The Corridor of the Waxing Moon

Looking at Uriel, who had slumped to the floor with both hands over her burning face, I held out a hand to her without ceremony.

"Come on. Time to get up."

Uriel hid her face even more with one hand, mortified—but her trembling fingertips still closed tightly around mine.

I pulled her to her feet with a light tug. She kept her still-flushed cheeks covered as she mumbled,

"...I'm sorry. I must have looked like such an idiot..."

"I wasn't thinking that, so don't worry. Let's move on."

At my even tone, Uriel pressed a hand to her chest and gave a small nod.

As she gathered the scattered magic stones, I swept the floor with my mana and started scooping them into my pockets as well. True to the dungeon's high rank, every last one of them was a high-grade or supreme-grade stone—the kind even the North rarely saw.

With this quantity and purity, it'll be more than enough seed capital to resurrect the Belfort Merchant Guild...

After stowing the collected stones in Uriel's spatial storage, we set off down the long, dark passage leading to Zone 2. Gazing at the iron door visible in the far distance at the corridor's end, I spoke in a low voice.

"The next zone is going to be a lot nastier than the last one, so I'll brief you now."

"Did the Grand Ducal House send a vanguard ahead of time?"

"...Something like that."

I swallowed a wry smile and looked ahead.

Zone 2's name was one that had featured prominently even in the original story: the Corridor of the Waxing Moon. Unlike Zone 1, there were no beasts or bosses here. What made it far more vicious was that it drowned your mind in the most agonizing moment you'd buried in the deepest part of yourself.

"Once you step into the corridor, your consciousness gets trapped in an illusion that loops the memory that hurt you the most."

"Then... what happens if you can't get out of the illusion?"

"Your mind collapses completely, and you never leave the corridor."

Uriel's pupils wavered at my words, but I took her by the shoulders and locked my eyes on hers.

"So remember this. No matter what ghosts of the past appear in front of you, they're all false. Don't forget you have to come back to the present. ...And if you can't wake from the illusion, I'll call your name. Hear my voice and come back to me."

At my firm voice, Uriel's eyes soon shone with resolve, and she nodded.

"I understand. Even if the illusion takes me, I'll hear your voice and come back to your side."

"Good. I trust you."

I gave her shoulder a gentle pat, then shoved the massive iron door open without hesitation.

The moment we set foot in the corridor, the cool light of a waxing moon stabbed down through a crack in the ceiling and wrapped around us both.

From the exact center of the passage, a mirrored wall reflecting a darkness black as pitch stretched away on the left, while an ancient wall of gray marble ran on the right—two endless parallel lines receding into the distance.

"We don't know what's going to happen, so let's hold hands."

I held out my hand first. Whether from nerves or something else, Uriel had no time to blush the way she usually did—she just gripped my hand tight.

We walked for a while with nothing but each other's breathing for company.

The instant we crossed the boundary line drawn down the center, Uriel's hand—which had been clutching mine so tightly—slipped free as if it had never been there.

"Uriel...!"

I tried to whip around to look beside me, but my vision was already flooding with the brilliant silver of the waxing moon. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠A colossal pressure crushed down on my entire body, and I was seized by the sensation of plunging into a bottomless abyss. How long that lasted, I couldn't say.

When I finally managed to come to my senses, the corridor's chill air was gone. In its place, a thick stench of blood and steel stabbed at my nose.

...This place.

I knew it on instinct. This was that nightmare of a day, two years ago. The memory of that hideous hell where I had lost every last one of my brothers and sisters, and survived alone.

The ground shook with a deep, rolling boom.

"Caelus...! Watch your back!"

At a voice so familiar it made my chest ache with longing, I turned my head. There stood my eldest brother, Cassius, gripping a massive greatsword even in the biting wind of the front line.

The Grand Ducal House's firstborn—stern and taciturn as a rule, but a man who had cherished and protected his younger siblings more than anyone. If only what he had faced that day hadn't been a boss-class monster. If only it hadn't been the Wyvern Calamity.

Calamity opened its enormous maw and unleashed a breath that came crashing down as if to swallow the entire rampart where he stood.

No—big brother...!

I had been facing a beast in the distance. I desperately drew up my aura and tried to throw myself in front of Cassius. But before I could even reach the wall, that colossal breath swallowed the rampart whole, and Cassius took the inferno with his entire body.

"Kh...!"

Where the breath that had painted everything in hellfire receded, my brother lay wrecked in a pool of his own blood.

"Big brother...!"

As I came sprinting toward the wall like a madman, Cassius wrung out the last of his strength and reached a blood-soaked hand toward me.

With those words, my brother crumpled helplessly beneath Calamity's enormous talons.

I thought I'd gotten stronger... I couldn't save him... If I'd just been a little faster, I could have saved him...!

No matter how I howled in regret and despair—even after I took the wyvern's head for revenge and tore out its heart—my brother never came back.

As I sat there with my chest feeling as if it had been ripped open, the scenery around me warped, and my consciousness was forcibly dragged into another memory.

A low, rumbling growl rolled through the air.

Inside a Fenrir pack's encirclement, my fourth brother Ethan gasped for breath, soaked in blood. He'd always been free-spirited and full of mischief, constantly earning the adults of the Grand Ducal House's disapproval—but over the past year, he was the brother who had doted on me and looked after me the most. Ethan had stayed behind in the rear, making a last stand to evacuate the wounded soldiers.

"Ethan...!"

I screamed toward him in the distance like a man possessed, cutting down the beasts charging in from every side. I prayed and prayed that this time, I could pull him out of their jaws. I had to save Ethan. I couldn't lose someone precious right in front of my eyes again.

I clenched my teeth and carved through the endless tide of them, but the distance between me and Ethan wouldn't close no matter what I did.

"Haha... Caelus, if you had time to come this far, you should've gotten out already...! Run, even now...!"

Even with a Fenrir's razor fangs buried in his shoulder, he grinned that easy grin—and then the swarm of beasts buried him completely.

When I tore every last one of their bodies apart in a frenzy and reached the place where he'd been, all that remained were bloodstains scattered across the cold snowfield, and shreds of torn flesh.

Again... I couldn't save him...

Rage and frustration felt as if they were burning my soul to cinders. But the Corridor of the Waxing Moon's cruel illusion shoved me, at last, into the final fragment of memory.

My youngest sister, Leah—holding out her pinky as if to make me swear, smiling, right before we marched out. The kid who used to snort and tease that someday her bow would surpass my sword.

"Brother, when this wave is over, you have to promise you'll teach me how to hunt, okay? No take-backs...!"

Her fifteen-year-old finger had hooked around my rough one. And that was the last time I ever saw her.

When the castle gates came down and the beast horde poured into the inner keep, Leah locked the rear gate herself to secure an escape route for the refugees, and faced the oncoming beasts alone.

I told her not to fight. I told her to run... Why...

What I had to face after the battle was over was a small girl, gone cold beneath a white cloth.

Yes. All of it was because of my arrogance.

From the moment I transmigrated, I had obsessively cleared hidden dungeons, seized every stroke of fortune, and honed my sword day and night until I'd gained power the original story couldn't even compare to. And so I'd vaguely believed. That I'd become stronger than anyone in the North, and that I would accomplish what the original Caelus—infinitely frail compared ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to his innate talent—had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠failed to do. That with this overwhelming martial power, I could stop the original's tragedy.

But it had all been a delusion. As the price of my arrogant conceit, I hadn't been able to protect a single one of the siblings I'd laughed with for a year, not through that savage storm.

No matter how superb a swordsman's personal skill... it was like trying to save someone from a crashing tidal wave.

The agonizing memories looped and replayed, and helplessness seemed to close around my throat. Just as a self-destructive impulse rose in me—to just let go of everything in this unbearable pain—I felt a small ember catch again at one edge of my soul.

I still had people I needed to protect. The northern house and the people of the territory I had to protect with my own hands were waiting for me. If I had failed to protect them in the past, then in the future that was coming, I would protect them no matter what it took.

I have to go back.

I steeled my heart and honed my will like a sharpened blade. Cracks began to spider across the illusion before my eyes, and then it shattered like glass.

A sharp, splintering crack rang out.

When the vicious illusion receded and I returned to reality, the first thing that met my eyes was Uriel, collapsed on the corridor floor in the light of the waxing moon.

"Uriel...!"

I rushed to her and gathered her into ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my arms. She was weeping, her voice wet with tears.

Of all the horrific memories she could have had, that was the one that had hurt her most?

She'd been a supporting character in the original with no connection to Caelus at all. When had it started, then.

"...Uriel."

I carefully reached out, wiped away every tear running down her cheek, and called her name in a low voice.

Whether she heard my call or not, Uriel's long lashes trembled, and her eyes slowly began to open. When the real me filled a vision still blurred with tears, Uriel buried herself in my chest without a second's delay, as if all the grief she'd been holding back had burst.

"Hic... Caelus...!"

Uriel pressed into me as if seeking warmth, but it was her body heat that seemed to slowly thaw a heart that had frozen over with despair. I held her without a word, gently stroking her silver hair, and thought:

This time, I would protect her. No matter what.