Nightingale did not merely appear; she coalesced. The monochrome, distorted air of the Mist World seemed to bleed into the room, and from that grey void, her eyes emerged—burning with a volatile mixture of fury, exhaustion, and a deep, aching anguish. She stood directly before William, her chest heaving with a defiant confusion that was painful to witness.
— "How can you claim with such cold conviction that she does not exist?" Nightingale questioned, her voice trembling. She took a step forward, her hand white-knuckled on the hilt of her dagger. "We have bled for this search. We have faced the Church's hounds and watched our sisters die in the mud of a dozen different kingdoms just to reach the foot of these mountains. Do you have any idea what it means to tell me they all died for a lie? That their sacrifices were in vain?"
William held the witch's gaze. For once, his trademark mockery was nowhere to be found. He saw the raw, bleeding hope in her eyes and realized that the truth they carried was a leaden burden for those who lived on mystical promises.
— "I cannot reveal more than you are ready to hear, Veronica... at least not yet," William replied, his voice uncharacteristically somber. "But the world is wider than the legends the Association tells you. Sometimes, the most dangerous lies are the ones we tell ourselves to keep moving."
Arthur, sensing that Nightingale's disillusionment was teetering on the edge of violent hostility, stepped in. He adjusted the heavy folds of his grey noble's tunic, his expression returning to its mask of analytical calm. He knew that to win the Association's loyalty, he had to replace their dying myth with a cold, indisputable scientific logic.
— "Miss Nightingale, we aren't here to mock your struggle. We are here because we know a method to ensure your sisters never have to fear the 'Demonic Torture' again," Arthur declared. The weight of his words caught the immediate, breathless attention of both the witch and Roland.
— "The 'bite' you feel during the Months of Demons—that agonizing pressure that peaks when you reach adulthood—it isn't a divine test. It isn't a curse from the Devil. It is a biological phenomenon," Arthur continued, pacing slowly as if he were in a university lecture hall. "It is an accumulation of mana. Your bodies are like steam boilers with no safety valves. If the energy isn't discharged, the pressure eventually tears the vessel apart."
Nightingale's breath hitched. Arthur didn't stop.
— "As long as a witch empties her magical reserves daily by using them productively—by doing work—she will not experience the pain. The 'Bite' is simply the body reaching its saturation point. The Holy Mountain you seek, that 'place of peace,' is in truth just a graveyard. You would go there and stop using your magic, thinking you were safe, only to die in agony as the energy built up with nowhere to go. The cure isn't a place, Nightingale. The cure is the magic itself."
Silence reclaimed the room. Nightingale stood perfectly still, her eyes darting between Arthur's clinical coldness and William's iron-clad conviction. The explanation resonated with every observation she had made over years in the Association—she remembered how the witches who practiced their powers the most, the ones who were restless, always seemed to suffer the least when the winter miasma arrived.
— "What you say... it has the ring of truth," Nightingale whispered, her voice dropping to a melancholy, fragile tone. She began to drift back, her form starting to blur into the monochrome shadows of the Mist. "But I would need to see it. I would need to see a sister cross the threshold of adulthood without the pain before I can accept that our dream... was just a mirage."
With one final, piercing look charged with both distrust and a desperate, burgeoning curiosity, Nightingale vanished. The office was left in a ringing silence, broken only by the rustle of the blueprints on Roland's desk.
As the heavy oak door of the office groaned shut behind them, Arthur and William moved down the dimly lit corridor. Arthur walked with his typical, measured stride, hands clasped behind his back as he processed the logistical nightmare of managing Nightingale as a "watched ally." William, however, was vibrating with a contained, manic excitement, his eyes fixed on a blue interface only he could see.
— "Art, you're gonna lose your mind," William whispered, leaning in with a grin that threatened to split his face. "I just did it. I spent the 280 credits."
Arthur stopped dead in the middle of the stone hallway. He turned slowly, his brow furrowing in total, horrified incomprehension. He had already spent hours mentally allocating those credits to the 'Knowledge' tab—calculating how they could fast-track the metallurgy requirements for the Steam Engine Mark II.
— "Spent them? What do you mean, spent them?" Arthur's voice was thick with a rising, icy suspicion. "I was halfway through a cost-benefit analysis for the 'Industrial Chemistry' unlock. Please tell me you're joking."
— "Dude, listen! If you mentally drag the credit icon in the Dimensional System, a hidden sub-menu opens up. You can buy raw attributes!" William explained, his hands gesturing frantically. "It's 40 credits for a +1 boost to physical capacity. I didn't even hesitate, man. I dumped all 280. I just bought seven points of raw Strength!"
Arthur stood frozen for a full three seconds, his eyes fixed on the void as his brain processed the sheer, unadulterated stupidity of what he had just heard.
— "Are you... are you actually brain-damaged?" Arthur finally hissed. He didn't shout, but the intensity of his tone made William flinch. "YOU SPENT ALMOST ALL OUR STRATEGIC RESERVES ON ATTRIBUTES? AND YOU PUT THEM INTO STRENGTH? I cannot believe I am standing here listening to this. For what possible, sane purpose would you do that?"
William began to laugh, the sound echoing off the cold stone walls. He found a genuine, boyish humor in Arthur's exasperation. — "Relax, brother! It's called an 'investment'! How am I supposed to carry the team if I'm as weak as a peasant? Plus, every strength-based character in anime is a total badass. I'm building a 'Juggernaut' build!"
— "We are building an industrial civilization, William! We will have rifled muskets and 12-pounder cannons!" Arthur countered, feeling a sharp sting of mental exhaustion. "In a world of gunpowder and chemical engineering, 'Strength' is the most useless stat on the board! Have you already forgotten the lore? Carter Lannis beats Ashes—a literal superhuman—using nothing but a revolver and timing! And besides, we aren't front-line soldiers. Our role is to provide the intelligence to convince the Association not to commit suicide in the mountains!"
William stopped laughing. His expression shifted instantly from amusement to a hard, defiant seriousness.
— "And you really think Cara is just gonna listen to a PowerPoint presentation?" William shot back, referring to the extremist, fanatical founder of the Witch Cooperation Association. "That woman is a zealot, Art. She has spent decades feeding these girls a diet of martyrdom. If Nightingale couldn't convince them in the original book, what makes you think two 'scholars' in fancy tunics can? We're going to have to go there. We're going to have to face the demons. And when the steel starts flying, I need to be able to hit harder than anything they've ever seen to prove we can protect them!"
Arthur shook his head, his pragmatic coldness resurfacing like a winter frost. — "You've lost your mind. This isn't a game, William. This isn't some shonen anime where you win with 'willpower' and 'big muscles.' I am not risking my life or our future for a bunch of secondary characters and extras. Our role is to warn them, provide the data, and retreat to the safety of the wall."
— "Extras?" William exploded, taking a step into Arthur's personal space. His eyes were glowing with a genuine, righteous anger. "Is that all they are to you? Is Anna just a 'unit'? Is Nana just a 'healer'? They aren't characters, Art! They are people! They feel the cold! They feel the pain! If I have the power to stop them from dying in the snow, I'm taking it, regardless of what your 'meta-strategy' says!"
The argument was reaching a fever pitch. Carter Lannis, who had been patrolling the adjacent hallway, rounded the corner with his hand resting habitually on the hilt of his sword. He sensed the raw tension between the Prince's two most trusted advisors.
— "Is there a problem, gentlemen?" Carter asked, his eyes darting between the two. "The walls in this castle are thin, and you are both... quite agitated."
Arthur ignored the Knight entirely, casting one last, icy glance at William. A glance that signaled a fundamental break in their brotherhood.
— "Do whatever you want to satisfy your 'protagonist syndrome,' William. But when your 'Strength' fails against a demon's spear and you realize you could have bought the knowledge to build a better defense... don't count on me to fix it."
— "I already expected that kind of cowardice from you, Art," William replied, his voice dripping with a quiet, lethal contempt. "Don't worry. I'll handle the heavy lifting. You just stay in the library where it's safe."
The two men turned on their heels, walking away in opposite directions down the dark hallway. Carter Lannis remained standing there in the flickering torchlight, watching them go. He understood nothing of "credits" or "attributes," but he understood the look of two friends who had just become strangers.