What Was Inside, What Should Not Be Seen
“Worse than whatever first came through.”
Before the words had even finished, a black hairline crack writhed once more beneath the barrier platform.
Like wet ink seeping through stone seams, it crawled out between the patterns with deliberate slowness.
Slow as it was, looking away proved nearly impossible.
It would reach us in the end.
That certainty settled in my bones.
Golden mana trembled briefly across the back of the Imperial Princess’s hand.
“Everyone, fall back.”
The knights dragged the fallen steward and the healer clear first.
The crash of an overturned chair tangled with the clatter of armor.
Even so, the black crack refused to hurry.
After circling once beneath the round barrier platform, it finally heaved its body up onto the floor.
The thing had no fixed shape at all—grotesque beyond measure.
It looked like clotted black fog one moment, then twisted and writhed as if turning itself inside out the next.
At its center gaped a single slit like a mouth.
A darkness so deep it felt as though it might suck the eyes straight out of their sockets.
My throat went bone-dry.
Even on the borders, I had never seen anything like this.
A parasitic monster that grew by clinging to a rift…
The young lady moved first.
Pale blue-white mana stretched thinly from her fingertips and froze the floor around the barrier platform in a clean circle.
A narrow, razor-sharp line meant to cut off every path the black thing might take.
The darkness that had been spreading like a crack twisted the instant it touched the ice, accompanied by a fine cracking sound.
“It reacts to my mana.”
Adelaide’s voice was low and dry.
The Imperial Princess raised her hand beside her.
“Do not retreat, knights. If it approaches, cut it down. If it scatters, burn it.”
“Yes, Your Highness!”
The moment the answer fell, golden mana drew multiple layers of lines through the air.
It looked as though swords forged of light itself were being drawn free.
The black thing heaved and shuddered.
Then, without a single sound of warning, it slid outside the barrier platform.
One knight swung his blade.
The edge split the black mass in two, yet there seemed to be no sensation of contact; the knight’s face went rigid.
The severed darkness spread across the floor.
Far from remaining two pieces, it surged outward and swelled larger still.
“Cutting it does nothing!”
At my shout, the Imperial Princess’s gaze snapped to me.
“Then how—”
“We have to pin it down. Before it scatters.”
Her eyes flashed briefly.
No further explanation was needed.
“Lady Rubenheim.”
“Yes!”
“Hold it.”
Pale blue-white mana flared again from the young lady’s fingertips.
This time it was not the floor, but the open air.
A thin frost bloomed along the edges of the black thing; the writhing form stilled for a moment.
Only a heartbeat. The space of a single breath.
In that gap, the golden lines fell.
Crack.
A short, clear rupture rang out.
When the Imperial Princess’s mana pierced the frozen darkness dead center, the black mass collapsed inward for an instant.
Every barrier lamp in the room dimmed at once, then flared back to life.
The black thing did not vanish. It only grew thinner and longer, and crawled onward.
I clenched my teeth.
It had never properly entered this place to begin with.
Pierce it, tear it—whatever you did, it simply changed shape and endured.
“Your Highness!”
The Imperial Princess looked my way.
“It has no core. Or else—”
I stopped.
The core might not be here at all; the true body could be somewhere else entirely.
My gaze swept the center of the barrier platform.
Three blue axes. One emptied line of patterns. A trembling connection point.
And beneath it, a single spot that had been pulsing ever so faintly since earlier.
There.
“The floor!”
Without waiting for a question, the Imperial Princess poured light downward.
Gold crashed into the center of the barrier platform while the young lady’s ice lines bound the black thing in place.
But it was already too late.
The black mass twisted its entire body and shot upward into the air.
The mouth-like slit vomited a soundless scream.
My ears went numb.
More than any noise striking the eardrums, a wave that seemed to scrape directly through the mind twisted every face in the room.
One knight dropped to a knee. The healer covered her ears and groaned.
I forced my mind to hold and threw myself onto the barrier platform.
“Sir Elberhart!”
The Imperial Princess shouted something, but I could not hear it.
At the very center of the floor patterns, I groped along the end of the vanished line.
Beneath the cold, rough stone seams, an unfamiliar texture caught my fingertips.
Hard, yet slick with a subtle sense of life.
I did not hesitate. I seized it.
I thought my palm would split open.
A black, thorn-like object was embedded deep inside the pattern seams.
No longer than a single finger joint.
Its surface was pure black; the tip faintly carried a blue light that resembled the barrier lines themselves.
A marker.
Someone had driven this in and forced the barrier open.
“I found it—!”
The end of the word cracked.
The thorn began to thrash madly inside my fist.
At the same instant, the black thing in the air convulsed in frenzy.
The Imperial Princess shouted at once.
“Do not throw it!”
Throw it? I had no intention of doing so either.
The problem was that the thing was trying to leave my hand on its own.
The young lady moved.
She slid down beside me and seized my wrist.
Cold mana raced across the back of my hand.
The black thorn thrashing in my grip stiffened for the briefest moment.
“Now!”
The Imperial Princess’s golden line cut through the air and fell.
This light was different from before.
A force that had been spread wide, now condensed into a single point—a strike like an awl.
The instant the light pierced the black thing’s center, the thorn in my hand split with a sharp crack.
At the same time, the darkness in the air twisted.
The black membrane that had held its form tore away all at once, scattering ash-gray fragments throughout the room.
Whatever landed on the ice shuddered a few times, then lost its strength and sank.
The chamber fell silent.
Too abruptly.
Only the sound of my own ragged breathing seemed unnaturally loud.
The young lady still held my wrist.
Where the tip of her glove touched felt strangely cold.
The Imperial Princess walked over slowly.
She had already withdrawn her golden mana, yet her eyes were sharper than before.
“Show me.”
I opened my hand without a word.
Two halves of the black thorn lay on my palm.
Inside the fragments, blue lines tangled like capillaries.
They closely resembled the barrier platform’s patterns, yet on closer look they twisted ever so slightly in the opposite direction.
The Imperial Princess stared down at them, then asked,
“Have you ever seen anything like this?”
“No.”
My voice came out rougher than I expected.
“But I can tell it was made specifically to be driven into a barrier.”
The young lady withdrew her hand and added,
“It is not a ready-made piece.”
“…Yes.”
I watched blood well from the shallow cut on my palm.
“Someone crafted this inside the Imperial Palace itself.”
One of the knights drew a sharp breath.
The healer kept glancing our way even as she moved toward the steward.
The Imperial Princess remained silent for a time.
In that stillness her gaze moved slowly between the black thorn on my palm and the shattered barrier platform.
It was the face of someone rapidly fitting pieces together in her mind.
At last she lifted her head.
“Everything that happened tonight is under a gag order.”
The knights straightened as one.
“The collapse of the banquet hall will be announced as a barrier malfunction. Do not speak a word about the residue. From this moment, I will personally re-examine every entry record for the barrier chamber.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Her gaze returned to me.
I had a sinking feeling she was about to put me to even more inconvenient and troublesome use.
“Sir Elberhart.”
“…Yes.”
“From tonight onward, you are not to leave my sight.”
I swallowed a sigh.
“Is that a request for cooperation?”
The Imperial Princess spoke with deliberate slowness.
“No.”
A brief silence.
“It is closer to protection now.”
I looked at her.
There was not a single trace of jest on her face.
The young lady seemed to grasp the meaning as well; her eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
Someone could lay hands on the Imperial Palace’s barriers.
And that marker had shattered in my hand.
If the culprit learned of that fact, there would be no reason left to keep me alive.
This was bad.
Until moments ago I had thought the night would end with nothing more than a broken engagement. I had miscalculated badly.
The Imperial Princess turned.
“The moment the steward wakes, report to me first. Seal the barrier chamber under double locks. Lady Rubenheim.”
The young lady raised her eyes.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“How much of tonight did you see?”
Adelaide glanced briefly at the black fragments on my palm before answering.
“Only as much as Your Highness wished me to see.”
The corner of the Imperial Princess’s mouth moved by the barest fraction.
She remained wary, yet the answer seemed to please her.
“I see.”
I lowered my gaze, pretending not to have heard the exchange.
The Imperial Palace had always been a place that ran on secrets, but tonight the degree of it was exceptional.
The black ash remaining beneath the barrier platform slowly lost its light.
I looked once more at one of the split thorn fragments.
Open a door for the briefest moment, call something from outside, and test how far it can go.
Someone inside the Imperial Palace was doing exactly that.
And I had stepped straight into the middle of it.
The sound of the Imperial Princess’s heels receded toward the door.
“Sir Elberhart.”
I lifted my head.
“From tomorrow, simply playing the pitiful noble whose engagement was broken will no longer be enough.”
Beneath the pale barrier lamps, her golden hair gleamed coldly.
“So save the resignation for later.”
The door opened and closed.
I stood there a moment longer.
The cut on the inside of my palm began to sting belatedly.
The young lady quietly took her place beside me.
“Your hand.”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
I glanced at her.
Adelaide’s expression barely shifted, as always.
Even so, she somehow seemed a little closer than before.
She drew out a handkerchief and held it toward me.
“Wipe the blood first.”
I hesitated briefly, then took it.
A single speck of residual dust from the black thorn fell onto the bloodstained cloth.
The moment I saw it, a chill ran down my spine once more.