Lloyd's recollection came to an end. He fell silent, as though lingering in the warmth of days long buried beneath the dust of time. His gaze drifted beyond the rain-streaked window, lost in memories only he could see. The quiet stretched on until Herkley finally broke it.
"047 sounds like someone driven by an endless hunger for knowledge."
Herkley knew little about the Divine Benediction Rite, but judging from the singular knowledge 047 had possessed, the man must have gathered countless forbidden truths throughout his life.
"He wasn't like me," Lloyd replied softly. "He was a restless lamb, fascinated by everything... The life of a Demon Hunter was never easy. The hardships didn't begin after we earned the title—they started in childhood. Theology, swordsmanship, endurance... every stage claimed more of us. One by one, children were eliminated."
"Those who survived became priests. Then Templar Knights. We carried glory upon our shoulders. In Fiorenze, both priests and Templars were among the most honored people in the realm, yet we—homeless strays without names or families—were granted that same honor."
"At the time, people envied us. They assumed we must have been the descendants of nobles or powerful families. They believed only children of such bloodlines could achieve so much at so young an age. But none of it was privilege. It was merely compensation... payment in advance for the price we would one day pay. Those who truly understood our fate never envied us. They only looked upon us with quiet contempt."
Lloyd's voice remained astonishingly calm. Perhaps this was the first time in many years he had allowed himself to wander so deeply into the past. Memories once blurred by time slowly sharpened into painful clarity.
"We were lambs waiting for slaughter. Since we were all destined to die anyway, what did it matter if they wrapped us in glorious titles? Most never survived the implantation of Secret Blood. I was fortunate. I lived. So did 047... so did 016. They were my closest friends. We all survived."
Herkley said nothing.
Instead, he quietly pieced together Lloyd's history from every word he spoke. Even now, Lloyd still believed himself to be 042. That identity wasn't something imposed afterward—it had existed throughout every chapter of his life, from childhood until this very moment.
"And then?" Herkley asked.
"And then..."
Lloyd paused.
The pain in his wounds no longer seemed to matter. When he finally spoke again, his answer was almost devoid of emotion.
"Everyone except me died on the Night of Holy Descent. 047... 016... they all died. They all died..."
Abruptly, Lloyd rose to his feet and shut the window, sealing the storm outside behind thick glass.
"You look exhausted."
"I'll manage," Lloyd answered. "It's not my body. My mind is simply... worn out. That kind of exhaustion doesn't heal easily."
"Would you like to stop here?"
"So soon?" Lloyd asked, almost surprised. "It feels as though I've only just begun remembering."
"A person's existence can never be summarized with a single label," Herkley said, turning to face him. "Human beings are contradictory. Complex."
"You, for example—Lloyd Holmes. On the surface, you're a ruthless detective who solves problems with violence. Yet behind everyone's back, you quietly support abandoned orphans."
"So... are you an evil man? It doesn't seem so. But can anyone honestly call you a good man either? Your hands are stained with more blood than most could imagine."
He drew a slow breath.
"That is what makes us human. 042 was like that. So was 047. If either of them could truly be defined by a single word, then they would be little more than ridiculous works of fiction."
"You're trying to reconstruct a person from my memories?" Lloyd asked.
"More accurately," Herkley corrected him, "I'm trying to help you reconstruct yourself. Follow the threads hidden in your past. And if we're fortunate, you'll recover the parts your own logic can no longer explain."
He folded his hands together before continuing.
"There's something you need to understand, Lloyd. Human memory doesn't work by conscious choice."
"Take hunger, for example. While we're talking, you aren't thinking about food. But the moment your stomach begins to ache, the thought appears all on its own."
"I know that's an abstract comparison, but bear with me."
"Every second of our lives becomes the past. Every moment is archived into memory. The collection grows so vast that we cannot possibly recall everything at once. We remember only when something from the outside awakens it."
"Yesterday's events are the same. If I never asked, you wouldn't think about them. But once I ask the question, your mind searches through that immeasurable archive until it finds the memory associated with those words."
"Imagine memory as a colossal library hidden inside a palace."
"And each of us... is the librarian."
"When the outside world presents a stimulus, the librarian searches for the corresponding volume and retrieves it."
That, in essence, was the earliest form of the Memory Palace—an invisible architecture built from thought itself.
"But your library has been damaged," Herkley continued. "Books lie scattered across the floor. Covers no longer match their contents. Entire shelves stand empty... Those memories have disappeared."
He glanced at Lloyd before muttering under his breath,
"And it looks as though someone beat the librarian senseless while they were at it."
A faint smile flickered across Lloyd's face.
"But memories don't simply vanish," Herkley went on. "A human lifetime is unimaginably long. We accumulate endless trivial and repetitive memories. They're like books no one ever borrows. Eventually they're pushed into forgotten corners... hidden away in the basement beneath the palace."
"They still exist."
"They've simply been forgotten."
"So what I need to do," Lloyd asked quietly, "is recover those missing books?"
"Yes."
"I don't know exactly what happened that night," Herkley admitted, "but even I can feel the weight surrounding the Night of Holy Descent."
He looked Lloyd directly in the eyes.
"You have to uncover everything that happened that night."
"Because that night... is the heart of every mystery."
Holding Poirot in his arms, Herkley rose and lit the lamps. Warm light spread through the room, driving away the darkness that had quietly gathered around them. Evening had not fully arrived, yet the relentless thunderstorm had already plunged the world outside into pitch blackness. There was no telling how long the rain would continue.
"I'll teach you more about the Memory Palace later," he said. "But afterward, I want you to rest. Your mental state is far from healthy."
He pointed toward a room down the hallway.
"That room is yours."
"I'll be sleeping next door."
An exhausted body carried an equally exhausted soul.
Joey collapsed onto the bed inside the dimly lit room, every inch of him chilled to the bone. He barely found the strength to strip away his rain-soaked clothes before curling beneath the blankets, drawing himself into a tight ball against the cold.
The curtains remained tightly shut. Not a single thread of light slipped through.
Long minutes passed before Joey slowly lifted his head and stared into the empty darkness before him.
Beyond the door came the faint rhythmic clicking of the building's massive Geiger Index Monitor, accompanied by distant footsteps and hushed conversations. Even in weather this dreadful, people remained on duty. They stood only a single door away...
Yet it felt as though an entire world separated them.
Joey slowly wrapped both hands around his head.
Then the blood-soaked visions returned.
He hadn't seen them for a very long time.
Ever since leaving Black Mountain Hospital, those nightmares had vanished.
Now...
They had come back.
Those childish faces.
Those bloodstained faces.
Joey drew a deep breath, forcing himself to remain calm.
He wasn't the same man he had once been.
Back then, only hallucinogens had allowed him to escape these horrors.
Now he had finally crawled out of that endless nightmare.
He refused to return.
Then lightning split the heavens.
For a fleeting instant, pale light pierced through a narrow gap in the curtains, illuminating the room.
Within that heartbeat of brightness...
Joey saw it.
A putrid crimson stain lingering in the darkness.
His body froze.
Slowly—almost mechanically—he turned his head.
Standing beside the bed was the silhouette of a child.
A black outline.
Exactly as the boy had looked on the day Joey killed him.
"You're dead."
Joey forced the words out, struggling to keep his voice steady.
The shadow did not answer.
Instead, an eerie child's laughter echoed through the darkness.
Then another.
And another.
Countless children's voices laughed together until the room became a chorus of impossible joy.
The shadows rushed him.
It resembled the nightmare he'd suffered back in White Chapel.
Except this time...
It felt terrifyingly real.
So real that Joey could feel himself dying.
Layer after layer of darkness engulfed him.
Invisible mouths tore into his flesh, chewing greedily, spreading agony through every nerve of his body.
At last, strength returned to him.
No.
That child was dead.
The dead did not return.
Throwing himself off the bed, Joey rolled across the floor and seized the folding blade resting nearby. Folded shut, it looked no more threatening than an ordinary iron rod.
A flash of steel cut through the darkness.
The blade sliced the black mass apart.
For an instant.
Then the shadows flowed back together.
The next moment...
Endless crimson fissures split open across the darkness.
Blood poured from every crack.
Behind each opening waited rows of pale teeth.
Hundreds of mouths.
Hundreds of jaws snapping together.
And once again...
The children laughed.
Every shadow in the room had become Joey's enemy.
Only one light remained.
The thin sliver shining beneath the door.
Joey scrambled toward it.
The distance was no more than a few steps.
Yet those few steps felt as endless as eternity.
Darkness writhed around him.
It seized him.
The countless jaws clamped shut.
Sharp teeth ripped fresh wounds into his flesh.
Fear.
Oppression.
Rage.
Every emotion exploded inside him.
He roared, smashing uselessly at the darkness with ordinary steel.
It accomplished nothing.
Black hands lifted him from the ground before hurling him violently back down.
Bones cracked beneath the impact.
Fresh blood burst from his wounds.
The abomination pinned him beneath its weight.
As it devoured him, it crushed him harder and harder.
Blood streamed endlessly from broken flesh.
His body felt like an orange squeezed beneath an iron press.
Bones splintered.
Organs screamed.
Even as consciousness slipped away, Joey stretched one trembling hand toward the door.
He no longer believed he could survive.
Still...
He reached.
Trying to push it open.
Then—
The door opened.
Light flooded into the room.
The nightmare vanished instantly.
His consciousness teetered on the edge of oblivion.
Someone rushed inside, grabbed him, and lifted him from the floor.
"Joey!"
"Joey!"
The voices echoed endlessly.
When awareness finally returned, Joey found himself lying on the floor beneath harsh white lights.
Someone stood over him, pressing a syringe into his arm.
His vision slowly cleared.
"Can you hear me, Joey?"
Red Falcon slapped his face firmly.
Seeing those vacant eyes still staring blankly ahead, he shook his head.
"Another vial of Florende."
The medic hesitated.
Several empty syringes already lay scattered across the floor.
No one knew what another injection might do.
"R... Red Falcon...?"
At last Joey spoke.
His gaze remained unfocused, but he could finally respond.
"So you're back among the living?"
Red Falcon slapped him once more, far harder this time.
Only after several long minutes did Joey finally recover enough strength to sit upright in a chair, looking utterly drained.
"What... happened?"
It took him a long while just to utter those two words.
"That," Red Falcon answered quietly, "is exactly what I wanted to ask you."
"I'd just begun my shift when the alarm went off."
He pointed toward the gigantic machine occupying the center of the hall.
The towering Geiger Index Monitor stretched through multiple floors of the building—a specialized device used by the Cleansing Bureau to detect Corruption. It could not identify precise threats, only measure fluctuations through radiation levels, warning lights, and alarm frequencies.
"It wasn't the usual alert."
"The Geiger reading climbed slightly."
"The warning frequency accelerated."
"A weak source of Corruption appeared nearby."
"Very nearby."
Red Falcon studied Joey carefully.
"We were preparing to search the surrounding area when we heard something from your room."
"You were shouting."
"It sounded as though you were fighting some kind of monster."
"But when I opened the door... there was nothing."
"You were lying on the floor holding your knife."
"You were trembling."
"Your eyes were empty."
"It looked exactly like someone trapped inside a hallucination."
"When I administered Florende... the Geiger readings immediately returned to normal."
Because others were present, Red Falcon deliberately avoided mentioning hallucinogenic drugs.
"I see..."
Joey lowered his head without offering further explanation.
"I didn't take any hallucinogens."
He rolled up both sleeves.
Apart from old scars, there wasn't a single fresh needle mark on either arm.
"Feel free to search the rest of me if you want."
Red Falcon remained silent.
Joey looked around the room instead.
Everyone gathered there ranked beneath him and Red Falcon within the Cleansing Bureau.
"You're all dismissed."
No one questioned the order.
The Cleansing Bureau was forged for war against horrors beyond humanity.
Everyone understood that some matters were better left unspoken.
Within moments, only the two of them remained.
"What happened, Joey?" Red Falcon asked quietly.
"They're gone now. Tell me."
"I don't know," Joey admitted. "But I'm certain I didn't use hallucinogens. Ever since I left Black Mountain Hospital... I haven't touched them once."
"But the Geiger monitor—"
"I was contaminated."
"Something corrupted me."
Joey's thoughts gradually aligned as the Florende continued taking effect.
"What?"
Red Falcon's expression darkened.
"I haven't participated in any demon-hunting missions recently."
"Nothing but patrol duty."
"Shift after shift."
"I've had no direct contact with any fiends."
"And even if I had, unless the Corruption reached an advanced stage, minor contamination should have faded naturally over time."
His reasoning became increasingly clear.
"Which means..."
"At some point not long ago..."
"I was corrupted."
"Silently."
"Without realizing it."
The conclusion settled heavily between them.
Joey slowly turned toward the massive Geiger Index Monitor towering nearby.
To safeguard the city, those colossal machines had been engineered with extraordinary sensitivity to Corruption.
Perhaps he owed them his life.
His room stood only a few meters away.
Without that machine detecting the faintest fluctuation...
No one would ever have noticed anything was wrong.