he meeting had ended as abruptly as it had begun.
Long after Lloyd had walked away, no one else in the conference room moved. Silence lingered over the table like a drawn blade, while wary eyes met one another across the dim light. The conflict between them was far from over. If anything, it had only just begun.
"You aren't going to let this end here, are you?"
Arthur turned toward Anthony. The man had prepared every piece of his scheme with meticulous care. Had Lloyd been even slightly more predictable, today might have ended in Anthony's complete victory. A man whose sense of self had been shattered could easily have been guided by a few carefully chosen words, convinced to walk willingly into another's design.
"Of course not." Anthony answered without the slightest attempt to conceal his intentions. "The False Holy Grail is one of the Gospel Church's most valuable assets."
"But this is Old Dunling."
Anthony merely smiled.
"Perhaps... for reasons you have yet to understand... you may eventually find yourselves standing beside us."
The cryptic remark hung in the air. Somehow, despite everything that had happened, he still carried himself like a man who believed the board remained entirely under his control.
"Arthur," he continued softly, "do you think a person's will can truly be broken?"
Arthur offered no reply. He could not understand why Anthony had suddenly steered the conversation in such a direction.
Anthony, however, needed no answer.
"What a terrifying will that man possesses. Even after everything he learned today... even after his own identity began to collapse... Mr. Lloyd Holmes still managed to strike us with a devastating counterattack in the very end."
The memory of Lloyd's twisted expression surfaced before his eyes, and Anthony couldn't help but smile.
How magnificent the old Order must once have been.
What kind of conviction could forge demon hunters like that?
"But in the end..." he murmured, "he is still human. No matter how much of his body belongs to that extraordinary Secret Blood... he remains human."
"And humans grow tired."
"They suffer."
"They hesitate."
"They grieve."
His voice drifted through the quiet room as his gaze rested upon the doorway through which Lloyd had departed, as though the detective's fading silhouette were still etched into his vision.
"Mr. Lloyd Holmes is astonishingly strong. His will exceeds anything any of us imagined possible. It is steel made flesh. Even when madness consumes him, he somehow finds his way back to reason."
"What an incredible man."
"But self-deception can never last forever."
"He has convinced himself that he is Zero-Forty-Two... a person who never existed. A weapon wrapped inside human flesh."
Anthony's smile deepened.
"But how long can anyone continue believing such a lie?"
"Perhaps the strength he showed us today was only another performance."
"Lloyd Holmes cannot fall."
"At the very least... he cannot allow himself to fall before his enemies."
A quiet laugh escaped him.
"For all we know, he may already be somewhere, curled up in a corner, weeping."
"So that was your objective."
Arthur's voice remained utterly devoid of emotion. Everything that had happened today had been an open trap—one impossible to avoid.
"Perhaps."
Anthony shrugged.
"Everything we said was true, wasn't it? Lloyd carries the False Holy Grail, and even his own identity is a mystery. The Cleansing Bureau needs answers. The Gospel Church needed to pressure him."
"And now..."
"The cracks have finally appeared."
"He is trying desperately to hold together that iron will of his..."
"...but in the end, he is only human."
"No one can live forever as nothing more than a weapon."
"He is approaching madness."
With those words, Anthony rose from his seat. The demon hunters standing guard outside silently fell in behind him as he departed, leaving only the members of the Cleansing Bureau behind.
"The Gospel Church isn't after only this," Gawain finally broke the silence. "I'm certain they have something far more hidden in mind."
"Naturally."
Merlin's expression darkened.
"They're far more dangerous than we've ever imagined."
His thoughts drifted toward the living Temple of Stasis. Compared with Lloyd, that impossible existence fascinated him even more. What kind of lifeform could such a thing possibly be?
Arthur remained silent for a long moment before speaking again.
"If reason alone were guiding them... shouldn't they be more concerned about the missing Book of Revelation than either Lloyd or the False Holy Grail?"
Anthony's intentions during today's meeting had been painfully obvious.
Every spear had been aimed at Lloyd Holmes.
"Perhaps..." Percival ventured, sounding almost out of place amid the oppressive atmosphere, "...perhaps Mr. Holmes himself is connected to all of this."
Everyone turned toward her.
"You all saw it. He wasn't trying to deceive us."
"It looked as though the False Holy Grail had distorted his very identity."
"So... what if..."
She hesitated before continuing.
"What if Lloyd Holmes is connected to the Book of Revelation?"
"Or perhaps..."
"...there's something even deeper. Something only the Gospel Church knows."
"After all..."
"...he was once known as the demon hunter Metatron."
"What if all of this is simply something he himself has forgotten?"
The room fell completely silent.
Only then did Percival notice everyone staring at her with rather peculiar expressions.
"What?"
She blinked.
"Did I say something wrong?"
Arthur rubbed his forehead before waving a hand dismissively.
"No."
"I'm simply wondering..."
"...are you genuinely this naive?"
"...or have you been pretending all this time?"
"Was that supposed to be an insult?"
Percival looked genuinely offended, completely unaware of the implications of her own deduction.
Arthur let out a quiet sigh.
"Regardless... Anthony may be right about one thing."
"Lloyd probably isn't in good shape right now."
His eyes drifted once more toward the doorway through which Lloyd had vanished.
Lloyd Holmes was insane.
No ordinary person could ever judge the state of a madman's mind.
Least of all one who possessed such frightening self-destructive instincts.
Arthur couldn't imagine what Lloyd was doing now.
Was he still wearing that cold, merciless madness like armor?
Or was he truly hiding somewhere, crying where no one could see?
Yet Lloyd differed from everyone else in one painful way.
When people reached the edge of despair, they still had somewhere they could call home.
Arthur could return to the photograph of his late wife and speak words no one else would hear. He could even break down before Eve—though the girl would undoubtedly hate seeing her father like that.
Gawain and Percival could return to their hometowns.
Everyone gathered here still belonged somewhere.
Each of them had family.
Friends.
A place waiting for them.
Everyone...
Except Lloyd.
Perhaps he once had such a place.
But the flames of the Night of Holy Descent had reduced it all to ashes.
Arthur had no idea what Lloyd would do next.
He simply stared out the rain-streaked window.
The sky above Old Dunling remained as bleak as ever.
A fine drizzle had begun to fall.
The rain that forever belonged to Old Dunling drifted gently from the gray heavens, soaking Lloyd's hair as he sat alone in the corner of a narrow alley. His thoughts drifted in and out of focus, while the cool rain gradually dulled the unbearable agony splitting his skull.
Every day, immeasurable clouds of steam rose into the sky, gathering above the city until the heavens resembled an endless ocean turned upside down. Somewhere within that metallic sea, colossal steel leviathans sailed through the clouds.
Cold raindrops struck his face.
Little by little, life returned to those empty gray-blue eyes.
"I am..."
"Lloyd Holmes."
"I am..."
"Zero-Forty-Two."
He stared upward with stubborn certainty.
Even now, Lloyd still believed he was 042.
As for Anthony's claim that he was 047...
No.
There had to be a mistake.
There simply had to be.
Either Anthony had fabricated every piece of evidence...
...or he had been telling the truth, but not the whole truth.
Yet another question immediately followed.
If he truly was 042...
Then who was the ghost dwelling within the Gap inside his mind?
Could it really be something as absurd as a split personality?
No...
That explanation didn't fit.
It simply didn't.
He forced himself to digest every fragment of information before slowly lowering his head toward the puddle beneath him.
His own reflection stared back.
"The Night of Holy Descent..."
The words slipped from his lips almost unconsciously.
If there was one place where everything began to unravel...
It was that night.
Human memory possessed continuity.
It sought logic.
Yet when Anthony questioned him about that night, Lloyd discovered a horrifying blank.
He remembered killing 047 with his own hands.
Nothing else.
The memory felt as though it had been shoved into his mind afterward, endlessly repeating itself until it became unquestionable truth.
For the first time...
His certainty began to waver.
What if Anthony had been right?
What if he truly had lost his mind?
If so...
Then insisting he was 042 was nothing more than another step deeper into insanity.
But...
He couldn't let go.
Every piece of evidence insisted that Zero-Forty-Two had never existed.
Yet Lloyd refused to believe it.
Because somewhere deep inside, he felt that if he abandoned 042...
Then he himself—
Lloyd Holmes—
would disappear along with that impossible name.
He squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to remember.
To reconstruct every moment of that forgotten night.
The harder he searched, the greater the pain became.
Until, at last...
There was only emptiness.
Someone had carved that entire night out of his life.
His mind had forgotten it.
Then, driven by its desperate need for logic, it stitched together a replacement.
A fabricated memory.
Flawed.
Full of contradictions.
Yet convincing enough—as long as he never looked too closely.
"...Am I really..."
"...Zero-Forty-Seven?"
The words escaped him hesitantly.
Perhaps that explained everything.
Perhaps he truly was 047.
Perhaps the False Holy Grail had shattered his memories, forcing him to invent the identity of 042 so that the broken pieces would still resemble a coherent life.
But...
Was that really the answer?
It was an impossible paradox.
A question that could never prove itself true.
Like a drowning man clawing desperately through black water, Lloyd struggled toward a shore he could neither see nor reach.
Then another terrible thought surfaced.
Perhaps...
His hatred of monsters had begun here as well.
The easiest way to forget one thing...
...was to let something else consume your entire life.
So he had devoted everything to hunting monsters.
Every ounce of rage.
Every fragment of purpose.
Until there had been no room left for the memories he had been trying to escape.
He buried both hands in his hair, clawing desperately at his own head, as though he wished he could pry open his skull and dig through blood and bone to recover the missing fragments hidden inside.
But he couldn't.
He didn't even know where to go anymore.
Anthony had succeeded.
He hadn't destroyed Lloyd's iron will.
He had done something worse.
He had filled it with doubt.
Cracks spread silently through steel.
Then—
Footsteps echoed through the rain.
Steady.
Unhurried.
Someone splashed through the puddles toward him.
A black umbrella unfolded overhead, shutting out the gray sky and the falling rain.
"You really do look miserable, Mr. Lloyd Holmes."
The man sighed sympathetically.
Perched comfortably upon his shoulder sat a fluffy little Threadmouse.
It was an astonishing sight.
The man who could kill with nothing more than a soup spoon now looked like a drenched stray abandoned by the world.
What in heaven's name had happened to him?
Yet almost immediately, Herkley noticed something even stranger.
Lloyd's eyes had changed.
Only moments ago they had belonged to a broken drunk staring into oblivion.
Now...
Flames slowly ignited within them.
Before Herkley could even offer a word of comfort, Lloyd seemed to drag himself back from death itself.
His vitality was terrifying.
"You've arrived at exactly the right time, Herkley."
Lloyd suddenly seized him by the collar and pulled himself upright from the muddy ground.
The invincible Mr. Holmes stood once more.
His gaze burned brighter than ever.
"W-What's going on?"
Herkley blinked in confusion.
A homeless man had reported finding Lloyd collapsed here. Fearing the worst, Herkley had rushed over immediately.
He had expected a corpse.
Not...
This.
"I am Zero-Forty-Two."
"I am Lloyd Holmes."
Soaked to the bone, filthy beyond words, he spoke with the stubborn conviction of a rebellious child refusing to surrender.
"Herkley."
"You have an extraordinary memory."
"Don't you?"
"...Yes."
Although they had known each other only a short time, Herkley could tell something inside Lloyd had changed.
He was like fireworks blooming beneath a storm.
Dying...
Yet burning more brilliantly than ever.
"Then tell me..."
Lloyd's voice lowered.
"Can you recover memories you've forgotten?"
"Of course."
Herkley answered without hesitation.
"In truth, every memory you've ever experienced still exists."
"They're all stored within the grand palace of your mind."
"You haven't truly lost them."
"You've only forgotten which door they lie behind."
It was his greatest gift.
The terrifying memory upon which he had built an entire kingdom hidden within the shadows.
"Then teach me."
"Teach me everything."
Lloyd looked utterly exhausted.
One arm draped across Herkley's shoulders as he allowed the man to support half his weight.
Perhaps because Lloyd was soaked in mud, Polo clearly wanted nothing to do with him. The little creature leapt gracefully onto Herkley's head instead.
"What exactly are you planning?"
Herkley frowned.
The man beside him felt impossibly contradictory.
Half dead.
Overflowing with life.
"I'm a detective."
Lloyd laughed weakly between ragged breaths.
"What else would I do..."
"...except solve the case?"
His laughter echoed through the rain before rising into something almost operatic—a cry hurled toward the heavens.
"This is the final case, Herkley!"
The bleak world reflected within those gray-blue eyes.
Then the reflection twisted.
Collapsed.
And dissolved into nothingness.
This was the last mystery.
He had to uncover the truth hidden within the blankness of the Night of Holy Descent.
He had to learn who he truly was.
042?
047?
Or perhaps...
Neither.
Who cared?
"This..."
"...may very well be the last investigation of Detective Lloyd Holmes."
His voice rang across the rain-soaked streets, as though challenging every unseen horror lurking within the shadows.
Then he burst into laughter once again.
Herkley steadied him as the gentle drizzle suddenly became a downpour.
Countless drops crashed upon stone, iron, rooftops, and umbrellas, shattering into endless silver fragments before rising again as mist.
The city slowly disappeared beneath a curtain of rain, swallowed whole by the gray embrace of the storm.