The Emblem Not Found in the Original
The space inside the door was not a forest. We had clearly opened the door in the middle of Mana Zone B-7’s blue forest. Yet what unfolded beyond was neither forest, training ground, cathedral, nor imperial palace. A black hall. That was the only name I could give it.
The floor was smooth like black marble, with blue ley lines spreading across it like veins. The ceiling was nowhere to be seen. Endless darkness stretched overhead, and within that darkness floated tiny seal characters like stars. At the center of the hall hovered five emblems. A black lion. A blue crown. A pure-white cross. A crimson sword. And an unnamed sword.
The moment I saw those emblems, I swallowed a breath. The black lion resembled House Diaren’s crest, yet it was far more savage and darker than the one I knew. The lion’s eyes glowed red, and its mane flickered like black flames. The blue crown seemed to symbolize Leah—cold and beautiful, yet with frozen chains dangling beneath it. The pure-white cross echoed Aria’s holy arts, though a small crack ran through its center. A light meant to illuminate everyone, yet on the verge of shattering from trying to embrace too much. The crimson sword was Ciela’s blade—more precisely, Bayern’s sword. But its edge bore traces of having been broken and reforged. Incomplete, yet tempered anew.
The last was the unnamed sword. No decorations whatsoever. No noble house crest, no imperial blessing, no stigma of the Holy Church. A crude, simple blade. Yet the one standing most upright.
Edan Gray. The instant I saw that sword, I thought of him.
“This is……” Edan muttered lowly. He seemed to feel the same thing.
Noel’s voice rang inside my head.
— Be careful. This is the heart of B-7. A space like this was never part of the original training zone. It’s a temporary core formed when residual mana from the Central Sealed Area mixed with B-7’s illusion spell.
“Can we close it?” I asked. Noel answered.
— If we force it shut from outside, there’s a high chance you’ll be trapped inside with it.
“You always give the worst answers.”
— Reality is usually like that. Not exactly comforting.
The five emblems at the center of the hall began to rotate slowly. Black lion, blue crown, pure-white cross, crimson sword, unnamed sword. They spun as though pushing one another away. Then, at some point, black lines connected between the emblems.
Leah raised her staff. “Are those emblems pointing at us?”
“It seems so.” I stared at the black lion. “That one must be mine.”
Ciela narrowed her eyes. “Is it House Diaren’s crest?”
“Similar. Just far more malicious.”
Aria gazed at the pure-white cross. “That one…… is mine, isn’t it?”
Noel’s voice followed immediately.
— Correct. They’re the lingering emotions left after each of you passed through your illusions, hardened into emblem form. The problem is whether they’ve acknowledged you…… or marked you for another attack. We don’t know yet.
Then a voice echoed from the center of the hall.
A cold, mechanical voice. Not human. B-7’s sealing spell—or perhaps a remnant of the Correction Force that had flowed in from the Central Sealed Area. The voice continued.
— The villain has survived.
— The crown has connected to the villain.
— The saintess has declared her choice.
— The knight has acknowledged a self beyond the sword.
— The unnamed sword has cooperated with the villain.
— Initiating correction procedure.
“Correction procedure?” Ciela raised her sword. “More of that damned ‘original story’ nonsense.”
Aria’s holy arts began to glow softly. “Does this space itself regard us as enemies?”
“More precisely, it seems to view the connections centered on me as errors.” I gripped my sword. “And it intends to fix those errors.”
The five emblems at the center suddenly blazed with light. Black mana surged from the black lion. Ice chains extended from the blue crown. Cracked light flowed from the pure-white cross. Unstable sword radiance burst from the crimson sword. Transparent sword aura shimmered from the unnamed sword. Five forces collided at the center of the hall. And from that collision, a single figure took shape.
A knight clad in black armor. But it had no face. The inside of its helm was empty. In its hand was a sword engraved with all five emblems intertwined—lion crest and crown on the blade, traces of the unnamed sword on the hilt, the cross’s crack and crimson glow along the spine.
Noel’s voice grew urgent.
— That’s a composite entity. The lingering emotions from the illusions you each overcame have merged with the correction spell.
“In simple terms?”
— The remnants of the illusions you each defeated are attacking you all at once.
“That was the simple explanation?”
— Yeah.
The black knight moved. Fast. Its first target was me. Only natural—the center of the error. The black lion’s mark.
I tried to retreat, but black chains erupted from beneath my feet. Chains engraved with House Diaren’s lion crest.
“Lord Kyle!”
Aria’s holy arts wrapped around me. At the same time, Leah’s cold froze the chains. Ciela sliced through the frozen links with her sword. Edan was already standing in front of me. His blade clashed with the black knight’s.
BOOM!
Edan was pushed back. “It’s heavy,” he said through gritted teeth. “It’s not just strong. It knows my swordsmanship.”
“Because remnants from your illusion are mixed in as well.”
I tried to read the flow of mana, but my head throbbed as if it would split. Five branches of mana extended simultaneously from the black knight. One pushed death and guilt toward me. One whispered isolation and distrust toward Leah. One pressed the guilt of choice upon Aria. One instilled the fear of letting go of her sword into Ciela. And the last drove the compulsion of justice into Edan.
The black knight wielded not one person’s weakness, but all of ours.
“Maintain formation!” Ciela shouted. She charged to the front. Though wounds still marked her hands, her sword path did not waver. After proving herself in the illusion, her blade seemed even more resolute.
She took the black knight’s strike head-on. It was not the sound of metal clashing, but of a seal breaking.
Leah immediately fired a spear of cold. “I’ll bind its legs.”
Blue ice coiled around the black knight’s legs. But the knight raised its blade, engraved with the crown crest, and the ice blackened and cracked in reverse.
Leah’s eyes turned icy. “It’s mimicking my cold.”
“It devoured the remnants of Your Highness’s illusion!” I shouted. “We’ll be at a disadvantage if we fight it head-on with raw power.”
“Then what do we do?”
“We have to cover each other’s weaknesses with each other’s strengths.”
Even as I said it, I paused briefly. It sounded good in theory, but the execution would be complicated.
Noel cut in at once.
— Kyle’s right. That composite moves in response to one person’s power at a time. If we fight it one-on-one, it’ll just stab at each of our old weaknesses again. But if two or more of us combine our powers, its reaction will slow.
“Meaning?”
— Make a combination technique or something.
“Right now?”
— Do it now or die. Your choice.
Truly unhelpful help.
The black knight moved again. This time it targeted Aria. Her eyes trembled. The voices from the cathedral illusion seemed to resurface. Saintess candidate. Who to save first.
Countless small voices leaked from the black knight’s blade.
— Choose.
— You cannot save everyone.
— Your hand can only reach one person.
Aria’s holy arts wavered. I tried to call her name, but she moved first.
“I know,” she said. “That I cannot perfectly save everyone. That I wavered.”
Pure white light bloomed at her fingertips. “Even so, I said I wouldn’t run away this time.”
Aria’s holy arts did not directly block the black knight. Instead, thin threads of light connected to all of us—my wrist, Edan’s shoulder, Leah’s staff, Ciela’s sword, and Aria’s own fingertips.
The moment the threads of light linked, the black knight’s movements halted for an instant.
Noel shouted.
— Yes! Connection Lines! It’s using what that thing tried to exploit against it!
Connections. What the Black Moon had tried to sever. What B-7 had tried to stab as weaknesses. Aria had turned them into a shield.
“Lady Ciela!” I shouted.
Ciela already understood. Aria’s holy arts coiled around her sword. White light layered over crimson radiance. She caught the black knight’s attack without being pushed back.
“Lady Leah!”
Leah raised her staff. Blue cold spread along Ciela’s sword. Crimson sword light, white holy arts, blue cold. Three forces traced a single trajectory. For the first time, a crack appeared in the black knight’s blade.
Edan slipped into that opening. The unnamed sword. His blade bore no house crest, no imperial authority, no blessing from the Holy Church. Yet right now, that sword was the freest of all.
“Lord Kyle!” Edan shouted. “Now!”
I moved. I stepped on the seal characters beneath my feet. My damaged mana circuits screamed. But I was not alone this time. Aria’s holy arts protected my circuits. Leah’s cold stabilized my wavering mana. Ciela’s sword pressure opened the path ahead. Edan’s blade created the opening.
I thrust my sword toward the black knight’s chest.
The black lion crest reacted. The Diaren crest engraved on my sword hilt darkened.
“I am not an error,” I said through gritted teeth. “I am someone who survived.”
The blade sank in. The black knight’s body shook. But it did not collapse. Instead, the empty darkness inside its helm looked down at me.
— Villain survival not acknowledged.
— Protagonist connections damaged.
— Crown connection error.
— Correction continues.
Stronger mana erupted from the black knight’s body. We were all pushed back at once. Aria’s threads of light trembled as if about to snap.
“Hold on!” Aria cried.
Noel’s voice rang out.
— You have to hit the core! Not the chest. The center of that thing is the sword!
“The sword?”
I looked at the blade in the black knight’s hand. The sword engraved with five emblems. That sword was the composite’s core. But the question was who would break it.
Ciela raised her sword. “I’ll go.”
“No,” Edan said.
Ciela looked at him. “Why?”
“My illusion is mixed into that sword as well. I should be the one to do it.”
Leah spoke coldly. “You cannot do it alone.”
“I know.” Edan turned to me. “My lord. Let us go together.”
I looked at him. Protagonist and villain. A relationship that should have stolen each other’s positions, doubted one another, clashed. Yet now we had to break the same sword.
“Very well,” I said, raising my blade. “This time, we go together.”
Edan ran first. I followed half a beat later. The black knight swung its sword down at Edan. Edan did not block head-on. He redirected the blade’s path. I slipped into the opening he created.
The black knight’s other hand reached for me. In that moment, Leah’s cold froze it. Ciela severed the frozen arm. Aria’s holy arts added light to our swords.
“Now!” Noel shouted.
Edan and I swung our swords simultaneously. My blade struck the black lion crest. Edan’s blade cleaved the unnamed sword crest. Leah’s cold pierced the blue crown crest. Aria’s light filled the crack in the cross. Ciela’s crimson radiance delivered the final fracture.
All five emblems shattered at once.
The black knight’s sword broke into pieces. The composite stopped moving. The darkness inside its helm trembled.
— Correction failed.
— Connection Lines redefined.
— B-7 core unstable.
“Unstable?” I muttered.
At that moment, the entire hall shook. The blue ley lines on the floor began to turn black.
Noel shouted urgently.
— Get out! The core is collapsing!
The door opened again. But beyond it was not the forest we had entered from. A black rift. The same darkness I had seen in the Central Sealed Area yawned open. From within came a voice—low and gentle. Rowen’s voice.
— Connection Line redefinition confirmed.
— Proceeding to the next scene.
I gritted my teeth. “It’s not over yet.”
Edan stood beside me. “Can we end it?”
“I don’t know.” I adjusted my grip on my sword. “But we can at least not run away.”
Ciela spoke. “That’s a good decision, for once.”
Leah raised her hand and erected a barrier of cold. Aria connected us all with threads of holy light.
Noel shouted.
— I’ll count to three, then jump!
“Three!”
“Senior!”
— No time!
We dashed toward the door at the same time. Behind us, the heart of B-7 collapsed. The black rift opened its maw to swallow us.
And in that final moment, I saw it. A new emblem rising at the center of the collapsing hall. It was neither the black lion, nor the blue crown, nor the unnamed sword. Five lines intertwined into a single crest—Aria’s light, Ciela’s sword, Leah’s crown, Edan’s unnamed sword, and my black lion. They wove together as one.
Noel’s voice came faintly.
— This…… is an emblem that doesn’t exist in the original story.
The next instant, we were flung out through the door. Mana Zone B-7’s forest was collapsing.