The Heart That Would Not Vanish
Odelli fitted the Blood Crystal into place with painstaking care—precisely, and not into the circuit that would trigger the spell, but into the one that would cancel it.
The instant the crystal locked into the array, a low vibration rose from the floor. The red light sealed inside it flared like a flame and began to shudder.
And then—
Crack.
Slowly. Very slowly. Threads of light snapped one by one, and the circuits of the spell grew faint. The array, once so intricate and exact, began to fail the way a living thing fails when its span is spent. The half of his life force that Ludville had offered to complete the formula was returning to its rightful owner.
Odelli watched in silence.
When the array vanished entirely, the space sank back into darkness. In that moment, deep in her chest, she felt something like a thin thread giving way.
Snap.
At the same time a vicious sense of loss washed over her. The last and only bond that had joined her to Ludville through the spell was gone for good.
Odelli drew a quiet breath. Somewhere in her chest, it felt as if a hollow had opened.
…That's the end of it.
Those meant to live would live. Those meant to die had only dying left. Before that, she would have to help Ludville come back to himself, and give him some purpose so he could go on. She meant to spend the five years left to her at a relentless pace. She tried to stir her own will, but the emptiness remained all the same. It was only a wretched bond she would have been better off never forming, finally cut—and yet…
Time to go back.
Odelli turned slowly. There was no reason to linger in a place where nothing remained.
And then—
A glimmer. A faint light broke the pitch dark.
"…!"
Odelli turned her head as if she could not believe it. Ludville's Blood Crystal—the thing that ought to have vanished with the array—was still shining on the floor, burning on like a flame that refused to go out.
She stopped dead and looked down at the red crystal sitting there alone. The array had been utterly extinguished, yet it would not cease its flame-like wavering.
"…Why."
Her heart nearly dropped. For an instant a grim thought crossed her mind. What if the cancellation had failed?
But it hadn't.
The array is gone. The spell is fully released…
She was certain of it. Even the half of Ludville's life force that had been spent had returned to him exactly. So why was the Blood Crystal alone still here—the medium that should have disappeared with the array?
Odelli knelt carefully before it. When she lifted the red crystal, a faint warmth touched her fingertips. It was warm as a person's body, as if someone's soul were held inside. Yet it did not feel ominous, or chilling. If anything, her heart grew strangely calm.
Ludville nearly gave all of himself to make this.
Not only his life force. His memories, his emotions, every despair and obsession piled up across countless regressions—he had poured all of it into this crystal. However fierce the will sealed inside it, canceling the spell ought to have meant it vanished along with the rest. But Ludville was not ordinary.
It might be because he's a regressor.
The same wish had accumulated inside him thousands of times, hadn't it? With that much desire, longing, prayer, and madness sealed within, perhaps that was why the Blood Crystal had not disappeared even after the array was gone. An object, once broken, is simply finished. A human heart, even shattered, lingers to the very end in the shape of regret. This might not be a remnant of the spell at all, but the last remaining fragment of Ludville's heart.
She had only just managed to sever the bond, and still it felt as if the crystal would not let go—as if it were tying both ends of the thread back together.
Odelli gazed at it for a long while. All at once she remembered the wish he had spoken, that he wanted to spend her thirtieth birthday with her. Had it failed to vanish because that heart was not yet finished…?
…It's pointless.
Even now he wandered in search of the Blue-Eyed Woman, every memory lost and his heart still unable to let go. This Blood Crystal might be Ludville's sincerity itself. If so, perhaps it could serve as a measure.
When Ludville lets me go completely, this Blood Crystal will vanish too.
Odelli tucked the crystal back against her breast.
It was the third day since the Knights of Radiance had marched. Across a barren plain, the snow that had fallen through the night was staining red with blood. Whatever name this village had once gone by meant nothing now. Years ago already, a single kind of monster pack had reduced the land to ruin.
Velusa. A venomous monster whose breath, at a mere graze, melted the skin and rotted the organs within.
Ludville stood at the heart of the very pack that had annihilated the village. Struck by their breath, he did not so much as blink. He cut, and cut, and cut again, driving straight ahead as if he had never learned what retreat was.
"Your Grace!"
Edwin, the archduke's aide, shouted from the lip of the collapsed gorge, his breath coming cold and hard.
An hour earlier, Ludville had lured the velusa in and then deliberately brought down the mouth of the gorge. It was a feint meant to narrow the monsters' path—and, at the same time, the decisive act that made it impossible for anyone to follow him. Reckless, and entirely his own doing.
Damn it. Again!
Only then did Edwin realize he had been had. Ludville was using the subjugation as cover for a pastime little short of suicide.
"Belkan! Still not done?"
Edwin shouted and whipped around toward the entrance. The mage called Belkan wiped the sweat from his brow where he stood over the magic circle and called back.
"Still trying, sir!"
The collapsed ground threatened an avalanche. One careless entry could bury Ludville along with everything else, and so the aide and the Knights of Radiance could do nothing but stand there, powerless, and wait for the magic to succeed. Edwin ground his teeth and stamped his foot.
"Damn it—hurry, please…!"
Beyond the wreckage, his lord's figure flickered into view.
Ludville Exepsion. He was smiling, the line of his mouth twisted, as if drunk on the monsters' miasma.
If you're going to go mad, at least go mad cleanly!
Edwin screamed it inwardly. Whether he did or not, Ludville—who had not the slightest interest in what his aide was doing—severed a monster's neck in a single stroke. Viscous blood, little different from deadly poison, spattered his face, and he did not so much as flinch. Those vacant purple eyes held not a trace of pain. They only stared, emotionless, into the distance.
Another came charging at him, and he watched it come with the same numbness. This time he did not even raise his sword. He snapped its neck with his bare hands.
And it was in that very instant.
"…!"
Thud. Thud. Thud—
His heart began to pound like a mad thing. Something surged back into him.
Life. Vitality. Strength. A pulse.
Whatever name one chose to give it.