With the coming of dawn, the air was filled with a crisp, damp freshness. Eve tilted her head back, letting the fine threads of rain fall upon her face and wash away the lingering heat. She gazed at the leaden clouds above, watching as they slowly twisted and churned as though they possessed a life of their own.
There was no one else in the activity area. Eve stood alone upon the grass, allowing the wind and rain to fall freely upon her. Many people could not understand what the girl was trying to accomplish, but from Eve's own perspective, she was doing it simply because it felt damn good.
Yes. It felt good. That was all there was to it—a reason so pure and absurd that it was almost ridiculous.
The wind surged around her, as though an invisible hand had closed around her body. It felt as if, in the next instant, she might be swept into the sky like a swift.
"The storm is coming."
Shadows fell across the boy's face as he spoke in a low voice.
Unlike the girl, who stood foolishly exposed beneath the curtain of rain, Ovis sat in his wheelchair beneath the shelter of the building, keeping out of the weather.
A silent nurse stood behind him. Her face was completely hidden beneath a mask, making her features impossible to discern.
"Come on, talk to me. Doesn't it look rather stupid for me to be sitting here talking to myself?"
It was rare for Ovis to abandon his usual indifference and take the initiative to ask for a conversation. The nurse was somewhat surprised. In their eyes, Ovis was a delicate, fragile glass doll—and glass dolls were not supposed to speak.
Most of the time, the boy was silent. No matter what anyone said to him, or what they did to him, he maintained that same silence, as rigid and lifeless as a corpse.
"What is your codename? Are you assigned exclusively to Black Mountain Hospital?" Ovis continued.
The nurse was slightly startled. The boy turned his head toward her and smiled.
"I thought I had hidden it rather well," the nurse said.
"More or less. Although your faces are all covered, so I can't tell one of you from another, I can feel that the person following me is always someone specific."
"Feel?"
"Yes. You don't seem like a nurse. The smell of disinfectant is strong enough, but somehow, I just don't feel that you are one."
"Is that some kind of intuition?"
"Probably. So, does that mean you already know who I am?"
The nurse nodded before answering.
"Codename: Swift. Directly appointed by Arthur to protect you... To be honest, I never imagined that the mysterious Lancelot would turn out to be a child."
"Surprised?"
"To be precise, I'm impressed."
The two exchanged words beneath the shadow of the building as the light rain whispered against the ground. The girl came running toward them, shielding her head with one hand. Her long crimson hair was startlingly vivid against the gray, rain-soaked world, like a flame dancing in the gloom.
"So, what did you want to ask me?" Swift said. "You must have discovered my identity a long time ago."
"Yes. But is something going to happen at Black Mountain Hospital? You have done a good job hiding it, but last night I felt something. The faintest tremor beneath the earth..." Ovis said.
"You don't have the clearance to know yet."
"Is it the Old World God-Arms? You have gathered a great many of them here, haven't you?" Ovis said bluntly.
Swift stared at him suspiciously.
Ever since Ovis had entered Black Mountain Hospital, aside from retaining the title of Lancelot, he should have been completely cut off from the Cleansing Bureau. So where had he obtained information like this?
"So it really is the Old World God-Arms..."
Swift had not reacted in the slightest, yet Ovis spoke as though he had read her thoughts.
"How did you know?" Swift asked, suddenly finding the situation unsettling. She had watched over Ovis for a long time, yet at this moment, there was something unfamiliar about the boy, something she could not quite grasp.
"Have you ever piloted an Old World God-Arm?"
Ovis asked with a smile.
Swift shook her head. Before the emergence of the Third Generation God-Arms, piloting an Old World God-Arm had been an extraordinarily dangerous undertaking. Only the Knight Commanders had been qualified to do so.
"It's a very strange sensation. The Old World God-Arm becomes the body, and the pilot becomes the brain. Through God-Arm technology, the consciousness is connected to that body..."
Ovis slowly turned his palm over. His skin was as pale as crystal, with faint bluish veins visible beneath the surface.
"I loved that moment when I piloted one. The instant my nerves connected with it, I could clearly feel my body expanding. I was no longer trapped inside this fragile mortal shell. I had become something made of steel and flesh.
"At that moment, I felt as though my soul had finally become free, as though it had broken loose from this weak body. But the moment I stepped out of the God-Arm, I was imprisoned once again. And ever since then, I've always been able to feel something strange.
"I think I've become connected to the God-Arm."
A strange chill immediately ran through Swift.
She looked at Ovis, but his gaze remained fixed on the girl frolicking through the rain. Swift assumed that perhaps Ovis had taken a liking to the lively girl, but when she looked into his eyes, she saw nothing of affection there.
Only longing.
Ovis yearned for freedom—not for the girl herself, but for the freedom she possessed. He hungered for the ability to run through the world as she did, instead of being bound forever to this wheelchair.
"Director Abigail explained it to me once. She said it might be a case of phantom limb syndrome, feeling a limb that no longer exists. But now I can feel it, Swift."
"Feel what?" Swift asked.
"My God-Arm. It's here. Somewhere inside Black Mountain Hospital."
"What exactly are you people planning to do?"
Ovis asked in confusion.
But at that moment, the sound of cheerful footsteps drew rapidly closer. Eve came rushing beneath the shelter, bringing the damp scent of rain with her.
"Good morning, Ovis!"
Though they had only known each other for a short while, Eve immediately leaned against the side of Ovis's wheelchair and began chatting with him.
"Geez, I don't know what's going on today. It's raining, sure, but people usually still come out for a little walk. Yet today, nobody came."
Eve found it strange.
Swift remained silent. For once, she almost felt like thanking the girl. Eve had interrupted their conversation at exactly the right moment.
"Maybe they're watching the rain from their rooms," Ovis replied casually.
The girl was overflowing with vitality, completely out of place in this lifeless hospital. Sometimes even Ovis found Eve's cheerfulness almost overwhelming, as though no darkness in the world could ever touch her.
Put nicely, she had an iron will and seemed born to join the Cleansing Bureau and hack apart monsters.
Put less nicely, she simply had no heart.
Ovis had often heard Arthur talk about people like them. Shrike was the perfect example of sheer willpower. After all, not everyone could return alive from the Sea of Silence. And then there was Kestrel, who was practically the embodiment of having no heart. Who would have guessed that this scatterbrained woman had originally joined the Cleansing Bureau simply because she wanted employee housing?
"Eve... Ovis. You're here too."
Another voice suddenly sounded.
A fully armed Robin approached, followed by a squad of soldiers.
"What's going on?"
Swift immediately felt uneasy.
"You two are coming with us. We're taking you to a safe house."
At this point, Robin no longer bothered with unnecessary concealment and spoke plainly.
"A safe house?"
Eve still had no idea what was happening, but the soldiers had already surrounded her. Regardless of what she said, they firmly escorted her away.
"Swift, report to the research division. The experiment is about to begin."
A soldier took over Ovis's wheelchair and pushed him after Eve. As the two groups passed one another, Robin glanced at Ovis again. There was something strangely familiar about the boy, though he could not remember where he had seen him before.
But none of that mattered now.
The experiment was about to begin.
To guard against a possible attack by the New Church, most of the patients in Black Mountain Hospital would be temporarily placed under protection.
The entire hospital sprang into motion.
Steam billowed from the corners. Soldiers clad in black cloaks gripped deadly weapons in their hands. They might never even reach the hidden enemies waiting for them, but the tactics were the same ones humanity had used during those dark years when it fought against the monsters.
Keep throwing lives at the enemy.
As long as these people could hold the enemy back for one or two seconds, that would be enough to create an opening for the Old World God-Arms to attack.
Steam engines roared into life. Steel puppets slowly rose beneath the rain, making no attempt whatsoever to conceal themselves. Heavy fuel tanks were mounted upon their backs, while cold rainwater slipped from the edges of their blades.
Joey was strapped to an iron bed in a restraint jacket. He struggled to sit upright. Only by doing so could he barely see the rain beyond the window—and the steel monstrosities moving through it.
"Old World God-Arms... How could they possibly be here?"
He murmured to himself.
But before he could think any further, a far more violent pain erupted inside his mind.
Once the Secret Blood reached its critical threshold, the monster hunter himself became a terrifying source of contamination.
And that was how Moriarty had infected Joey.
Moriarty was a monster hunter.
A monster hunter of the New Church.
What exactly was he planning?
Joey desperately wanted to prove everything, but now he was an infected madman. No one inside Black Mountain Hospital would listen to him. Even if someone could prove what he had seen, given the power of Moriarty's illusions, Joey could only assume that those who had witnessed Moriarty alongside him had already had their perceptions twisted as well.
He had become one of the pieces in Moriarty's scheme.
And he still had no idea what Moriarty intended to do.
Suddenly, the door was pushed open.
But this time, it was not a nurse who entered.
It was a soldier.
"What are you doing?" Joey shouted, immediately sensing that something was wrong.
"Upper-Rank Knight, Black Phoenix. Currently undergoing treatment for contamination."
The soldier recited his identity, making it clear that Joey was their target.
"Take him to Safe House Three."
"What safe house? What happened? And what are those Old World God-Arms doing here?" Joey roared.
"He's too loud. Nurse! Sedative!"
The soldier shouted.
But then an even more insane voice rang out.
"Let me go! I'm a general! I want to die on the front lines! Don't even think about dragging me back to the rear!"
"How terribly rude! Terribly rude! Can't you people do anything with a little elegance?"
One bizarre voice after another erupted, followed by the screams of soldiers.
"That old bastard is biting me! Get him off!"
"You deserters! Deserters!"
"Sedative! Sedative! Where's the nurse?!"
The entire scene descended into chaos.
But because he was restrained, Joey could not see what was happening. He only felt himself being pushed around from one place to another. Then a needle pierced his vein, and his consciousness gradually began to sink into darkness.
It was like some ridiculous farce.
And yet, just before he closed his eyes, Joey saw someone else strapped to an iron bed.
"Higg?"
It should have been Higg.
Although his body had turned an eerie iron-blue and his joints had twisted into grotesque shapes under the effects of contamination, it had to be Higg.
In that instant, something clicked inside Joey's mind.
Suddenly, he understood.
He knew what Moriarty was trying to do.
Moriarty had orchestrated all of this with meticulous care.
All for Lloyd Holmes.
Joey wanted desperately to tell someone, but there was no longer any chance.
His consciousness sank deeper and deeper into darkness.
...
"So this is Black Mountain Hospital? But I never even realized it existed. How is that possible?"
A heavy voice emerged from beneath the plague doctor's beaked mask.
The Plague Doctor stood in the rain, observing the mysterious hospital before him. The route they had taken to reach this place had been perfectly clear, yet somehow, it was as though something had prevented him from ever perceiving the existence of the road itself.
"Probably some kind of antimemetic phenomenon. Lloyd Medici seemed to have studied something similar once, but in the end, because of the weakness of the mortal body, he turned instead toward the study of immortality."
A woman's voice answered.
The Plague Doctor turned his head.
A nurse stood there.
He remained silent for a moment before speaking.
"Mm... Lawrence, seeing you like this makes me uncomfortable."
"What makes you uncomfortable?" Lawrence asked.
"Never mind. It's nothing. But where is your true body right now? Shouldn't you have come with me?"
"Busy with something more important."
"Fine... But if this place is protected by some kind of antimemetic phenomenon, how did you find it?"
The Plague Doctor sounded curious.
Lawrence's secrets were proving far more numerous than he had anticipated.
"A beacon. I have more than one."
Lawrence was referring to Ovis.
With that beacon, he had been able to locate the exact position of Black Mountain Hospital.
"So we're just going to walk straight in?"
"Why not?"
"You could abandon this body and leave whenever you wanted. But if I run into the main force of the Cleansing Bureau, I might actually die here, Lawrence."
"Don't worry. They're currently concentrated in the research division. The light-treatment ward we're in now has the weakest defenses."
A faint light shimmered within Lawrence's eyes.
Through Ovis's eyes, the movements of the Cleansing Bureau were laid bare before him.
In truth, the same was happening with the New Church.
The moment Moriarty discovered Higg, the New Church revealed itself to Lawrence as well.
"The New Church and the Cleansing Bureau are watching each other carefully. If they remain locked in this stalemate, Moriarty alone won't be able to stir up much trouble," Lawrence said.
"So we're going to give them a little push, are we?"
There was unmistakable delight in the Plague Doctor's voice.
He opened the iron case he had been carrying. Inside were the inferior batches of Secret Blood they had transported here.
The crimson liquid shimmered in the darkness, radiating a savage aura of violence and madness.
"The rest is up to you, Plague Doctor. There are plenty of patients in the light-treatment ward. This much Secret Blood should be enough to trigger a wave of monsters. And I doubt the New Church will let an opportunity like this pass."
"And what are you going to do?" the Plague Doctor asked.
"Meet an old friend."
Lawrence closed his eyes.
The sound of the wind and rain gradually faded into the distance. Within an endless darkness, a faint glimmer of light appeared.
Then he opened his eyes.
Beyond a long table sat a man.
"It's been a long time, Cardinal Miguel."