She didn’t miss the instant he flinched. Camilla drove her foot straight into Professor J.B. with everything she had.

Thud!

“Ghh—!”

He flew off to the side more easily than she expected.

But he sprang up at once and rushed her again.

He couldn’t let it fall apart now.

Whish!

Again, his move was cut off—Camilla had hurled something at him.

Ravi’s gift from not long ago: the Magic Bracelet (Binding).

“This is—!”

In an instant he was trussed up tight in chains. The shock showed plain on his face.

“Kh—khem—”

Only then did Camilla cough and cough, dry and rasping.

It’s all because of you. Because of you!

“Fuck...”

If only you didn’t exist. If only you didn’t...

She swiped at the corners of her eyes, bit down hard as she saw the faint tremor in her own hand.

It’s okay. Settle down.

I’m not that child anymore.

She repeated it to herself—her standing spell for moments like this.

Back when she shot that thriller, filming had stalled the same way.

The instant she faced the culprit, she couldn’t speak a line or give a reaction. Her whole body froze; she blew take after take.

She’d thought she’d erased all memory of her childhood—but that was when she knew for certain.

It wasn’t a wound you could erase.

She finished the shoot by sheer grit, but for days after she was a wreck.

And now too. Even with her resolve set like iron, the trembling wouldn’t ease.

“Phew.”

After a long breath, she finally looked at Professor J.B., bound to one side.

How is he this strong?

Another moment and she might truly have been in danger. He looked slight, but his strength was no joke.

“How...?”

He frowned in confusion.

He’d watched her finish the tea—how was she awake and fine?

“What? The trick you pulled with the tea?”

Seeing what he wanted to know, Camilla clicked her tongue.

“I did some homework.”

From your sister.

Amy, who’d refused to give up information on Professor J.B., confessed everything when she heard Camilla’s plan.

Thanks to that, Camilla took a drug beforehand to neutralize the sedative he used—and walked into his home.

“Tch.”

He clicked his tongue softly.

“So you already knew, then—what I meant to do.”

Even trussed up, he was composed.

“It did seem odd. You suddenly offering to help my research.”

When she didn’t bite on his bait at all, he’d considered changing targets.

Then, out of nowhere, she sent word she’d help with his work. He had his doubts—but proceeded anyway.

Camilla, after all, was a target he very much wanted to “handle.”

“A shame.”

His eyes on her filled with pity.

“It would have made both of us happy.”

“What utter bullshit.”

Happy? Who? Me?

“It’s hard for you. Living with a false family—I know how hard that is.”

He went on as if persuading her, step by step, even smiling gently.

“Isn’t living itself painful?”

“So that’s why you killed those women?”

His eyes widened a fraction.

“How did you...?”

He’d left no evidence at all. How could she possibly know?

“Haa.”

Startled for a moment, he soon smoothed his face with a short sigh.

“It’s what they wanted.”

Not a shred of doubt—flat, firm.

Now that his crimes were out, he looked easier, even. As if having nothing left to hide finally let him breathe.

“Their lives were not happy lives. I ended a terrible suffering for them.”

Camilla was briefly at a loss for words.

What a fucking lunatic.

Unbelievable. He did all this for that flimsy reason?

[It’s because of me.]

Amy’s voice—when had she arrived?—echoed. Maybe she’d come early and hidden, knowing what would happen here today.

She sighed and sighed, looking at Professor J.B.

[He was in too much pain over my death.]

“What kind of crap are you spouting now.”

Professor J.B. shot her a puzzled look as Camilla barked at empty air.

She didn’t care. What did it matter how a piece of shit like him saw her?

[He decided my death was all his fault.]

“And what the hell does that have to do with murder.”

[Maybe he needed an exit.]

“What?”

An exit?

[Maybe he needed to absolve himself. To rationalize that living isn’t necessarily happiness.]

“...”

In other words, to shield himself from the pain of his sister’s death—to hand himself absolution—he was doing this.

“Shut your mouth.”

[Camilla...]

“One person talking nonsense is plenty.”

He was her brother, and Amy was trying, in her way, to shield him. Camilla clicked her tongue.

“Your brother is just a murderer.”

What? Exit? Defense?

Murder is just murder. Nothing more, nothing less.

Leaving the wilted Amy behind, Camilla stepped up to Professor J.B. He looked back at her with a strange glint.

“As expected, you have many issues. Psychological ones. All because you never received a family’s love—”

“Stop barking.”

Who’s calling who crazy.

“Who says?”

“What do you mean?”

“Who told you dying would be happier?”

“Isn’t it obvious? If the family inflicts such pain, is that happiness? Why do you think people give up their lives?”

He clicked his tongue at her, as if her view made no sense. Camilla seized his hair in one hand and yanked.

“Urk!”

She hauled his head up harder, forcing his eyes to meet hers.

“Who are you to decide that.”

“P—pardon?”

“Who are you to decide whether /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ their lives are happy or not.”

“That’s—!”

“Who says?”

She asked it again.

“Who said they wanted to die?”

“I’ll say it again: better death than that kind of—”

“Miss Dubré had a man she loved. They’d promised to marry after graduation. She was about to leave home.”

She cut off his broken record and went on, cool and steady.

“Miss Luri used her monthly allowance to support the orphanage she’d once lived in. She had little siblings there she cherished like life itself.”

At the sound of their names, the ghosts turned toward her.

For the first time, the women who’d given up, vacant and hollow, merely trailing their killer, reacted.

“Miss Rotiel was going to start a business with the money she’d scraped together since childhood. She dreamed of leaving home the moment she graduated the Academy and living her own life.”

With each word, tears welled in their eyes. And the composure in Professor J.B.’s face crumbled.

The pillar he’d braced himself on—the belief that they had no happy future—collapsed.

“Th—that can’t be!”

He’d grown close to them, heard much, even the stories of their abuse.

But he’d never heard what Camilla was saying now.

“Don’t lie!”

His voice rose for the first time.

“Lie? You don’t trust the Sorpel house’s intelligence network? I can show you the reports right now. Want me to bring Miss Dubré’s boyfriend here? Once he knows the truth, he’ll try to kill you on the spot. Or should I bring Miss Luri’s siblings from the orphanage? I hear they still cry every night since learning their sister is dead.”

Holding his wildly shaking eyes, Camilla asked again.

“Who are you?”

“...”

“Who are you to decide, on your own, whether they were happy or not?”

“I—I...”

“If that kind of judgment is ‘fine’—”

Seeing him unable to form a sentence, she finally released his hair.

And—

“—then I get to judge however I want, just like you. Don’t I?”

She asked it mildly.

“From where I’m standing, your life doesn’t look particularly happy either.”

Before he could say another word, she released the bracelet’s binding—then brought the band to his neck instead.

“Ghk!”

With the bracelet crushing his throat, he collapsed. He crawled on his knees, choking, begging through pain.

“Sp—spare... ghk!”

“Are you seriously asking me to spare you right now?”

“Pl—please, s—spare...”

What an unbelievable piece of shit.

“How do those words even come out of your mouth?”

After all the lives you took.

“Spare... p—please... kh...ugh...”

As his face turned blue, Camilla flicked her hand and loosened the bracelet.

Then, her face still blank, she stepped in close.

“Happy? You said better to die than live like that.”

“Ghh—kh—!”

“How does it feel, going right up to the edge of death?”

Do you really think you saved them?

Do you think the people who died by your hands left this world without a single regret?

Collapsed and leaking tears, snot, and spit, he couldn’t answer at once. She didn’t particularly care to hear it anyway.

Tch. She clicked her tongue and turned her head.

“Rube.”

Sss—

At her call, a figure slid into view. Not a butler now—the Chief of Black Shadow, Rube.

“The recording orb?”

“I installed it over there.”

At his reply, Camilla walked to the planter set to one side.