Alon stared blankly up at the sky.

In the place that, until he learned the truth, had been nothing but a Milky Way crammed full—countless eyes now packed it.

Every one different in size and shape.

And yet, thousands—tens of thousands—of “eyes” that were unmistakably eyes.

Looking up at them in silence, Alon let out a hollow laugh without realizing it.

‘...So that’s what it was?’

The very first thing that came to mind was Psychedelia.

The game that had let him roughly know what would happen in this world, and given him the knowledge to save the children who would become the five great sins.

Of course, Alon didn’t see this world as a game.

A long, long time ago, he’d already realized this wasn’t some game made of nothing but zeros and ones.

Anyone—no matter how stupid—would’ve figured that out.

Still, what he thought of was Psychedelia’s ending.

Every time he cleared Psychedelia by catching all the sins again and again as Elivan, the playable character, the ending was always different.

Naturally.

Depending on how you controlled Elivan, there were countless branching endings.

Sometimes, even after dealing with every sin, the Allied Kingdoms grew weaker and the Empire invaded.

Other times, even after reaching the end, the bad reputation the player had built up came back to bite them and it turned into an unhappy ending.

Beyond that, he’d seen all sorts of finales for Elivan, who could take on a variety of jobs.

And among them, of course, there were the kinds called happy endings.

An ending where every companion Elivan had formed bonds with didn’t die, and, miraculously, the Allied Kingdoms suffered no loss of influence at all, so the Empire never encroached.

Anyone would call that a happy ending.

But there was one thing all those endings had in common.

The phrase that appeared at the very end.

Whether it flashed a bad ending, or a happy ending, the phrase that appeared before the player never changed.

‘You alone have escaped ruin.’

A line that countless players once questioned, threw out interpretations for, or complained about.

Other users said it had to be a teaser for a sequel.

Alon, back then, had taken a tiny bit of interest, too.

He’d even searched it up online.

He’d checked the wiki people used to gather information.

But in the end, it was all just guesses and interpretations, and there was nothing official—so he’d quickly lost interest.

Yet now, in this moment, Alon could finally understand that line.

Psychedelia’s end isn’t the end.

No matter what kind of ending Elivan reached, that was only the result of stopping the sins.

It doesn’t show what comes after.

That’s why that line exists.

You alone have escaped ruin.

“Hah.”

Alon let out a hollow laugh as he pieced together a puzzle of truth he hadn’t wanted to know.

The countless eyes in the blue night still looked down at him.

He could feel countless gazes.

At the same time, he could feel emotion, too.

And then—

Wuuuuung—!

A tremendous noise began to drift in.

It wasn’t the noise of a magic circle.

It wasn’t the noise of any machine, either.

It wasn’t a resonance, either.

It was, literally, a strange noise the world itself was making.

But that sound, in an instant, devoured the emotions of everyone here.

Soldiers were swallowed by fear, knights trembled, and mages alternated between tension and resignation.

And then—

Tt—

With an extremely small sound, like something snapping, the Milky Way visible to everyone’s eyes—

the eyes visible to Alon—

no, to a handful of people—

began to fall down to the ground.

“...Wow.”

The soldiers murmured in awe.

Soaked in fear, they were captivated by the Milky Way pouring down like rain.

But Alon wasn’t.

[̆■■҇■■■■҇■■]

[A҇AAAAAA҇AAAA͛͋͞─̈̍̽̅̌͝─͆̂͝─̒̇̈́̉͞─̛̔̒͊̅͊─̐̓̀̃̕─̛͆̍͒─̛̋̏́͂͛─҇͛̌̔]

[Corruption҇corruptioncorruptioncorruptioncorruptioncorruption҇corruption]

[K҇rr҇rrrrr͡]

What reached Alon’s ears first—

were grotesque sounds so uncanny they made his skin crawl.

[Kill҇themkillthemkillthe҇m]

[KillthegodofthesurfaceandI҇̽̍͛̒]

[This҇timeforcertain҇̽̍͛̒]

Next came voices like curses, their meaning unclear.

Mutterings aimed at no one in particular, thick with nothing but sticky regret and rage.

And what came last was—

-[Now҇Icanfinally҇see҇̽̍͛̒]

-[Let’s҇seeitfor҇once]

-[Finally҇finallyfinallyfinallyfinallyfinallyfinallyfinallyfinal҇lyfinallyfinal҇lyfinally-]

A story his mind couldn’t comprehend.

“...Why?”

The question slipped out of Alon without him meaning to.

Because he hadn’t thought what was up there would actually fall right now.

But—

[Because we were blocking it.]

The Bearer, as if answering to clear up his doubt, said it in a low voice.

[The rest is up to you.]

With those words, it vanished completely.

And Alon, staring at the empty space left behind by someone who’d disappeared after handing him a half-finished answer sheet—

“...Huh?”

Suddenly, his vision wobbled violently.

He was confused for a moment, but he realized right away.

It was only that the situation had been too shocking for him to notice.

His body wasn’t normal.

His flesh had recovered to an extent with the divinity of the primordial elf, but there were still many wounds left all over him.

When he wiped his face, both hands ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) were smeared with blood that had run from his eyes and nose.

Staring blankly at the bloodstains, Alon murmured,

“...I need to rest, huh.”

And with that, he simply closed his eyes.

A voice calling to him from behind, and the bizarre voices coming from the falling meteor shower—

[́̍̌͐̔̕─́̈́̉̇͞─҇̇̒̽̌̚─̔͗͋͠─̄͒̇̎̕─̛̾̽͒─̛̒̆͛̎─҇͂̒─̇̅͠]̏̀̏̈́̋͠

both faded far, far away.

####

When was it?

The moment his consciousness returned on its own.

“...”

Alon had woken up before he knew it, and he was immediately told several things.

First: that he’d been unconscious for nearly two full weeks.

And second—

that Elivan, who everyone had assumed had perished along with the Bearer, was alive.

Of course, being alive didn’t mean it was a situation where he could be questioned right away.

They said Elivan had slipped out of the void right after the Bearer disappeared, but had been comatose ever since.

Even so, Alon felt relieved.

At the very least, Alon hadn’t wanted him to die.

...And as long as Elivan was alive, someday he’d be able to ask.

The meaning of what Elivan had said to him at the end.

‘Father...’

Alon couldn’t get a read on why Elivan had used that form of address.

Sure, Elivan had looked after him since he was very young, but to be honest, it wasn’t to the point where he deserved to be called “Father.”

Could it be that just that much had made him want to call him Father?

After thinking for a moment, Alon denied it.

Elivan’s eyes had seemed to hold something beyond that.

The more the thoughts continued, the tighter Alon’s chest felt.

In fact, there were plenty of other things he was curious about, too.

How the aftermath had been handled.

Whether the kids were all okay.

What had happened right after all those eyes fell.

There was no end to what he wanted to know.

Someone might question it.

If you want to know, can’t you just ask?

They’d be right.

If you’re curious, you ask.

Everyone was gathered in Alon’s room right now—

the very people who could answer, one by one.

And yet the reason Alon didn’t ask.

More precisely—

the reason he couldn’t ask.

Was that Alon had only regained consciousness.

Yeah, only consciousness.

Unfortunately, Alon wasn’t in any condition to move his body.

He was, quite literally, close to a vegetable.

What if he could never get up again like this?

After he woke up, he’d been afraid for a bit, but Alon quickly threw that worry away.

Because he realized right away why he couldn’t move.

‘...How long until I can move?’

Alon observed his own body.

No matter how he looked at it, it wasn’t normal.

It was horrific.

To the point where natural recovery felt practically impossible.

And yet his body was steadily recovering.

He didn’t know why.

It was recovering even though he wasn’t using the divinity of the primordial elf.

Anyway, at this rate—

it felt like in a few more days, he’d be able to open his eyes.

And on top of that, thanks to Rine’s prediction, he could find out exactly how long it would take to get up.

The only problem was—

“...To be honest, there’s a high probability there’ll be issues with your memory.”

“...”

Her prediction was, you could say, slightly off in a bad direction...

“You used far too much power this time, Godfather.”

“H, hey, but then shouldn’t there be an issue with your mana hole or something?”

“Thankfully, there’s no issue with your mana hole. But there’s a high probability the control device that forced that absurd amount of mana under control has problems, no matter what.”

“Th-then...”

“Don’t worry too much. In the worst case, it’ll probably be short-term memory loss... at most. Well, if it goes beyond that...”

“Beyond that?”

“Let’s stop here. To be honest, I don’t think it’ll go that far. Um—still, if something like that does happen, it’d be good to tell you a lot about what happened so far, and your memories, right?”

“What happened so far, and memories?”

“Yes. Even in a state like this, sometimes the unconscious is awake, too. If we talk about memories ahead of time, there’s a higher chance the memories will come back.”

“Oh....”

“Just don’t mix useless stories into the memories. The memories could come back wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“Maybe you’d remember things that are different from reality—exactly as we talked to you.”

Rine’s calm words rang out in the room where everyone had gathered.

For a moment, silence settled.

“Th, that’s true.”

“Yeah, we can’t have that.”

“We have to be thorough...”

“Right. We just have to tell the Marquis exactly as it happened.”

“Then starting now, whenever we have time, we should tell him memories little by little.”

Before long, one after another, everyone added a resolute word and filed out.

And so, late at night—

“Teacher.”

Yutia came.

“...Mm. From when should you start talking?”

She sat down, and in a voice that was far too calm,

“It’s the story from when I was eight...”

she began to take out her memories.

“Even though Seollang is saying something strange, like my real age is over two thousand, back then I was definitely eight years old, and I was saved by you, Teacher.”

A story about memories—

“Your letters with me were really fun. Oh, right. I’m telling you just in case, but what Seollang says isn’t true, okay? That my age is over two thousand. How could a human live that long?”

...This is a story about memories, right?

Alon broke into a cold sweat at the oddly skewed topic.

...Somehow, it felt like even if he could open his eyes right now, he shouldn’t.