Anne's Diary (4) - The Lost Girl and the Monsters Who Cannot Weep
"......"
I looked down at the fox nestled in my arms. A girl with crimson hair, tears streaming down as she buried her face in my chest. With a calm touch, I patted her trembling back.
She looked haggard, but there were no visible signs of injury or experimentation. It seemed I had managed to save her in time.
I quietly embraced the fox’s cold body. I hoped my own faint warmth might bring her some measure of peace.
You must have suffered so much.
Bergen-Belsen. How much pain had she endured while trapped inside this laboratory? Only a single day had passed in real time, yet in this place where the flow of time was warped, a full week must have already slipped by. More than enough for a person’s spirit to shatter.
Bergen-Belsen
— The Lost Girl, Monsters Who Cannot Weep —
It was the darkest episode in the original work. Its uniquely gloomy and repulsive atmosphere split the player base sharply; some loved it, others hated it. After all, it drew direct inspiration from a real historical tragedy. The subject matter made it impossible to enjoy lightly.
I should have arrived sooner.
The location wasn’t marked on any map, which had made tracking it difficult. It also lay outside the empire’s borders. Still, the information I had gained from the previous Abandoned Laboratory allowed me to pinpoint the facility. That, at least, was a relief.
“This is my fault.”
I never imagined the fox would become involved. In the original story she had no connection to this episode whatsoever. I thought I only needed to prevent Legia’s kidnapping. A problem had arisen from an entirely unexpected direction.
I swallowed a quiet groan.
“Irene.”
“……Yeah.”
“Did you happen to meet a girl named Anne while you were here?”
“……”
Her expression stiffened at once. Seeing fresh tears pool in those dark eyes, I knew the answer.
So they did meet.
It seemed only the person experiencing the episode had changed; the underlying flow remained identical. The original protagonist had also begun this part after encountering Anne.
Irene clutched my sleeve with a trembling hand. She looked as though she were trapped inside a horrific nightmare. I gently soothed the fox until her sobs finally eased.
A voice called from behind me.
“Captain.”
It was Neria. She had stepped away to clean up the area and now stood at perfect attention, her task complete. The corridor was littered with the corpses of guards. The rest of the unit remained in position as well, each member waiting for the next order.
It was time to move.
I spoke softly.
“Irene. We intend to purge this laboratory starting now.”
“……”
“Ideally I would tell you to rest, but… I’ll ask anyway. Will you come with us?”
“……I’ll go with you.”
“The memories you make won’t be pleasant.”
“I know. Still.”
The fox slowly pulled away from my chest. Her face was ruined by tears, yet her eyes remained fiercely alive, holding transparent sorrow.
“There’s something I need to see… with my own eyes.”
Perhaps it was lingering attachment. The girl could not bring herself to abandon hope.
“I respect your decision.”
I nodded. This was Irene’s choice. It was not something I could force upon her. Having arrived late as nothing more than an extra, I simply turned and issued the command.
The pure-white robe fluttered. As I stepped toward the tightly sealed door, the measured footsteps of my followers rang cleanly down the corridor. Thick, viscous killing intent flooded the passage.
I murmured the order.
“It’s time to fell the corrupt trees.”
Bergen-Belsen.
A research facility where every kind of inhuman experiment was performed. One of the primary strongholds of the dark magic organization Baob and the slaughterhouse that produced the highest number of victims each year. It served as a literal pillar of the cult.
Its location was equally vile. Surrounded by wilderness on all sides, the terrain was so harsh and ferocious that no human foot had ever touched it. Countless canyons split the earth, and the laboratory sat in the deepest underground reaches among them.
Because of this, outsiders could never set foot inside. Only those granted permission could come and go by teleportation.
If the day ever comes when Belsen falls, it will surely be the day the world meets its end.
A truly impregnable fortress. The meaning Belsen carried was therefore unique. Thanks to its strangely distorted time axis, it could extract experimental results with maximum efficiency; the headquarters had no reason to withhold support.
As a result, despite the facility’s modest size, a large number of personnel gathered there.
It possesses enough strength to crush an average count’s household with ease.
If research continues to accumulate at this rate… we will soon manifest a magnificent hell upon the living world.
That was how the laboratory director evaluated it. More than three hundred elite troops were permanently stationed inside—an unmatched force among branches of similar scale. No one could imagine Belsen’s collapse. They believed its legacy would continue forever.
But.
“It’s an attack!! Unknown intruders have entered the facility…!”
“Fuck! How the hell did they get in?!”
“Everyone secure the experiment data!!”
“Kwaaaak!”
In the end, wood was only wood. It could do nothing but fall helplessly before the raised axe. The facility was being butchered one-sidedly.
“What are the guards doing?!”
“They’re all dead! Total annihilation up to Laboratory 17!”
“Where did these bastards even come from…!”
“Stay calm and respond properly! Prepare incantations just in case!”
“Damn it! Die!”
Pure-white robes fluttered elegantly. The intruders clad in spotless white dismantled the facility with practiced skill, as though they had done this many times before.
They danced with fluid grace. Attacks flowed like water as they evaded, then their blades drew bold arcs. The necks of the cultists blocking their path floated into the air. Resistance was swept away without mercy.
“These guys are reading our moves like… kugh!”
“Kwaaaaa!”
“The chief director has fallen!”
“Contact Laboratory 83 for reinforcements—!”
“The signal won’t connect! They must have already been wiped out!”
“You sons of bitches!!!”
A scene that mirrored a massacre. Countless bodies rolled across the blood-soaked floor. Even amid the splatter of blood and flesh, the intruders walked with calm, measured steps.
Thud. Thud.
Their noble bearing made them resemble white angels. Their silver blades rendered judgment upon sin.
“This can’t be… how is any of this possible…”
“We can’t even touch them!”
“Hey, release the chimeras from the labs!”
“Fall back! Hold the line until the director arrives!”
Where had Belsen’s fearsome reputation gone? In their current state they were nothing more than cockroaches being crushed underfoot.
The black mages eventually abandoned the front line and fled. Word of the intruders reached the devil himself.
“What did you just say?”
“I reported that an intruder appears to have entered the laboratory.”
“An intruder…?”
Laboratory director Yosef Kramer. The man known as the Devil of Belsen muttered in disbelief.
The director, who had been wearing a stupefied expression, soon let out a hollow laugh.
“Haha! They’ve got nerve.”
“……”
“Where are these intruders now?”
“The latest report says they passed Laboratory 37. It appears they are heading toward the staircase to the lowest floor.”
“Hmm. So they’re going where the failures are kept?”
The director murmured with interest. The lowest floor of Belsen. Coincidentally, that was the space that housed his own ‘artistic soul.’
Did they possess information about this place? The director smiled thinly.
Whoosh—!
When he clenched his fist, a dark-red aura surged around him. The foul energy of black magic stained the air. Its output was enough to collapse the entire facility in an instant.
“We cannot allow the rats to run free.”
The man rose from his seat. Enveloping his entire body with explosive momentum, he prepared to greet his guests. The corners of his mouth tore grotesquely wide.
“I hope this becomes an enjoyable artistic endeavor.”
The devil began to walk.
Meanwhile, the fox was sprinting down the stairs.
“Haa… haa…!”
Her breathing came out ragged. The air rising from her lungs burned. It felt as if her chest were on fire.
“Ugh…!”
Her consciousness flickered. The accumulated exhaustion of the past several days weighed on her. She felt ready to collapse at any moment, yet each time she bit her lip and forced herself onward.
Her slender legs staggered endlessly. The only thing she gripped was a single sword, and today it felt unbearably heavy.
As she fought back the dizziness threatening to shatter her mind, a voice from a few days earlier brushed past her ears—the conversation she had overheard.
—What shall we do with today’s failed specimens?
—Transfer them to the lowest floor.
—Understood.
She had to reach the lowest floor. There was someone she needed to find.
If yesterday’s experiment had truly ended as planned, the girl would be there.
The fox ran.
“Damn it, intruder!”
“Don’t let her go down!”
Obstacles occasionally blocked her path. Irene swung her blade without hesitation.
Clang! Krrrk—!
A ferocious sword dance bloomed like flowers. Though she had been pushed to her limit, her senses only grew sharper. Her eyes gleamed with lethal venom.
She advanced along a precarious line between life and death.
Slash—!
She cut down another foe. The clean ring of steel lingered as a tingling vibration traveled through her fingertips. Her vision flickered.
“Ugh… haa…!”
Irene did not stop. She cut without mercy. When the enemy proved too much for her strength alone, the boy beside her lent his aid.
“My, my… we’re rather busy at the moment!”
Snap—!
With a flick of his finger the guard vanished, scattering into a handful of ash.
The fox’s desperate sprint continued.
And then—
“……”
Irene finally reached the lowest floor. A vast space greeted her. Countless iron cages stood in rows. It reminded her of the beast pens beneath a slave auction house.
—Hic… hehe… Big sister’s hand is so warm.
There was someone here she had to find.
Tap—!
The fox wove between the bars. Cool air swirled through the underground. What lay trapped behind the iron were the ‘failures.’
<Screee—!>
<Gurgle, gurr—?>
<Aaa… uwaaa…>
Things that had once been human but could no longer be called such. Byproducts of hideous desire.
Irene desperately scanned the cages. She prayed to find the girl, yet at the same time prayed the girl would not be here. A painful contradiction flowed through her.
<Squeee—!>
<Hellohellohellohellohellohello?>
<Kyaaaaak!!>
After wandering a little longer, the fox finally found her.
A body lying inside a cage in the corner.
“……Anne.”
She murmured the name. But it was laughable. What she saw beyond the bars was no longer the girl she remembered.
The fox stared silently at the floor.
<Glurk… gluk…>
A clumped, viscous mass. It resembled a slime, yet the reality was far more horrific than any description. Irene lacked the courage to put it into words.
“……”
Her legs gave out. She collapsed.
The scene she had tried so hard to deny had become reality.
<Glurk…?>
The mass that had been Anne wriggled. Even after becoming a monster, had her gentle nature remained? She showed no hostility toward people. That very kindness only made the pain sharper.
“……Ha.”
A hollow laugh escaped. Her vision blurred. Tears fell heavily down her cheeks.
It was utter despair.
“This is just… too cruel…”
She had known. She had known it would end like this. It had been a predetermined tragedy from the moment she was thrown into this hell.
But—
Still, sometimes… wouldn’t it be all right if something convenient happened?
Because she had liked the girl’s words, for a brief moment she had wanted to hold on to similar hope.
“Irene.”
“I… I must have been too late.”
“You did everything you could.”
“What sin could a child this good possibly have committed…?”
The world was unreasonable. At the same time, it was cruel. Everyone lived out a predetermined fate, merely dancing atop a grand script. Sometimes it felt as though life held no value at all.
“Irene.”
Yet the reason people still searched for hope was—
“It’s not too late yet.”
—because sometimes, it would be all right if something convenient happened.
“It’s too early to shed tears.”
“……What?”
The words made no sense. Irene lifted her bowed head and looked at the boy. Narrow eyes smiled gently. The snake sang a low whisper.
Thud, thud. The boy approached the cage. Before the fox could stop him, the snake placed his hand upon the soft, squirming mass of flesh.
Then he murmured.
“Break.”
The shadow clinging to the boy’s fingertips surged forward like a living thing.
It wrapped the chimera completely, then shattered the twisted curse with a sound like breaking glass.
Clink—!
A sound like shattering glass rang out. At the same time the shadow enveloping the mass wriggled violently. After what felt like an eternity compressed into a single instant, the shadow scattered into dust.
The fox could not speak.
“Ann…e…?”
Inside the cage sat a girl. The person she had searched for so desperately. The name that had stayed by her side these past few days now sat there, completely unharmed.
Anne let out a small yawn.
“Haaum…”
Her eyes blinked sleepily, as though she had just woken up. Rubbing her eyes, the girl soon met the fox’s gaze.
“……Ueh? Fox big sister?”
“Anne…!”
Irene pulled the small body into her arms. Warm body heat filled her embrace. The realization that she was truly alive brought fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. Her face burned with emotion.
“Hehe.”
The snake watched the scene in silence. His expression was one of deep longing.
Though life itself might be a single tragedy, sometimes a miracle arrives that can erase even that tragedy.
And.
“It seems today I am your miracle.”
For the two girls, that moment had arrived.