The evil dragon, Ladon.

The evil dragon casting its shadow over the entire Kingdom of Kassel was absurdly immense. So immense that the word “enormous” alone could never do its size justice.

It blotted out the sun, obscured the blue sky, and finally covered an entire nation in its shadow.

As that shadow fell overhead, Najin stopped halfway through drawing his sword. He had no idea what he was supposed to do once he drew it. Of course, he had faced countless powerful opponents before, but this evil dragon was on a different scale... not figuratively, but in its actual physical dimensions.

A colossal dragon that covered an entire country with its shadow.

He simply could not picture how to fight it, or where and how to begin cutting it. As he stood there awkwardly, at a complete loss, Merlin tilted her head beside him.

“That's strange.”

She pointed at the sky.

“Ladon isn't normally that big, is he? The Ladon I remember wasn't even half that size. I don't think he was even a quarter of it...”

“Thanks for letting me know, but... Merlin?”

“Yes?”

Merlin tilted her head. She blinked, looking utterly relaxed, but Najin did not think this was any time to take things easy. He abruptly tugged her arm.

“I think the explanation can wait. We need to run first.”

Merlin had told him that even if this was a Constellation's dream, dying here was no different from dying in reality. Which meant they were now in mortal danger.

What if that dragon breathed fire? Or even just crushed them beneath its enormous body?

'We'd die on the spot.'

Until he found a way to fight that dragon, fleeing was the right choice. Najin pulled Merlin to her feet by the arm and urged her on.

“Let's go. Quickly.”

“Huh? Y-yes. But you're h-holding my hand?”

“We need to hurry, don't we? Can you run? If you can't, I'll carry you.”

“I can run, but I don't think I can run as fast as y—Aah!”

Najin hoisted Merlin onto his back.

As Merlin hastily covered her mouth after that shrill scream, Najin's eyes darted about.

“Hold on tight. I think we should head for the grand temple where the Constellation is.”

“Y-yes.”

Merlin carefully wrapped her arms around his neck.

Najin adjusted his stance, then paused just before setting off and looked around. Something felt wrong, though it was a simple enough thing.

Everything around him was peaceful. Far too peaceful.

Najin was the only one alarmed by the dragon's appearance, and the only one hastily preparing to flee. The citizens glanced up at the sky, then turned back to what they were doing as though it were nothing of consequence.

As though this were an everyday occurrence.

“What's that? What are they doing?”

“In the middle of the street, in broad daylight...”

“They're young, aren't they? It's nice to see.”

They were even looking at Najin and Merlin on his back as though the two of them were making an unnecessary fuss.

'What's going on?'

Najin frowned.

How could they remain this calm with a dragon that size in the sky? Was it because they were inside a dream? Because this was an illusion built from Viola Ordina's memories?

Several guesses and questions passed through his mind.

But he soon realized that all his guesses were wrong. And his question about why they were reacting that way was answered as well.

DONG.

The bell rang out in a long peal. Amid those unusually slow, lingering chimes, Najin heard the sharp sound of someone pushing off the ground. He looked toward its source.

The grand temple atop the cliff.

Viola Ordina, who had been sitting at its edge overlooking the kingdom, was leaping from the top of the building. Her movements were light, as though she weighed nothing.

TAP.

With one final leap from the rampart, she rose into the air, a sword in her hand. Beside Ladon, Viola was no more than a tiny speck, but the moment stars shone in the sky, that difference in size ceased to matter.

Six stars shone overhead.

At the sight of those shining stars, Merlin let out a brief “Ah.” Looking at them as though she had realized something, she said,

“The Star of Separation.”

Separation: breaking away from something.

“I was wondering which Constellation she was. So she's the Star of Separation?”

“Do you know her?”

“Not well. I've heard about her through other people. Her ability is very unusual.”

“What kind of ability?”

“You'll see. Her power does exactly what the word ‘separation’ means.”

CRASH.

With the sound of breaking glass, the sky shattered into pieces.

2.

The sky shattered like a pane of glass.

Before long, it returned to its original shape as though it had never broken... but Ladon and Viola did not return.

As though they had been separated from this world.

“You know that a transcendent being can suffuse their surroundings with their mental image, right?”

He did. When he sparred with Gerd, the Empire's foremost warrior, Najin had been caught within the mental image Gerd unfolded.

“The Star of Separation's ability takes that one step further. Most transcendent beings create a stage of their own while keeping one foot in reality. But she's different,” Merlin said.

“She doesn't need to keep a foot in reality. She doesn't need to build her stage in reality, either. She draws her target into her own world, a completely different space separated... or rather, isolated from this one.”

When Najin looked as though he did not quite understand, Merlin added,

“It's like the star's grave we're standing in now.”

Najin slowly nodded.

“Then what happens?”

“She'll fight Ladon in the world she created, won't she?”

“Alone?”

“I suppose so. She went in alone.”

Najin looked up at the sky.

Restored to its original shape, it was perfectly peaceful. Blue skies, warm sunshine. Ladon's appearance a moment earlier seemed no more than a passing storm cloud.

“Anyway, how about a drink today?”

“Sounds good. You're buying the food.”

“Fish for sale! Fresh fish! One copper coin...”

And the citizens seemed to regard it that way as well.

They did not even glance at the sky. Judging by their reactions, this did not seem to have been happening for just a day or two.

Najin smoothly lowered himself after watching the sky a little longer. Since there seemed to be no need to flee, he intended to set Merlin down.

“...”

“...”

“...?”

But even when he bent his knees, Merlin did not get off his back. Eventually, Najin turned his head to glance at her.

“What are you doing? Get down.”

“Huh? Oh, oh!”

Belatedly understanding what he meant, Merlin hastily climbed off his back. She fussed needlessly with her clothes and glanced at him.

“Um, Najin?”

“What is it?”

“N-no. Nothing.”

She looked as though she wanted to ask something, and Najin realized what it was. After spending nearly two years together, twenty-four hours a day, it was not difficult to guess what Merlin might be thinking.

“You're heavier than I expected, Merlin.”

At his muttered remark, Merlin's eyes widened. She kept opening and closing her mouth, apparently quite shocked. Feeling that teasing her any further would bring consequences he could not handle, Najin quickly added,

“I'm joking. You were light.”

“Y-you...”

Merlin gave his shin a few little kicks with the tip of her foot. They did not hurt at all. Leaving her to grumble, Najin glanced up at the sky.

It was roughly half a day later that Viola Ordina, the Star of Separation, appeared again.

She returned alone, but that did not mean she had slain Ladon. Leaving him imprisoned in the separated world, Viola came back by herself. Cheers and applause followed her without pause as she crossed the city toward the grand temple.

Glory to Ordina.

Praise to the hero of the Empire.

Despite the praise showered upon her, Viola remained expressionless. She returned to the grand temple looking exactly as she had before, as though nothing had happened.

“...”

Najin watched in silence.

And the same thing happened again and again.

One day, two days, three days, four...

Every day, at roughly the same time, bells ring throughout the Kingdom of Kassel. When they ring, cracks spread across the sky, and Ladon breaks through the pane of glass and appears. Then Viola Ordina imprisons him in another pane of glass and returns around three hours later.

It repeated. Again and again.

“How many times has it happened? Well, I couldn't say. It's been going on since before I was born.”

When Najin asked a middle-aged man who looked about forty, the man said it had been happening since before his birth. Only when Najin asked an elderly man did he learn how long this had been repeating.

“About sixty-seven years, I'd say,” the old man told him.

“The evil dragon Ladon appeared that day, and Lady Viola went out to face him. She succeeded in imprisoning him in her pane of glass, but she never managed to kill him. Dragons are immortal beings by nature, aren't they? Since she couldn't kill him, she sealed him away.”

That seal broke every day. Each time it did, Viola imprisoned Ladon in a new pane of glass.

“It's been sixty-seven years of that.”

Only then did Najin understand why the streets had remained so peaceful despite Ladon's appearance. To these people, it was simply part of everyday life.

Like the rising and setting of the sun, it had happened since before they were born and would continue until they closed their eyes for the last time.

It was difficult to feel surprised by an everyday occurrence each time it happened. They merely applauded and showered Viola with praise when she returned after driving Ladon back.

There was no sincerity in that applause or praise.

It was mechanical, nothing more than an obligation.

Like offering a prayer before a meal—not out of any great devotion, but simply out of habit, because it was something they had done for so long.

“...”

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

The bells ring. The sky breaks. Ladon appears, and Viola Ordina creates a new pane of glass.

With a gloomy face, an expression of being driven mad by the tedium of it all, she repeated her daily routine.

The old man said this had been repeating for sixty-seven years, but Najin knew that was not true. The Kingdom of Kassel had fallen 560 years ago. Even a simple calculation meant she had been repeating this for more than six hundred years, at the very least.

“This...” Najin murmured.

“This isn't a dream, is it? You said this was a star's grave. Wasn't it supposed to be something like shutting yourself inside your mental image, escaping reality, and spending your days in happiness?”

“I told you.”

Merlin smiled bitterly.

“Some Constellations dream happy dreams, while others imprison themselves in dreams to punish themselves.”

“Probably,” she said, “this Constellation is the latter.”

3.

Though he could leave at any time, Najin stayed in the dream for a while. Something bothered him, though he could not quite explain what it was. That unease made him consider how he might break this dream.

He mulled over Merlin's words.

Clearing a star's grave—a Constellation's dream—meant resolving the Constellation's lingering regrets. Najin had no way of knowing what Viola Ordina's regret was. All he could surmise was that it involved the dragon called Ladon.

“But you can't rush into meddling with it, can you?”

Najin nodded at Merlin's words. Chewing on some bread at the bakery where they had become regulars, Merlin said,

“That dragon, Ladon—he wasn't originally that large or powerful. Not that he was weak, but isn't this a bit much?”

The dragon that broke through the pane of glass every day.

Speaking of Ladon, Merlin said,

“Dragons are such simple, brute-force creatures. The bigger they are, the stronger they are, you see? Big means strong. And at that size...”

“Hmm,” Merlin murmured, resting her chin on her hand.

“With a little exaggeration, it would take my true form to stand a chance against him.”

“He's that powerful?”

“Yes. And as far as I remember, the Star of Separation isn't a Constellation on that level. Yet she's keeping Ladon trapped and repeating all this... which must mean something is wrong with the situation itself.”

Something was wrong. Merlin narrowed her eyes.

“That's probably why the grave is still here.”

Thinking about it, that made sense.

A star's grave offered stellar relics, and the stars buried within could be plundered as well. It was practically a treasure trove. It seemed unlikely that Constellations and the Lost would have left such a place alone.

Countless people must have attempted it.

But the grave was still here.

It had remained in this place for centuries, and for centuries the Constellation had dreamed the same unbroken dream over and over.

“They must have failed to break it.”

That also meant Viola Ordina's star's grave was by no means a trivial undertaking.

“Killing that dragon Ladon might give us some clue to breaking the dream, but that would take a great Constellation on my level.”

Merlin was giving Najin clues.

Something was wrong with this situation. The threads had become tangled. To untie the knot, he would have to approach it from another direction.

'I suppose there's also the option of cutting straight through the knot.'

But that was impossible for Najin.

As he pondered what to do, Najin happened to look up at the sky. Though it was broad daylight, it had grown dim, as if rain might fall at any moment. And sure enough, it began to pour.

SHHHHH.

A sudden shower fell. Pedestrians ducked into buildings to escape the downpour, and rainwater ran along the gaps between the bricks. The rain poured without stopping.

And the bells did not ring.

While the rain poured down, no bells rang, and Ladon did not appear.

PITTER-PATTER.

The sound of splashing raindrops. The sound of flowing rainwater. In the city whose noises the shower had buried, Najin suddenly heard something else. A very faint sound mingled with the rain.

The sound of an instrument.

As though entranced, Najin walked toward the source of the sound. He arrived at a small, shabby tavern. Instruments lay scattered about the dust-covered room, which seemed to have closed long ago.

A tavern full of dusty instruments and liquor bottles.

But there was one instrument untouched by dust, and a woman sat before it.

The woman seated on the piano bench had white hair. With her snow-white hair tied back in a single ponytail, she tapped lightly at the keys, as though warming up her fingers.

Soon, she began to play in earnest. Her slender fingers struck the keys with force. A powerful sound that even the rain could not drown out filled the tavern. Najin felt a little overwhelmed.

“...”

Najin listened to the performance as though bewitched.

Even to him, who knew nothing about music, the sound was beautiful. By the time the performance ended, he found himself applauding without realizing it.

At the sound of his applause, the woman at the piano turned to him.

“I see I have a guest.”

A woman who resembled Viola Ordina.

Yet her hair color and the air about her were entirely different. She smiled at Najin.