With a splitting pain tearing through his mind, the long-sealed doors within Lloyd's memory palace flickered before his eyes. In his daze, he seemed to hear the grinding of stone against stone. Ancient dust sifted down, and beyond the narrow crack between the doors, a blinding light began to shine.
He was almost there.
Lloyd reached out his hand. His fingertips were just about to touch the opening doors when, in an instant, everything fell silent again. Sweat trickled down his cheeks. Sitting rigidly in the chair, he clenched both hands around the armrests.
The machine beside him continued to roar. Yet judging by the red warning lights that kept flashing and the Geiger counter shrieking incessantly at his side, the results of this examination did not look promising.
"How fascinating," Abigail said. "According to the results, you're already in the third stage of Corruption. The irreversible third stage. By all accounts, you should have become a demon by now."
The medical staff removed the electrodes from the back of Lloyd's head and disinfected the small wounds they had left behind.
"Just what exactly are you Demon Hunters?" Abigail continued. "You're extraordinarily peculiar. Sometimes, I even find myself entertaining a rather strange hypothesis."
She studied Lloyd closely. In her eyes, the man before her seemed to have been divided into countless fragments of flesh. Her gaze appeared capable of passing straight through his skin, revealing the organs concealed behind his bones.
"Would you care to elaborate?"
Lloyd asked the question cautiously. He remained wary of everything happening around him, yet he also believed that these people might genuinely be able to help him uncover the answers he was searching for.
"You're no longer human. More precisely, you are something superior to humanity. Or perhaps… something that has evolved."
"Evolved?"
"Yes. The thought came to me because of one of our enemies. He was known as the Plague Doctor. We never learned his true name. His movements were notoriously difficult to trace, but whenever he appeared, large numbers of people died. Most of those victims were used as subjects in his experiments… It seems he, too, was studying demons."
"The Purification Bureau nearly captured him once. Nearly. But he managed to escape. We did, however, recover some of his research notes. This theory is based on what we found in them."
Abigail paused, recalling those old records before continuing.
"He believed that demons represented a form of evolution. They were powerful beyond human comprehension—creatures superior to mankind, and perhaps the inevitable next stage of human evolution."
"Losing one's mind? Evolving into a monster?" Lloyd asked, unable to believe what he was hearing.
"Who knows? Even now, we still don't understand the full nature of demons, do we? Who can guarantee that such bizarre creatures are truly devoid of reason? Perhaps demons possess consciousness as well. Perhaps we simply haven't discovered it yet."
As Abigail spoke, the image of Watson suddenly flashed through Lloyd's mind.
"A demon… with reason."
"Then there's another question, Mr. Lloyd Holmes. In what form does the False Holy Grail within you actually exist?"
Abigail's question came again.
"Come now. Try thinking about it. True scientific inquiry requires both thought and action. So think carefully. In what form does that unknown False Holy Grail exist within your body?"
"In what form? What do you think the False Holy Grail is?" Lloyd asked.
"That is something only you can determine. Quite obviously, there are no 'extra' components in your body."
Abigail walked slowly around Lloyd, scrutinizing him from every angle.
"Is the False Holy Grail an object? An alchemical matrix? Or perhaps something far more peculiar?"
"It… might be a concept. A kind of memetic contamination. But as long as I don't transmit it to anyone else, it remains trapped within my consciousness…"
Lloyd tried to grasp the thought, but all he found was an empty void.
He had forgotten.
"So the False Holy Grail has no definite physical form, is that correct?" Abigail said. "Then let us make an assumption. Suppose we regard it as something without substance, something invisible and untouchable."
"And yet it has always remained beside you, following you wherever you go…"
"Like a ghost…"
The words escaped Lloyd almost instinctively.
He immediately raised his head, a trace of astonishment in his eyes.
"Perhaps… this is another form in which demons can exist. A ghost… or perhaps we should call it a spirit."
"A spirit that carries a will…"
Lloyd repeated the words.
Something had stirred within him. He could almost grasp it, yet the thought remained beyond his reach. Far too much information surged through his mind, crashing against one another as though trying to tear his brain apart.
It was almost like a cognitohazard.
In the span of mere moments, he had become aware of too many things, and his mind could no longer sustain the weight of them.
But… what kind of information was this, really?
It was merely a new understanding of demons.
"A spirit?"
Abigail repeated uncertainly.
"Spirit. Mind. Will. When you strip away the terminology, they all seem to represent the same thing."
As a rational scholar, Abigail had never believed in ghosts or gods. Yet while contemplating the possible nature of the False Holy Grail, something had begun to take shape in her mind.
"Perhaps… humans really do possess souls."
She stared at Lloyd.
"Perhaps they cling to these vessels of flesh… much like ghosts."
...
"Arthur, you need to come here."
Someone was knocking on the door. It was a woman's voice—Blue Jade, who was currently serving as Arthur's assistant and helping him with his duties.
"Give me a moment."
Arthur heard Blue Jade's voice and prepared to leave. Before doing so, however, he glanced at Orvis.
"I'm fine. It's perfectly safe in here. At least for now," Orvis said.
Arthur was still somewhat reluctant to leave him alone. The research sector was heavily guarded, but they were dealing with demons, after all. When it came to such things, there was no telling what kind of madness might occur.
"All right. Wait here for me."
Arthur slipped his pistol into the narrow gap beside the wheelchair, then opened the door and stepped outside.
As the door swung shut, Blue Jade caught a glimpse of Orvis inside.
He looked like a porcelain doll, fragile and delicate, sitting silently in his wheelchair.
"Who is he?" Blue Jade asked curiously.
Blue Jade understood the Purification Bureau's system of information restrictions. If she had no clearance to know something, then she simply did not know it. Even so, she could not help being curious about the pitiful-looking boy sitting in this place.
This was the research sector of Black Mountain Hospital.
Patients who were brought here rarely ever left alive. Most of them were knights of the Purification Bureau. Only when their Corruption had reached an irreversible stage were they sent here, where they would make their final contribution to humanity through research into demons.
For that reason, the knights regarded this place as a graveyard.
Joey had once been fortunate enough to come here. After enduring treatment that was nothing short of hell, he had managed to leave.
And yet, years later, he had returned.
Blue Jade could not help wondering what had happened to this boy to bring him to a place like this.
More than that, although she had seen him only once, she felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity.
As if she had met the boy somewhere before.
"You're not authorized to know that yet, Blue Jade," Arthur said. "Now tell me. What happened?"
"You'll understand when you see her," Blue Jade replied.
"Hmm… All right. I think I can guess."
Arthur sighed helplessly and rubbed his temples.
He truly hated this feeling of being stretched in a dozen directions at once.
...
"We caught her at the surface elevator. She appeared to be trying to sneak into the research sector," Blue Jade explained to Arthur.
According to the Purification Bureau's regulations, anyone who attempted such a thing would normally receive a harsh punishment.
Unfortunately, the girl locked inside that room was Eve Phoenix.
On the surface, she appeared perfectly calm. But Arthur knew his daughter far too well.
He knew that, at this very moment, her mind was undoubtedly working on some ridiculous scheme.
The girl had been born with a wildness in her blood.
Arthur had done everything he could to tame it through years of education and discipline. But after her repeated encounters with demons, that wild instinct had become impossible to suppress.
"You broke the agreement between us, Eve," Arthur said. "You were supposed to stop investigating these things. If you didn't, I was going to send you off to become a detective."
"It's not as though I can control whether I encounter demons," Eve replied. "And wasn't I locked up here because of your orders in the first place?"
There was not the slightest trace of guilt on her face.
In Eve's mind, she had done absolutely nothing wrong.
She simply wanted to know the secrets Arthur had been hiding from her.
Ever since humanity had bitten into the forbidden fruit brought by the serpent, mankind had been cursed with desires that were difficult to restrain.
The hunger for knowledge was one of them.
During her days at Black Mountain Hospital, Eve felt as though she were drawing closer to something.
She could not explain what it was.
Yet beneath this strange and ominous hospital, she had begun to feel, faintly, that she had been here before.
And the bizarre dreams were becoming more frequent.
Through a haze of fragmented images, a woman could be heard screaming and sobbing.
She was in agony.
And when that agony reached its absolute limit, a set of razor-sharp claws pierced straight through her abdomen.
Blood spilled across everything.
The dreams left Eve deeply unsettled.
And yet, somewhere beneath that unease, there was also an inexplicable sense of excitement.
It felt as though, without even realizing it, she was finally approaching the answer to everything.
"You have only a few days left in your observation period," Arthur said. "Once it's over, you'll be allowed to leave."
He paused.
"Then I'll send you away from here."
"Where?"
Something about his words made Eve uneasy.
"Somewhere without demons."
Arthur gave a faint shrug.
"Probably."
He clearly had no intention of saying anything more.
After everything that had happened with the demons, the already strained relationship between father and daughter had deteriorated even further. Arthur rose from his seat and motioned for the doctors to take Eve back.
The girl's expression changed immediately.
She knew exactly what Arthur intended to do.
He was going to send her off to some damned island, where she would be forced to learn ridiculous etiquette, marry some man she had never even met, and eventually give birth to a handful of little monsters carrying Phoenix blood—only to spend the rest of her life being controlled by others.
And Arthur actually believed he was doing it for her own good.
"You bastard!"
Furious, Eve lunged at Arthur, trying to punch him, but Blue Jade intercepted her in time.
The iron door slammed shut, cutting off the girl's curses.
Arthur stood outside, exhaustion written across his face. His head dipped slightly.
Then he saw the gray robes before him.
The alchemist looked at the weary, battered Arthur and pulled the stiff muscles of his face into something resembling a smile.
"These are the records you requested. The final records of the Ranger Project."
"To be honest, if I had a choice, I'd never want to see these things again."
Arthur took the file.
He casually flipped through several pages, and familiar information appeared before his eyes.
He was, in a sense, the final product of the Ranger Project.
He had witnessed the project from its inception to the moment it was sealed away in the archives. There were few people in the entire Purification Bureau who understood it better than Arthur.
And now, in order to resolve the King's Curse, the project had been unsealed once more.
Arthur stared at the yellowed pages.
There, among the faded records, was a name he knew all too well.
"I always thought she would live an ordinary life."
He murmured the name beneath his breath.
A familiar name.
A warm name.
"Eve Phoenix."