I read wishes on the wind.

As I quietly read someone's mind with my drifting mind reading, their wishes linger within me, then disappear, leaving only an echo. Most wishes merely pass through that way.

Sometimes, though, a wish swirls violently inside me before flowing out through the window.

Whether wicked, dangerous, or presumptuous, an earnest wish cannot be ignored, however much I might want to. Such is a mind reader's fate.

I cannot help it. I read thoughts, after all.

When the wind turns a page, words scratch across the blank space beneath it. They seem disordered at first glance, but watching them carry on, tenuously connected, always leaves me humbled.

When a beautiful epic lies before my eyes, more closely knit than bricks stacked one atop another, more intricate than interlocking gears, complete as a whole yet bearing some small meaning in every letter...

It is only natural to look forward to what will fill its blank spaces.

And always, it was the sentences that wanted to continue, the books that looked beyond the final period, that shone all the brighter.

A book that searches for the finest final period, intent on ending, on reaching its conclusion, paradoxically prepares only the worst of endings.

For no life in this world is perfect, and feigning perfection leaves it riddled with lies and contradictions.

That is why I dislike transparent lies. All the more so when they deceive even the liar.

A commotion came from outside. It was the sound of the Regressor fighting Nabi, who had suddenly burst onto the scene.

They must have been fighting quite close by, because I could clearly hear the Regressor's flustered voice.

"You little...! You had mana herbs clutched in your severed right hand...!"

Lieutenant General Ebon had charged at the Regressor, pretending to be consumed by madness. Instead of attacking, he had simply sacrificed his right arm. The Regressor's counterattack had sliced it off with ease, sending it flying.

While she was taken aback, he had fled at tremendous speed. As she belatedly gave chase, his severed right hand had opened in front of her.

There had been mana herbs in its grasp. Embers clung to them, and thick, acrid smoke billowed from them as they scattered over the Regressor.

At the same time, the fleeing lieutenant general had exhaled the mana-herb smoke filling his mouth. Paper-wrapped mana herbs might have been another matter, but the intensely fragrant smoke from burning them was more than enough to provoke Nabi.

Reduced to pure instinct, Nabi had followed the scent out and encountered the Regressor.

The two had flowed straight into battle.

From pretending he intended to keep fighting—even exposing the shameful secret that he was beastkin—to lure his opponent into lowering her guard, to deliberately trapping the mana herbs in his mouth and igniting them despite the pain, when he could simply have smoked them...

It was a thriller meticulously plotted from its very foundations.

Had all this been an effort to live, I would have given it a standing ovation.

But.

If it was all the flailing of someone trying to deceive himself, if what I was reading was merely the self-consolation of someone racing toward a false goal...

The more fiercely he had built it up, the more its pointlessness drained me.

"The King of Cats is here! Stop him from doing anything!"

The Regressor's shout reached us from afar, but he had already done something.

And he was about to do more.

The claw weapon that had pierced Callis's abdomen from back to front silently dripped blood.

"The King of Dogs... does not unleash a chest-voice roar. Because the wolves took all the chest-voice roars for themselves."

Lieutenant General Ebon released his claw weapon. In his hand was a chain—the one Callis had thrown off.

He was cat beastkin, and he knew how to creep up on prey. Distracted by the undying one's arrival, Callis had failed to notice his approach. Even if she had noticed, however, the outcome would not have changed.

Her opponent was a star of the Military State, after all. Even a lieutenant colonel stood far beneath him.

Ebon wound the chain around the claw weapon's handle and secured it tightly. The claw was the anchor, the chain its rope.

Having gouged through Callis with it, Ebon murmured ominously.

"But there are times when even the King of Dogs unleashes a chest-voice roar. Not when her own life is in danger. No... it is when she kills a person. When a human life is lost as a result of the King of Dogs' actions, she unleashes a chest-voice roar."

Ebon's gaze followed the chain. Azi was at its other end.

It was still fastened to her forepaw. Callis had freed her own neck, but Azi, busy fighting Nabi, had had no time to do the same.

"Even if it is against her will..."

Because it was not that dogs did not kill humans. Rather, not killing humans was what made them dogs.

If she killed a person—if humans made the King of Dogs kill a human—the ancient promise between dogs and humans would waver, blurring the boundary between wolf and dog.

That was why Azi could not intervene even when humans killed other humans. No one could be allowed to die as a result of her actions.

She would close her eyes, cover her ears, and hide away in a corner.

"Attacking his own ally? What is he trying to...? Hugh?"

While Tyr stared in horror, unable to keep up with the sudden turn of events, Ebon lunged at Azi. Azi bore humans nothing but goodwill. He approached her unresisting form, extended his sharp nails, and seized her hair.

Then Lieutenant General Ebon broke into a run.

"Yelp! Woof, woof!"

Azi's eyes widened as he dragged her away by the hair.

Not because it hurt. Because she understood what this would cause.

At the other end of the chain attached to her forepaw was the claw weapon embedded in Callis's body. If Azi was dragged any farther, the chain would pull taut, and the weapon's hooked blades would tear out Callis's muscles and organs.

The wound was already fatal. If it was pulled out as well... Callis would die instantly.

Even if it was not by Azi's own strength, a human would die because of her.

Since Azi would not have killed a human entirely by her own strength, the foundations of the promise would remain intact. But even a rampage fueled by a chest-voice roar would be dangerous now. We were isolated in the bottomless pit.

If she broke the ground beneath us, we would all fall.

"Woof! Woof, woof, woof! Let go! Arf!"

Azi struggled desperately. Even as she was dragged along, she extended her claws and scraped at the floor and walls, fighting with all she had.

But Azi herself did not weigh very much, and the lieutenant general was a formidable practitioner of energy arts in his own right. Above all, the concrete walls and floor were too weak to withstand that force in full.

There was only one way to break free, but...

"Go wild, King of Dogs! But even with your strength, you will have to kill me to stop me! That would suit me just as well!"

"Whiiine...!"

That was even more impossible.

About fifteen meters remained until death. Azi dug her claws into the floor and desperately held on, but she was buying mere seconds at best.

At this rate, Callis would die and Azi would go berserk. Even if she did not try to kill any humans, we would have to subdue her to preserve the ground beneath us.

It was extraordinary tenacity, with malice pouring from it in chilling waves.

No one but me had read his scheme. Who could have imagined it? Using his own life as a hostage to shackle someone else to death.

But I had read it.

And the moment I did, I ran.

Callis was dying, and would soon be dead. The moment this chain reached its limit.

The instant the claw weapon pierced her abdomen, she had sensed her death.

'I wanted... to live. I suppose that was too much to ask. I've made so many wrong choices, after all. And I was too late.'

This was the ending she had reached after all her struggles. What Callis felt at its end was relief.

She had done everything she could, using what little strength she had to achieve at least something small. She regretted not having done it sooner, but that was a minor regret everyone felt.

'... I hate beasts. Even before Father died, I hated them. Filthy, unclean things. Things that live easy lives without making any effort at all. Even though... we all die just the same...'

As a member of the Lords of Creation, she knew about the King of Dogs. Even through her fading consciousness, she roughly understood what Ebon intended.

And that she would be the sacrifice that sent the King of Dogs berserk.

'... Even if I die, I won't let some dog kill me.'

Callis reached behind her with a trembling hand and grasped the claw weapon's handle. Then she tried to pull it out.

In the distance, she could see Rash running toward her. Callis was glad she could see him in her final moments.

For someone who had made so many mistakes, this would probably be her last chance to do something noble before she died...

"I prefer this story. Even when both sides are desperate, if one side's willingness to die is built on a childish lie... it feels rather hollow."

I am the one who listens to wishes.

To those who wish for an ending, a perfect conclusion.

To those who wish to continue, blank space in which to write more.

The impossible remains impossible.

But what is possible, I make possible.

'That convict laborer! When did he get over there?!'

I heard Lieutenant General Ebon's thoughts. When? I had been running ever since I read your mind. While you weren't paying attention to me.

Standing behind Callis, I curled and extended my fingers one after another, then brought them to the knot in the chain.

An escape act really did need an assistant.

"Just hold on! I'll undo it for you! I used to pick my share of locks, you know!"

With that confident declaration, I tugged at the chain's knot.

CLANK, CLANK.

The chain rattled uselessly. Nothing came from the knot but the clink of metal. After fiddling with it for a while, I let out a bewildered cry.

"Huh? Huh? Wh-why won't this come undone? That's strange!"

'Idiot! That knot was made by forcibly twisting Level 4 alchemical-steel chain. Do you think you can undo it so quickly?!'

Mocking me, Lieutenant General Ebon reached the chain's full length. Azi's claws carved long grooves in the concrete, and the slack chain began to draw taut.

'Now I need only pull the King of Dogs! The lieutenant colonel will die because of her!'

"Ah! Th-this thing! Wait! This should work!"

CLANK, CLANK.

The metallic clinking continued, as though something would not quite fit. Certain of success, the lieutenant general tensed his entire body.

'All of you, sink to the bottom of the pit! Until I return to collect your corpses!'

He yanked Azi's hair, and she was just about to let out an agonized scream.

The chain snapped taut. The lieutenant general's force passed straight through Azi, traveled along the chain, and reached the claw weapon's handle.

Which slid clean off.

That is, only the handle. Not the blades.

TING, TING.

The handle tied to the chain bounced uselessly across the floor.

There was no sound of flesh being ripped open. No agonized scream. The claw blades remained embedded in Callis's abdomen, stemming the blood leaking from her wound.

Only the claw weapon's “handle,” still tied to the chain, rolled across the concrete floor.

In that instant, everyone's predictions fell apart. Unable to comprehend what had happened, their minds went blank.

Yes, this was it.

I loved this silence, this pristine blank that followed the end of a magic trick. Unable to contain my surging delight, I spread both hands and cried out.

"Sur-priiise! Ta-da! Escape successful!"