“Yes. Revenge.”

The girl's expressionless lips curved faintly. It was less a smile than the mechanical relief of hearing a predetermined answer. She gripped Yuto's hand, reminding him once more of the murderous intent etched deep into his soul.

“The constellations engineered your life, made you a hero, and then destroyed you. In this world, they engineered your father's life and slaughtered this land of Belkain.”

“...”

“Even now, they must be laughing from on high as they look down upon all the sorrow below. Human ruin and despair are sweet treats to them.”

Her voice lingered coldly in Yuto's ears.

“But Yuto, you returned to turn all the constellations' pleasure into despair and bring about their destruction. The Void does not want your despair. It wants the anger forged by burning that despair.”

The girl's figure slowly grew indistinct. Even as she faded, her hand continued to stroke his.

“Do not forget, Yuto. If you stop, everything becomes meaningless. You vowed revenge, and the Void gave you power. You, of all people, must never betray the Void.”

She looked into his eyes. Her gaze felt as though a vast abyss were speaking to him.

“I believe in you.”

Before Yuto could reply, darkness swallowed her figure, and she vanished.

* * *

A thin shaft of light pierced his vision.

Yuto barely managed to lift his heavy eyelids. The ceiling was high, the surroundings familiar from his memories. The king's bedchamber. But after five years of neglect, dust drifted through the room, and the musty smell of mold stung his nose.

He heard steady breathing beside him and slowly turned his head.

Levian was slumped forward there, fast asleep. Her face was drawn, as though she had spent the whole night nursing him, and her hand still clutched her magic staff.

“...”

Yuto quietly reached out and stroked her hand. Her fingertips were sticky, and green stains lay beneath her nails, perhaps from crushing medicinal herbs all night. He shook his head with a bitter smile.

“I've made you worry.”

“As long as you realize it.”

CREAK.

The door opened on its broken, squeaking hinges. Flokiro toddled inside, having reverted from the form of an enormous beast to his base form.

“How are you feeling? Are you all right?”

Flokiro asked with narrowed eyes. He wanted to look angry at Yuto for running wild, but the profound relief welling up inside him mingled with that anger, leaving his expression difficult to read.

“How much time... has passed?”

“A full day. You look all right now. It's all thanks to Levian, so make sure you thank her later.”

With a deep sigh, Flokiro spread the blanket he was holding over Levian.

Yuto silently watched Levian's sleeping face. Guilt still stabbed at his chest, but he did not lose his reason and fall apart as he had before.

As the girl had said, punishing himself was not what he needed to do.

“What happened... down below?”

Flokiro swished his tail as he answered.

“I more or less took care of things while you were unconscious.”

The slaves captured by the Black Mages had been imprisoned beneath the royal castle: impoverished people who had come to scavenge the ruins, and slaves brought in from outside the city.

“There weren't any Black Mages left alive, so it wasn't particularly difficult. I just opened the cells... removed their shackles, and told them to wait in the secret passage.”

The secret underground passage that Yuto had ultimately failed to use before his regression led beyond Belkain's city walls.

“It isn't safe outside the walls either. If they fled on their own, some of them might get hurt... so I thought it would be better for us to protect them and escort them out. It seemed like what you would do.”

“You really do know me well,” Yuto replied with a faint smile.

“Did you check the room where the Precious Sword is kept?”

“No.”

Flokiro shook his head. Entering the room where the sword was hidden required speaking a specific word, and he knew that word. But he had not checked the room ahead of Yuto.

“It didn't feel right for me to check. That sword... is meant for the king of Belkain alone.”

“I wonder whether my father... in this world left the sword behind.”

“You'll have to see that for yourself too.”

Flokiro's firm tone seemed intended to steady Yuto, to keep him from wavering or losing control again. Yuto nodded with a bitter smile.

“You're right.”

“Mm... mmm...”

Their conversation must have grown too loud, for the sleeping Levian slowly raised her head. Her eyelids fluttered open, and her gaze found Yuto.

“Yu... to?”

Her eyes widened in an instant as she mumbled drowsily. She sprang upright and urgently seized his shoulders.

“Yuto, you're awake? How do you feel? Does anything hurt?”

“...”

“Your aether was flowing backward! I thought something terrible was going to happen! Do you have any idea how worried I was? I've never handled so many medicinal herbs in such a short time in my entire life!”

Levian leaned closer as the questions came pouring out. Taken aback by her concern, Yuto nevertheless smiled faintly at her disheveled hair and the faint traces of drool around her mouth.

“I'm all right now, thanks to you. Though I think a little face-washing is in order.”

“Face... washing? Why all of a sudden?”

Relieved, Levian tilted her head, then started and felt her face. In moments, she turned beet red.

“E-eek! W-wait a moment! This is, well... I was so tired from nursing you all night... I fell asleep without meaning to...”

With a near shriek, Levian scrubbed her face with her sleeve. Her dignity as an academy prodigy and a noble young lady lay in tatters. She hung her head in embarrassment and hunched her shoulders. So far was she from her usual confident self that Yuto gave a soft chuckle.

“Thank you.”

Startled by the sincerity in his voice, Levian looked up. Yuto looked her straight in the face as he spoke.

“I'll be honest. When you said you would come with me in Merchant City, I didn't think you would be much help.”

“...”

“I was wrong. You were... a tremendous help. Without you, I might have died in this city.”

He spoke calmly, without a trace of exaggeration. Belkain's dangers had far exceeded his expectations, and Levian had helped him enormously. Without her support and healing magic, he might have exhausted himself and retreated long ago.

But would he really have retreated? Yuto smiled bitterly. Levian had helped him with more than combat support and healing magic. Her worried looks and cries had helped him hold on to as much reason as he could. Had he come to Belkain with Flokiro alone, he would very likely have lost his reason at the horrors here and rampaged in a fit of emotion.

“Levian Marigold. Without you, I might have collapsed and died here. Thank you... for coming with me.”

“A-ahem.”

Feeling her face heat up, Levian fanned herself with a hand.

“D-don't mention it. We're comrades, aren't we? A-and I owe you a great deal. So there's no need to go out of your way to thank me.”

She tucked her hair behind her ear as she answered shyly. Watching her, Yuto hesitated a moment before speaking.

“Yes, we're comrades. I... don't think there should be too many lies or secrets between comrades.”

Levian stiffened. Lies and secrets. Hearing Yuto mention those two things inevitably brought the questions she had buried in her heart back to the surface.

The mysterious power he had shown all this time. His obsessive attachment to Belkain, and his rage. And the immense despair he had displayed in the secret room adjoining the king's bedchamber.

She had a mountain of questions about him, but hesitated, unsure whether she could ask them. She had wondered whether reading the diary that had driven him to despair might bring her a little closer to the truth, but she had not touched it at all.

She had felt she must not read it.

“You must be wondering who I am.”

Levian offered no reply to his murmur. She was curious, yet could not bring herself to nod and admit it. That inner conflict kept her lips firmly sealed. Sensing her kindness and consideration, Yuto smiled faintly.

“I am the king of Belkain's... son. Before the catastrophe... I was a hidden member of the royal family, forced to grow up outside the castle with my identity concealed.”

Yuto lied.

He could not bring himself to reveal that he had regressed. It was something utterly incomprehensible by this world's common sense. And he knew all too well from experience that a truth too immense could lead a person to ruin.

“My father... Luke Belkain discovered the ugly truth of this world long ago. He suspected that knowing it would put both him and... Belkain in danger, so he had me raised outside the castle. That was how I escaped the catastrophe.”

“Ah...”

“That's why I'm so fixated on Belkain. This shattered, ruined city. The restless spirits wandering here, unable to pass on. And... I couldn't forgive the Black Mages who were exploiting them.”

“...”

“I don't know everything about the catastrophe that struck Belkain either. My father... never explained it to me in full.”

Yuto shook his head with a bitter smile.

“Earlier, I learned... an enormous truth I hadn't known. Once I knew it, I couldn't keep my reason any longer.”

Levian looked at him in surprise, then slowly nodded. If that was the reason, she could understand why he had been so on edge during the journey to Belkain, and why his emotions had run out of control after entering the city.

“...”

Levian gazed at him with sorrowful eyes. They held sympathy for him, along with gratitude and trust for having told her the truth.

'I'm sorry.'

Lying to Levian while she looked at him that way was painful for Yuto too. But sometimes a lie was better than the truth.

“Let's go down below.”

Yuto climbed out of bed and tied his shoelaces tightly.

“Don't you need... more rest?”

“I've rested enough.”

His body still felt heavy, but not so heavy that he could not move.

Even if he had felt heavier and more miserable, now was the time to act. He steadied his breathing and began striding forward.

“We're going to the hidden room in the underground passage. I don't know whether the Precious Sword of Belkain is still there... but I have to see for myself.”

Levian rose from her chair without trying to stop him again.

“Just you try going berserk because the sword isn't there.”

Flokiro had gone ahead and stood holding the bedroom door open. He glared as he snapped the warning, and Yuto shook his head with a rueful smile.

“That won't happen.”

They left the king's bedchamber and descended to the first floor.

The entrance to the underground passage was already open. The passage below was where Plock Knight had flung Yuto before his regression, and where he had collapsed, never managing to escape.

With a hand over his pounding heart, Yuto descended the stairs into the passage.

The way down was oppressively dark. Flokiro conjured a flame to light their way, but the bitter chill rising from below clawed at them through its warmth.

The stairs ended. The iron door below was already open.

Beyond it lay the “laboratory” the Black Mages had mentioned. Flokiro had opened the doors earlier, allowing the slaves to leave, but every trace of their captivity remained.

Shackles lay scattered across the floor. There were dissection instruments of unknown purpose, and torture devices installed to heighten human terror to its utmost.

Yuto stared through the bars. He saw human bones and rotting scraps of flesh. Marks that looked as though they had been clawed into the walls covered their surfaces. He could almost hear the death cries of those who had writhed in agony as they died.

“I let them die... far too easily.”

He should have made the Black Mages suffer more before they died.

Yuto spat the words through grinding teeth.