* * *

Light drifted down through the air like snowflakes falling on a winter day, then vanished as though melting against Limon’s palm. He watched the fragments of starlight that had burst forth the moment he cut down the constellation occupying Bellows’s body.

‘So that’s what happens.’

By now, Limon was thoroughly accustomed to both cutting down constellations and absorbing their fragments. Yet he had a reason to look at these fragments anew.

‘Is this what becomes of a human who can’t digest a constellation’s power?’

He had vaguely suspected it ever since he felt that strange sense of something foreign within him after cutting down a constellation: the fragments of starlight were not simply a blessing. Mishandled, they could become a curse instead. That was why he had set everything else aside to focus on digesting the constellations’ power.

And now, after cutting down Ryu Gang-cheol, who had been consumed by a constellation, and Bellows, who had become wholly entangled with one, he understood it for certain. What he had seen was one possible fate awaiting him, too, if he indiscriminately absorbed the constellations’ power. That was why their power had always felt so alien to him.

‘Then again, it’s hardly surprising.’

It was obvious when he thought about it. Only characters in games grew stronger without fail each time they defeated an enemy. In the real world, the more one fought, the more one was wounded and weakened; one lost more than one gained. Power great enough to encompass divinity could hardly come without a price.

Players who gained items by killing monsters and grew stronger simply by leveling up might wonder why power should have a price.

‘Though it’s not as if players only ever gain power, either.’

After taking in the last speck of the starlight remnants, Limon slowly turned. He gazed at the blonde woman slumped on the floor with a gaping hole in her chest. After a brief silence, he spoke softly.

“That was a wonderful piece.”

Eugene said nothing. She merely flashed him a grin.

Limon frowned at the sight and beckoned. “Na-gyeong, come here a moment.”

[Huh? Why?]

Puzzled by the sudden summons, Yu Na-gyeong hopped over as told. Limon scooped her up without warning and slipped the ring off her ankle.

[Huh? Wait, Team Leader! That’s my item...!]

“Peep! Peep-peep!”

Apparently flustered at having her item snatched away, Na-gyeong fluttered her wings in protest as she chirped. Limon tossed her aside, took Eugene’s limp hand, and slipped the ring onto her finger.

[Quick on the uptake, partner.]

“I haven’t lived this long for nothing.”

Limon gave a small laugh at the telepathic voice that sounded in his head the instant he put the ring on her finger. Then he asked bluntly, “Was this it? The personal circumstances you told me about?”

[Partly.]

“Yes, I thought as much.”

Limon understood why Eugene had said she could not abandon her missions for the Liberation Brigade. Even with a hole in her chest and her heart torn out, she was still alive. Yet although her lips kept moving, she could not utter a single word.

“Were you born that way, or did it happen later?”

[Fortunately, later.]

“You call it fortunate that you can’t so much as speak, let alone sing, without borrowing a constellation’s power?”

[It taught me that money ruins soul.]

Eugene said it matter-of-factly.

If she had not loved singing since childhood; if a white orphan like her had not been able to make money simply by singing on the street; if greed for money had not driven her to resist in defense of a few measly coins, leaving her unable to sing ever again—then she would have gone her whole life without learning that money had no value, that it was nothing but poison that sullied the soul.

[Or that every reward has a price.]

Losing her voice had left her surviving by begging and pickpocketing until she finally risked her life by entering a dungeon. The Frenzied Immortal Giant had coveted her talent and offered to let her sing again, and she had agreed to its contract without a second thought. That had left her unable to keep her voice unless she obeyed the Liberation Brigade’s orders. And after slaughtering everyone responsible for taking her voice, she had gradually become a berserker who took pleasure in killing each time she used a skill.

Eugene blithely called it all a precious opportunity to learn—one she never could have had if she had been born unable to sing at all.

Limon spoke quietly.

“You sound as though you don’t regret any of it.”

[Huh? Why would I?]

“You spent your whole life as a constellation’s puppet and ended up like this. You still have no regrets?”

[No reason to.]

Eugene’s answer was unequivocal. Even if she could go back, she would make the same choices.

[At least I got to sing as much as I wanted.]

If she had not become one of the Liberation Brigade’s ghosts, she would ultimately have ended up selling her body in a back alley. She would have had no freedom to sing, or even to speak as she pleased—living quietly in a cage until she was devoured like livestock. Better the life she had lived, in which she had been free to sing.

She said it without a trace of hesitation. Limon asked softly, “I doubt the people you’ve killed for the sake of that song number just one or two.”

[That’s regrettable.]

“... I see.”

Limon understood. Eugene regretted the people she had killed, but that was all. If it meant she could sing again, she would gladly sacrifice hundreds or thousands more. In the end, she was Berserker: a crazed killer and one of the worst criminals.

“I can’t let you live after all.”

[Huh? Could I have lived if I’d answered right?]

“No. I’d have killed you anyway.”

[Now that’s a real shame.]

“You had no intention of living anyway. What’s so regrettable about it?”

[Hahaha, partner, you really do know me.]

“We are friends, after all.”

Eugene was only hanging on thanks to the last vestiges of her immortality. Now that the Frenzied Immortal Giant, the source of that power, was gone, her death was all but certain. And even if she could have survived like this, she would have refused. To Eugene, a life without song was worse than death.

That left one thing Limon could not understand.

“Let me ask you one last thing.”

[What?]

“Why did you help me? You’d have been better off if that bastard had won.”

Eugene cared about nothing but singing, so revenge could not have been why she helped him. Her only chance to sing again had been for Bellows to win and return her constellation to her. Why had she helped Limon and thrown that hope away?

Her answer was simple.

[Because you’re my partner.]

“Just for that?”

[Not just that. I can’t live without you anymore, partner.]

Eugene chuckled. She had always been a free spirit, content to sing alone. But after meeting Limon and discovering the happiness of singing to his playing, her own songs could no longer satisfy her. Her soul had already been tamed by him. She had wanted to help him even if it meant giving up not only her life but the singing she treasured more than life.

Her ruin had been sealed the moment she met Limon and accepted his request to lend him her song.

[So, partner, can I ask one favor in payment for my song?]

“What is it?”

[Play for me. Just one last time. Not something fake tailored to my song—a real performance with your soul in it.]

She wanted to know whether Limon’s music, which she had given up everything to save, had truly been worth it. Faced with her brazen demand, Limon asked uneasily, “What makes you think I’ll do that?”

[You will.]

“... Where does that confidence come from?”

[You promised me, remember? Next time we met, you’d stay with me until I died.]

“I didn’t say until you died. I said all night.”

[A promise is a promise, isn’t it?]

Was Limon the sort of man to go back on his word? Eugene pressed the question shamelessly, then grinned at his frown.

[Besides, if you grant my request, I’ll tell you something good.]

“Something good?”

[Yeah. The Liberation Brigade’s most important goal. It’s something you really need to know, partner.]

Eugene spoke with confidence. The Liberation Brigade was an organization shrouded in mystery; he would never get another chance to learn its most crucial secret for the price of a single performance.

“Are you serious?”

[I swear on my soul.]

“What good is a soul you couldn’t sell as collateral?”

Limon gazed for a moment at Eugene, who gave him a jaunty wink despite the hole in her chest. Then he sighed and picked up the Violin of Deepest Black, which lay alone where Bellows’s corpse had dissolved into motes of light.

“I’ll warn you now. I can’t promise you’ll be satisfied.”

[That’s okay. It only needs your soul in it, partner.]

“I’m saying this because I don’t know what you mean by ‘soul.’”

Still grumbling, Limon took up the violin and bow and settled into position. He closed his eyes, forcibly holding back his body as the curse tried to make it play on its own.

He still did not know what Eugene meant by the soul she kept talking about. But he could guess. It was what made her singing reach into his heart—and what kept his own playing from improving.

‘Julia said my playing would improve if I loved music.’

As the Witch of the Violin had pointed out, Limon did not particularly enjoy playing. He had started learning the violin only as a means of dissolving the constellations’ power. He had even said he did not play because he liked it.

‘But is that really true?’

He questioned himself. Could he not come to love something simply because he had first taken it up as a means to an end? Could something he did not like upset or move him? Had he sought out Eugene whenever he had time simply because he had so much time to spare?

‘All right. I admit it.’

Looking at himself honestly, Limon had no choice but to admit it.

‘I enjoyed playing with you.’

He might not be willing to devote everything to music as Eugene did, but he had grown to love playing. It had crept up on him like clothes growing damp in a fine drizzle—or like following a friend into the Sword Tower. Spending time with a lunatic who would stake her life on singing had taught him to enjoy music, too.

Yet despite what Julia had said, his playing had not improved, and there was only one reason: he had not wanted it to. Deep down, he had known that to take his technically polished playing further, he would have to put his true feelings into it.

‘Being honest is difficult.’

A fresh-faced young person might manage it, but a cunning old man found it hard to reveal his heart. The longer one lived and the more one experienced, the more one learned of one’s own ugliness—and the better one became at hiding what lay within.

And Limon was a swordsman who had lived for centuries. Having spent most of his life drenched in blood, pouring all those old memories and feelings into his music would be not merely difficult but painful. Especially when he could not even imagine how dreadful music imbued with his feelings might sound. It would be like publishing his childhood diary as an autobiography and exposing everything inside it.

‘What a damned thing to do.’

Even so, Limon did not put down the violin. To hear the Liberation Brigade’s secret? To repay her for helping him? None of that mattered. Whatever her circumstances, Eugene was a deranged killer who had committed countless crimes. She had no right to bargain and no claim to a reward.

But as a friend with whom he had shared a bond, and as a fellow musician, Limon decided to endure the pain this once.

He made up his mind, opened the door to his long-closed heart, and drew the bow across the strings.

SCREEEE

The stars stirred, and the world held its breath.