CHAPTER 4
THE ETERNAL FREEZING OF THE GREAT ELIOR FOREST
1
—In that phantasmal scene, with everything dyed pure white, a beautiful girl stood, wearing nothing but a single piece of cloth.
It looked as if an artist had exchanged not only his own soul but that of many others, making a deal with some devil to attain the pinnacle of painting for the very first time.
“I am so glad that I found you. I’ve located the seal at long last, but I had no idea where the Key might be. But I have managed to find you, so I am deeply relieved.”
“Why…are you here…?”
The smile the girl—Pandora—wore on her beautiful visage was like a fragrance that toyed with life itself. Posing a question to the girl with such an obviously abnormal presence made Emilia’s voice tremble. In response, Pandora brought her palms together before her, smiling broadly like someone about to reveal a secret as some sort of grand finale.
“Tee-hee, surprised, aren’t you? It’s quite simple, actually. This seal is our goal. We came to look for it… Therefore, my being here was inevitable.”
The reply Pandora gave was not the answer Emilia sought.
Emilia was trying to ask how Pandora could be here. The last time Emilia had seen her, Geuse had been keeping the strange white figure and her from going anywhere—
“Why…are you here…?”
“—? Ahhh, I am sorry. I gave a rather odd reply, didn’t I? What you want to know concerns Archbishop Romanée-Conti and your mother, doesn’t it?”
“—!”
Pandora’s belated comprehension made Emilia audibly clench her teeth.
A proper answer for a proper question. She wanted to ask. She wanted to know. But at the same time, she didn’t. After all, if Pandora was there, what had happened to Geuse?
“Please rest easy.”
To young Emilia’s distress, Pandora spoke that one phrase as a preamble, her charming smile deepening. Her expression flooded with what seemed like simple consideration, wanting to wipe that gloom from Emilia’s face.
“The Archbishop Romanée-Conti and your mother you are so concerned about are both quite safe and sound.”
“R-really…?”
“Yes, really— my believers and I have tried to avoid hurting everyone as much as possible. Just as I told you earlier, this seal is our goal. It is not necessary to sacrifice anyone for it.”
Pandora’s deluge of words, spoken in the kindest possible way, softly melted Emilia’s unease and tension away. Relief slowly permeated her chest.
If she could believe Pandora, Fortuna and Geuse were safe, and perhaps things for everyone in the forest had not gone as terribly as she had imagined. If that was true—
“Once you finish with the seal, you’ll leave…?”
“?”
“O-once you’re done dealing with the s-seal, you’ll leave the forest? You’ll leave without doing anything horrible to everyone?”
“—Yes, of course. It is not my desire that there be unnecessary casualties.”
Responding to Emilia’s clumsy plea, Pandora made a promise, deeply bowing her head.
After that, Pandora pointed to the sealed door, causing the teary Emilia to cock her head.
“Therefore, would you kindly hand over the Key? Once I am finished with my business, I will immediately withdraw from this forest.”
“K-Key…?”
“Yes, the Key. This seal takes the shape of a door because it cannot be opened without the Key. And surely, that Key is in your possession.”
“I don’t know anything about that…”
When Pandora made that firm assertion, the clueless Emilia shook her head in denial.
As a matter of fact, she couldn’t remember any such thing. Emilia did not recall ever carrying something like a key, and in the first place, the seal itself had been kept secret from Emilia. She couldn’t think of any possible way for her to have this Key to a seal she didn’t even know about until just recently. And yet—
“I cannot call hiding it from me very wise.”
“Y-you’re wrong…!! I really— I really don’t know! I don’t have anything like a key! No one gave me a key! I can’t open this seal!”
“Is that so? —Well, I will have to rummage through every corner of the forest to search for the Key, then.”
Seemingly disappointed in Emilia’s reply, Pandora lowered her eyes, looking very sad.
Her words and gesture made Emilia’s body tremble. Pandora seemed genuinely sympathetic toward Emilia. But no matter how she felt, she undoubtedly intended to “rummage through” the forest, and its people, until she got what she wanted.
Instinctively understanding that Pandora was fully capable of following through, Emilia desperately tried to think of something.
“I-I’ll open it! I’ll open it!!”
“Ohhh, really? I’m so glad. You really do have the Key, don’t you?”
When Emilia raised her voice, fear racing through her, Pandora’s expression brightened like the sunrise. Not noticing how the abrupt change frightened the little girl, Pandora continued.
“But of course you do. You must have the Key— After all, whatever you may look like, you are still a Witch’s daughter.”
“Witch…?”
“Now, please take care of the seal. If you open this door, I will depart, immediately at that.”
Pandora’s face was filled with joy, looking like she could barely contain her impatience as she yielded the stage to Emilia.
Even as Pandora’s words set her mind astir, Emilia approached the door in her stead. Firmly closed and so tall that she had to crane her neck to see it all, the door felt very weighty and oppressive.
“?”
She already said she would open it, and here she stood before the door. However, she had no idea how to open it.
The one time she investigated the seal, Emilia had tried getting past it. No matter how much she pushed or pulled or even climbed over it, the door never budged. That wouldn’t change now.
The door, as cold as ice, silently and emotionlessly rejected Emilia’s tiny palm.
“Ha! …Haaa…ha!… Ah.”
Her heart rate quickened abnormally, and she could hear the noisy sound of blood flowing in her head. The inside of her chest grew hot, and the depths of her belly grew cold. Her leaping heart threatened to jump right out of her mouth, and yet, the tips of her fingers felt heavy, as if packed with lead. Though she willed them to move with all her might, they would not.
—If she didn’t open this door, something terrible would happen to everyone, she was sure of it.
As fear and despair made her mind a blank, Emilia’s consciousness moved further and further away—
“—Think of yourself as the Key.”
When Emilia sought something to cling to, that voice smoothly slid into Emilia’s earlobes.
—I am…the Key.
Doing as the voice commanded, Emilia’s mind settled on a single answer.
That instant, Emilia felt something heavy in the palm of the hand she used to touch the door. She looked at her hand. There, she saw an old, large silver key that had appeared at some point unknown to her.
“Can you see it? If so, you are indeed the Key.”
Standing right beside Emilia, Pandora spoke in what seemed a whisper. Her words brought a sound out of Emilia’s throat, but she realized the girl could not see the Key herself.
“You don’t see this…?”
“—. No, I do not. This Key cannot be entrusted to anyone who does not possess the proper qualifications. There are likely only two people in the world who may hold this Key.”
When Pandora murmured with a look of envy, Emilia saw something resembling emotion in her for the first time. But the impression the girl gave off that moment was meaningless. Lifting her face, Emilia turned back toward the door.
Surely, the key in her palm would match the keyhole of the lock in the center of the door.
It was something Emilia understood without having to try and see. Mysteriously, her hand felt accustomed to the key. It was as natural, as obvious as a key she might use to enter her own bedroom.
“Now, open it. Do this, and your wish shall be granted.”
When Pandora’s voice came to her from…somewhere, Emilia took a single step forward. If she put the key in the keyhole and willed it to “open,” then open it would. That was all it would take for the seal to be released from its long, long, truly so very long duty.
If she did that, Geuse, Fortuna, and everyone else in the forest would surely be saved…and yet—
Emilia—I promise.
As she was about to touch the seal, the words whispered by her mother upon their parting echoed in Emilia’s head.
They were words exchanged in a promise unrelated to that seal. However, Emilia remembered. She remembered her mother had promised to protect her.
She knew nothing about the seal. She’d made a prior promise never to go to this place.
Emilia did not know about this place, and she was not supposed to know. She was not supposed to have anything to do with it at all.
She and Fortuna had made a promise. And she had to put keeping her promises above everything else. A promise was a creation of trust and she couldn’t betray those feelings.
If she became a bad girl, no one would forgive Emilia anymore. She would become unforgivable.
That was why opening the seal would mean breaking a promise.
“I—I can’t open it…”
“—Why?”
When Emilia reluctantly shook her head, Pandora spoke briefly, her voice hard for the first time.
Not noticing the change in her tone of voice, Emilia shook her head even more reluctantly.
“I…I made a promise. I don’t know anything about the seal. I mustn’t open it.”
“Is that so? Promises are important, aren’t they? I think your attempt to uphold yours is very righteous and commendable. However, such things have a time and place.”
Gently, Pandora hugged Emilia from behind. Embraced by those slender, gorgeous arms, Emilia trembled from the warmth of someone who was not her mother.
“You made that promise with your mother, didn’t you? Your mother is a most commendable person. She raised you to be proper and good. Such aspirations should be treasured.”
“Th-then…”
“But sometimes, the time comes when you must decide to break a promise. Perhaps it is cruel to ask that of a child so young. However, fate does not take personal circumstance into account. What fate loves most is the struggle against the tides and embracing hope, come what may. What kind of hope do you seek?”
“What kind…?”
As Emilia spoke in a broken voice, Pandora went, “Yes,” smiling like a benevolent mother as she nodded.
“One choice would be the hope that you can keep the promise between you and your mother, not opening the seal and thus antagonizing us, but then overcome these tribulations in spite of that.”
Pandora lifted up her right hand to indicate that invisible hope.
“And the other is the hope that by defying your mother’s promise and opening the seal, we can both fulfill our objectives and harmoniously bring this entire affair to an end.”
Lifting up her left hand, Pandora similarly presented to Emilia another invisible hope.
“?”
Presented with these two options, Emilia stiffened, unable to raise her voice.
Her throat seemed so frozen that she couldn’t even tell how to breathe. If she said something rash, would Pandora snatch back both hands that very instant?
Would Emilia lose both options without coming close to touching either one?
“What kind of hope shall you choose? —Your fate depends upon it.”
—The hope on the right. The hope on the left.
—Choosing the hope that upheld her promise. Choosing the hope that broke her promise.
The sweet, enchanting voice was dissolving her brain. The gentle tone of voice with which Pandora argued her case seduced Emilia’s spirit.
That moment, she could not hear her own heartbeats, which had been so noisy before.
All sound had vanished from the world. Even color had been erased, leaving Emilia lost and alone.
Unable to hear even her own beating heart, what remained was her brain—no, her consciousness alone.
She couldn’t choose. She couldn’t choose. She couldn’t choose couldn’t choose couldn’t couldn’tcouldn’tcouldn’tcouldn’t.
Which was the right choice? What should she do to rescue everyone? What did she need to do to help? She wanted someone, anyone to tell her.
Hope, salvation, her mother’s teachings—
“—Ah.”
“—So you’ve made your choice. This is your decision, isn’t it?”
Amid her white-hot thoughts and her hollow, nebula-like vision, she heard Pandora’s voice. Looking down at the hand the child’s palm had reached, Pandora cast her eyes, rimmed by long eyelashes, downward.
—Emilia had touched Pandora’s right hand.
She had chosen the hope that did not break her promise, that did not open the seal, that saved no one.
“I…made a promise with Mom. I have to keep my promises… I have to, so… Mooom…”
“You believed the words of the mother who raised you until the very end. At the end of your struggle, this is the answer you arrived at, the conclusion reached by your soul. I respect that.”
As a steady flood of tears flowed from Emilia, Pandora nodded in what seemed like acceptance.
Then she gently brushed away Emilia’s hand, which touched her own right hand, gazing at the young girl with apparent affection.
If Pandora wanted to, she could force Emilia, the key holder, to open the door. That she showed no intent of doing so must have meant there was some kind of tangible goodness inside Pandora.
If so, then—
“—However, please respect the decision I made to teach you the means to open this door.”
It was an expression of her false benevolence. She had no qualms about completely ravaging anything that she didn’t find valuable or worthy of respect.
“—Eh?”
In a daze, Emilia let her voice trickle out toward the smiling Pandora.
She saw that Pandora was looking not at her but at the woods behind her. From the grove of white trees, a single figure leaped, charging toward them—
“—Pandoraaa!!”
Howling with every fiber of her bloodied body was a woman with short silver hair—Fortuna. Just how ferocious had her battles been after returning to the forest? Fortuna appeared there, wounded all over, yet the glint of fierceness in her eyes was undiminished as she unleashed tremendous magical power to impale Pandora.
It sounded like the air cracked as long, massive spears of ice materialized in the area around Fortuna. Their aim was true, and with speed greater than an arrow, they streaked toward Pandora all at once.
“Take this—!!”
“Launching an attack without looking around first is quite dangerous.”
Speaking calmly, Pandora stepped forward as if to shield Emilia. A moment later, a spear of ice pierced her chest, the next ones going through her hips, her arms, and her legs, shooting through one after another, with the final missile sending her head flying.
“—Aaaah!”
Watching that cruel death unfold right before her eyes, Emilia let out a high-pitched shriek. Having lost its head, Pandora’s corpse fell backward, knocking Emilia down with it.
The surreal experience of being pinned under a headless corpse made Emilia scream long and hard.
“…Emilia?”
With that scream bringing her back to her senses, Fortuna was dumbfounded as she called out the name of her beloved daughter.
Her violet eyes showed less a feeling of accomplishment from having felled her mortal foe and more surprise at finding Emilia somewhere she ought not be. Fortuna raced to Emilia’s side.
“Why are you here, Emilia…? You should have left the forest…”
“Is it not cruel to ask why? This girl was thinking of you, her mother, as she sped here with no thought other than wanting to save you. If a mother cannot respect and praise the purity of such thoughts, what will the world come to?”
“—!”
As Fortuna wavered, Pandora, right beside her, arched her brows in visible reproach.
Both sets of violet eyes opened wide—Fortuna reacting to Pandora’s elusiveness and Emilia because the corpse, supposedly having just died a terrible death, vanished before her very eyes.
“And when you make the same faces, you really do look alike. That’s a mother and daughter for you.”
“—! I’m not Emilia’s mother! It’s my sister-in-law whom Emilia resembles!”
“Ahhh, her. How so very rude of me.”
Fortuna unleashed an angry cry, and right as Pandora was in the middle of apologizing for it, a sword of ice mercilessly slashed her apart. Her torso was cut in half by a diagonal slice, and fresh blood spilled out as Pandora collapsed backward onto the ground.
“Then I suppose that makes you the mother who raised her. If so, you should be proud of yourself. Your daughter possesses a heart most worthy of praise. I am sure that her real parents would be overjoyed.”
“Don’t speak of my brother and sister-in-law with your filthy mouth!!”
The fallen corpse vanished, and Pandora stood at Fortuna’s side as if it was the most natural thing. Fortuna lopped her neck off with her sword of ice, skewering her torso and shattering it into fragments. The next moment, when Pandora revived behind her, Fortuna closed the distance and impaled her, and when the beautiful visage appeared again farther away, she hurled the sword toward her. The second the tip of the sword caught her slender body, Pandora became a statue of ice, cracking and falling apart an instant later.
“Are you not tired of always rejecting conversation with violence like this? I’ve been waiting for a moment of calm to have a proper conversation, so how about we start over?”
“—!! I told you not to run your mouth!”
Glancing at the shattered ice statue, Pandora patted Fortuna on the shoulder. As a shudder went through her from the nightmarish sight, Fortuna slammed an open palm into the side of Pandora’s face—
“—Agh!”
“Emilia?!”
Emilia, knocked flying by her mother, skidded across the ground’s surface, unable to break her fall. Fortuna, going pale at having inadvertently struck her own daughter, hurriedly raced over to her side.
“No!! Emilia, I’m so sorry! Oh no! I didn’t mean to…!”
“It hurts that much to be struck. I’m sure your own heart feels pain at least equal to that. Now do you understand just how callous your behavior is?”
When Fortuna picked up Pandora, she yelped loudly and thrust the girl away. When she stood up and looked, she saw Emilia standing right by the seal, same as before. There was no sign that her cheek had been slapped.
“Are you relieved to know nothing happened to her? Could you not share just a little of that sentiment with an opponent you detest? I am not telling you to love everyone as if they were your own daughter. I am merely asking that you be slightly more considerate. You should keep at least a tiny bit of this in mind.”
“What stupidity are you…? Who?! Who would listen to a single thing you say…?!”
“—Then how about this? Convince your daughter with your very own mouth. I have confirmed that the girl possesses the Key, but she refuses to open the door even so to uphold a promise made with none other than you.”
The negotiation she’d conducted with Emilia made Fortuna’s breath catch. Emilia, trembling under her gaze, hardened her own cheeks, desperately turning her tear-clouded eyes toward her mother.
“If you rescind that promise, there will be no chains left to bind her obstinate heart. All I require is for the seal to be lifted. Once it’s done, I promise to distance myself from this forest without doing anything else. Promise… Such a wonderful word, yes?”
She had no apparent intent to ridicule; no doubt these were her true thoughts. There was no malice in Pandora’s affection- and envy-filled words. It was that very lack of malice that made them so powerfully, wickedly sarcastic.
Within Fortuna’s vision, Emilia clenched both her hands, awaiting her mother’s words. Her hands were bulging from grasping something—because she held the Key that could unlock the seal.
If Fortuna spoke a single word, Emilia would open the sealed door. If that action would save the forest, her young heart was determined to offer everything for it—
“—I’m sorry, Emilia. I’m sorry I made you go through all this.”
Fortuna walked toward the door—nay, to her daughter, embracing Emilia tightly as she spoke. From this hug, she could tell that the young girl was shaking.
Parent and child rubbed their silver hair against each other’s cheek, sharing warmth as if to confirm the other’s presence.
“Emilia, I’m truly and very… You came here alone? What about Archi?”
“Archi…told me to run as far as the white flowers… That’s why…I ran…”
“—!”
Hearing from Emilia what Archi had told her, Fortuna realized that the young elf’s life had reached its end.
The unfortunate end of the young man who had told them that they were family filled Fortuna’s chest with sadness. However, Fortuna did not show a tearful face to the daughter she embraced.
Just how many lives had the minion of that vicious Witch stolen around the forest…?
Even so, Fortuna was proud of the decision her daughter had made.
“Emilia, Emilia…you did well to keep your promise. Good girl. Good girl.”
“Mom…! Mom, I—I—!”
“Emilia…you are my pride. You are my treasure…”
As her daughter nestled close, Fortuna gently embraced her.
Pandora’s face grew hot, seemingly entranced by the sight. Her expression was as if she wanted to monopolize the world’s most beautiful scenes all for herself.
“I have had my fill of beautiful love between parent and child. To love and be loved is marvelous indeed…”
“I don’t feel very warm and fuzzy hearing that from you— I won’t break the seal. I won’t hand over this girl. My reply is the same as Emilia’s. Turn into an ice statue and wither here, would you?”
“Do you not think such a cruel statement is bad for your daughter’s education?”
“Nothing can be worse for her education than having a conversation with someone like you.”
Rejecting Pandora’s very existence, Fortuna channeled the mana around her once more. Sensing that renewed hostility and increasing magical power, Pandora pursed her lips with a forlorn expression.
—The next moment.
“After sooo long, I have finally caught up with you—!”
His voice was tinged with madness, yet the man held on to an even greater sense of duty as he rushed onto the battlefield.
Leaping over the tall, pure-white trees was a man wearing a habit—Geuse—passing through the sky high, fast, and with enough force that one might think a giant had hurled him.
“Geuse!”
“Lady Fortunaaa!”
Fortuna and Geuse called out each other’s names, and that was all it took to link their wills together. With Pandora standing by the sealed door, Fortuna and Geuse were in the perfect position to conduct a pincer, unleashing maximum firepower from front and rear.
Fortuna gripped Emilia’s trembling right hand with her left.
Emilia stared up at the side of her mother’s face.
—As she gazed straight ahead, ready to boldly confront her opponent, she was beautiful enough to make one tremble.
“Al Hyuma—!!”
“Unseen Haaands—!!!”
The unparalleled destruction woven by Fortuna combined with the maximum amount of heresy Geuse could derive from the power of the Witch Factor. As such incredibly devastating power swelled, the sky of the Great Elior Forest cried out in agony—
“—Mom?”
An invisible hand pierced Fortuna’s chest, bathing Emilia’s entire body in her mother’s fresh blood.
2
Emilia felt the hand holding her own grow limp as Fortuna’s body collapsed before her eyes.
“With thiiiiis—it is over!!”
Howling, Geuse landed as he waved around his blood-soaked hand. Seemingly pulled by his gesture, Fortuna’s body traced a similar arc as it danced in the air. Strength drained from Fortuna’s limbs as she was cast away like a doll and tumbled across the ground— Blood poured ceaselessly out of her body.
“I felt that striiike her… After sooo many tries, thiiis time…”
His breathing ragged, Geuse murmured as he knelt on the spot.
Emilia did not hear his voice, nor did she see the state he was in. Emilia saw Fortuna alone.
“?”
With a wobbly gait, she headed toward where Fortuna had fallen.
Holes had opened in Fortuna’s body from both sides, chest and back, and a great deal of blood flowed from her broken flesh. Even the spurts of blood began to grow weaker by the time Emilia knelt down in the pool of blood.
Embracing her pale mother’s head, she somehow brought it onto her own lap. Fortuna’s pretty silver hair was speckled and drenched with blood as Emilia desperately tried to keep it unblemished, cleaning it with her fingers. However, as she did so, Emilia’s own fingers were marred with blood; the more she touched, the less pretty Fortuna’s hair became.
“Lady Fortuna! Do not drop your guard! Be careful. I will check…”
“Geuse…?”
“?”
Incredibly wary, Geuse turned a palm toward Fortuna. Emilia sluggishly raised her head; Geuse’s tense expression changed when he heard her voice.
For an instant, he blinked, his face like that of one looking far in the distance.
“Lady Emilia?”
Geuse murmured, looking like he was noticing the sight of the little girl kneeling in a pool of blood for the very first time.
Then he slowly shifted his gaze to the individual whose head rested upon Emilia’s knees.
His eyes opened wide.
“…This…cannot be.”
Shocked by the scene before his eyes, Geuse could only mutter that single phrase.
He looked to his side. Calmly standing beside Geuse was a woman with a beautiful visage, not a single blemish upon her. That beautiful figure, of the Witch named Pandora, flashed Geuse a smile.
“It cannot be helped. You were merely ‘mistaken’ in what you saw.”
“Ah, aah… Aaaaaaaaaagh—?!”
Understanding everything from that smile, Geuse plunged his fingernails into his own cheek as he screamed. The power of it stripped his nails, gouged his flesh, and stained the man’s face crimson.
“Absurd, absurd, absurdabsurdabsurdabsurd! What have I—? What iiis it I have done?! What have I…? Why, whywhywhywhywhywhy?! This… Then what have—? For what purpose have I been…aaa? Aah?! AAAAAAAH!!”
Geuse had taken the Witch Factor into himself, using sheer willpower to keep an incompatible Deadly Sin in check.
The most important part of him that kept this indomitable willpower going had snapped. Geuse could almost hear the sound of it breaking as everything that had been holding him together fell to pieces inside him.
With the power he had gambled his life to obtain, he had himself destroyed the life he had made the gamble to protect.
“I… For what purpose have I…?!”
“—All was for love.”
Having lost his mind to madness, a lament echoed through Geuse’s despairing soul.
With a quiet voice, Pandora replied to Geuse’s mournful question.
“You offered your own soul to save the one you love. That is something few people are capable of. For so very, very long, you supported the Witch Cult day after day for the sake of love. All your actions are the product of love. The path of love is marvelous indeed.”
“Love… Love, love…love, love… Love…!!”
“Yes. There is nothing you need be afraid of, nothing you need regret. All was inevitable; the path of fate led you here. Having come this far, you must continue down this path— ‘Your love is not mistaken.’”
“For love…!”
Repeatedly jamming such sweet nothings into his ears, Geuse felt his mind well and truly shatter.
Dropping to his knees, light fading from his eyes, he fell into oblivion, unable to move.
Gazing at the sight of Geuse so stricken, Pandora smiled, quite satisfied with herself.
“Emi…lia…”
And at the same time Geuse’s mind had been smashed, the fires of another life were going out.
“Mom…”
Hearing her name spoken by such a faint, fading voice, Emilia called out again in a daze.
Embracing her mother with trembling arms, she found it heartbreaking how much lighter Fortuna’s body had grown. At some point, her blood must have flowed in such great quantities that it stopped coming out at all.
If the bleeding had stopped, was her mother’s wound all right, she wondered?
Emilia’s mind was so young; there was no way to protect it without holding on to some kind of hope. Anyone could see that Fortuna, no longer retaining any power to move, was on death’s door.
“…Bro…ther…I’m…sorry.”
“Mom.”
“I couldn’t…protect anything…you told…me to…”
She voiced her regrets, her tone like that of an apologizing child.
With nothing left to bleed, the only thing that came out were Fortuna’s tears.
Feeling the heat of those tears with a touch of her finger, Emilia tried with all her might to gather them up.
She did this thinking them the sum total of her mother’s life force at that moment.
“My sister…will be a-angry, huh…? She won’t forgive me…for this…will she…?”
As she listened to her mother’s words, Emilia belatedly realized.
The light had long faded from her mother’s violet eyes. Those eyes could only shed tears; they could not see Emilia’s face. She didn’t realize Emilia was at her side.
No matter how much she touched her, no matter how much she held her, nothing was getting through.
To her mother, Fortuna, who was crying and begging for forgiveness like a little child, Emilia—
“—Mom, I forgive you.”
“?”
“Mom has…Mom has always taken care of me… You loved me, every bit as much as Father and Mother…”
“?”
“So there’s nothing to be sorry for. There isn’t. Emilia has always, always…always loved you so much, Mom. I love you so much. I love you, I love you… I love you…!”
Her emotions were falling apart.
Her voice lost all composure, and the teardrops she could no longer hold back fell onto Fortuna’s face one after another. If teardrops truly carried the power of life, there was no doubt Emilia’s tears brought about a miracle.
“…Mom?”
“Lia.”
A slowly rising hand touched Emilia’s cheek.
A hand that shouldn’t have been able to move felt Emilia’s cheek, stroked her ear, tickled her hair. She gently caressed Emilia like she was touching something unimaginably valuable, something impossibly fragile. But above all, she touched lovingly. Lovingly. Lovingly.
“Such a crybaby.”
“?”
“I really love yo…”
Her strength drained away.
Her arm made a soft sound as it fell.
In her lap, Emilia felt the body of Fortuna, who had reached up to stroke her face, grow lighter still.
Even though her whole body losing energy should have made her heavier, Fortuna became tangibly lighter in Emilia’s arms—something that must never come out had left.
Fortuna was no longer there… Even Emilia understood that.
“?”
Her mother, Fortuna, was gone.
Geuse’s—Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti’s mind was broken.
And Emilia was—
“Now then, are you prepared to choose the hope of lifting the seal?”
Pandora walked over, addressing Emilia as she embraced Fortuna’s remains.
With a gentle face, Pandora quietly awaited her reply. Emilia lifted her head.
“…Open the seal?”
“Yes. Unfortunately, the mother with whom you made that promise has passed away. No longer do the fetters called a promise bind you. So how about it?”
When Pandora presented that heinous argument like it was perfectly normal, Emilia understood everything.
She understood for what purpose this demon, standing before her in the form of a person, had done such things. This demon had acted for no reason other than to make Emilia break her promise.
For nothing more than that sake, she had caused Fortuna to die and Geuse’s mind to break and had thoroughly trampled the forest underfoot.
“Oh yes, I forgot something— Come on out.”
As Emilia adopted an emotionless expression, Pandora made an inviting motion with her hand toward the air in front of Emilia. When she did so, faint, phosphorescent glows floated up all around Emilia, and these countless lights slowly moved toward Pandora, gathering as she beckoned. The lights added a surreal beauty to her already enchanting visage.
They were fairies—or rather, lesser spirits.
They were the fairies that had led Emilia to the sealed door, showing her the way.
Why had they gone over to Pandora…?
“I was not convinced you would come here if left to your own devices, so I asked them to help, you see. They are such dependable children.”
When Pandora smiled, conveying her thanks to the lesser spirits, her words made the lights happily sway about.
—When had it all started? Emilia no longer knew.
Wobbly, Emilia’s own head swayed as she looked up at the sealed door.
The door leisurely looked back down at Emilia, as if waiting expectantly for the moment it would be opened. She belatedly noticed the heavy sensation of the Key firmly in the palm of her hand. At some point, the Key had reappeared within it.
“The Key… I’m so glad; it seems you still had it. You understand what to do, then?”
With Pandora smiling in front of her, Emilia quietly trembled.
She gently slid her mother’s head from her lap, lightly resting it atop the grass. With a finger, she toyed with her mother’s hair before carefully arranging Fortuna’s beautiful face. Her hair was short, colored silver like Emilia’s own. She gently removed the floral accessory from her mother’s beautiful hair, replacing it with Emilia’s own.
Finally, she put her mother’s floral accessory into her own hair. With that, she and her mother would be together…always.
And then—
“Die.”
—surging cold welled up to form seemingly innumerable blades, turning Pandora’s flesh into bloody mist in a single instant.
The gushing blood instantly froze. Vivid flowers of red ice bloomed in a chaotic pattern.
A single pillar of ice stood at the epicenter, petals of fresh blood scattered all about. It was a sculpture of ice and death.
“What a violent thing to have done to me. What has gotten into you all of a—?”
“Die.”
Stakes of ice poured down, drilling into Pandora’s limbs, and a spear of ice thrust out of the ground’s surface, impaling her from her waist to the crown of her skull. Her frozen body, bathed in impacts from above and below, made a high-pitched sound as it shattered into tiny pieces.
“Please calm yourself. Surely, we can understand each other if we only speak.”
“Die.”
Mighty blocks of ice closed in from left and right, crushing Pandora’s body and cruelly transforming it into a pathetic lump of flesh.
“You are a gentle girl deep in your heart. Doing this will only make your mother sad.”
“Die.”
A spinning blade of ice rose from below Pandora’s feet and sliced her to ribbons, sending crimson lumps of ice flying.
“You are betraying the numerous wishes placed in you…by your parents, Archbishop Romanée-Conti, and your mother, as well.”
“Die—!!”
A white cloud enveloped Pandora, transforming her body into an ice statue. A mighty sword of ice swung downward a moment later, not slicing but rather, smashing the statue, scattering it in chunks across the ground with tremendous force.
Pandora was slain again and again in a tempest of bloodlust and countless, inexhaustible, violently creative means of destruction. And yet—
“How troublesome. It seems this has caused the opposite of the intended effect.”
“Die, die, die, die…!!”
As she sobbed and wailed, Emilia poured icy destruction upon Pandora over and over.
However, even as Pandora assuredly died each and every time, she instantly revived just as quickly.
“D-die… Die…”
Each time Emilia strained her young body to cast magic, she drew closer to her limit. She cast spells one after another even though her body couldn’t support it, her face turning red as her lower half began to freeze over. She wasn’t expelling it fast enough and the increasingly vast store of mana she had drawn into her body was beginning to go out of control.
“Such an incredible amount of mana…and a Gate that can manage all this… It would seem a Witch’s progeny cannot flee from fate— Perhaps you were brought to this forest to make sure your blood continued to slumber.”
Emilia did not understand the meaning of Pandora’s comment, but she shook her head to reject it all the same. Her right leg had completely frozen over; it was difficult for her to even stand straight. She went down to one knee. Her murderous violet eyes shot right through Pandora; the sight of bloodlust in one so young made Pandora lower her own gaze.
“This is most unfortunate considering my greatest desire is right before me, but I shall leave it at this for today. Any more, and it seems I will only make you push yourself further.”
“Die, die, die, die…!”
“We have accomplished much today: learning of your bloodline, confirming the existence of the Key, and the birth of a new Archbishop of the Seven Deadly Sins— More importantly, taking the seal and leaving is more than sufficient… Oh my.”
Her arbitrary conclusion that left no room for discussion was the very epitome of conceit.
But as Pandora put her spin on the situation, white crystals suddenly entered her field of vision.
—Snow.
Emilia’s absurd level of mana had gone berserk, warping the climate itself to the extreme and causing snow to fall.
At first, it was a flake here, a flake there; however, the force and strength of the snowfall soon increased, growing powerful enough to be properly called a snowstorm.
“—From the looks of things, you are about to enter a rather long slumber.”
Looking up at the falling snow, Pandora then turned to Emilia, the cause of the dramatic shift in weather.
Already, the frost had reached Emilia’s hips; she was no longer able to move either arm.
“Your power will cover this forest in ice that shall never melt. At some point, your mana shall reach its very limit, or perhaps it shall be offset by someone whose power rivals your own. Until then…”
“Die, die…!”
“Unfortunately, I shall not. When the snow melts and this icy winter comes to an end, we shall inevitably meet again. But I would feel very lonely if you were to hate me when that time comes.”
As Emilia spat curses, Pandora gently touched the young girl’s forehead with a fingertip.
Emilia’s violet eyes seethed with hatred as Pandora smiled at her with an innocent face.
“You will ‘completely forget about my existence in your memories up to this day.’”
“—Ah.”
“Go ahead and fill the gap however you like. Ah, yes. You kept your promise with all your heart and soul. Carve this deeply into your heart. I would be pleased if you remain just as you are now.”
Frozen up to her chest, Emilia’s head reeled, her unfocused gaze lingering on the world around her. Her eyes were spinning, drool spilled from the corner of her lips, and the inside of Emilia’s head had been all stirred up.
Randomly, unwittingly, the pages strewn over the wall of her memory rearranged themselves as they pleased, creating innumerable inconsistencies.
The words that had been exchanged vanished into the distance, and she forgot the love she had been given, leaving only fear and a sense of guilt behind—
—The important thing that did not vanish…was her promise.
She absolutely did not forget she had upheld her promise. Nor had she forgotten she had to uphold her promise.
—She’d kept her promise. The promise had been kept.
“I wonder just what colors shall greet your heart and what kind of smile you will show me the next time we meet? I look forward to the day when we shall see each other again.”
Even amid the ferocious snowstorm, Pandora’s voice carried clearly as she walked forward, stroking her own platinum hair.
Geuse, still in a daze as he knelt, was buried up to half his body. When Pandora whispered something into his ear, he stood up with an emotionless face.
The pair, Pandora and Geuse, departed the snowy forest, walking side by side.
All Emilia could do was watch them go.
Her body had continued to freeze, the ice already reaching a part of her face. Only in her eyes did Emilia’s consciousness remain.
Abruptly, Emilia realized she was gazing downward.
There was an unnatural clump of snow on the ground right in front of her.
It was as if someone was being embraced by this pure, snowy-white landscape.
“?”
She could not move her mouth. She could no longer close her eyes.
Her body, her heart was freezing over. And so, too, was Emilia’s consciousness—
“—om.”
The girl would proceed to sleep in never-melting ice for a span of a hundred years, until a spirit who sought her, who had received life for her sake alone, found her.
—Emilia continued to sleep within the ice, ever, ever alone.
3
—Emilia stood still in front of her frozen young self. She’d watched everything to the end.
“?”
Under the commanding view she’d had of her entire raging past, her memories had at some point melted away.
Scenes she could not possibly have seen, events she could not possibly know, the last moments of her homeland she could never have witnessed, all of it—Emilia remembered more than the memories she had lost.
—She remembered everything that had happened.
Through this journey, which had filled the gaps in her memory, she had walked the path that led to her regrets. Just how sinful was the tranquility she gained by forgetting her regrets?
She had seen for herself all of young Emilia’s days, all she had forgotten in order to go on living up to this day.
Fortuna’s death, Geuse’s madness, the reason her homeland had been encased in ice, everything—
“If you wish to blame yourself for the falsification of your memories, I believe you would be in error.”
Abruptly, as Emilia drifted in the chasm between memory and consciousness, a voice addressed her.
It was the Witch standing beside her—Echidna. She turned her cold eyes toward Emilia as the girl hugged her own knees. Just like Emilia, Echidna had witnessed these regrets from beginning to end. She gazed at Emilia’s younger, frozen self.
“You and your family faced off against the Witch of Vanity. Brandishing her flimsy, self-serving logic, she employed her power to ‘rewrite’ phenomena as she pleased. There is no question that it was the Authority of Vanity that caused your warped memories.”
“The Witch of Vanity…”
“An exceedingly filthy Authority. Your younger self outstripped Pandora in simple terms of power, but that was due to her being particularly ill-matched against your strengths and nothing more.”
Apparently, Echidna looked down even upon Pandora. Perhaps Emilia ought to have said, As expected of a Witch.
Echidna’s barbed demeanor since coming into contact with Emilia was unchanged, but never before had Echidna replied so readily to one of Emilia’s questions.
“Can I ask you about Pandora?”
“…I tend to be fond of conversing with others, but where you are concerned, I decline. I don’t like the cheeky thought process behind such questions: It might be too much to ask, but I’ll ask anyway and their ilk.”
“Is that how it is…? Well, thank you anyway.”
Hearing Emilia give thanks despite being insulted, Echidna twisted her lips in disgust.
Emilia actually found Echidna’s unchanging attitude incredibly comforting at the moment. That was how staggering Emilia’s past had been. In a true sense, the restoration of her memories had turned her entire life upside down.
—She’d committed body and spirit to the royal selection to save everyone in the frozen forest, and yet…
“I’m the one who made them all ice statues… Everyone who tried to save me…”
Unable to respond to their feelings, she’d ended up shutting everyone under the snow, freezing them completely.
Once freed from the ice, Emilia had spent her time in the forest without any memories of her regrets. She’d spent every day continuing to speak to the people who had become ice statues—never realizing she was trying to atone for her own feelings of guilt.
Now she understood why her memories had been sealed away. Even had Pandora not interfered with them, she might have wanted to forget them regardless in a moment of weakness.
“You have remembered the past and seen your regrets to the end. However, the Trial is not yet finished.”
The memories that led to her regrets had finished playing out. Echidna made a comment as she stared at the silent world’s snowy landscape.
“The past has been revealed without difficulty. You challenged the Trial, and your journey to reach your worst, most terrible mistakes, which gave rise to your regrets, is at an end. Now you must provide your answer.”
“An answer to the Trial…”
“The first Trial is to see if you can succeed in breaking from your greatest past regret. You can accept or deny your own past. Rejection is another choice. I respect whatever conclusion you may choose.”
Emilia deeply exhaled hearing Echidna’s words, which somehow sounded rather passionate.
By climbing onto the stage known as the Trial, Emilia had finally confronted the past she had wondered about so many times.
Having lost her pact with Puck and reclaimed herself after he had indulged her for so long, Emilia had uncovered her own memories at long last and made it this far.
“All that said, perhaps you are even more at a loss. After all, the starting point of your resolve has been tarnished. The sin that turned your mother, your friend, and your family into ice statues belongs to none other than you.”
Echidna’s words sliced into Emilia like a blade. The frozen forest, her people who’d been turned into ice statues, the forest being corrupted by the plague-bearing demon beast, the loss of her mother, and the breaking of Geuse’s mind—
Emilia had left the forest because she wanted to save everyone in the village—to save her mother.
And yet, the motivation for that decision had turned out to be a fairy tale that misled her starting from the first and most crucial step of her journey, leading to nothing but pain and disappointment— What was left for such a girl to do?
“—I’ve been taught the answer to that already.”
When Emilia’s heart flirted with self-doubt, there was one thing that gave her the strength to steady herself.
—Don’t give up. Look forward. Raise your head high. Look straight at me.
Over and over, time and time again, he’d told Emilia those things.
He’d scolded Emilia for being weak, for giving up. Without any basis, he’d declared, You’re the best.
Their teeth had hurt when they’d clumsily butted together, but the heat of their tongues meeting had lit Emilia’s heart on fire.
“Mom loved me.”
“?”
“I wanted to help Mom…my mother, Fortuna. I wanted her to hold me again, to sleep with her in the same bed. Over and over, I told her I loved her so much.”
“Do you regret it, then?”
The Witch posed a question without a defined subject, and the time had come for Emilia to choose her hope.
Pandora had presented her with two hopes. At the time, had Emilia chosen to break her promise, would Fortuna and Geuse and everyone really be safe and sound?
If it was possible to redo the past, then perhaps she could look at it with what-ifs and what-might-have-beens.
Even so—
“I regret nothing.”
“?”
“I don’t regret keeping my promise and not backing down. What I regret is that I didn’t have enough power to do anything at the time. I regret not being clever enough and not trying hard enough. But I absolutely don’t regret following Mom’s instructions and refusing to do whatever Pandora told me.”
After all, hadn’t Fortuna said it right at the very end?
She’d said she was proud of Emilia for keeping her promise. She’d said Emilia was her treasure.
—Those words themselves were a treasure that would stay with Emilia forever.
“You cannot save your mother. Does that not make your struggle meaningless?”
“That isn’t so. Mom… I couldn’t save her. But I don’t know if that’s true for everyone else yet. The others might still be waiting even now, sleeping inside the ice. And I’m the only one who can save them and bring them out.”
“They’ve been ice statues for over a hundred years, and the forest was contaminated by the Black Serpent. Even if you manage to undo the freezing, what if their bodies have been eaten away by plague? What if nothing remains of the land of your ancestors?”
“That’s speculation, and horrible speculation at that. Everyone’s waiting inside the ice to be rescued. If I don’t wake them up as soon as possible, they’ll definitely have a good reason to be angry with me. If they live well after that, I’ll smile and be glad.”
“A foolish delusion.”
“No, it’s a prediction of a happy future!”
When Echidna tried to cut her off, Emilia stepped forward, firmly making her own declaration.
Boldly facing the white-haired Witch, Emilia gestured toward the vast, snowy landscape with her hand.
“I won’t let anyone deny a possibility just because they haven’t seen it yet! I won’t accept that everything Mom left me will meet such a tragic end! I will make Mom’s ideals a reality!”
“Ideals? Just what is it you claim that your mother sought?”
“Mom told me. Someday, we’d all leave the forest and live normal lives. A world where Geuse and his people could get along with all the villagers, where Subaru can tell me he loves me, where Geuse and Mom can walk side by side—I’m sure it exists!”
“And do you see the frozen villagers in that world? Villagers frozen by your very own hand!”
“I’m so, so sorry about that. I’ll apologize over, and over, and over until they forgive me! And if they do forgive me, I’ll introduce the world to them then. I’ll tell them there’s no need to live in seclusion anymore. I’ll tell them this is the world Mom talked about!”
Drawing in her breath, Emilia shouted out the words brimming in her chest.
At some point, the pair had begun to stand amid not a landscape of snow but a world of enveloping white light.
The cold wind pricking their skin was gone; the scene dominated by so many regrets had faded away. Not noticing even that, Emilia puffed out her chest, speaking in a loud voice.
“I’ll preach her dream until my voice gives out and keep saying this until Mom up in the sky can hear me!”
“I’m happy to be in the world Mom loved—!”
—That instant, the world split open with a roar.
Seeing cracks running across the white space, Emilia finally realized the scenery around her had changed. As she opened her eyes wide in surprise, Echidna, now standing right before her, breathed a deep sigh as she brought her hands together before her own chest.
“—I see. I understand now. I had thought I understood, but you are more of a pushy, insolent, conceited, and arbitrary proponent of hypocrisy than even I imagined.”
“I suppose I am. Is that bad?”
“Not exactly. I do not particularly care, after all. It is merely that in those respects, you are exactly like your mother.”
As Echidna grimaced, furrowing her refined eyebrows, Emilia raised her own in surprise.
“You know my mo… Not Mom, but my other mother?”
“I know her, yes. It would be false to claim she isn’t partly responsible for why I become so emotional when I interact with you. She always did have that Why is it always you…? jealousy about her…”
Echidna turned away in a huff, the sight of which threw Emilia terribly off as she opened her eyes wide.
Simultaneously, Emilia’s vision became cloudy, and her consciousness felt heavy. Slowly, she felt heat passing into her limbs, and in her heart, she understood she was waking from a vague, ambiguous dream.
“With this, the Trial is at an end. However conceited your conclusion, there is no mistaking that you have come to terms with the past. Considering you’ve used your mother’s sacrifice to bolster your resolve, do try to see your selfish, arbitrary wishes through.”
“Say whatever you like, Echidna. I’m used to your insults by now.”
Placing a hand on her hip, Emilia turned straight toward Echidna, who was venting hateful things until the bitter end. The boldness of her demeanor made Echidna wearily shake her head.
“Two Trials remain. I would like to expect much pathetic anguish from you, but…”
“Eh, wait! There’s still more Trials to go? Two more? Three in total?”
“It does amount to that, yes. Your surprise makes me want to gloat a little…but I must say, with considerable regret, that I do not think the remaining Trials will hold out for long against you.”
“Really?”
“An irreverent attitude is self-doubt’s greatest enemy. The Trial, meant to pick at what lies inside you, is particularly ill-suited against who you are now. In one sense, you have abandoned logic, after all.”
“Hey, you’re kind of making it sound like I never use my brain, which is really rude.”
Echidna’s lecture caused Emilia to puff up her cheeks in a show of clear dissatisfaction. However, there was no time for further exchanges. The Trial, and her opportunity to converse with the Witch, was reaching its end.
Echidna was enveloped by light, and in that brilliance, Emilia’s consciousness began to disperse as well.
At the very end, as she dissolved in the light, a malicious smile came over the Witch of Greed.
“—I hate you.”
“I don’t hate you all that much, though.”
Even without seeing, Emilia had some idea of what kind of face her reply had provoked.
—The Trial was over.
4
When she regained consciousness, Emilia made a small groan as she felt something hard pressed against her back.
Apparently, the cold sensation was from a wall that her back was leaning against. Having lost consciousness against it, she seemed to have rested her weight there while traveling in the dream.
Reaching a hand out, she touched the wall. The wall bore scars from the crude carvings upon it, and the very part she was touching had I Love You written in I-script. The nice coincidence brought a smile over her.
That moment, she wanted to be greeted by Subaru’s words more than anyone’s.
“—I’m really grateful.”
Though there was no way for Subaru to hear it, Emilia quietly thanked him.
The Trial was over. The forgotten past had returned to her, and she had set eyes upon her sealed regrets. It had no doubt been Subaru granting her courage over and over amid those scenes.
She finally realized for herself just how much she had been protected by the feelings of others.
In the past, it was Fortuna, Geuse, and Archi who had protected her heart. After, she had always relied upon Puck. In the present, Subaru, Ram, and Otto were the ones who supported her.
Terrified of her sealed past, she could have been convinced she could rely only on herself, refusing to show any weakness—only to spend all night sobbing, her frail heart crushed.
It was thanks to everyone that it hadn’t come to that— In both past and present, Emilia was blessed.
Emilia had never once been alone since that fateful moment. That was why.
“—I’m sorry, Mom.”
Her slightly loosened lips tensed, and a seemingly suppressed voice trickled out of Emilia.
Her words of apology echoed in the dimly lit stonework room and were immediately followed by the sound of a nose sniffling.
Tears poured out one after another, unceasing. She could not hold them back. She could endure it no more.
In the tomb, with no concern about anyone seeing the tearful face she’d absolutely refused to show the Witch out of pure stubbornness, Emilia pressed her head against the wall with loving phrases carved into it, letting her emotions all come to the surface.
“Mom… Mom…!”
A flood of tears and a wave of nostalgia toward her gentler memories continued to spill out.
They were tears that should have flowed before…a full century before.
In that stone room, no one could see Emilia finally getting a chance to grieve for the mother she couldn’t remember for so long.
This way, when she left in plain sight, none need know of her crying face.
She wouldn’t have to show her weakness to the person who’d told her he loved her despite her weak faults.
She cried, she cried, she wept… She sobbed. And then…
As she mourned her mother’s memory, her mother’s love, all the things she was grateful her mother had given her…
—Emilia continued to cry, her face pressed against Love the entire while.
5
She wiped her tears and smacked her cheeks. Putting her disheveled hair in order, she diligently smoothed out the creases of her sleeves.
She wondered if she wasn’t making a shameful-looking face that moment.
Puck, who was normally so fussy about Emilia’s grooming, was no longer present. She could not feel the warmth from the cracked crystal at her neck, which had always been by her side.
“…But I’ll definitely find him myself, so…”
No matter where he might be, there was no sign that the cat spirit had vanished from this world altogether. She was sure her contracted spirit, and her surrogate parent for all that time, was out there somewhere.
“Plus, without Puck here, I really seem to be wasting excessive amounts of mana…”
As she murmured, Emilia was getting dizzy from the vast quantity of mana welling from her entire body. Now that she had regained her memories, there was no room to doubt this was all her mana.
Emilia’s power was sufficient to single-handedly freeze the forest that had been her homeland. Puck had most likely put in a fair bit of effort from the shadows to keep Emilia unaware of that power.
All of it had been to keep her from confronting the memories she subconsciously kept sealed.
“Oh, Puck, you really are overprotective…”
With a thin smile, Emilia lightly flicked the crystal with a finger. After that, she took a big, deep breath.
Filling her chest with cold air, she thrust out all the weak feelings lurking inside her body.
“—Okay!! I’m all right now.”
Emilia made this powerful declaration, speaking it for her own benefit.
Her chest hurt when she thought of Fortuna and Geuse. Even at that very moment, she felt like she might break into tears if her guard lowered even slightly. But she couldn’t bawl her eyes out forever.
Emilia had so many things she had to do. And surely, by doing these things, she would fulfill Fortuna’s and Geuse’s expectations, continuing onward to the future they had wished for.
She touched the floral accessory adorning her hair. In her heart, she’d always remembered this was a most precious heirloom from her mother. Just as she’d wished back then, Fortuna had stayed with her—always.
“After this, there are two more Trials…but first.”
As she spoke, Emilia headed outside the stonework room for the time being. She didn’t understand how to begin the second Trial, but she wanted to go to Subaru and the others waiting to hear from her outside.
She’d made everyone worry so much, to the point of getting into a big argument with Subaru and finally making even Puck distance himself from her— But she’d faced her past.
The things she’d remembered about her past were far from completely kind. She didn’t have a firm grasp on it just yet, but there was a good chance those memories had greatly shaken the foundations of her being.
But for that moment, at least, she wanted to return and face the others with a simple sense of accomplishment.
At the end of the stonework corridor, a breeze blew in from outside the tomb. The time was past evening, and the tomb glowed blue to welcome its challenger. Silver moonlight poured down from the sky.
The moon’s illumination was bright enough to make Emilia narrow her eyes. She slowly looked down onto the grassy clearing when—
“—Welcome back, Lady Emilia.”
The fact that Ram, greeting her with polite formality, was standing all alone made Emilia blink and tilt her head in confusion.
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