Not long after, the local police of Saint-Rémont entered the cathedral with surgical caution, only to be met with a scene that froze them mid-step.
The sight was ghastly. A lake of blood, pooled from the monks' bodies, soaked the stones and filled the air with a stench so foul it seemed to seep into the officers' clothes. Strangely, the corpses looked as though they had been decomposing for well over two days.
In truth, less than ten hours had passed — a detail that unsettled the officers far more than the blood itself.
A closer inspection revealed that the pale, gaunt body among the dead was still breathing, though badly wounded across its limbs. The fingers bore only shallow cuts, but the stomach was on the verge of failing entirely, and the boy's ragged breathing sent the officers scrambling to lift him onto a stretcher.
Outside, a crowd had gathered at the cathedral doors, watching the scene unfold with anxious eyes. Among them, a young woman in a green dress grew frantic the moment she caught sight of the body.
"Brother! Brother!"
She pushed through the crowd, but an officer stepped in front of her before she could go further.
"Ma'am, you can't go in there. It's restricted."
"But officer, that's my brother!" Her voice cracked, shrill with panic, and the smell of blood in the air only sharpened her distress. Seeing him laid out on the stretcher, wounded, left her with nothing but fear.
A tightness bloomed in her chest, and a few tears slipped free, dragging streaks of her makeup with them. Her whole body trembled without pause. The scene was harrowing enough that she looked ready to collapse at any moment.
Something in the officer softened at the sight of her. He rested a hand on her shoulder and met her eyes.
"Don't worry. He's stable. That's all the information we have for now."
She cried a little longer before steadying herself enough to answer, voice thin. "Thank you."
The ambulance carried him to the nearest medical center, where he was examined and, a few days later, released into the care of his sister, Helena Quinn, who brought him home.
For those first days, Alphard remained unconscious. The doctors prescribed medication to dull the pain and ease his movement. According to them, the wound hadn't gone as deep as first feared — it had spared the organs — but it had cost him a great deal of blood all the same.
Then, on an unremarkable day, Alphard woke. Disoriented by the unfamiliar weight of his own body, he couldn't help but groan at the headache pounding behind his eyes.
"Where am I?" he murmured, lying in a bed far too soft, far too large for one person — and impossibly comfortable.
The light stung his eyes, and he blinked several times before his vision sharpened. He could hardly believe what he was seeing.
Was it all a dream?
The thought vanished the instant he failed to recognize the ceiling above him. Uncertainty crept in — the way he had arrived in this world had been nothing short of traumatic. Still, the fact that he was alive was something Alphard found himself grateful for, even as the fear of stepping outside this room gnawed at him.
Then, all at once, he felt watched — as though some presence had settled at his side.
He turned his head and found a girl sitting there. He didn't flinch. If anything, a strange, unplaceable calm moved through him as he wondered who she might be.
"Alphard?" the girl said, her expression heavy with sorrow.
What do I do now? Is this some kind of nightmare? And if she's someone close to him... I could die if I get this wrong.
Kenji felt a cold sweat break out across his skin. In that moment he could think of nothing except the danger closing in around him — the warmth he'd felt only a breath ago now struck him as a kind of trap. And yet his instincts, sharp as they should have been, weren't fully awake to the threat.
Her expression stayed faintly cold, her gaze sharp and unrelenting, and Alphard's silence only seemed to unsettle her further — which, in turn, unsettled him more.
Whump!
Without warning, warm arms wrapped around him, hands finding their way to his back and pulling a shiver up through his skin. Helena's fragile hands carried an almost invasive warmth. This isn't my sister. His arms locked in place, caught between the impulse to return the embrace and the urge to pull away.
Why is she hugging me?
I need to think about how to react. If she's hugging me like this, it means I'm in someone else's body.
How am I supposed to respond to this?
Alphard sat stunned by the conclusion he'd just reached. He hadn't yet seen his reflection, and some part of him had assumed Kenji's face — and body — might have vanished along with everything else.
He gave her a few awkward pats on the back, which made her pull away slightly, brow furrowed, though she kept a measure of calm in her expression.
"...What was that, brother?"
Brother? What do I do now? I've made a mistake.
How did Alphard usually hug his sister? Were they close? Distant?
While she waited for an answer, Kenji seized on a way out.
"I've got a bit of pain in my chest, so I can't move much, sister."
Helena studied him a moment longer before understanding settled over her features. Her brother had been through something dangerous; naturally his body would be weaker than usual.
"You're right. The doctor told me it wasn't as serious as it looked, but... I suppose that's fine."
"Thank you."
"But—"
She paused, and her expression shifted, gradually, from something emotional into something colder. Almost as if she were decoding him.
"I want you to tell me something, Alphard. Do you remember anything about what happened? And more importantly — do you know how those monks died?"
Alphard kept his face calm, though terror churned beneath it. All he wanted was to go home and convince himself the whole thing had been a dream.
For a moment he tried to search his mind for something — an anomaly, an answer, anything — but all that surfaced was the red moon, the monks, the smell, the cathedral.
His breathing grew shallow as he tried, uselessly, to reach into Alphard's memories.
Lowering his gaze as if in frustration, he said, "No," and gripped the white sheets tightly, fighting to hold himself together.
Sunlight fell across his face, harsh and unforgiving — the kind of light that, at any moment, might expose a lie for exactly what it was.
Alphard found himself caught in a situation he could never have imagined, let alone prepared for.
Looking more carefully around the room, he took in the pale wallpaper patterned with intricate floral designs, the sort that called to mind an era he recognized from his own world. Nearby stood a small dark-oak table, and on it, a gas lamp and a notebook that looked more like a diary.
"Everything's... the same," he said, letting out a breath.
His sister glanced around the room too, and let out a small, quiet laugh.
"I understand you're not well, Alphard, but the police and the doctors only agreed to let me take you home if you cooperate with them."
The tension in the room eased, though something faintly heavy — almost mournful — lingered in its place.
"Give me some time, sister. I've forgotten some things. Forgive me."
"Don't worry, brother. It'll all be fine. For now, just rest. Do you want something to eat?"
"Not right now. Thank you."
"All right."
Helena rose from her chair to leave, and a brief pang of loneliness settled over Alphard at the thought of her going.
The deep click of her heels echoed as she moved further and further from the room.
The moment she left, a weight he hadn't realized he was carrying suddenly lifted. Dealing with a stranger's sister was no simple thing — if anything, it was worse than that. He didn't even know who Alphard was.
His mind twisted itself over and over, grasping for some memory, some fragment, anything at all.
As he sat with the thought, a new unease crept in.
That diary beside him might hold Alphard's private thoughts.
For a moment he wondered if it belonged to Helena instead, but the idea slipped away almost as quickly as it had come.
Should I read it?
Wouldn't it be wrong to go through someone else's private things? This is harder than it looks.
A deep curiosity pulled at him, but the thought of what that diary might contain made him hesitate all the same.
With the wound in his stomach fresh in his mind, he began to wonder if Kenji — no, if Alphard — had belonged to some gang, or worse, had been marked for death by someone with real power.
He spent a few minutes simply taking in the room again, though now with a calmer sense of being, alone at last.
Setting the thought aside, he reached out and took the diary in his hands.
The cover was worn, as if it had been carried for years. The edges had nearly cracked apart, its once-burgundy color faded almost to nothing, and the pages had yellowed, marked here and there with small stains.
Apparently, Alphard wasn't very good at taking care of his things.
He tried reading a few random pages, understanding little at first — until, gradually, key words began to surface, and piece by piece, he found he could follow all of it.
The handwriting isn't great, but... why can I understand this?
I suppose it's the same as the language. Feels like it just comes bundled with the transmigration.
Reading more closely, much of the context still eluded him, though the earliest pages confirmed clearly enough that the diary belonged to Alphard.
He didn't understand what one particular line meant, but it stopped him cold all the same.
"My misery is salvation, as sustenance is to hunger."
What is that supposed to mean? What does he mean by salvation?
He turned the phrase over, wondering if it was some kind of quote, though it struck him as strange that anyone would write something so cryptic into a diary. Flipping back to the earlier pages, he found mostly ordinary things — many of them references to historical events of this world.
But the final fifty pages or so turned strange. The same odd phrasing returned, along with names like "The Angel of Genesis," which struck him as equal parts fascinating and unsettling.
Absorbed in the diary, he decided to get up. He slipped on a pair of light shoes left nearby, settled an essential-looking top hat onto his head, and buttoned the white shirt he was already wearing before stepping out onto the room's balcony. The view that greeted him sent his heart pounding with unease.
Before him stretched a vast city of towering brick buildings, and further off, a line of water curling away toward the south.
The wind stirred his hair, and for a few moments, he let himself relax into it. It carried a light chill, though not an unpleasant one, and though several buildings exhaled thick grey smoke into the sky, it wasn't enough to dull the brilliance of the coming dawn.
For a moment, Alphard felt strange wearing another person's clothes — clothes that might not even have belonged to the real Alphard at all. And yet, something about the fit of them, the shoes, all of it, made him reconsider. Perhaps they really were his after all.
"Alphard!"