"My name is Ovis Victoria."
"I came here because of some physical illness…"
"What exactly is wrong with me? To be honest, I'm not entirely sure myself."
"What about you?"
"I…"
"…"
When Eve opened her eyes, she was once again staring at that familiar, perfectly white ceiling. The sharp scent of disinfectant lingered beneath her nose. Perhaps it was because she had undergone another round of examinations the day before, but her head felt heavy, with a dull ache throbbing somewhere behind her eyes. In her half-awake haze, she found herself thinking again of the boy she had met yesterday.
His name was Ovis Victoria.
The moment she heard that name, Eve had nearly jumped out of her skin. As the heir to the Phoenix family, Eve's status in Old Dunling was already one of considerable prestige. Yet she had never imagined that, of all places, she would encounter someone bearing the surname Victoria here.
Ovis had not revealed his true identity, but his surname alone was enough to tell her that he was, in all likelihood, a member of that mysterious royal family. Eve had lived this long and had only ever seen Queen Victoria once, from a great distance, inside the Platinum Palace.
The Victoria royal family maintained an extraordinarily strict veil of secrecy around itself. Everyone knew that the queen of this land was a Victoria, yet hardly anyone knew exactly who belonged to the royal family—not even nobles of Eve's standing.
But Eve hardly cared.
After everything she had endured, even something as strange as this could barely stir her curiosity.
She sat blankly on the bed, as though waiting for her half-asleep soul to finally catch up with her body. Then she reached into the fruit basket, grabbed an apple, and began to gnaw on it.
He was a rather gloomy boy, with a trace of sorrow always lingering in his expression. Whenever Eve looked at him, she felt as though she were looking at a little puppy soaked through by a downpour, shivering helplessly in the cold wind.
Perhaps it was some instinctive human empathy. Or perhaps it was simply because Ovis seemed younger than her. Whatever the reason, Eve found herself strangely curious about him.
Life at Black Mountain Hospital was painfully monotonous.
To be more precise, Eve's life here was monotonous. Take her potions, undergo examinations, then go outside for recreation. The other patients seemed to be having considerably more fun than she was. The occasional screams and the crackle of electricity were enough to make that perfectly clear.
Well… Eve supposed that counted as a form of self-consolation.
Thinking back, only a year ago she had been an idealistic girl, upright and full of righteous conviction, dreaming of becoming a detective. Yet in the span of a single year, that pristine sheet of white paper had been dunked into the great vat of society and dyed every color imaginable.
Fortunately, Eve had still become a detective in the end, fulfilling at least part of her dream.
The road there had simply been a little more… eventful.
For example, chopping up monsters.
Chopping up monsters.
And, well, chopping up monsters…
Ah, what a colorful life.
Compared with her peers, Eve felt she was almost absurdly accomplished—in every possible sense. After all, the worst most of her contemporaries had to worry about was whether they were good enough at ballroom dancing.
Meanwhile, she could already raise a pistol and fire at monsters without hesitation.
She wasn't even an ordinary female captain anymore.
She was the Valkyrie of Inverwick.
"Old Cole, how far have you gotten?"
Out on the grassy field reserved for recreation, Eve sat on a bench and asked Old Cole, who was standing nearby, apparently keeping watch over the enemy.
"We're almost at Gaul-Naro!" Old Cole replied excitedly. "We'll raid their camp tonight, steal their ships, load them up with gunpowder and cannons, and then launch our counterattack on Gaul-Naro!"
Eve responded with an absentminded smile.
But Old Cole's voice gradually grew quieter. He glanced around like a thief, then suddenly sat down beside Eve and whispered into her ear.
"Shh. Sergeant Phoenix, I've discovered something."
Eve maintained the same polite yet painfully awkward smile, her expression dripping with indifference, like a kindergarten teacher patiently accompanying a child through a make-believe game.
Old Cole's mind had long since ceased to function properly. Even the way he addressed Eve changed from day to day. Only a few days ago, he had still regarded her as a rare female general.
"There may be a traitor among us," he whispered. "I need to find the infiltrator."
His aged hand dragged sharply across his throat as he spoke with deadly seriousness.
"Gavin saw it too! Those traitors brought a demon inside! Black Mountain Fortress is about to fall from within!"
Old Cole suddenly shrieked.
Nearby, Gavin, who had been endlessly digging trenches, raised his head and nodded vigorously.
"There are more and more uncivilized creatures these days," Deren chimed in.
William paused for a moment, then resumed gnawing vigorously on the bark of a tree.
Well… judging by the reactions of these lunatics, something really had come to Black Mountain Hospital.
It was probably just not the sort of thing they were describing.
Although these patients could look frightening and behave in bizarre ways, Eve had spent enough time with them to understand their habits. They were nothing more than a collection of childish fools whose minds had long since abandoned ordinary reason. All they could do was use vague mutterings and delirious fantasies to describe whatever they saw.
Most likely, some new patient they disliked had arrived.
That was exactly how they had described Ovis when he first appeared.
Speaking of Ovis…
Eve glanced around.
The boy in the wheelchair was nowhere to be seen.
He hadn't come out today.
She looked toward the far end of the grounds. Then, in the distance, she suddenly caught sight of a familiar figure.
He was surrounded by guards, being escorted toward another building.
Eve could hardly believe her eyes. She rubbed them hard, unable to understand why he was here.
"Lloyd Holmes…"
"You know him?"
Old Cole's voice came from beside her. He was staring at Eve with an expression of utter seriousness.
"Yeah…"
Eve nodded.
For a fleeting moment, Old Cole looked so solemn and composed that Eve actually wondered whether his sanity had somehow returned.
Then, in the very next second, he let out a heart-rending scream, his expression becoming so mournful that anyone hearing it might have burst into tears.
"Traitor! I never thought you, Major Phoenix, would be a traitor! Seize her! Gavin! What are you waiting for?!"
Eve was left with nothing but helplessness and embarrassment.
She really should never have expected anything from these lunatics.
She glanced around at the nurses and guards scattered throughout the grounds. They had the entire recreational area firmly under control, ensuring that none of the patients could escape.
But that was hardly enough to stop Eve.
Why had Lloyd come here?
What had that bastard done?
As those questions surfaced in her mind, Eve suddenly felt that this damned life had become interesting again.
Eve Phoenix had never been a docile lamb.
Arthur had always believed that Lloyd's sudden appearance was what had led his daughter astray. But he had never considered that this might simply be Eve's nature.
She had the same blood running through her veins as Arthur did.
And she, too, was drawn to danger.
Old Cole suddenly sensed that something was wrong.
Eve turned toward him and flashed a mischievous grin. Then she lowered her voice.
"General Cole. By order of the Queen."
Old Cole instinctively straightened his back and saluted Eve. His expression became solemn, dignified, and unmistakably military.
Unfortunately, he was wearing a white hospital gown instead of a military uniform.
And he had even raised the wrong hand.
…
With a single roar from Old Cole, the patients erupted into a chaotic melee.
"For Inverwick! Damn you, Deren! I always knew you were the traitor!"
"Vulgar! You uncouth brute!"
The two of them immediately grappled with each other.
To the other patients, it looked like nothing more than an amusing game. One after another, they joined the fray, and the brawl rapidly expanded. Along the way, several patients tripped over the trenches Gavin had dug, making the entire scene even more chaotic.
The nurses and guards tried to separate them, only to be swarmed by even more patients.
Amid the confusion, Eve quietly slipped away and headed toward the mysterious building.
Ever since arriving at Black Mountain Hospital, Eve had carried a strange feeling deep within her.
She felt as though she had been here before.
Everything around her was unfamiliar, yet somewhere beneath that unfamiliarity lurked a peculiar sense of recognition. In some forgotten corner of her past, in a stretch of time she could no longer remember, Eve was certain she had once stood here.
Then she thought about the bizarre research conducted by the Cleansing Bureau inside Black Mountain Hospital.
And she thought about the abnormalities within her own body.
There was something wrong with her.
Something far more complicated than anything that afflicted an ordinary human being.
And after spending so much time recovering inside Black Mountain Hospital, those strange dreams had begun returning to her as well.
Eve wanted to know what she really was.
And the answer to that secret was hidden somewhere inside Black Mountain Hospital.
…
"How are you feeling, Ovis? You look somewhat better."
Arthur pushed open the door and looked at Ovis sitting in his wheelchair.
The boy's complexion was considerably better than when Arthur had last seen him.
But only slightly.
Arthur had just reviewed the boy's medical examination reports. Without the all-out treatment provided by Black Mountain Hospital, Ovis would probably already be dead.
Or worse.
He might have become a monster.
"I'm fine."
This time, Ovis did not remain silent.
He and Arthur were inside a medical chamber packed with complicated machinery. Various instruments hummed and clicked around them. Potions of different colors flowed through tubes, mixing together before being injected directly into Ovis's body.
A Geiger counter was also attached to his wheelchair, constantly monitoring the progression of his corruption.
"Have you… found my successor yet?" Ovis asked.
"Not yet. A knight commander as exceptional as you is rare, after all. You still hold the codename 'Lancelot.'"
Arthur sounded almost as though he were trying to comfort the boy, hoping to make him feel a little better.
"But the third-generation Divine Armor developed by the Perpetual Motion Engine has already entered mass production. The third-generation armor contains very little demonic material and relies primarily on mechanical operation, which means the burden of corruption on its pilot is extremely low. If you can leave the hospital, perhaps you can continue piloting the Divine Armor."
A faint light returned to the boy's eyes.
It was the hope Arthur had chosen to give him.
In a hellhole like Black Mountain Hospital, everyone was slowly dying.
People needed some damned hope to keep them alive.
But that hope did not sustain Ovis for long.
He lowered his head and stared at his wrist, covered in tiny puncture wounds.
"Thank you," he said. "But I don't think I'll have the chance."
As he spoke, Ovis raised his hand.
Scarlet blood began to seep from the needle-like wounds in his skin. The bleeding refused to stop, and Arthur's expression darkened with worry.
He sighed.
"The Royal Curse…"
"I'm still doing better than most of them," Ovis said, trying to comfort himself. "At least I've lived more happily than they have. I may not live as long as they do, but at least I've seen the world outside. They'll spend their entire lives trapped inside the Platinum Palace."
"No. You still have hope, Ovis."
Arthur's voice was firm.
"The information brought by the New Church may be able to alleviate the Royal Curse. That's also why the Queen sent me here again. Though, I have to admit, I don't have particularly pleasant memories of this place."
Despite the enormous difference in their ages and positions, the two spoke like old friends, casually chatting as they moved through the ward.
"Because of your wife?" Ovis asked.
A strained smile appeared on Arthur's face.
He did not particularly want to remember those things.
That was precisely why, despite Black Mountain Hospital technically belonging to the Cleansing Bureau, Arthur rarely came here himself.
"Yes. This place means a great deal to me. Decades ago, I participated in the Ranger Project here. In the years that followed, I became 'Arthur.' This is where everything began for me…"
He paused.
"And where it ended for her."
"She died here."
"You really loved her."
"Perhaps."
Arthur removed the syringe from Ovis's arm. Blood immediately began flowing freely from the wound, and Arthur had no choice but to connect a blood bag to him to prevent him from going into shock from blood loss.
"The New Church's information may offer a way to alleviate the Royal Curse," Arthur said, "but we can't exactly test something like this directly on the Queen, can we?"
Arthur pushed Ovis's wheelchair forward.
"So you want to use me as the test subject?" Ovis asked.
"Of course."
Arthur sounded almost casual.
"You're a peripheral member of the royal family anyway, and you're dying. Might as well gamble on it. If you win, you can go back to being Lancelot. Keep cutting down monsters. If you lose…"
He paused.
"Where would you like to die? Buried in the royal cemetery, or welcomed into the Cleansing Bureau's wonderfully overcrowded family of graves?"
It was rare for Arthur to make a joke.
Unfortunately, it was a rather cold one.
So cold that even he felt a chill run through himself after saying it.
"What is the experiment?"
As they moved through the endless corridor, Ovis raised his head.
He looked almost like a porcelain doll.
His face was deathly pale, yet his eyes were crystalline and clear. If one stripped away all the complicated identities and burdens attached to him, he was nothing more than an ordinary boy.
At his age, he should have been running and laughing.
Not facing things born from nightmares.
Every time Arthur looked at him, something deep within his hardened heart seemed to ache.
The boy reminded him of Eve.
To Arthur, they were both still children.
Children should be innocent.
Children should be playing.
Monsters and all this madness should be left to lunatics like them—the fools whose minds had long since been broken by the world.
"Sacred Blood," Arthur said.
"You want to… turn us into Witchers?"
Ovis stared at him in shock.
Yet once the shock passed, the idea suddenly seemed strangely reasonable.
He had witnessed the terrifying regenerative abilities of the Witchers with his own eyes. Perhaps…
Perhaps that power could alleviate the Royal Curse.
Perhaps it could even cure it.
"No. That would be far too dangerous."
Arthur shook his head.
"Hand the entire royal family over to the monsters? Although the Witchers have become increasingly stable, you've seen that lunatic Lloyd yourself. Sometimes I even wonder whether all of his madness is simply a side effect of the Sacred Blood."
Arthur laid out the entire plan.
"We intend to restart the 'Ranger Project.' The original experiments were designed to enhance the human body. We want to redirect them toward utilizing Sacred Blood."
"Of course, we can't perform the same crude procedure as the Witcher Church, replacing the subject's entire blood supply. We simply don't have the means to do that."
"According to Director Abigail's proposal, if we can discard the negative effects brought about by Sacred Blood, understand its nature, and refine it into a pharmaceutical agent, it might be possible to reduce the burden the Royal Curse places on your body."
They stepped into the elevator.
But this time, it did not rise.
It descended.
Down into the pitch-black abyss beneath the earth.
The Mechanical Institute had practically hollowed out the underground of Old Dunling, and Black Mountain Hospital was no exception.
Beneath the soil lay more than steam pipes.
There was also the mysterious Third Sector.
The Research District.
"We originally planned to cooperate with the New Church, but they lost the Book of Revelation. The Witchers they have now all carry unstable Sacred Blood…"
"At least, that's what Anthony told me. Their Sacred Blood cannot be trusted. We need a Witcher whose Sacred Blood is stable."
"Lloyd Holmes."
Ovis spoke the name.
Arthur nodded in agreement.
"Exactly."
"In a certain sense, the Witcher Church no longer exists. The New Church that remains is merely the fading shadow of its former glory."
"Lloyd Holmes is the last one."
"The last Witcher."