The human mind is not infinite.

The world had permitted the human body to transcend, but it had not allowed the mind to do the same.

Countless philosophers call this a blessing. To agonize, hesitate, wander, and ultimately gain enlightenment and grow—this, they proclaim, is a privilege unique to humanity. But not every human can attain enlightenment.

Some wander only to lose their way.

Unable to trust themselves, they lose themselves.

"Ah, aah, aaaaah..."

Here stands a transcendent being.

A transcendent being who never wished to become one. Viola Ordina. Her body had reached transcendence, but her mind never had.

Because none of this was what she had wanted.

She was merely an unassuming human who loved letting others hear her play, who would have lived contentedly so long as she could play the piano.

「You have talent.」

「Your name is no longer ■■■■.」

「From today onward, you will live under the Ordina name as ‘Viola.’」

「Viola Ordina. That is your name.」

But she had talent. Talent enough to reach transcendence if she took up a sword and trained. So immense was that talent that she attained transcendence despite never wishing for it.

She clenched her grip.

With fingers meant to strike piano keys, she held a sword. With ears meant to listen to the piano's melodies, she heard screams and groans. She swung her sword without end.

"Aah..."

She fights Ladon, who has invaded the kingdom.

Every day, she fought Ladon in an isolated space beyond anyone's sight. To keep him imprisoned there, she had to wound him and drain his strength.

But dragons are immortal. No matter how many wounds she inflicted, after a single night Ladon would recover and burst out through the glass.

"Ah..."

And Viola, by contrast?

She was not immortal. She healed slowly, and her injuries only accumulated. Ladon began to corrupt her body and mind. Slowly, but surely.

One year, ten years, fifty years, sixty-seven years.

One day, after sixty-seven years had passed, Viola Ordina looked at her hands.

"..."

Her blackened fingers no longer moved as she willed them to. She could no longer strike the keys. In that moment, Viola Ordina broke.

CRASH!

Glass shattered.

Viola Ordina laughed. A strange laugh, like nails scraping glass, echoed throughout the Kingdom of Kassel. Cracks spreading outward from her began to swallow the kingdom.

CRASH!

People, buildings, the earth, the sky—all began to split apart. She destroyed everything she had protected for sixty-seven years. The Star of Separation separated herself from herself. All that remained was a body, an empty shell.

The one who claimed that body was a dragon that had slowly eaten away at her over long years.

Ladon laughed.

"So this..."

Someone was watching.

"This is what happened."

Najin watched the Kingdom of Kassel shatter into pieces. He and Merlin stood in the only place the cracks had not reached: the spot where the gravestone stood.

Standing there, he watched.

Was this what it meant that Ladon had destroyed the kingdom? Najin fell silent at the sight of Viola, consumed by Ladon, tearing the kingdom apart.

For the first time, Najin witnessed a Constellation go mad. A transcendent being fall into corruption and become something else. This was different in nature from a fallen star. Viola Ordina's star still hung in the sky, but the essence that composed it was changing.

A defiant star.

The name the Helmeted Knight had once told him for a star that had become corrupted. Najin looked up at the sky. Viola Ordina's star turned upside down and blackened.

Then—

CRASH!

Everything except the area around the gravestone shattered. Amid the shattered ruins, Viola Ordina laughed. Najin could not tell how long that laughter lasted.

He only heard.

"Again."

Before she became a defiant star completely, before Ladon swallowed her whole, he heard the final murmur she forced out.

"Again, from the beginning."

Da capo, she murmured.

Da capo.

A repeat instruction meaning to return to the beginning and play again. It was not applause that awaited her at the end of her performance. All that awaited her was an instruction to return to the beginning and play again.

And then.

Time rewound.

2.

When he closed his eyes and opened them again, everything was back as it had been.

The sky was blue. Warm sunlight shone down. People passed along the streets, never doubting that their everyday lives would continue forever.

"Did you see the new fish at the market today?"

"Bloody huge, and bloody expensive. Eating a fish that expensive in a single meal? I couldn't even dream of it."

"Fresh bread! Warm bread, straight from the oven! One copper coin apiece!"

"Hey, wasn't it two yesterday?"

"Flour's gone up. Can't be helped."

"Hah, I suppose flour prices have doubled at your shop alone?"

A conversation he had heard before.

Standing in the middle of the street amid the passing citizens, Najin silently surveyed his surroundings. He stood in precisely the same place where he had first entered the Constellation's dream.

"We're back. At the beginning."

"So we are."

Najin's voice was strained.

The scene he had just witnessed had been too shocking. He let out a long breath and pressed firmly at the corners of his eyes.

"These Constellation dreams..."

"Yes, most are like this," Merlin said. "Some Constellations repeat one day for eternity. Some repeat a particular stretch of time, and others repeat their entire lives. They've given up on moving forward, so they repeat their stories."

A place for those who had given up on moving forward.

A place where everything repeated without end.

Najin raised his head toward the grand temple. There stood Viola Ordina, looking their way with exactly the same expression and the same eyes as when he had first seen her.

Soon, she turned her gaze away.

But Najin did not. Still staring at Viola Ordina's profile, he murmured,

"It's hell."

"In some cases, yes."

Merlin had told him that some Constellations imprisoned themselves in their dreams to punish themselves. And that Viola Ordina was probably one of them.

She was repeating her final month.

For 560 years, she had been repeating the final month in which she lost herself and was consumed by Ladon. As though this were her punishment for herself.

'In a dream, she can return to the beginning.'

In reality, she would not have been able to.

In that case, it was not difficult to guess how this kingdom called Kassel had met its end.

'They entrusted everything to one transcendent being, but that being's corruption destroyed the nation.'

The Kingdom of Kassel had been destroyed by Viola Ordina after Ladon consumed her. Driven to despair by that fact, what choice had Viola made in the end? In a reality where she could not start over from the beginning, her choice had probably been...

"So that's how a star's grave came to be."

She must have chosen to be buried in this land together with Ladon, who had claimed her body. She would have chosen to torment herself within an eternal dream. So this was not merely Viola Ordina's grave.

It was Viola's grave, and Ladon's as well.

"So?"

Merlin looked at Najin.

"What will you do now?"

She merely asked the question.

"You have no particular reason to break this dream. Breaking it won't be easy, and neither will finding a way to do it. Your life might even be in danger."

"..."

"And if you ask whether there's much to gain from it, not particularly. A stellar relic is certainly nice. But you can get by just fine without one, can't you? There's little to gain for all the effort you'd put in. If a stellar relic is your goal, you'd be better off searching another Constellation's grave."

His stated purpose of experiencing a Constellation's grave and dream had already been fulfilled. This should have given him ample experience. Najin no longer had a reason to remain in this dream.

"Even so..."

That was why Merlin asked,

"Will you try?"

A guide only points the way; she does not make the choice. The decision belonged entirely to Najin. Merlin's clear eyes stared straight at him.

"..."

Before answering, Najin looked behind him. There stood the gravestone that served as the entrance to this dream. He read the words inscribed on it.

'Who am I?'

No answer to that question was written there. No one had answered Viola Ordina's question. Looking at the gravestone, Najin gave a small chuckle.

"You already know the answer."

Najin turned his back on the gravestone and walked. Heading in the opposite direction from the way out of the dream, he said,

"Who am I?"

"Haa..."

Merlin heaved a series of sighs. Her eyes asked whether she really had to say it, but Najin asked her again, "Who am I?"

"Yes, the youngest Sword Seeker, the youngest to earn four stars, and the youngest free knight. I'm truly sick of hearing it. Why?"

"That's right. I'm a free knight."

A free knight.

Upholding what he himself believed was right.

A knight who protected knights.

"It's written on that gravestone, isn't it?"

「Viola Ordina, hero of the Kingdom of Kassel.」

「Who defended her country from an evil dragon.」

「A knight who fought valiantly to the very end.」

"She's a knight, isn't she? And to my eyes, there's something wrong with this dream. I don't much like the expression on that Constellation Viola Ordina's face, either."

"So?"

"So I'm going to smash it."

"How?"

"That's what I'll have to find out."

Najin gathered information as he roamed the streets. New information accumulated on top of what he had learned before time rewound.

"Are you Mirentz?"

Najin sought out the old woman named Mirentz.

The old woman whose shoulders Viola had gripped as she begged her in those final moments. She was Viola Ordina's younger sister, and the only human who knew Viola before her adoption into the Ordina family.

He listened to her story. Gathered information.

And collected what he needed.

"Merlin?"

There was one last thing he needed, and he did not have to look far for it. Najin glanced at Merlin.

"You're a great mage, aren't you, Merlin? The first to uncover Mystery, the first to reach the Ten Circles, and the bearer of no fewer than eleven stars. A truly great mage."

Merlin's ears perked up as she chewed her bread. Her eyebrows curved upward.

"Keep going. I like the sound of this."

"Making it rain would be child's play for such a great mage, wouldn't it?"

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to control the weather and produce natural phenomena? It's practically taboo for mages. It's truly difficult."

"So it's impossible?"

"Impossible. Normally. But who am I?"

Merlin curled the corners of her mouth upward.

"An archmage who makes the impossible possible. As you said, a truly great mage, aren't I?"

Grinning, she rose to her feet, her expression utterly confident.

3.

Merlin reached toward the sky.

Just as a swordsman needed a sword, a mage normally needed a medium such as a staff or an artifact. Not Merlin. She called being constrained by a medium "third-rate," and she had always considered herself first-rate.

Merlin's lips moved.

Her fingertips moved.

Each time her fingertips advanced a handspan, a circle appeared. Each time her lips uttered a syllable, a ring formed.

CLATTER!

In an instant, six rings appeared at her fingertips. Six rings, rotating in resonance. But Merlin did not seem inclined to settle for that. Reduced to a level similar to Najin's, she could wield no more than six circles, but she did not stop there.

"Let me borrow these for a moment."

She gestured. Najin's four stars glittered, then flowed into her fingertips. With that starlight, Merlin forged circles. Two platinum rings hung at her fingertips.

Two platinum rings joined the six blue ones, completing a set of eight.

The Eighth Circle, the hallmark of an archmage.

With a body that had not even approached transcendence, let alone attained it, Merlin imitated transcendence with astonishing ease. Had a mage been present to witness what she had done, they would surely have screamed. Even if that mage were a transcendent being, their reaction would not have been much different.

For this violated the fundamentals, the rules, and the natural laws of magic.

Merlin did not bother explaining just how absurd her feat was, or how astonishing.

She simply showed him.

SNAP!

Merlin snapped her fingers. Eight circles resonated. Blue mana shimmered, rippled, and surged toward the sky. The instant the droplet she sent upward touched the heavens, a ripple spread through the blue sky.

For a moment, the sky rippled like a still lake into which a stone had been tossed.

SHHHHHHHH!

Rain began to pour.

Skipping the entire sequence of water vapor gathering to form dark clouds and rain then falling from those clouds, Merlin produced only the result: rain falling.

It poured with such force that it threatened to swallow the kingdom.

The rushing rain erased every other sound. The bells that should have rung around this time were erased by the sound of Merlin's rain and did not ring.

"Well?"

Standing in the downpour, Merlin turned toward Najin. Sweeping back her rain-soaked, drooping hair, she grinned.

"Do I look a little more magnificent now?"