Nightingale didn't just appear; she materialized. The distorted, monochromatic atmosphere of the Mist World seemed to invade the room, and from that gray void, her eyes emerged—burning with a volatile mix of fury, exhaustion, and a deep, piercing anguish. She stopped in front of William, her chest heaving with a defiant confusion that was painful to witness.
— "How can you state with such conviction that it does not exist?" — questioned Nightingale, her voice trembling. She took a step forward, her hand gripping the hilt of her dagger. — "We bled for this quest. We faced the dogs of the Church and watched our sisters die in the mud of a dozen different kingdoms, just to reach the foot of these mountains. Do you have any idea what it means to tell me they all died for a lie? That their sacrifices were in vain?"
William held the witch's gaze. For the first time, his characteristic sarcasm had vanished. He saw the raw, bloody hope in her eyes and realized that the truth they carried was a heavy burden for those who lived on mystical promises.
— "I cannot reveal more than you are prepared to hear, Veronica... at least not now," — replied William, his voice uncharacteristically somber. — "But the world is bigger than the legends the Association tells. Sometimes, the most dangerous lies are the ones we tell ourselves to keep moving forward."
Arthur, sensing that Nightingale's disillusionment was about to turn into violent hostility, intervened. He adjusted the heavy folds of his gray noble tunic, his expression returning to a mask of analytical calm. He knew that to win the Association's loyalty, he needed to replace their dying myth with cold, indisputable scientific logic.
— "Miss Nightingale, we are not here to mock your suffering. We are here because we know a method to ensure that your sisters will never again have to fear the 'Demonic Torture,'" — declared Arthur. The weight of his words captured the immediate, breathless attention of both the witch and Roland.
— "The 'bite' you feel during the Months of the Demons—that agonizing pressure that peaks upon reaching adulthood—is not a divine test. It is not a curse from the Devil. It is a biological phenomenon," — continued Arthur, pacing slowly as if in a university lecture hall. — "It is an accumulation of mana. Your bodies are like steam boilers without safety valves. If the energy is not released, the pressure eventually ruptures the vessel."
Nightingale held her breath. Arthur didn't stop.
— "As long as a witch empties her magical reserves daily, using them productively—working—she will not feel the pain. The 'Bite' is simply the body reaching its saturation point. The Holy Mountain you seek, this 'place of peace,' is in reality just a graveyard. You would go there and stop using your magic, thinking you were safe, only to die in agony as the energy built up with nowhere to go. The cure is not a place, Nightingale. The cure is the magic itself."
Silence reigned in the room once more. Nightingale remained completely motionless, her eyes oscillating between Arthur's clinical coldness and William's unshakeable conviction. The explanation resonated with all the observations she had made over the years in the Association—she remembered how the witches who practiced their powers the most, the most restless ones, always seemed to suffer less when the winter mist arrived.
— "What you say... rings true," — whispered Nightingale, her voice dropping to a melancholic and fragile tone. She began to step back, her form starting to blur with the monochromatic shadows of the Mist. — "But I would need to see it. I would need to see a sister cross the threshold of adulthood without pain before I could accept that our dream... was just a mirage."
With one last piercing look, heavy with distrust and a desperate, growing curiosity, Nightingale vanished. The office was plunged into a deafening silence, broken only by the rustling of the blueprints on Roland's desk.
As soon as the heavy oak door of the office creaked shut behind them, Arthur and William headed down the dimly lit corridor. Arthur walked with his typical, measured pace, his hands clasped behind his back as he processed the logistical nightmare of managing Nightingale as a "watched ally." William, however, vibrated with a contained, manic excitement, his eyes fixed on a blue interface that only he could see.
— "Art, you're going to freak out," — whispered William, leaning forward with a smile that threatened to split his face. — "I just did it. I spent the 280 credits."
Arthur stopped abruptly in the middle of the stone corridor. He turned slowly, his forehead creased in total, horrified incomprehension. He had already spent hours mentally allocating those credits to the "Knowledge" tab—calculating how they could accelerate the metallurgy requirements for the Steam Engine Mark II.
— "Spent? What do you mean, spent?" — Arthur's voice was heavy with a growing, icy suspicion. — "I was in the middle of a cost-benefit analysis to unlock 'Industrial Chemistry.' Please tell me you're joking."
— "Dude, listen! If you mentally drag the credit icon in the Dimensional System, a secret submenu opens. You can buy raw attributes!" — explained William, gesturing frantically. — "It's 40 credits for a +1 increase in physical capacity. I didn't even hesitate, man. I spent all my 280. I just bought seven points of raw Strength!"
Arthur stood paralyzed for three whole seconds, his eyes fixed on nothing as his brain processed the pure, absolute stupidity of what he had just heard.
— "Are you... are you actually mentally deranged?" — Arthur finally hissed. He didn't shout, but the intensity of his tone made William flinch. — "YOU SPENT ALMOST ALL OUR STRATEGIC RESERVES ON ATTRIBUTES? AND YOU INVESTED THEM IN STRENGTH? I can't believe I'm standing here listening to this. For what sensible purpose would you do that?"
William burst out laughing, the sound echoing off the cold stone walls. He found a genuine, boyish humor in Arthur's exasperation. — "Relax, bro! It's called an 'investment'! How am I supposed to carry the team if I'm as weak as a peasant? Besides, every strength-focused anime character is an absolute badass. I'm building a 'Juggernaut' character!"
— "We are building an industrial civilization, William! We'll have rifled muskets and 12-pounder cannons!" — Arthur retorted, feeling a sharp pang of mental exhaustion. — "In a world of gunpowder and chemical engineering, 'Strength' is the most useless attribute there is! Have you forgotten the story? Carter Lannis defeats Ashes—a literal superhuman—using only a revolver and accuracy! Furthermore, we are not frontline soldiers. Our role is to provide information to convince the Association not to commit suicide in the mountains!"
William stopped laughing. His expression instantly shifted from amusement to a hard, defiant seriousness.
— "And do you really think Cara is just going to sit there and listen to a PowerPoint presentation?" — William countered, referring to the extremist and fanatical founder of the Witch Cooperation Association. — "That woman is a zealot, Art. She has spent decades feeding these girls a diet of martyrdom. If Nightingale couldn't convince them in the original book, what makes you think two 'scholars' in fancy tunics will? We're going to have to go out there. We're going to have to face the demons. And when the steel starts flying, I need to be able to hit harder than anything they've ever seen to prove that we can protect them!"
Arthur shook his head, his pragmatic coldness resurfacing like winter frost. — "You've lost your mind. This isn't a game, William. It's not a shonen anime where you win with 'willpower' and 'big muscles.' I am not going to risk my life or our future for a bunch of side characters and extras. Our role is to warn them, provide the data, and retreat to the safety of the wall."
— "Extras?" — William exploded, invading Arthur's personal space. His eyes burned with a genuine, righteous anger. — "Is that all they are to you? Anna is just a 'unit'? Nana is just a 'healer'? They aren't characters, Art! They are people! They feel the cold! They feel pain! If I have the power to stop them from dying in the snow, I'm going to use it, regardless of what your 'meta-strategy' says!"
The argument was reaching its boiling point. Carter Lannis, who was patrolling the adjacent corridor, turned the corner with his hand resting, as usual, on the hilt of his sword. He sensed the palpable tension between the prince's two most trusted advisors.
— "Is there a problem, gentlemen?" — Carter asked, his eyes darting between the two. — "The walls of this castle are thin, and the two of you are... quite agitated."
Arthur completely ignored the Knight, shooting one last icy glare at William. A look that signaled a fundamental fracture in their brotherhood.
— "Do whatever you want to satisfy your 'protagonist syndrome,' William. But when your 'Strength' fails against a demon's spear and you realize you could have bought the knowledge to build a better defense... don't count on me to fix it."
— "I expected this kind of cowardice from you, Art," — William replied, his voice heavy with a quiet, lethal contempt. — "Don't worry. I'll handle the heavy lifting. You can stay in the library, where it's safe."
The two men turned on their heels and headed in opposite directions down the dark corridor. Carter Lannis remained standing there under the flickering torchlight, watching them walk away. He didn't understand a thing about "credits" or "attributes," but he understood the look of two friends who had become strangers.