cut them down. The only one making noise, screaming and producing cruel tearing noises, was Adonis.

The king, too, remained silent, observing Adonis the whole time. It was as if he was trying to discern what drove Adonis, what stood at his back, pushing him to do this. But when Adonis asked his last question, that changed.

“Skeptic…,” whispered the king’s two faces, followed by the sound of the God Tree stirring its branches, ordering the priests to stop moving. They all retreated at once.

“Finally feel like answering me, King?” Adonis bellowed.

His breathing was heavy, his shoulders rising and falling as he climbed up to the stage. He was engulfed in emotion, the mental pressure of being before the king threatening to crush him.

“King, is me being here today—me doing this—part of God’s preordained harmony, too?!”

The king’s faces suddenly narrowed their two sets of eyes. Maybe it was his expression of pity at this inconsequential young man driven to his limits with doubt.

A gruesome expression came over Adonis’s face, fangs bared, every strand of fur on his body standing on end, silently demanding an answer.

“Perhaps…it is, Skeptic.”

“What…?!”

“All is within harmony preordained and contains the entirety of tonality, at the center of which sits God and the Sword Tree He occupies. Your doubts do not stray from the Thema. Behold, can you not see the aftermath of what your sword hath wrought behind you?”

The king’s words rang out sonorously, melting into silence. Adonis’s expression stiffened. He stood frozen to the spot with that gruesome grin still fixed to his face, his glinting, glaring eyes turning back to look behind him, bit by bit. His breathing was haggard, but by the time he had turned completely around, he choked up.

There was a pause. And then a wheezing, stifled laugh spilled from his lips.

There was nothing there.

No trace of that hard, bloody battle, none of the dozens of corpses he’d cut down, no spatters of blood, no shattered masks. It was all gone, simply lingering in Adonis’s mind as a baseless delusion. The only thing left were the remains of the swords Adonis had used, littering the ground in their warped, broken forms.

“No way…,” Adonis murmured, holding back laughter. “There’s no way…”

Filled with desperation, Adonis had chosen to resist and wage war on God, but now all traces of his struggle were gone. He hurriedly patted down his clothes. He’d bathed in blood on his way to the throne—he should be drenched in it. But there wasn’t so much as a drop. The dry fabric seemed to whisper that there was no way Adonis could ever have rebelled against country, king, or God.

“Surely you already know,” said the king’s top face.

“That the reason for your doubts is but another affirmation of the Thema,” finished the lower face.

“Trial ashes are spread so that the God Tree may expand Its branches and support Its seeds.”

“It begins as lethal ashes and, by ravaging the body of a Solist, becomes sacred ashes.”

“Cancerous swords are steel cells that propagate endlessly…”

“They bring death to death itself, producing an eternal being.”

“You have been an outsider since birth, owing to your curse.”

“Such outsiders are granted a great aptitude to rule from God and are raised to a higher tone.”

“Thus, the Examiner.”

“Thus, the King Minor.”

Adonis’s face drained of color. “King Minor…?”

“The king is the greatest servant to God, who, through that role, is allowed to rule over the people.”

“Yet two tones are needed to assume the position of king.”

“A king to be the visible face of God, reigning over the lives of the people…”

“A king to be the hidden face of God, reigning over the deaths of the people…”

“Are you joking…?!” Adonis shouted, wrapping his arms around himself and gripping his own shoulders as if in agony. His fur still stood on end, and his teeth were bared at the king. “That wasn’t what I wanted…!”

“What is it you seek, then?” the king asked, his voices solemnly speaking in unison.

“Well…”

“Behold, for what you seek is already within the harmony predetermined by God,” the king demanded with grave conviction.

Adonis followed the king’s gaze once more, looking up at the spectator seats above the stage. A blue shadow near a set of closed doors was descending the steps toward them. A priest. He carried in his hands a set of blue robes, a mask, and a sword. When he reached the stage, the priest held them up like tribute, standing across from Adonis.

“Are you saying this is what I was searching for…?!”

Facing the priest and seeing what he carried, Adonis let out a groan.

With trembling fingers, he picked up the mask.

“Impossible…”

Even holding it in his bare hands, it didn’t rust away.

“This can’t be…!”

The mask crashed against the floor with a shrill noise, shattering into pieces. Adonis noticed some of the fragments showed faint signs of darkening and decay, and a desperate smile spread on his face.

“I’ll be the one to decide what I’m looking for! No one else decides for me!”

He called for Bamboo in a howl, drawing a sword out of thin air and attacking the priest before his eyes with a slash too fast to follow with the naked eye. He cut the priest’s head with the sword, then drove it down into his chest, at which point the weapon couldn’t withstand the decay and shattered at the base.

The priest collapsed to the ground face up, blood pooling around his body. Adonis flung the sword’s remains, then kicked the priest’s split mask, sending it flying. The two halves fell off the stage with a hollow sound.

But Adonis didn’t hear it. The blood had drained from his face, and all the fur on his body stood on end. The face of the priest lying at his feet, glaring up at him with eyes long dead, was Adonis’s own.

“What kind of magic—?! What kind of a trick is this?!” Adonis screamed at the king, his entire body trembling.

Even he couldn’t tell if it was out of anger, terror, or a hopeless premonition of what was to come.

“No magic, much less a trick. It is a métier created by God’s Thema.”

“Huh…? What do you…?”

Adonis trailed off, because there was no longer anything in the direction he was pointing, save for the remains of a decayed sword.

“What you just saw was your own form as a tone,” the king’s upper face said.

“What you just touched was your own form as a machine,” the king’s lower face said.

“One’s toned form is the aspect they take after they offer themselves to the God Tree as an objective symbol of God’s people.”

“One’s mechanical form is the presence on the scales capable of being weighed, having discarded all attributes and become an abstraction.”

“A result of your agreement to become a tone…”

“A result of your agreement to become a machine…”

The king’s two faces looked up to the heavens, then back down at Adonis before solemnly saying in unison, “Under the God Tree, you will become a record in God’s history.”

“A record…?”

“God’s history discards all memories, turning everything into a record. And all records have their death continue to die for all eternity, serving as the blue priests of the chronicles, existing alongside God as the roots of the God Tree.”

It was then that Adonis suddenly felt an intense presence form behind him. It didn’t feel alive at all, but like something inorganic had been built up into a mound, exuding intense pressure on its surroundings. Adonis stumbled forward, his back pushed by that pressure. His expression became pained. He didn’t want to turn and look at the spectator seats any longer, but he had to. Even though he knew it would defeat him and leave him in despair.

“Help me…”

Adonis seemed to hide in the shadow of the throne as his gaze was dragged toward the spectator area. Lining the countless seats was a startling number of blue priests. Blue figures, wherever he looked. Hundreds upon thousands of them—a sea of blue mantles and masks.

And then—

“…!”

That sea of masks turned to face Adonis as one. They stared at him, clanking mechanically, mantles rustling, eerily inorganic in every way.

“Help me…,” Adonis cried out as if in agony. “Belle, help me…!”

But the king’s voice thundered over him mercilessly.

“Behold, the forms of those who have been copied after offering themselves up to God’s history by your own hand.”

A number of the priests rose from their seats and stepped onto the stage. It was at this point Adonis realized all the priests were the same height and build. They were slightly taller than Adonis and had broad shoulders. But the reason he had realized this was because the ones who had stepped forward had undergone radical changes in their appearance. Before Adonis’s eyes, their bodies under the blue garb began changing, taking differing forms. One of them slowly took off their mask in the process of that change.

“No…”

A red-haired Centaurus. It was Kir. He had masculine features and looked at Adonis expressionlessly, but then it changed again. The priest’s body warped and twisted with the sound of bones cracking, taking on the form of Kir when he had been afflicted by the cancerous sword and, without a weapon, had sprouted a flashing, steel branch of something that looked like the God Tree.

Beside Kir, Tiziano took off their mask next to him. Under their blue mantle, their slender limbs contorted hideously.

“Stop it…”

All Adonis felt at this point was horror. As he watched on, all the color drained from his face. The nightmare continued to unfold. The third figure took off their mask, revealing the face of the black-haired Cateyes Adonis had slaughtered in the garden looking straight at him. Then a fourth: the Minotaurus whose head and right arm he’d severed.

“I’m begging you, stop…”

The fifth: a man stabbed through the back of his head, his skull shattered. One after the next, they all did the same, until he was surrounded by ten men he’d killed. The dead no longer wanted for anything or begrudged anyone. Their gaze was a void. And it was inviting Adonis, telling him to come to that side. Telling him this would be the easiest and best choice. Adonis shook his head and stumbled back.

“You cannot escape…,” said the king’s top face.

“You have no means to…,” said the king’s lower face.

Adonis’s back stumbled into something. An instrument—the Keyboard Vessel to unlock the Door of Journey. Adonis’s own frightened visage was reflected in its sleek surface. He let out a cry, then sat urgently in front of it.

He roughly opened the lid, and a groan escaped him. It was incredibly heavy, as if it was made of lead. The black surface behind the lid reflected his face, and he could see nothing else. No words, no salvation to be found; everything was cast back at him by that black. That was how he felt, and he knew he wasn’t imagining it. He could feel cold sweat on his forehead. All around him, the ten dead wordlessly surrounded him with a flap of their blue cloaks.

Adonis’s hands hectically wandered over the Keyboard. After floating back and forth over the black-and-white keys, he finally decided to press one.

Clack.

All it did was let out a hollow sound, as if mocking Adonis’s frantic actions. He tried another white key, but that one just made the same noise, somehow even more damning than the last. He tried a black key; nothing. He ran his fingers along the keys from one side to the other, but none of them worked.

Adonis screamed.

He hammered at the Keyboard in a rage, eventually slamming his fist down on it. He smacked the lid and hit the instrument all over, eventually letting out a shriek before he slumped in place, exhausted.

“I don’t have one…,” he said emotionlessly. “I could never have a reason to go on a journey…”

His dry voice echoed loudly through the room. The ten dead moved slowly, closing the ring around him, raising their hands, inviting him somewhere. In their other hands they cradled their masks, as if they were the reason for their existence.

“…Once, there was a man in the same position as yourself who spectacularly opened the Key. His name was Sian Lablac. A man you know. You must either take after him or choose to remain in the country and someday reside in this castle. The decision is your own.”

The king made it sound like it was a choice. But in the end, he was just providing Adonis with a platform so he could stand on the brink and leap off into the abyss of despair.

“And when the time comes that you realize that you will never play the Key, you may swear to become the foundation of this country, Skeptic. This is where your eternal peace shall…”

The king’s voice suddenly trailed off. The flickering branches that formed an inexplicable appendage of the king stirred like they were being shaken by the wind.

Hmm…?

The king’s two faces contorted in alarm, and the dead blue priests stopped in their tracks. It was like an invisible wall had formed in front of them, and they slowly retreated, expanding their circle.

Still facing the Keyboard, Adonis hadn’t noticed what had happened. And then something appeared, emerging from the shadows coalescing at Adonis’s feet.

It’s not possible…

It lacked a physical mass of its own and couldn’t affect the physical world. Like a shadow, it was only cast there by something much greater, and it raised its nonexistent voice in a cry.

NNNNN…

OOOOOOWWWWW…

HHHHHHEEEEEE…

It was a rueful, phantasmagoric wail that seemed to seep deep inside a person through their ears and erode the very core of their soul.

Adonis kept his head low, mumbling to himself. Clearly, the king and the ten dead standing like wraiths were the only ones who had realized something was wrong. The dead priests were gradually being forced back by the cry, eventually reaching the point where the circle around Adonis broke and they scattered from the stage as if something was chasing them.

I see…, murmured the king, but much like the voice rising from Adonis’s shadow, it wasn’t a real voice woven from sound. So even you have found your way back here… Raising the banner of recklessness, you have come to pass judgment on Divine Tonality…

The king’s body flickered countless times. The branches stirred and wavered, and as if in response to that, the blue priests moved silently at once. Oddly enough, they were being battered back and vanishing from the stage. Some hid at the edges, while others silently stepped down and faded away, as if they were melting into the boundary between reality and illusion, or perhaps as if they weren’t real to begin with.

All the blue shadows disappeared before Adonis knew it, and silence returned. None of the priests were left sitting in the spectator seats, either. They had dispersed as if it had all been a dream.

“I don’t have a reason left… Not a one.”

As Adonis continued muttering, the king looked at him for one long moment. He eventually lost interest, though, and his body suddenly shrank, flickering as he slowly returned to the God Tree.

When he was left alone with the silent instrument, Adonis’s half-crazed, haggard form was finally granted stillness once more.

7

It was dark red on the O’crock when the sky suddenly clouded over.

“It’s going to rain…,” Belle whispered nonchalantly, looking up. Wind blew in all directions, forming a whirlwind. Just as she had the passing thought that the clouds were moving quickly, she felt the light drizzle suddenly grow heavier.

Solists rarely used umbrellas, as they were trained to battle in any weather conditions, even torrential rain. If Belle was wearing her cape or cloak, she could cover up in that, but even when she didn’t, she didn’t mind the rain lashing against her. In that regard, she was very much a typical Solist, so she walked undisturbed under the pouring rain.

She was in Central East Town, just strolling around aimlessly. It was only when the rain started that she had remembered she’d been on her way to Adonis’s place. Now headed there again, she thought back to what she had experienced just a couple of hours ago.

So I’m both the key and the door…

That’s what had dawned on her when she faced that black instrument, and it was only after walking this far that she’d found the words to express it. It was a truly deep-rooted emotion.

The key that is me shall open the door that is me… But the door is fearing that key. Rejecting it. A part of me wishes to open the door while another doesn’t, and I’m torn over which of the two I am.

She let out a sigh that was from a place somewhere between resignation and self-deprecation.

I was confident I could take any trial head-on, but this…

In the end, what occupied Belle’s thoughts was the realization that she herself was her own final trial. No matter how strong an opponent stood in her way, she wouldn’t have been afraid of them or rejected them. However, she also hadn’t wanted the sort of battle filled with violence and enmity, an endless living hell where she drew her opponent in with tricks.

She considered herself to be someone who knew how to settle things in battle and was also aware that, given the flow of a fight, sometimes that conclusion was delayed or took a while to achieve. And as disappointing as that was, she knew not to lose heart.

But what if that opponent was herself? She could come to any conclusion she wanted to or put it off in perpetuity. The chilling thought struck her that she might be swept around in a whirlpool of her own thoughts until the end of time, unsure of what to do, never to surface.

Honestly…

She didn’t know anything for sure yet—when would she be able to play the key or how to make it happen. She wasn’t fretting over it or racking her brain to come up with answers, but simply toying around with several thoughts to figure out where she stood. And her conclusion was—

Well, I’ll figure something out.

As she came to that determination, new thoughts started racing in all sorts of different directions. Mulling things over, Belle walked to the Solists’ farm, where she headed straight for a lodging house in one of the corners and boldly entered the room.

She had gotten used to the room by now and felt comfortable there. Belle put her sword on the rack on the wall, fixing it in place. She was instantly overcome by her usual weightlessness, feeling like she was being pulled away from the ground.

Actively resisting it, she clung to the bed’s backrest, wondering what Adonis was doing at that moment.

A gust of wind blew through the room.

Belle paid it no mind but did hear the creaking window, which she’d left wide open. Something crossed her field of vision, and watching it absentmindedly, Belle paused with a start.

A black flower petal had just fluttered past her.

“No…”

Turning around, she saw a raven flower silently announcing a death. The bird flower’s feet had already settled into the hard floor, its sharp roots spreading as far as they could, as if to protest the lack of soil.

Its feathers turned to flowers, blooming an ominous black, and Belle got to her feet in alarm, as if it was a message addressed directly to her. She approached the bird flower gingerly, watching as it bloomed at her feet, and just when the text was about to reveal itself—

“My eldest brother died.”

Hearing this sudden voice behind her, she jolted and spun around.

“Adonis…”

Don’t startle me like that! she’d been going to say, but the words got caught in her throat.

Adonis looked the same as always, with his red bandanna covering his ears and brow and his expression unreadable. Yet for some inexplicable reason, Belle went speechless with alarm when she saw him. At the same time, she shuddered. Adonis looked incredibly weak and defeated. His eyes were cold and dry, wavering with an unstable light.

“The price of being a warden of the Catacombs. The miasma of the dead eats away at the body, eventually killing them. Using sacred ashes would probably prolong your life, though…,” Adonis explained with indifference, as if it had nothing to do with him. It was the tone of someone who had long since lost the sensitivity required to mourn the dead, cold and dismissive, yet missing something important.

Another petal fluttered past. The fragment of a black flower fell at Adonis’s feet. He slowly lifted his leg, raised it over the petal—and stomped on the black bird beyond it.

The sound of the flower shattering felt familiar to Belle. Maybe it was the sound of Adonis’s heart, caving under its own weight. Belle bit her lips unconsciously. Some part of her, deep down, feared having Adonis’s blue eyes directed toward her.

“Belle… I couldn’t do it…after all,” Adonis said, his gaze fixed on the flower under his feet.

“…Okay.”

Belle tried to say it as brightly as she could, but even she could tell how forced and stiff her smile was. She swallowed loudly.

What happened…?

But just as she was about to force the words out, Adonis’s frozen blue eyes looked into Belle’s, and a shiver ran through her.

Bloodlust…?!

For a second, she really felt it emanating from Adonis’s gaze. She reflexively glanced at Runding, propped silently against the wall diagonally to the side of him.

She forced a smile and looked at Adonis.

“Belle…,” he whispered.

His voice was begging for help. This made Belle confused, because his blue eyes looked just as cold and sunken as they had before, reflecting a beaten-down, defeated heart like a stomped flower.

And with those same eyes, Adonis pleaded like a lost child.

“Save me, Belle… I need you to tell me…”

“Save you? What do you mean…?”

Adonis suddenly moved toward her. His large, dark shadow hung over her for a second, then before Belle even had time to register her surprise, Adonis embraced her, and she was enveloped by the young man’s warmth and scent. Surrounded by his body heat, she could swear she heard his heart racing madly in his chest.

“Adonis…?!”

It was so sudden Belle didn’t know how to process any of it. Save him from what? What did he want her to tell him? Was it about him failing the Key’s trial? His brother’s death? He said nothing specific, just clung to her for dear life, and all she felt from the trembling of his arms, the rising and falling of his shoulders, was raw emotion.

Adonis was shaking. At first it was weak, but gradually it grew stronger, eventually turning to outright tremors of fear as he clung to Belle.

“You…”

She suddenly realized that Adonis’s hands were clenched into fists as they held her back. He didn’t have his gloves on, it seemed, but even now, Adonis refused to open his hands as he touched her. No—he’d covered her with his entire body because he couldn’t touch her.

Belle suddenly felt annoyed for some reason.

Her hands, halfway around his back, fell at her sides. All the fear and pity she’d felt toward Adonis earlier dissipated, leaving only anger at this man trying to one-sidedly cling to her.

“Tell me, why… Why am I the only thing these hands won’t wilt?” Adonis said, trembling. “Why do my hands always reject the living, yet spare me, a half-dead man?”

As he spoke those words in a low moan, Adonis seemed to regain his cool—or maybe he was just frozen solid. Like a man freezing to death being unable to get any colder once their blood froze.

“When I was born, my mother died. These hands killed her from the inside. I knew it, and so did my father and siblings. But they never said anything. They just silently drove me out.”

There was no resentment in his voice because the people he could have resented were already dead.

“I was born…by rejecting my mother’s life. So I never knew…a mother’s warmth. I don’t know how to even describe warmth… It’s all so cold.”

Belle vaguely noticed her breath catching in her throat. The fear and irritation she’d felt earlier had melded together into some other emotion, and blood rushed to her cheeks, making her woozy. But even that soon faded.

All that remained was the strange heat swirling inside her, having her body covered by his, and an odd numbness in her limbs.

“I am…a half-dead man. Never fully alive, only living out the long seasons so I can die one day. And today…I saw what becomes of those who die. Being taken in by those for whom even death has died…accepting me into the place I most belong. And that…is the one place I never want to be dragged into, no matter what. But I can’t resist it anymore… This world always shows me the things…the places I deserve the most swallowing up all the doubts and questions within me…”

The shoulders in front of Belle’s eyes that had been rising and falling were calm at this point. Belle felt like all his words passed right through her, vanishing into some unknowable void. For the first time, her anger toward Adonis won over any pity she felt for him.

“And there’s nothing I can do for you—is that what you’re saying?” Belle said into his chest. Contrary to her words, her tone seemed to push him away. “I—”

“Belle.” Adonis suddenly tightened his hold on her. “Can you cut me down?”

Belle’s eyes widened. Sorrow ran through her. It felt like he was betraying her. Adonis continued to make her feel betrayed right up until the very end.

Still struggling to clearly figure out why she felt that way, Belle said, “You know I can’t.”

She had wanted to say it angrily, but the words came out with much more pity than she’d intended.

“Belle… Duel me.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. The back of her nose prickled, and tears threatened to spill down her cheeks.

“Why?”

There was a short pause.

“The Door of Journey isn’t wide enough for both of us…,” Adonis said, his answer sounding like an excuse.

It was a different sort of why. What Belle had wanted to ask was why Adonis had said that. She’d wanted to know his feelings. Was he really that desperate, saying something that showed how little he cared for his own life? She wanted to hear the reason.

His answer implied that he’d realized he wouldn’t be able to open the Door of Journey, and since he couldn’t, he at least wanted to get in the way of someone who had that potential. He was seeking death in doing so.

Belle gritted her teeth. She couldn’t take it anymore. Her breath burst out of her in a scream.

“I don’t want this, Adonis! Don’t force me into your stupid charade!”

The way you are now…, she almost started to say, but stopped herself. The words flew from her lips like daggers, purposely chosen to cut at his heart and hurt his pride.

Why was he doing this? Why now, when they were so close to each other? Anger and grief washed over her. Adonis was drifting away from her, and Belle was also starting to turn her back on him. She suddenly got a sense of déjà vu. This wasn’t the first time she’d felt this way. In her mind she saw a shadow of a man, his features indiscernible to her. Even when he walked away, that man was forever a silhouette…

Why…?

But then Belle felt Adonis’s arms on her tighten in a different way. She should have been able to shake him off had she resisted, and yet for some reason, she couldn’t do that now. Maybe it was out of hope they could still reach an understanding.

It happened before Belle understood what was going on, yet it was such a slow, sluggish movement. The world tilted, and her back hit the soft bed. Belle found herself looking up from the bottom of a dark valley in the sheets, Adonis pinning her arms from above with his elbow. If she wanted, she could have pushed him away at any time.

A hollow feeling overcame her as she realized.

He’ll never touch me with his hands.

It was a realization that saddened her. His hands were forever covered in the gloves of his curse.

“Stop it.”

Belle glared at him severely. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have been able to hold back the tears.

Adonis peered silently into Belle’s eyes.

Is he trying to possess me with his cold eyes…? she wondered.

The lonely patter of rain reached Belle’s ears.

“Are you scared?” Adonis asked, his voice so chilling it cut into Belle’s heart.

Adonis’s eyes were full of the same frigid darkness she saw when he’d trampled the black petals earlier.

“Do my hands scare you?”

A bloodcurdling aura hung over him when he asked her that question, as if to say that, depending on her answer, he might use those same hands to choke her. Belle thought that if he did try to reach for her neck, she would have to start resisting for real. She had the brute strength to lift Runding, so she should easily be able to snap Adonis’s arms and strangle him instead.

It made her feel wretched. Everything about it filled her with sorrow.

“I ain’t scared of you!” she said, her words brimming with genuine anger—enough to want to kill him right then and there. Yet even so, a lethargic pain spread throughout her whole body. Her hands were going numb, like she couldn’t muster any strength.

“Then…”

“I don’t love you,” Belle said.

“What…?”

“We’re not in love yet. I don’t love you, and you don’t love me.”