[The sound of children talking still drifted in from outside the window,]
[and the instant I felt his gaze, I hurriedly dropped my eyes to the desk.]
...Was that just my imagination?
It definitely felt like he had turned this way and smiled meaningfully, but when I looked back out the window, he was simply continuing his conversation with the children he had been speaking to before.
[After that strange incident, Damian soon began speaking to me in a friendly manner quite often.]
...Maybe my worry had been reasonable.
[Strangely enough, on the days Damian came to me, Kromer never acted like she knew me.]
[She would only come up to me whenever she had the chance and ask again whether I had forgotten about our promise.]
She never acted like she knew me... Was Kromer on bad terms with Damian?
At the very least, it seemed clear that Kromer was the only one who felt that way unilaterally.
Otherwise, she wouldn't have kept checking in on Sinclair whenever she had the chance.
If Damian had disliked her, he would have stopped her too.
Sinclair's monologue ended, and time changed.
Damian stood in front of him with both hands in his pockets, gazing at Sinclair with a mysterious, expressionless face.
"I often dream, Sinclair."
"In that dream, I climb a very long ladder. Then I can see the whole ground at a glance—every part of the Nest, the back alleys, even the Outskirts."
What a blatantly absurd dream. There was no way anyone could climb that high in the City.
Or maybe that was exactly why it felt like a dream.
"Then when I look down, all the lights in the City are out. It's as if the end of everything is approaching."
"A silent death, with no movement at all."
"Yes, it's death itself."
...What the hell was he trying to say?
He kept spouting airy nonsense, and I couldn't even begin to guess what point he was trying to make.
"Damian, have you ever been to the Outskirts?"
[I asked in a frightened whisper.]
[The Outskirts were a place no one should go, and a place no one could go.]
That was certainly how they taught it.
I had heard it plenty of times back when I was in school, though I never really felt it.
As far as I could tell from the information I'd picked up, the Outskirts were dangerous, but not so dangerous that no one could go there.
Though it was certainly a place far too dangerous for ordinary people to enter.
The Outskirts beyond... I think Sinclair's words are right. An unknown place. Nothing is more dangerous than ignorance.
"Sinclair, the world isn't divided the way people decide it should be, into places you must go and places you mustn't."
"Do you think freedom and love exist in this Nest? The Outskirts are actually richer than here."
"I've had something I've been thinking about for a long time, and I thought I might find the answer in the Outskirts."
...Huh. Was he just insane?
Between the nonsense he'd been spouting earlier and the ideas he was talking about now, he looked like a dangerous person in more ways than one.
Hm. Maybe it would be more accurate to say he was unusual, in both a good way and a bad way.
Perhaps it would be right to call him a different kind of madman from Kromer.
[Whenever I talked with Damian, I could feel my soul becoming a little more mature.]
...Uh. Was I the weird one?
[But I did not bring up my fear of prosthetic-body surgery, or my strange relationship with Kromer, as topics of conversation.]
[He was curious about all sorts of things regarding me, but I deliberately did not say them.]
[It was too embarrassing to drag out even the secret fears hidden inside me.]
That he knew that much is pretty suspicious...
It was frustrating how little information I had about him. I couldn't just decide anything based on his behavior and atmosphere alone.
I needed to know something first if I wanted to think this through...
[And then, at last.]
[The day of the promise with Kromer drew near.]
Before I had time to get lost in thought, time moved again.
"Sinclair, about the basement in your house... could you show it to me?"
The basement... Did she mean the Lobotomy Corporation branch we had entered?
...What was she plotting?
[Her words came so suddenly, and yet so lightly, like a feather.]
[It was such a natural request, like asking someone to pick up a dropped eraser, that I barely managed to stop myself from agreeing.]
"W-why do you want to see my basement?"
"If what I heard by chance is true, that place is connected to something enormous. There's something I absolutely have to check."
The face of Kromer in that memory wore a gentle smile, the sort a girl her age might make, unlike the outside where she had been full of manic laughter.
"But my parents..."
["Wouldn't like it..." I couldn't even bring myself to say those words out loud, too embarrassed even after saying them to myself.]
"If I can just confirm it properly, Sinclair."
"I'll guarantee that I can keep the promise I made last time."
Kromer's face slowly began to stain itself with madness.
"If you secretly bring me the basement key, I can guide the way..."
She can guide the way.
...How?
Her claim that she could guide the way to a place she had never even been to gave me a strange sense of déjà vu.
[Unable to find the source of the déjà vu hidden in her words to the very end, I slowly nodded...]
Following that feeling of déjà vu to its end, I was able to reach one conclusion.
...From the very beginning, everything, including going to Sinclair's basement, had been planned.
Otherwise, none of it would make sense.
The way she moved as if she knew Sinclair, the fact that she knew the way inside his house.
Even the meaningful words she had muttered before entering the mansion.
All of it fit perfectly if I assumed she had come to Kalf Village from the start with Sinclair as her target.
[And so, the world of malice began in the very center of our home.]
*
Let's skip the light battle.
It wasn't all that important anyway.
A trivial fight against 죄종s from who-knows-where, and not even the strong enemies from N Corp, wasn't worth describing.
Then let's move on to Sinclair's memory.
The starting point of the next memory was a new place that had never appeared in the memories so far.
[After secretly stealing the basement key without my parents noticing, I met Kromer as promised and went down into the basement.]
The basement we had entered.
Strangely enough, what it looked like was quite different, but the place itself was the same.
[The place Kromer led me to was a narrow ventilation shaft in the basement.]
The place we entered was also a ventilation shaft, so it seemed to be a different location from the one we had actually entered.
[After crawling through the shaft for a long while, the smell of something dark and acrid grew closer, and I heard sounds like rats scurrying around.]
[My clothes were getting dirtier and dirtier, my throat was drying out, and I kept desperately wishing to go home.]
[Then I noticed that a different smell from before was surrounding the area.]
This is...
"You can feel it too, right?"
[I heard Kromer whisper.]
"There's something ahead...!"
[If there was one last chance to turn back, maybe this was it.]
[Maybe I should have stopped her right then, showered her with all sorts of sweet talk, and promised to continue another time.]
[Even though I knew that kind of candy-coated nonsense would never work on her.]
...Then would Sinclair have turned back here?
[But I suddenly began to feel a wicked curiosity.]
Wait, what?
[For the first time, it felt like I was walking into the same world as the villains.]
[Why was that.]
[I gave up on turning back.]
What the—
[Even though I vaguely, yet clearly, knew that this was my last chance.]
Before long, a red light began to seep into the ventilation shaft.
[Ah, that sight was truly a scene so horrific it would be hard to ever see again.]
The end of the ventilation shaft.
Outside it, an Abnormality existed.
[Could this simply be called a monster?]
[That would be too simple, because it seemed to possess intelligence, and yet as a human being it looked somehow terribly wrong.]
"U... ugh..."
[Thrashing in fear, I began to regret ever setting foot in this world.]
[Why do people kick away a chance, only to start praying that no chance will ever come again? What a pathetic thing to do.]
[Along with that regret, the certainty that this would probably be a sight I could never forget until the day I died dug into my mind.]
"Kr... Kromer... I... I need to go back..."
[But Kromer was different.]
[She gazed at the scene without end, intoxicated, as if she were facing something magnificent that would define her entire life.]
"······."
[Leaving Kromer as if she could hear nothing at all, I crawled backward.]
[Why was something so horrifying connected near our house?]
[Why did Kromer know this?]
[Why wasn't Kromer afraid?]
[I could almost hear Kromer's chilling whistle riding the wind behind me.]
In that eerie atmosphere, time accelerated once more.
[Still, the sound of children talking outside the window continued to drift in,]
[and the moment I felt his gaze, I hurriedly lowered my eyes to the desk.]
...Was that just my imagination?
It definitely felt like he had turned this way and smiled meaningfully, but when I looked back out the window, he was simply continuing his conversation with the children he had been speaking to before.
[After that strange incident, Damian soon began speaking to me in a friendly manner quite often.]
...Maybe my worry had been reasonable.
[Strangely enough, on the days Damian came to me, Kromer never acted like she knew me.]
[She would only come up to me whenever she had the chance and ask again whether I had forgotten about our promise.]
She never acted like she knew me... Was Kromer on bad terms with Damian?
At the very least, it seemed clear that Kromer was the only one who felt that way unilaterally.
Otherwise, she wouldn't have kept checking in on Sinclair whenever she had the chance.
If Damian had disliked her, he would have stopped her too.
Sinclair's monologue ended, and time changed.
Damian stood in front of him with both hands in his pockets, gazing at Sinclair with a mysterious, expressionless face.
"I often dream, Sinclair."
"In that dream, I climb a very long ladder. Then I can see the whole ground at a glance—every part of the Nest, the back alleys, even the Outskirts."
What a blatantly absurd dream. There was no way anyone could climb that high in the City.
Or maybe that was exactly why it felt like a dream.
"Then when I look down, all the lights in the City are out. It's as if the end of everything is approaching."
"A silent death, with no movement at all."
"Yes, it's death itself."
...What the hell was he trying to say?
He kept spouting airy nonsense, and I couldn't even begin to guess what point he was trying to make.
"Damian, have you ever been to the Outskirts?"
[I asked in a frightened whisper.]
[The Outskirts were a place no one should go, and a place no one could go.]
That was certainly how they taught it.
I had heard it plenty of times back when I was in school, though I never really felt it.
As far as I could tell from the information I'd picked up, the Outskirts were dangerous, but not so dangerous that no one could go there.
Though it was certainly a place far too dangerous for ordinary people to enter.
The Outskirts beyond... I think Sinclair's words are right. An unknown place. Nothing is more dangerous than ignorance.
"Sinclair, the world isn't divided the way people decide it should be, into places you must go and places you mustn't."
"Do you think freedom and love exist in this Nest? The Outskirts are actually richer than here."
"I've had something I've been thinking about for a long time, and I thought I might find the answer in the Outskirts."
...Huh. Was he just insane?
Between the nonsense he'd been spouting earlier and the ideas he was talking about now, he looked like a dangerous person in more ways than one.
Hm. Maybe it would be more accurate to say he was unusual, in both a good way and a bad way.
Perhaps it would be right to call him a different kind of madman from Kromer.
[Whenever I talked with Damian, I could feel my soul becoming a little more mature.]
...Uh. Was I the weird one?
[But I did not bring up my fear of prosthetic-body surgery, or my strange relationship with Kromer, as topics of conversation.]
[He was curious about all sorts of things regarding me, but I deliberately did not say them.]
[It was too embarrassing to drag out even the secret fears hidden inside me.]
That he knew that much is pretty suspicious...
It was frustrating how little information I had about him. I couldn't just decide anything based on his behavior and atmosphere alone.
I needed to know something first if I wanted to think this through...
[And then, at last.]
[The day of the promise with Kromer drew near.]
Before I had time to get lost in thought, time moved again.
"Sinclair, about the basement in your house... could you show it to me?"
The basement... Did she mean the Lobotomy Corporation branch we had entered?
...What was she plotting?
[Her words came so suddenly, and yet so lightly, like a feather.]
[It was such a natural request, like asking someone to pick up a dropped eraser, that I barely managed to stop myself from agreeing.]
"W-why do you want to see my basement?"
"If what I heard by chance is true, that place is connected to something enormous. There's something I absolutely have to check."
The face of Kromer in that memory wore a gentle smile, the sort a girl her age might make, unlike the outside where she had been full of manic laughter.
"But my parents..."
["Wouldn't like it..." I couldn't even bring myself to say those words out loud, too embarrassed even after saying them to myself.]
"If I can just confirm it properly, Sinclair."
"I'll guarantee that I can keep the promise I made last time."
Kromer's face slowly began to stain itself with madness.
"If you secretly bring me the basement key, I can guide the way..."
She can guide the way.
...How?
Her claim that she could guide the way to a place she had never even been to gave me a strange sense of déjà vu.
[Unable to find the source of the déjà vu hidden in her words to the very end, I slowly nodded...]
Following that feeling of déjà vu to its end, I was able to reach one conclusion.
...From the very beginning, everything, including going to Sinclair's basement, had been planned.
Otherwise, none of it would make sense.
The way she moved as if she knew Sinclair, the fact that she knew the way inside his house.
Even the meaningful words she had muttered before entering the mansion.
All of it fit perfectly if I assumed she had come to Kalf Village from the start with Sinclair as her target.
[And so, the world of malice began in the very center of our home.]
*
Let's skip the light battle.
It wasn't all that important anyway.
A trivial fight against 죄종s from who-knows-where, and not even the strong enemies from N Corp, wasn't worth describing.
Then let's move on to Sinclair's memory.
The starting point of the next memory was a new place that had never appeared in the memories so far.
[After secretly stealing the basement key without my parents noticing, I met Kromer as promised and went down into the basement.]
The basement we had entered.
Strangely enough, what it looked like was quite different, but the place itself was the same.
[The place Kromer led me to was a narrow ventilation shaft in the basement.]
The place we entered was also a ventilation shaft, so it seemed to be a different location from the one we had actually entered.
[After crawling through the shaft for a long while, the smell of something dark and acrid grew closer, and I heard sounds like rats scurrying around.]
[My clothes were getting dirtier and dirtier, my throat was drying out, and I kept desperately wishing to go home.]
[Then I noticed that a different smell from before was surrounding the area.]
This is...
"You can feel it too, right?"
[I heard Kromer whisper.]
"There's something ahead...!"
[If there was one last chance to turn back, maybe this was it.]
[Maybe I should have stopped her right then, showered her with all sorts of sweet talk, and promised to continue another time.]
[Even though I knew that kind of candy-coated nonsense would never work on her.]
...Then would Sinclair have turned back here?
[But I suddenly began to feel a wicked curiosity.]
Wait, what?
[For the first time, it felt like I was walking into the same world as the villains.]
[Why was that.]
[I gave up on turning back.]
What the—
[Even though I vaguely, yet clearly, knew that this was my last chance.]
Before long, a red light began to seep into the ventilation shaft.
[Ah, that sight was truly a scene so horrific it would be hard to ever see again.]
The end of the ventilation shaft.
Outside it, an Abnormality existed.
[Could this simply be called a monster?]
[That would be too simple, because it seemed to possess intelligence, and yet as a human being it looked somehow terribly wrong.]
"U... ugh..."
[Thrashing in fear, I began to regret ever setting foot in this world.]
[Why do people kick away a chance, only to start praying that no chance will ever come again? What a pathetic thing to do.]
[Along with that regret, the certainty that this would probably be a sight I could never forget until the day I died dug into my mind.]
"Kr... Kromer... I... I need to go back..."
[But Kromer was different.]
[She gazed at the scene without end, intoxicated, as if she were facing something magnificent that would define her entire life.]
"······."
[Leaving Kromer as if she could hear nothing at all, I crawled backward.]
[Why was something so horrifying connected near our house?]
[Why did Kromer know this?]
[Why wasn't Kromer afraid?]
[I could almost hear Kromer's chilling whistle riding the wind behind me.]
In that eerie atmosphere, time accelerated once more.