Just as the members of the world-saving group were discussing their plans for the journey ahead at the banquet.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, in that forgotten wasteland-
The Melancholy Fiend Hector knelt amid the windblown sand and coughed up a mouthful of dark red blood.
The wound stretched from his shoulder to below his ribs, left by Reid's attack.
More precisely, after Flugel shouted, "Left! Three inches below the base of the blade!" Farsale's sword had pried open his defenses, and Reid's wooden club had smashed into the gap-in his hundreds of years of life, this was the first time he had been driven this far.
The wound was slowly healing, the skin at its edges gently closing like ripples on water, only to seep dark red liquid again each time it was about to heal, as though something were preventing it from disappearing completely.
He should have returned to report, but he did not move.
He sat on a rock worn smooth by wind and sand, looking at the slowly healing wound in his palm-deeper than any wound an opponent had ever inflicted on him.
Partly, it was because those two really were strong, especially the one who called himself the "Master Swordsman."
But he was more concerned with the other aspect: the person who had called out the weakness in his defenses so precisely.
He remembered that kind of voice.
That certainty, that tone of someone who had already seen it countless times-it was a voice only someone who knew every step in advance would have.
Like someone who had walked the same road many times, every step landing in a footprint already left there.
The hero of old, who called himself "Long Aotian," had relied on the world's abundant favor, using one astonishing flash of intuition after another to reach the victory heaven had already arranged for him.
But the Melancholy Fiend could also sense the difference between that person and the hero-if the hero had been covered in the radiance of victory, that person was steeped in the bitterness of failure, as though he had already failed many times.
"Nothing but a bunch of damned monsters."
It took him three days to return to Pandora's palace. He had traveled that road too many times already, every step feeling as though it landed in an old footprint.
But this time, he stopped several times along the way-not because of his injuries, but because he sensed something wrong.
An unfamiliar presence filled the air, as though something were slowly, silently being drawn out of the world.
Every stretch he walked, he felt some corner had grown a little emptier.
Those presences he had once known were fading little by little, like ripples dissipating on the surface of water.
The palace stood at the end of the wasteland, like a dark fissure forgotten in time. When he pushed open its doors, it was much quieter inside than he remembered.
Pandora stood before the cracked full-length mirror, her back to him, holding a broken shard of glass. She did not turn at the sound of his footsteps.
"You failed."
"Yes." The Melancholy Fiend offered no excuses.
"It seems they were somewhat stronger than I imagined. The Witch of Greed, Echidna, found help-that person from another world, yes?"
The Melancholy Fiend was silent for a moment, then said something she had not expected:
"What's happening to the hero-is that your doing?"
Pandora's fingers stopped against the mirror.
"What are you talking about?"
"Stop pretending, Pandora."
The Melancholy Fiend's voice grew a little heavier,
"That otherworldly hero's existence is being erased. Everything about him-records, memories, contracts-is fading. And not just him. The Demon King, too!"
Pandora turned around. Her face was still too exquisite to look real, but the Melancholy Fiend noticed her fingers tighten slightly around the mirror shard.
"Oh my, could you have misunderstood something? Those things never belonged in this world to begin with~"
"Was the Demon King something that didn't belong here, too?"
Silence. The air inside the hall seemed to freeze. The Melancholy Fiend looked at her-the girl who had once stood at the pinnacle of this world alongside the Demon King was now using her own power to erase the traces of her father's existence, little by little.
Her actions could no longer be explained by hatred.
It was a deeper, more thorough obsession-as though she had forgotten why she was doing it, leaving only the need to do it.
"You never should have absorbed that factor he left behind!"
"Don't try to alter my perception again with that disgusting Authority you've only just mastered, Pandora."
The Melancholy Fiend's voice was low and slow,
"You've become unrecognizable. What you're doing doesn't even count as revenge. You just want to erase everything!"
"I am correcting this world's mistakes, so the whole world can develop better-isn't that a great mission?"
Pandora's voice remained calm, but there was no longer any warmth to be heard in that calm,
"The struggle between the Demon King and the hero brought tremendous harm to this pure, beautiful world. I love this world, and for that love, all loveless beings who stand in my way are unworthy of existing in this wonderful world. Having put righteousness before family for that cause, am I not someone brimming with love for the world?"
"Then what about your own existence?"
Pandora did not answer.
The Melancholy Fiend took a step forward-he felt some string inside him snap.
As the Demon King's once most loyal subordinate, even though that Demon King was long gone, the memories of his existence should not have been erased.
"I once promised the Demon King that I would look after you when he was gone. But you no longer need looking after. You've become something he never imagined you would become... I have to leave."
"-Where?"
"Anywhere. As long as it's not beneath this sky you're erasing."
Pandora watched his back, but the Melancholy Fiend had already turned away.
"If you truly intend to erase every trace-then I'll leave before you do, for some corner you haven't rewritten yet."
Pandora did not ask him to stay. She merely turned back to the cracked mirror. Its surface did not reflect her face. She stood there like an outline that had never been finished.
"Hector, I'm very grateful that you're so full of love for me and for this world~ But the question now is-will you stand in my way?"
"Do whatever you want. I'm done playing along."
The palace doors slammed angrily shut behind him.
The Melancholy Fiend walked outside, stopped, and drew a deep breath. He felt the wound in his chest aching again-that pain had nothing to do with his body. It was more like something else, as though reminding him that even if those erased memories disappeared, the facts that had once existed would still remain somewhere in another form, as long as someone remembered.
He raised his head, gazed at the distant gray horizon, then set off.
After that, he never looked back.
And Pandora stood inside the hall before that empty mirror, slowly raising the shard in her hand before her eyes. Looking at the blurred outline within its cracks, which belonged to no one, she said softly:
"I'm glad you love this world, too. Then all those who stand in the way of me and the world's correction must be eliminated-beings who do not love this world will not be loved by the world, either."
Her finger scored a new crack across the mirror. As though a new obsession were taking shape.
Meanwhile, dawn came earlier than usual in Kararagi City.
Flugel stood on the earthen slope outside the mill, watching the golden-red light gradually brightening along the horizon, still clutching the old clay pot Satella had rewrapped in strips of cloth.
He did not know why he kept holding it, either, but by the time he noticed, the pot was already in his hands-as though it had always belonged there.
Footsteps came from behind him.
Satella came over and crouched beside him. Rather than looking at him, she simply watched the brightening sky in the distance. "You're up very early, Flugel-kun."
"Couldn't sleep."
"Do you always have trouble sleeping?"
"Yeah."
Flugel's voice came out softer than he had expected,
"Because I think about you day and night-"
Only halfway through did he realize what he was saying.
At that moment, he felt as though his tongue had suddenly become someone else's, uncontrollably spilling words he was nowhere near ready to say.
Satella froze. Her violet-blue eyes widened slightly in the morning light, like a fawn trying to decide whether the thing before it was dangerous or harmless.
Then a faint blush swiftly colored her cheeks.
"Flugel-kun, if you keep doing that, I'll stop talking to you. We've only known each other a few days..."
Her voice was not as intimidating as she had expected. It sounded more like an attempt to block a gust of wind with a thin sheet of paper.
She stood and turned to leave. Her skirt swept through a hurried arc, like a white bird startled into flight.
"Are you an idiot?"
Vigel's voice came from the steps farther away, carrying the weariness of someone who had utterly given up on saving anyone.
"I'm sorry, Satella! I am so sorry!"
Flugel chased after her. His footsteps thudded on the damp grass, like an overly flustered heart trying to catch up with the mistake it had just made.
She stopped without turning around, but she did not walk any farther away, either.
Morning light fell on her shoulders, gilding her pale coat with soft gold.
After a moment of silence, she turned her face slightly to glance at him.
A trace of reproach lingered in those violet-blue eyes, but there was something softer, too-as though, before deciding whether to be truly angry, she had first left a door ajar for him in her heart.
"...I forgive you."
She said,
"You can't do that again."
"...Okay."
Flugel stood behind her as though he had just finished a very long run.
She was silent for a while, then pointed toward the distant golden-red light.
"Flugel-kun, do you know where that light comes from? It's reflected off a great waterfall, far to the north. They say its waters fall from the sky and never stop."
"Does a place like that really exist?"
"It does. They say a very ancient dragon lives there."
"The Divine Dragon Volcanica?"
"That's right. He was also the hero's companion long ago."
Flugel followed her gaze. That golden-red glow was slowly spreading along the horizon, like a door being pushed open.
"Farsale really does know a lot, too. Since he's the king of Lugunica, he has to go. And we're companions in saving the world. To find the truth behind the world's alteration, we have to set out for that place, too."
Satella looked at his profile.
Morning light was gilding his outline with a faint gold. Suddenly, she felt that this person always seemed to be shouldering things he did not need to bear, though she could not quite explain why-as though he had grown used to picking up burdens that should never have been his, piling them onto his shoulders one by one, then continuing forward.
She lowered her head, watching a blade of wild grass beside her feet curl slightly in the morning light, and asked softly:
"What if the Divine Dragon won't help us?"
"Then we'll find a way to make him willing."
"You always seem to have so many ideas, Flugel-kun~"
"It's not really that I have so many ideas..."
Flugel scratched his head,
"It's because there are some things only I can do."
Satella did not reply. But she suddenly remembered how, long ago, before Kararagi had been built, Hoshin had said something similar in a similar tone:
"There are some roads only I can walk."
She had not pressed him then, nor had she afterward. Because she knew that when someone said, "It can only be me," it was not because he was so arrogant, but because he had already walked through that road's hardships in his heart on someone else's behalf.
She had never seen another person like him-as though he had learned things he should never have known very early on, then borne that weight while pretending he carried nothing at all.
Of course she knew what he meant.
That ability to keep returning to the starting point, which was not necessarily accurate and occasionally even lost memories, was no gift worth celebrating for him.
She had once read similar descriptions in the margins of a book-left unchecked, that kind of ability would eventually turn its user into someone utterly unfamiliar to himself.
She hoped she could share some of his burden, even if only a little.
For instance, if she could create some sort of "fixed save point" for him, perhaps he would not have to start over from the beginning every time.
But as she was now, she truly did not have that ability.
She did not want to entrust her entire life to someone else, much less want him to have to pay with his own life to save anything.
That would be too cruel to him-someone from another world who was already separated from his homeland and loved ones.
Even Flugel himself understood that "Return by Death" was no Long Aotian cheat.
If even death became a tool, what meaning would life have left? He had pondered that question over and over through countless sleepless nights, until the words themselves began to blur, like a sheet of letter paper rubbed and crumpled repeatedly.
Several years ago, Satella had saved Hoshin when he had once wanted to take his own life. Hoshin had become an important companion to them all, and together they had built Kararagi City.
So now she made another resolve-if Flugel tried to treat his life like a game, she would slap him without hesitation and bring him to his senses.
If one slap was not enough, then two, or three, until he understood the nature of life and the meaning of being alive.
And so, in their hearts, the two reached a silent understanding that "Return by Death" must not be abused, like two people stopping at the same time and looking back to see each other.
They turned toward each other in unison, their eyes meeting for a brief instant in the morning light-then, as though struck by the same electric current, their cheeks reddened at once, and they each hurriedly looked away.
Vigel, of course, was another whose heart could not remain calm.
He had meant to mock Flugel's foul, lecherous mouth, but after witnessing this unexpected scene, he suddenly felt choked up.
"This... this isn't right, is it?"
He seemed to have been force-fed a mouthful of dog food-though he had yet to fully understand exactly what that term meant, he had already experienced the sensation of choking on something invisible and sickly sweet.
He ran off in a huff, his footsteps gradually fading along the stone-paved road in the early morning.
Meanwhile, inside the mill, the seven were assembling. Morning light spilled through the holes in the roof onto the floor, illuminating the scattered hay and dust.
Echidna leaned against the wall, leafing through an old notebook, a faint rustle rising as her fingertips brushed the edges of its pages.
Vigel sat on the edge of the millstone, polishing his astrolabe, faint silver-blue light slowly flowing across its metal surface.
Hoshin stood by the window, supporting himself on his new cane, his gaze resting on the distant horizon lit by that golden-red glow.
Reid leaned against a pillar, arms folded and eyes closed, his breathing as steady as a sleeping rock.
Farsale stood among them with the Dragon Sword held against his chest. Morning light fell on the intricate patterns across its scabbard, as though something were slowly awakening.
"-All right, since everyone's ready,"
Flugel and Farsale spoke at the same time, their voices carrying only the certainty that came from having traveled enough roads,
"Let's set off!"
-A new journey began at that moment.