That night, every local newspaper in Birmingham worked overtime to print the huge story of Sacred Heart Hospital being blown up due to aging equipment, a gas leak, and numerous other causes. Even the Avalon Daily devoted a page to reporting on the incident, enough to show just how much of a sensation the disaster had caused.
As for tabloids like the Kael-Isum Review, rumors were flying everywhere. They even listed a theory that superpowered individuals had fought each other there. They might as well have written "I'm just chasing clicks" across their front page.
The entire outpatient building of Sacred Heart Hospital, a venerable institution and one of Birmingham's landmarks, had been reduced to rubble. Its other buildings had also suffered varying degrees of damage. After such a major accident, Sacred Heart Hospital could no longer function as a hospital. Fortunately, the only person who had been in the outpatient department at the time was the director. Even so, the aftereffects had left quite a few doctors and patients feeling unwell.
According to the official explanation, gas released during the explosion had mixed with the hospital's stored anesthetics, creating a new neurological illness. Rumors claimed it caused symptoms including thirst, hunger, and agitation, and that in its later stages, it drove patients into a state of madness in which they lost their reason...
For a time, everyone was on edge.
Fortunately, the local Church of the Sun acted quickly, working with the Birmingham city government to shelter those who had been infected and arrange follow-up treatment. That contained the fallout from the incident and prevented an even worse disaster.
The world was bustling with activity, but for the time being, none of it had anything to do with Horn.
In the Brittany Region, in the "Little Sea" of Morbihan, at the gateway to the western sea, lay a small stretch of water called Morbihan. An island there was famous for its sailors. At the island's westernmost tip, monks who worshipped ancient gods enjoyed their isolation from the world, though it was said they also offered shelter to those who came to them.
The ceaseless sound of the waves surrounded the monastery known as the Captain, day and night. Below it, the Atlantic Ocean stretched endlessly, its surface the color of twilight blue.
Anyone fortunate enough to have recuperated at the monastery could easily recognize that the premium twilight-blue pigment sold by Kate & Hallow Co., Ltd. was merely an exact reproduction of the Atlantic's color at four o'clock on a clear autumn afternoon.
In the past, places like this were called "Frontiers of Maps" by cartographers and travelers—the perfect setting for the end of a grand adventure. Even now, visitors seeking to fulfill their own aims had to pay a steep price to gain entry to this monastery, whose gates might well be more firmly shut to strangers than any other.
Inside the monastery, Horn slowly awoke in a comfortable room on the side facing the sea.
"An unfamiliar ceiling... No, where am I this time?"
By the feel of it, he must have been asleep for quite a while, yet his stomach, which had gone so long without food, was telling him he was already full. The conflict between reason and sensation left Horn feeling deeply out of sorts.
As he turned it over in his mind, the ominous words "picked up by a stranger" slowly emerged from the possibilities, adding another weight to his already heavy heart.
With a sense of déjà vu, Horn got out of bed, walked over to the only window in the narrow room, and looked outside.
[Recorded Location: Atlantic Ocean] [Whales' lair, the moon's path, the watch of white bones, the calamity of ships.] [You suddenly realize that the sea has always been the widest road.]
Heaven.
A blue heaven.
The azure sky and twilight-blue sea merged at the horizon, overwhelmingly filling most of his field of vision and steering Horn's growing sense of déjà vu toward something ominous.
And when someone politely knocked three times on the door before gently pushing it open, that feeling reached its peak.
"I'm coming in, Mr. Lancaster—"
"?"
Still wearing his gardener's hat, with his sleeves rolled up, Father Stanislav John Schaller—fresh from tending the garden—stared in silence at Horn, who had half his body through the window and looked ready to jump into the sea if things went wrong. For once, the priest was utterly dumbfounded.
This was more than an ordinary aftereffect. Veronica hadn't mentioned that the patient was prone to Tide-Chasing Syndrome.
Maybe they should switch to a more aggressive treatment plan?
"Well... As long as it isn't something more troublesome, there's no need to worry, Mr. Lancaster. You needn't be concerned about a momentary stress response. I've met many people whose minds were far closer to the 'abnormal' end of the spectrum than yours, and most of them eventually made a good recovery."
"Before I became a therapist, I was a priest. 'Let the flesh forget its pain, let the smoke forget the flame, let the troubled heart forget its anguish.' That is the true meaning of Preservation Arts, and it is my duty."
Father Schaller's gaze was firm yet kind. As he explained in a gentle voice, Horn's embarrassment gradually subsided.
At least I'm still alive.jpg
"Thank you for your concern, Father. But in Birmingham, remnants of the Blood-Thirst Plague spread by the Blood Cup Cult are still around. May I ask..."
"Ah, there's no need to worry about that." Cutting off Horn's question, Father Schaller smiled sincerely. "Thanks to Miss Veronica bringing you here in time, we've started producing an antidote derived from your blood. Any patient whose illness hasn't reached its later stages can recover with timely treatment."
"In my view, Beelzebub's plague is essentially more of a curse than a toxin, though the two do share certain traits. Based on my experience treating Vicious Corruption, a slight improvement to the Van Lauren method would greatly reduce the threat posed by this plague. Ha ha, in fact, sufficient influence from the Grail is the key to treating symptoms of the Blood. 'Every snake has its own antidote.' That saying of Van Lauren's is truly insightful. Even back then, the good done by the Silent Bookstore still outweighed the evil..."
"Before I chose my path in Strasbourg, back when I was still a church diplomat, the knowledge of Woodland Studies I gained at Jade Immortal Garden benefited me immensely. Thanks to Master Bici, I learned to distinguish poisons from antidotes, though most of the time it's difficult to define where one ends and the other begins..."
"And the Eastern Church is far more open-minded than the Orthodox Church of the Sun, which has become excessively conservative. I think it's quite inappropriate for the Orthodox Church to label them heretics. Every faith that points toward the right path deserves respect, especially in times like these..."
Perhaps he'd gotten carried away, or perhaps he'd simply gone too long without anyone to talk to. Father Schaller rambled on and on. Horn could only listen with an awkward but polite smile, quietly noting down the proper nouns he mentioned.
Fortunately, the explanation of principles—which had brought Horn straight back to his university calculus lectures—was interrupted by the door opening a second time. The blonde girl made her grand entrance in the same classic combination of hat, trench coat, and sunglasses, and Horn looked at her as if she'd just saved him.
"Stanislav, that's enough. This isn't the library, so be careful about that."
Veronica brushed a gray thread off her hem and watched with a hint of amusement as the priest suddenly stopped speaking, the corners of her mouth curling up. Satisfied, she turned to Horn and asked matter-of-factly, "Since you seem to have recovered pretty well, I should take you back to Birmingham. Do you agree, Horn?"
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