Crossroads of Life and Death
Death is equal to all. It comes swift, covert, slipping in without warning before anyone can realize it.
Pain, however, is a different matter entirely. Once a person adapts to agonizing torment, their threshold shifts, rendering them oblivious to minor hurts.
They say that when God created mankind, He crafted pain so they might avoid death, and fear so they might avoid pain. If so, both pain and fear could be considered gifts—blessings from the divine. Yet he was no recipient of such grace. Or rather, to be precise, he had ceased to be one.
He had reached a point where ordinary agony could not make him bat an eye.
He used to believe he still feared death. Deep down, however, the truth had already dawned on him: he was gradually forgetting what it felt like to be afraid.
Since when had it been? Was it back when his only desire was finding a way to flee from the corpses? Or was it when he struggled desperately to save Sayne from her family? Whatever the turning point, the word fear had faded to a whisper within his heart.
And the consequence of that erosion was this wretched state.
"...You truly are persistent," Count Cerindel murmured.
Einzel met the count's gaze with wild, bloodshot eyes and broke into a grin.
"...Few men can muster a smile with their limbs all severed."
"Yeah, damn right. And fewer still would let a lunatic keep breathing when he grins through having his arms and legs hacked off, wouldn't you say?"
"...I cannot fathom why you push yourself to such extremes."
Count Cerindel scoffed. Why on earth did he hold out until he was reduced to this?
Yet Einzel had already completed the arithmetic in his head.
"Hey, look. I'm a dead man anyway—mind indulging my curiosity a little?"
When someone refused to yield even after being butchered like this, drugging them or binding their tongue was completely pointless. He had already resolved in his heart that death itself would not force his surrender.
An assured demise. And humans were prone to lowering their guard before those marked for certain death, convinced a dying man was powerless to do anything.
"...Speak."
"No matter how hard I rack my brain, I can't figure out why you abducted Peria. Care to enlighten me?"
"...You were pondering that in the middle of being tortured?"
"It got pretty boring, honestly."
"You are likely the only person alive who would speak of torture in such terms."
"Probably. So, what's the answer?"
"I do not know the full picture myself. Only that it concerns a ring in her possession."
"A ring?"
"I already stated I do not know the details."
"Right, so you don't know a damn thing."
"Trying to get under my skin with your final breaths? Well, it matters little. Why should I care about the prattle of someone who will be buried along with whatever truth I share? Consider it an act of mercy."
"You already lopped off my arms and legs, and you're calling it mercy?"
"Well, just a figure of speech." Count Cerindel shrugged.
Einzel laughed hysterically on the inside. Buried along with your truth? Hate to break it to you, pal, but I don't have that luxury.
"Now then... I believe it is time to conclude this."
"Be my guest."
Count Cerindel severed his head.
Einzel opened his eyes. The timeline was... strange. He had expected to return to the moment Peria was taken, but that wasn't it. This was days earlier—when the Magic Tower Master was still drawing breath.
Furthermore, the intelligence he had wheedled out of Count Cerindel only deepened his confusion. A ring? What ring? Let alone its true nature, he hadn't even known she owned one.
He began piecing together theories about circumstances he knew nothing about, only to arrive at the conclusion that it was an enigma. Once again, he could utter nothing but "I don't know."
Swallowing the bitter helplessness that had grown far too familiar, he set out.
First, he headed to the Magic Tower. To make sense of what was unfolding, asking Peria directly seemed the only viable step. When he arrived, he caught sight of Peria emerging from the tower, her brow furrowed in distress.
He walked up to her and asked, "Is something wrong?"
"H-huh? No, nothing. What are you doing here?"
At that moment, Einzel realized what day this was.
"I heard the Tower Master collapsed. I came by because I was worried about you."
Peria's expression darkened, and she cast her eyes downward.
"...Right. Thanks." That was all she could manage to offer.
Just then, his eyes caught the ring slipping onto her finger.
"What's that ring?"
"Oh, the old man gave it to me. He said it's a keepsake from my parents."
"A keepsake?"
In an instant, he knew. Jackpot. A faint smirk formed in his mind.
"Yeah. Said they left it for me before they died... though I don't really know what it is."
He studied the ring closely. A gold band engraved with the likeness of a phoenix. With nothing more than its appearance, he had to unravel the entire truth behind this incident.
"Ah, right. I see."
He offered a noncommittal murmur. Ostensibly, he was there to console Peria over a loved one's illness; he could hardly press her for more details without raising suspicion.
"Anyway, I'll be fine, so don't worry... You should head back."
Einzel nodded.
The moment he returned to his lodgings, he threw himself feverishly into investigating the significance of the phoenix. What about Peria had caught the Empire's eye—enough to mobilize the Shadow Knights?
Eventually, he pieced together a plausible hypothesis. He remembered something Peria had once mentioned: "The ancient banner of the Empire was the phoenix."
Following the thread of the ancient imperial insignia, he finally formulated an answer. It had likely served as the symbol of an ancient order of mages.
In the Empire's past—the golden age when the Magic Tower was first founded—the tower, too, had hoisted the phoenix as its crest. More accurately, because mages held the phoenix in high reverence in their hearts, the Empire had adopted it as an emblem, and the Magic Tower had subsequently embraced it as well.
The Phoenix Empire was a realm where mages had flourished, where the mainstream had championed reason over dogma and arcane magic over divine miracles. The Goddess Religion had wielded formidable influence even then, of course, but the atmosphere permeating society as a whole had been fundamentally different.
Yet that golden age had drawn to a close when a single priest rallied against the corrupt mages, stripping them of their supremacy. Through the actions of just one man, the mages' golden era collapsed, and the factions that originally ruled the Magic Tower were branded heretical villains and forced into the shadows.
And the final surviving vestige of those fallen factions was that very ring... or so the hypothesis went.
To be frank, it was a flimsy theory, riddled with rough edges and forced assumptions. But honestly, it was hard to arrive at any conclusion more compelling than that.
Still... hasty conclusions were dangerous. He decided to clear his head.
Then came the fateful moment Peria was about to be dragged away. Striking from behind, he ambushed the knights, knocking them senseless.
"Hey! What the hell are you doing?! Those are knights of the Empire!" Peria gasped in utter panic.
She half-expected Einzel to look rattled by his own reckless assault, yet he didn't so much as blink.
"I know. But considering the timing, don't you think it's only natural to sense danger when imperial knights try to haul you off by force?"
"Well, yes, but still..."
"Besides, look at them." He gestured toward their plate armor. "Their division crest is supposed to be engraved right here. But look closely. There's nothing. An oversight on one knight might be an accident, but both of them? Do you understand what that means?"
A cold shiver ran down Peria's spine.
"Don't tell me..."
"The Shadow Knights."
Peria had never dreamed such an urban legend would crop up in reality.
"If it's really the Shadow Knights..."
They were an order whispered to handle every sordid, filthy deed the Imperial Family wanted kept in the dark. A cheap rumor without verified substance—or so most believed. Yet now, the myth stood flesh-and-blood before her. What fate would have awaited her had she quietly followed them?
"...That was close. Too close."
"Yeah."
"So... what are we supposed to do now?"
"First, we lie low." He took her hand and spoke calmly. If they laid low and gathered clues, a solution would present itself.
Worst-case scenario, he could just die a few times to piece together whatever he missed—surely that would lead to an answer. That was what he told himself.
And in that very breath, a sickening dissonance struck him.
Wait, what did I just think? Did I really just tell myself that dying a few times wouldn't be a problem? Thinking about death without an ounce of emotion, just tossing it aside like that? ...Have I started seeing my own death as nothing more than a tool?
His thoughts churned like murky water shaken in a jar. At the same time, goosebumps broke out across his skin.
He was nowhere near strong enough to slay the Demon King. His grueling journey still had an impossible distance left to cover. And yet, already... he was treating his own deaths as expendable tools?
He raised his hand and looked at it. It was trembling violently.
A terrifying sensation that he was losing pieces of himself bit by bit. Endless deaths had left no physical scars upon his current flesh, but they had stripped away something far more vital.
What dragged him back from that downward spiral was the look in Peria's eyes—her gaze, quivering with raw anxiety.
He would have to ponder his unraveling sanity later—after they got out of harm's way.