This World Is Seriously Ill

"Blood healing... beastification..."

"Hunters... bloodkin..."

"The Ascended... children of gods..."

"We keep repeating the mistakes of the past..."

Kevin lightly flicked the Moonlight Greatsword, shook his head, and delivered a deeply ironic maxim.

"The only lesson we learn from history is that we cannot learn any lessons from history!"

Maria froze slightly at his words, then had no choice but to nod painfully.

Seeing that the female hunter had already guessed part of the truth, Kevin simply told Maria about some of the surface-level darkness shrouding Yharnam.

As she listened silently throughout, the female hunter gradually clenched her fists. Her skin turned so pale that it was bloodless, and her pearly teeth bit a bloody mark into her lips as the heavy taste of rust spread through her mouth.

She had joined the Celestial Clock Tower because she had been drawn to the light. Yet her overly beautiful fantasies had made her overlook the filth and darkness endlessly flowing through its corners.

So she had never escaped the shackles of fate. She had merely changed locations and remained a butcher's blade.

"When did you learn all this?"

Maria looked at the outsider beside her, who was idly stroking the patterns on the Summoner's Golden Goblet, and spoke in a low voice. Her melancholy carried a faint sense of distance and wariness.

The fervent, sincere faces in her memories now seemed shrouded in a hazy bloody mist. They appeared capable of opening their mouths at any moment and transforming into man-eating beasts.

And the ease and laziness that seemed to flow from this outsider's very bones made Maria feel that she had never truly understood him.

Even her own teacher had gone from radiant and glorious to twisted and unfamiliar. In this mad world, Maria no longer knew what she ought