"Watch out."

Her right hand burned. Blood ran from it and down her sleeve.

Callis could barely breathe. The razor-sharp blade had pierced her hand and buried itself halfway into her neck. If her hand trembled even slightly, the blade would gouge that much farther into her flesh.

It was fortunate that Callis served in the magic branch. Her trained sensitivity to mana had alerted her to the ominous swelling of power flowing through her biometric terminal. She had been unable to cancel it, but she had managed to stop it in time.

Somehow, she also felt that someone's urgent warning had helped, but regardless.

Had she failed, the blade would have pierced straight through her neck.

Her palm held the blade at bay. Forcing strength into her right hand as it shook with pain, Callis pushed the blade away. Blood ran from the hole in her neck. Once she had pushed it far enough, the blade snapped.

CRACK.

Made to pierce a throat in a single stroke, the blade had sacrificed durability for sharpness. It was a failure as a weapon, but a tool for suicide hardly needed to be reusable.

Callis pulled the blade from her right hand. Her blood trickled down its glass-thin edge. More blood flowed from the wound in her neck, soaking the front of her uniform.

She had barely saved her life. Yet this was not even a reprieve from death.

Perhaps she had merely rejected her chance to die painlessly.

'From the beginning... I was disposable...'

Callis had been given the bundles. The escape bundle had been a large part of why she had felt safe volunteering for this mission. Even if danger arose, she could use it to flee.

But... the bundle she had believed was her only way out was, in truth, despair waiting at the end of hope to swallow her whole.

Her thoughts stopped.

The despair of betrayal, the loneliness of being left all alone, and the terror of approaching death.

Before her body could break, her spirit crumbled.

'Where did it all go wrong? What did I do wrong to...'

That question alone circled through Callis's mind.

Pushed to her limit, her consciousness fading... she heard someone whisper in her ear.

"Lieutenant Colonel Callis Kritz. This is quite a predicament. Your country suspects you, and your organization has abandoned you. Now you're even on the verge of losing your life."

The voice was full of tenderness, with an undercurrent of amusement. It almost sounded like an innocent child asking out of curiosity.

"Was Level 3 satisfying? How does Level 4 look to you? Was it worth pursuing at the cost of throwing all this away?"

"Ah..."

With her vision blurring, Lieutenant Colonel Callis recalled long-buried memories.

The story of a childhood in which she had been the heroine. The countless memories that had made her shine. Until her mother died of illness, until cold reality ate away at her fairy tale, she had been the center of the world.

Once reality came knocking at their home, she was pushed to the world's margins, but at least she remained the center of her father's world.

Whenever she returned home from secondary school for the weekend, her father would be waiting at the gate. On the rare occasions when he was nowhere in sight, she would lift the lid of the tin mailbox with practiced ease. There, waiting in his place, would be a letter in rounded handwriting on a sheet of stiff paper.

Then one day, that changed. Strangely, there was neither her father nor a letter. Instead, two officers in dress uniform stood rigidly at the gate, waiting for her.

They had come to notify her that he had been killed in action.

A house with a yard, an old but luxurious motor carriage, a gold-leafed sword, and special military armament.

Everything that held their memories became an inheritance. She was told that unless she acquired the right to inherit, the Military State would reclaim all of it.

Amid her grief and confusion, she understood only one thing.

To get it back, she had to reach Level 3. That was all.

What is lost becomes an obsession. Having lost everyone, one by one, until she was alone, she clung to that inheritance as her last lifeline.

Fortunately, she had talent. She graduated from secondary school with excellent marks and entered an advanced military academy. Somehow surviving the competition there, she became a Level 3 citizen and inherited what her father had left her.

Nothing could compare to the joy and relief she felt then.

But human greed has no end, and people are more afraid of having things taken away than they are eager to gain them.

The inheritance belonged to Callis, but she did not own it outright. She lacked the right to pass those possessions on as an inheritance. To obtain all the rights as well, she had no choice but to reach Level 4.

Greed and obsession. They drove Callis to make a dangerous choice. She joined hands with a secret society she had known only through rumors... the Lords of Creation.

Feigning loyalty to the Military State, joining the Lords of Creation and pretending to hate beasts and beastkin, Callis steadily climbed the ladder.

But everything she did stemmed from her obsession with what she had left.

Callis was an ordinary person.

One with no grand cause, no extraordinary loyalty.

"... I don't... want to die..."

She had never intended to die.

There was no goal she wished to achieve at the cost of her life.

She had simply thought she could do it. If a Level 0 convict laborer could survive, surely she, at Level 3, could too.

Perhaps survival itself might not have been difficult... but that was no longer true.

"Do you want to live?"

Callis nodded. She had to live. She was an ordinary person, after all.

The voice receded with a peal of laughter, like an echo ringing through the darkness.

"If your life is that precious to you, try pouring everything you have into protecting it. Use everything at your disposal, be prepared to throw away everything but your life, and do whatever it takes to stay alive. It won't be easy, though. Other people don't know your desperate circumstances, and they don't care."

Before leaving, the voice added one last remark.

"Except ordinary people like me, who are moved by little stories."

Callis raised her head. She hurriedly looked around, but the speaker was nowhere to be seen.

Had a ghost bewitched her? Confusion crossed her face, but the mystery hid itself away, as it always did.

Callis, too, forgot about the voice. That was not what mattered now.

To survive, she had to let go of everything.

Everything.

However pathetic and miserable it might be.

Death allowed her not a moment's respite. The Regressor climbed the stairs with measured footsteps and headed straight for Callis. Letting her bleeding right hand hang at her side, Callis faced her death.

Chilling killing intent pierced her body.

"Any last words?"

Let us retrace her steps. How had Callis stayed alive until now?

The answer was simple. She had done nothing.

In particular, before she interfered with the Beast King or the convict laborer, the residents had been uncomfortable with her, but had shown no hostility.

Which meant...

"... The Lords of Creation abandoned me."

These people knew about the Lords of Creation.

She did not know how a mere prisoner knew of the Military State's most secretive organization, but that did not matter.

What mattered was survival, and to survive, she would have to sell out the Lords of Creation too.

"What they gave me to escape with was a suicide packet."

She must not appeal to emotion. It would do her no good. Her opponent would have little interest in that, either.

Instead, calmly stating the facts, Callis deactivated her clothing packet.

As the clothing packet was recalled, the medals pinned to her chest fell to the floor. The medals she had once taken such pride in rolled away like pebbles kicked underfoot.

Now in just her shirt, she immediately dropped to her knees.

"Please... spare me."

She bowed her head to the floor.

This had clearly caught the Regressor's attention. Otherwise, she would not have bothered speaking.

"A Lord of Creation begging for her life? Just shut your mouth and die with dignity. Isn't that the human nobility you're always talking about?"

She was merely a lackey, and she was willing to reveal everything to save her life...

She was about to say that when she suddenly became certain her opponent would not care to hear it.

Instead, Callis brought up another subject.

"My 'patron' ordered me to bring back the King of Dogs. They said there would be no one capable of interfering, that it would be no different from bringing home a single obedient dog."

Information about the Lords of Creation was her only weapon.

Keeping her head bowed, Callis clearly and carefully divulged what she knew.

"But contrary to expectations, there were people who interfered. So I needed another method. I put a chain on the King of Dogs because I had been told that was how to control her."

It was fortunate she had bowed her head. A moment earlier, a tremendous slash had swept just above it.

At the last possible instant, Sky Cherry Blossom's trajectory had veered aside. The Regressor, who had intended to kill her in a single stroke, had changed her mind upon hearing that unexpected information.

"Ridiculous. There's no way you could control the King of Dogs with a mere chain. All you'll do is deepen her disappointment in humans... You don't even know what happens when dogs lose faith in humanity."

"Even Beast Kings each have a way they can be controlled. I was told the method for the King of Dogs before I came here."

"That's nonsense."

The Regressor scratched her head irritably, then spoke in a deeply disgruntled voice.

"Tch. Why does it sound true? If those lunatics would put a nose ring through the King of Bison... they might have come up with another method..."

She had piqued her interest. Earned a brief reprieve.

The hope of surviving lifted Callis's spirits. Now it was time to drive the point home.

In those few moments, her desperate thinking had produced a hypothesis. A secret that might prove more devastating to the Lords of Creation than anything else.

She would sell it.

"I'm disposable. Yet the Lords of Creation readily gave even me a World Tree leaf. Besides, they couldn't secretly operate an organization within the Military State without their flow of funds being detected. The Lords of Creation have another source of income, and it's probably..."

"Oh. I know about that. They're secretly growing World Trees."

Callis, who had intended to suggest no more than a connection with the guardians of the World Tree, closed her mouth in shock.

Privately cultivating World Trees? That was something that could turn the world upside down.

More importantly, just who was this person, casually revealing information that would shock the entire world?

That person casually brushed back her hair and asked,

"Well, whatever. More importantly, who's this patron?"

"... All communications are anonymous and conveyed through metaphors, so I don't know either."

"In other words, you don't know?"

"That's... correct. I presume they're at least two ranks above me. Because I came here to verify its safety before that 'patron' takes up a position as an Instructor at Tantalus... as litmus."

"An Instructor. A real Instructor."

The voice turned cold in an instant. Callis instinctively shrank back. Fortunately, this time the killing intent was not directed at her.

The Regressor spoke with weary disgust.

"Lackeys, lackeys, lackeys... Don't they ever get tired of it?"

Then silence fell. Kill her, or spare her? The scales swayed as the Regressor weighed her options.

Anxious moments passed. The air grew heavier as Callis awaited her sentence. She no longer even dared consider raising her head.

Then a right arm burst through the veil of silence.

"Haaah! Right arm!"

The right arm flew through the air and seized the window frame. The tin frame crumpled with a strange noise. The undying one's voice rang out after it.

"Pull me up!!"

The undying one's huge body flew toward his right arm, which was already hanging there. Smashing through the window, he rolled across the floor and shouted,

"I'm here!"

The undying one raised his head and looked to either side. Callis knelt on his right, while opposite her the Regressor toyed with an invisible sword, deep in thought. She was plainly wrestling with a decision.

"Haha! I thought I was a little late, but it seems you've changed your mind! Well done, boy!"

Laughing heartily, the undying one pushed his way between them.

"Yes! Those who die so easily should not die lightly. Flowers that bloom briefly are beautiful. Even if they bloom for only one season, their worth is no less enduring! Is it not the virtue of an evergreen to watch over them until their proper time to fall?"

A little inconvenience was added to the wavering scales.

The calculation was complete. Unwilling to bother continuing a fight against an undying one who would not stay dead, the Regressor put away Sky Cherry Blossom and folded her arms.

"... Keep your nose out of it. Do you think anyone will thank you for keeping something like this alive? Even God probably doesn't care if one person dies."

"I will! In admiration of your noble decision, boy, I shall overlook your cutting my body into seventeen pieces! Though to be precise, I have no way of holding you accountable! Hahaha!"

Rather than respond to his easygoing words, the Regressor left a stern warning concerning Callis.

"Keep a close eye on that thing yourself. If she tries anything... No, if I so much as see her walking around alone, I'll kill her, no questions asked."

"Of course! I'll stick right by her side."

And so Callis's death turned and walked away. Even after the footsteps had faded beyond hearing, she could not get up.

All strength left her body. Cold sweat drenched her shirt. Along with relief at surviving, the crushing knowledge that she could no longer go back washed over her.

"Gone? Is he gone? He's gone, right?"

After repeatedly glancing in the direction the Regressor had disappeared, the undying one let out a great sigh and spoke.

"Whew. What a violent brat! Nothing but brute strength, carving up my body as if it were nothing! If I weren't undying, he'd have killed me fifteen times over!"

"I..."

"No need to thank me! What are friends for? If you really feel indebted, just call it one rescue apiece!"

He was undoubtedly a good man. Without him, Callis would not have survived.

She ought to have been grateful, but she had lost far too much to have room for gratitude.

Callis murmured weakly.

"... I threw everything away to survive."

She had been suspended from duty. Callis would stand before a ruthless investigation team as they picked apart her every action. They might uncover faults even she did not remember.

She would be lucky if that was all. If the Lords of Creation discovered her betrayal, they would not stop at making her death look like suicide.

She might die miserably and painfully somewhere no one would ever see.

"My dignity, my status, my mission, my father's legacy, everything. I have... nothing left..."

In other words, Callis had now lost everything.

Everything she had struggled so desperately to build over the years.

"But you kept your life!"

The undying one patted Callis's shoulder encouragingly. Then, with a broad grin, he took a firm hold of her trembling body.

"Being alive right now is enough! Even if you've lost everything, can't you fill your life again in your own way? You're young, Lieutenant Colonel! You have plenty of time. You can fill it with things far more valuable than all the wealth you've amassed so far!"

"But..."

Callis's feeble voice was drowned out by the undying one's resounding words.

"Above all, you still have the most important legacy of all! The most beautiful legacy your father left behind is none other than you, Lieutenant Colonel!"

Callis could not answer. Instead, tears spilled from her eyes. She wept without even realizing it.

The Military State had neither blood nor tears. It was said that the officers of that harsh nation came to resemble it, drying up until not a single tear remained.

If so, Callis was no longer an officer. She still had both pulsing blood and burning tears.

One book had not yet ended.

Because it had not prepared for an ending, it had left blank space for more, and used everything it had held in reserve to keep writing its story.

Now, so long as no unforeseen accident struck, a story many times more beautiful than this would surely unfold.

So long as nothing happened.

The Regressor abruptly raised her head. Her indigo eyes flashed as she gazed up into the distant darkness above the bottomless pit.

'An intruder?'