"I don't really know anymore."
"Young Master collapses all the time. He's super weak."
The one who caught Klein's collapsing body was Arin.
Sitting down on the floor, she laid Klein across her lap as she always did, using her knees as a pillow.
Crunch. Crunch.
Even then, the shadows containing the enormous experimental body did not stop moving.
The gigantic corpse whose souls had vanished.
Filled with the magic power of countless victims, it was being dismantled and reconstructed inside Arin's body.
Into something entirely new.
Fwoosh—!
Flames rose upon oil-soaked torches, illuminating the dark underground chamber.
The one who lit the torches was Garrison.
Perhaps because of the light, his eyes were hidden beneath the shadows.
"Are you going to kill our Young Master?"
Arin asked the approaching Garrison.
At those words, Garrison stopped in place.
"..."
Everything beyond the torchlight was darkness.
It was impossible to tell where the shadows ended and where she began.
"I should."
If they fought, he could win.
At the same time the judges disappeared, the barrier maintained through holy power around the reformatory had also vanished.
If it were now, he could probably even summon the holy relic sleeping within the Holy Kingdom's sanctuary.
"If he truly is Archimond reborn, then no matter who he is, he must be killed."
Yet despite saying those words, no fighting spirit could be found in Garrison's voice.
What filled that voice was anguish.
Whether Arin noticed it or simply didn't care,
she only continued staring at Garrison with the same innocent expression as always.
"But now… I no longer know."
Garrison recalled the image of Klein restoring the monster from moments earlier.
The grotesque creature crawling forward while spewing blood and filth, screaming in agony.
He himself had tried to kill it, but Klein had not.
'Which is the real monster? This thing… or your cult that created it.'
Klein had said that,
then stroked the suffering monster's soul, soothing and guiding it.
'That was not the necromancer I know.'
A necromancer was one who insulted the souls of the dead, binding and enslaving them as servants.
A heretical evil that should never exist, one that insulted both the living and the dead alike.
'Then what exactly was it that I witnessed?'
The monster had found peace beneath his touch, embracing a tranquil death.
Even amid the blood and filth pouring from it, Klein accepted everything without hesitation.
What he displayed was not the conduct of a necromancer.
Rather, it resembled the very image he had always wished for in Saint Gaul himself…
Boom—!
The harsh metallic sound echoing from above snapped Garrison from his thoughts.
"This way! There's activity on the lowest floor!"
"What the hell happened? Where did all the judges go?! And the prisoners?!"
Hurried voices echoed together with the sound of marching boots.
Not judges or inquisitors—
these were the Vatican's Sun Crusaders.
"For a sudden discovery, their timing is far too perfect."
Even as he spoke, the footsteps drew closer.
'This clearly wasn't a coincidence. That means they were already waiting nearby. The one who gave the order was probably…'
"Tch."
Recalling the face of Palliman seated in the cardinal's position, Garrison clicked his tongue harshly.
"I can't hand him over quietly."
By the time Garrison reached that decision, the soldiers who arrived at the lowest floor had already surrounded him in a circle.
"F-Father Garrison… and Young Master Klein…!"
"How did you escape the prison…?!"
Shock spread across the soldiers' faces as Garrison—who should have still been imprisoned—appeared before them on the lowest floor.
Dozens of spears tipped with cross-shaped blades pointed toward Garrison,
yet not one among them truly possessed the will to fight.
He was one of the cult's greatest human weapons.
For them, merely pointing a spear at him was already a gamble with their lives.
"Priest Garrison Berkman!"
The soldiers hesitated only briefly.
A loud shout rang out as a priest stepped forward.
"What in the world happened here?! Where are the judges, and why are only you and this man—!"
He furiously pointed toward Klein—
Rumbleeeee…!
The moment Garrison released his holy power, every soldier surrounding him trembled violently.
The commander felt chills spread down his spine and could not find the words to speak.
"The reformatory director, Ben Drake, was raising monsters underground."
Garrison spoke while stepping closer to him.
"W-What? Monsters?"
"Yes. Monsters."
Having opened his mouth, Garrison calmly continued his explanation to the commander.
The underground test subject had gone berserk, devouring every living being including prisoners and judges.
And in the process, he had no choice but to break out of his prison cell and stop the experiment.
"He even enlisted Imperial necromancers to raise the creature."
"T-That's impossible!"
As information far beyond comprehension poured out one after another, the commander's face gradually turned pale.
"T-Then where is this experimental subject?!"
As if denying reality itself, the commander's voice rose sharply.
"If you truly dealt with that monster, then at least the corpse should still remain—!"
Rumble—!
The answer to the commander's questioning was Garrison's overwhelming display of force.
"That loathsome necromancer and all traces of his abomination have been completely crushed."
"T-Then there's no one left alive to testify about what happened here…!"
As he spoke, the commander's eyes fell upon the unconscious Young Master Klein.
"T-That's right! Young Master Klein!"
The commander immediately shouted orders to the soldiers.
"Escort Young Master Klein back to the homeland! He can testify about what happened here—!"
"No."
BOOM—!
The moment the commander finished speaking, a deafening explosion filled the dark underground chamber.
Appearing beside Garrison was a gigantic radiant hammer.
One of Saint Gaul's three holy relics—Enril.
"I will personally escort Young Master Klein to the Holy Kingdom."
Saying that, Garrison lifted Klein's unconscious body.
'There is only one thing that matters. I saw the image of Berkel Leinrant within this child.'
As he recalled the words of the blind old man, Ian Leinrant.
***
Inside a hazy dream.
What I saw before my eyes was myself at seven years old.
"Hah…! Hah…!"
A child running desperately, terrified someone might be chasing him.
That child, sprinting while dressed in ragged prisoner's clothes, was my past self.
The Young Master of the Leinrant family, Klein Leinrant,
who had lived inside this reformatory since the age of three.
"Alright, I'm here."
The deepest level of the Kripel Heretic Reformatory reached by my fifteen-year-old self.
The younger me arrived at the place where the giant iron gate stood and walked along a temporary passage made of crude wooden planks.
Creak… creak…
Pitch-black darkness without even a single torch,
and unstable footing that looked ready to collapse at any moment.
Yet the child walking through it showed no hesitation.
Sharp eyes unfitting for his age.
Even amidst dust and darkness, his distinctive silver hair had not lost its brilliance.
How much deeper into the darkness beneath the reformatory had I gone like that?
Grrrrrrrr…
A low growl echoed throughout the deep underground cavern.
Back before it had expanded into what it was now.
Within this dark space built to contain a single existence, something was approaching me.
Shhhk—!
Shadow.
As if black ink itself were pouring toward me, some black aberrant form shot straight at me.
Teeth and needles protruded everywhere.
It was obvious that this thing was not approaching me with friendly intentions.
And yet—
"Arin."
A name I had repeated and engraved into myself countless times.
The moment I spoke it, the approaching shadows froze right before my eyes.
Blood trickled from my neck where it had barely grazed me.
After tasting it, the shadow trembled in satisfaction, as if it had just discovered a long-awaited delicacy.
"Just like you said, I came here."
I observed the violently writhing shadows.
Control formulas, binding commands, freezing spells.
All kinds of magic tightly wrapped around the black shadows, yet none of them had managed to dominate its mind.
"Now it's your turn."
As if understanding my meaning, the space controlled by the black entity trembled.
Whether it was a sign of joy,
or the rumbling hunger of something seeing prey after a very long time.
Rumble…
The ground beneath my feet, the walls, the ceiling—
the black shadows that had completely filled every scene within my sight gradually disappeared.
Only then did I realize that the place I stood in was a cavern made of white marble.
"Can I really… go outside?"
A voice echoed out.
It was clear and pure, completely mismatched with the enormous presence from moments earlier.
"The teachers said so. They said I was born from a dangerous monster."
When I turned my gaze, a young girl stood there.
Long, flowing snow-white hair.
Golden eyes shining between the strands.
It was her original appearance,
different from the brown-haired girl with glasses she looked like now.
"They said that if I went outside… I'd become the same kind of monster."
Shrinking her shoulders, she asked me,
"But even so… can I really go outside?"
Hearing those words, I raised both hands and placed them atop her trembling head.
"It's true that your existence is dangerous."
Even now, after all this time, that thought had never changed.
The holy blood researched within Kripel.
And even the "other materials" still being researched at this very moment.
She was the source of all of it.
"Perhaps, just as they said, you may become a monster that endlessly devours life."
But that alone could never become a reason to kill this child.
Because this existence had not yet chosen what she would become.
"But the one who decides that is you, not them."
I had seen heroes rise from mud and filth.
I had seen ugly conspiracies bloom within sacred sanctuaries.
What determined their end was not the fate surrounding them,
but their own will.
The right to choose one's life belongs solely to oneself.
"No one except you has the right to define your life."
The right to act for it.
The duty to bear responsibility for it.
"The only thing that defines your existence is your own choices and actions."
After saying that with certainty, I asked her,
"What do you want to become?"
At those words, she raised her head and met my eyes.
"Do you want to become a monster that eats people, like they said?"
She thought for a moment before eventually shaking her head.
"No!"
Immature, but unmistakably her own will.
After confirming that, I smiled while looking at her face.
"That's enough."
I pulled out the dagger hidden inside my clothes and gripped the blade tightly.
Slash—!
The blade cut through my flesh and slipped free, blood pouring from my left hand.
"Drink."
As I raised my blood-soaked hand and spoke, Arin lowered herself and opened her mouth.
Gulp. Gulp.
As she swallowed the blood pooling in her mouth, blue patterns emerged all across her body.
Crack! Craaack—!
The countless runes and formulas binding her surfaced into view.
The more of my blood she drank, the weaker the restraints engraved into her body became.
"With this, you and I have become parts of each other."
And with those final words, the vision came to an end.
— Hehe, I finished it!
The next thing I heard was Arin's voice.
And with those words, I awoke from the dream.
"…?"
When I regained consciousness and opened my eyes, what appeared before me was a clean priestly robe draped over my body.
And…
"Kyaahahahaha—!"
"Hey! You're the one who stole my bread, right?!"
"N-No I didn't! It's mine!"
"Sister! They're fighting again!"
Countless children ran around in chaos in every direction.
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