Father and Son
The iron door was heavier than I expected.
It would not budge with one hand.
My bandaged palm still burned with heat, but I gritted my teeth and twisted the handle all the way.
The latch on the inside held for a moment, then gave way with a grinding of metal.
The moment the door cracked open, thick air washed over my face.
The damp smell of stone.
The smell of blood that had boiled and cooled.
And beneath it all, the black aura I had grown far too familiar with.
The barrier chamber was dark.
Normally, silver light should have risen from the barrier core standing in the center of the room. The auxiliary runes on the walls should have pulsed steadily like a heartbeat under that light, and the circular magic spiral on the floor should have glowed evenly.
But now the center of the barrier core was stained black.
Black cracks had spread inside the crystal pillar—a little taller than a person—and those fissures contracted slowly like a beating heart before spreading again.
Half the floor patterns had already lost their light; only the remaining half clung on with a faint silver glow.
And in front of it stood my father.
Viscount Elverhart.
My father, Derik Elverhart.
In his right hand he gripped an old barrier sword. Blood had dried at the end of his left sleeve.
Beside him were two barrier assistants; one knelt catching his breath, the other barely stood, leaning against the wall.
Father raised his head.
“……So you came in after all.”
His voice was low, but steadier than I expected.
I looked straight at that face.
He had grown gaunt. The shadows under his eyes were deep, and his jawline sharper than before. Yet his gaze alone remained the same.
The eyes of a man who endures.
I stepped inside.
“I told you not to come in.”
“Did you really think I wouldn't open it for that?”
A short reply.
When those words ended, Father's gaze shifted behind me. He had seen the princess and the young lady crossing the threshold.
Kyle stopped outside the iron door, and the two knights did not set foot inside either.
Father's eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
“The imperial family.”
The princess offered her respects first.
“I am the Second Princess, Isabella Ernesia. My greetings are late, Viscount.”
Father did not return the courtesy immediately. Instead he looked at her once, the young lady once, and finally back at me.
“You've brought something truly significant.”
“It wasn't as if I wanted to bring them.”
When I answered shortly, the corner of Father's mouth moved ever so slightly. Neither a smile nor a sneer—just a line.
“Seems you've gotten yourself tangled in troublesome affairs.”
“Your side is far more so, Father.”
Then it happened.
One of the black cracks inside the barrier core trembled long.
Crack.
Everyone's eyes in the room gathered on the center.
One of the kneeling assistants gritted his teeth and pushed mana into the floor patterns, but the light only grew weaker.
The young lady asked lowly.
“How long has it been like this?”
This time the assistant leaning on the wall answered laboriously.
“Since before sunset today. At first only the outer lines shook, but from two hours ago the inside of the core started being eaten.”
The princess immediately approached the barrier core. She did not touch the surface, only examined the flow with her eyes.
“It's different from the imperial palace's.”
Father answered shortly.
“Here it's rising from below. I don't know how the palace one is faring.”
Hearing that, I immediately looked toward the floor.
That's right.
In the palace, the feeling that someone had planted something into the barrier had been strong. But here it was different.
The black aura was not spreading from the core itself; the connecting lines below the floor had rotted first, and that was rising up to invade the inside of the crystal pillar.
In other words, the entire surrounding lines here had already been shaking for a long time.
I took another step toward Father.
“I heard the outer lines went out twice.”
“East and southeast.”
“And the monsters?”
“They haven't come in force yet.”
Father paused there for a moment.
“Instead, it's far too quiet.”
As those words fell, the air in the barrier chamber cooled ever so thinly.
That was an ominousness of a kind I knew as well.
The calm before the storm, they call it. Before something truly big comes, the surroundings grow quiet instead. Livestock don't cry out, and the forest holds its breath.
The princess asked, looking at the barrier core.
“Can it be stopped?”
Father did not answer immediately. Instead he glanced at the two assistants, then looked again at the black cracks inside the core.
“Not alone.”
No unnecessary pride, no noble circumlocution—that was just like Father.
I clenched and unclenched my bandaged hand once.
From earlier, the wound inside my palm had been growing strangely hot. As if the scar from gripping the black thorn and the resonance rising from beneath this core were recognizing each other.
The young lady moved first.
She knelt at the edge of the patterns leading down to the floor, where the black cracks had spread deepest. Pale blue-white mana spread thinly and seeped along the floor lines.
“The flow is dual-layered.”
She said lowly.
“It's not eating the core from above; one of the connecting lines below is half empty. The contamination is transferring along that empty line.”
The princess floated gold mana on the back of her hand and asked.
“Can it be cut?”
The young lady was silent for a moment.
“Cutting is possible. But.”
I took over those words.
“If we do that, the eastern outer line will die completely.”
The princess's gaze came to me.
I pointed at the patterns beneath the barrier core.
“That line is currently connected to the black cracks inside the core. If we sever it, we can save the center for a while, but we'll have to abandon the eastern outer defensive line.”
Father said lowly.
“There are people on the eastern outskirts. We cannot abandon them.”
Those words settled heavily.
The princess said nothing, and the young lady only raised her eyes without withdrawing her hands.
In the end, another choice.
What to discard and what to hold onto.
I drew a breath very slowly.
Then it happened.
Beneath the barrier core, in the densest part of the black cracks, a tiny light flashed.
A familiar texture.
The imperial barrier chamber, the southern tower, that fine blue line entangled inside the black thorn.
I instinctively raised my head.
“Wait.”
All eyes in the room focused on me at once.
I approached the core and looked closely between the black cracks.
There was something lodged between the cracks. Deep inside the crystal, a small, thin foreign object as if deliberately embedded.
Father asked.
“What did you see?”
“…It's inside.”
“What is?”
I did not answer and reached out, then stopped.
I could not just grab it recklessly like in the palace. That thing inside was more deeply attached to the core.
The princess stepped sideways closer.
“Speak quickly.”
“It's that thorn from back then.”
Father's eyes narrowed instantly. The young lady already wore a face of understanding.
“The black thorn we saw in the imperial palace.”
I nodded shortly.
“It's smaller in size. That's why it's embedded even deeper.”
Father gritted his teeth.
“So that's why the inside of the core is emptying like that.”
The princess asked lowly.
“Can you pull it out?”
This time I could not answer immediately.
In the palace, the thorn had been stuck in a crack in the barrier chamber floor. Then the young lady had held it, the princess had stabbed, and I had barely gripped it in my hand.
But now it was different.
It was embedded in the core, shuttling back and forth with the lower lines to draw up contamination. If I pulled it out carelessly, the core itself could shatter.
I looked alternately at the black cracks beneath the core and the remaining silver lines.
If possible, only once.
“Your Highness.”
The princess answered.
“I'm listening.”
“To save the core, we have to change the order.”
The young lady asked.
“In what way?”
“Not by cutting the eastern outer line, but by opening it briefly first. Do you understand?”
Instantly the air in the room solidified.
One of the assistants shouted almost reflexively.
“If you open it, it'll be eaten even faster!”
“The half-blocked state like now is more dangerous.”
My voice was calmer than I expected.
“Because the contamination is shuttling back and forth, the inside of the core is continuously being ground away. We have to draw the flow out to one side even briefly for the thorn to be exposed.”
Father looked straight at me.
“…And if it differs from your expectation?”
I looked at the princess. At the young lady. And back at the barrier core.
“…Trust me. Your Highness the Princess must pierce the center and shatter the thorn, and the young lady must freeze the empty line below the floor to bind the reverse flow.”
The princess asked very shortly.
“And you?”
“I will open it.”
As those words fell, I heard Kyle outside the iron door swallow a very small breath.
Father said nothing. Instead he looked once at my bandaged hand, then at my face.
That gaze touched an old memory.
When I first noticed an anomaly in the barrier lines as a child, he had looked at me with those same eyes. Not distrust, not pride. Just pity for me, who possessed a cursed talent in the end.
Father said lowly.
“If you make a mistake, the core will shatter.”
“I know.”
“If it shatters, the inside of the main keep will be eaten right away.”
“I know that too.”
A short silence.
And very shortly, Father nodded.
“…Then do it. That is your duty. Rion Elverhart.”
The princess settled into position, adjusting her coat hem. Gold mana quietly formed on the back of her hand.
The young lady also placed her hands on the floor patterns. Pale blue-white texture spread very thinly along the silver lines.
I stood before the barrier core.
I did not use my bandaged right hand. I slowly placed my left hand on the crystal surface.
A cold, deep, hollow resonance rose into my palm.
And the single black thorn embedded inside it trembled ever so finely, like a living insect.
“From now.”
My voice resonated lowly in the room.
“On the count of three, I open it.”
No one answered. It wasn't needed.
“One.”
The black cracks inside the barrier core contracted slowly.
“Two.”
Ice lines spread along the floor patterns beneath the young lady's fingertips.
“Three.”
Just like that, I twisted and flung open the flow inside the core in an instant.
Boom—!
The entire barrier chamber shook.
The black cracks came alive all at once and dug into the core, and from the center the tip of the black thorn was exposed.
“Your Highness!”
The princess's gold light fell like lightning.
Flash—!
Almost simultaneously, the young lady's ice lines froze and seized the empty connecting line below the floor.
The black thing tried to reverse flow but was bound in place, and the exposed thorn was pierced head-on by the princess's gold light.
Crack.
The sound of fissuring.
And the next moment, the black cracks inside the core began to boil all at once.
I gritted my teeth.
“Not yet—”
Before the words even finished, the center of the barrier core flashed pure white from the inside.