After the long run, sweat streamed down Silvanus’s face, yet his expression remained almost unchanged.

He stared at Daisy, carefully studying her.

She seemed to understand why.

"He was sent out already," she said softly.

There was no need to ask who he referred to.

Silvanus slowly walked toward Daisy. Seemingly puzzled, he asked, "Do I really look that concerned about Nick?"

Daisy paused for a moment before the corners of her lips curved into a faint smile.

"I just thought... if you’ve decided to protect someone, then you’ll protect them to the very end."

Silvanus remained silent.

Looking at him, Daisy’s smile carried an unmistakable sadness.

"If I had met you sooner... would you have protected me too?"

Silvanus still said nothing.

His mind had been occupied with figuring out how the dungeon’s script worked, yet at this moment, he found himself truly feeling Daisy’s pain.

[Don’t tell me you people actually used an ordinary person’s fate to create this monster?]

He suddenly asked Nine.

As always, Nine remained silent, conserving energy.

Silvanus looked at Daisy.

In the end, he simply spoke the truth.

"I would."

Daisy smiled as Silvanus came to a stop before her. Tears rolled silently down her cheeks.

"I’ve always been waiting for someone like that. I was only waiting for someone willing to choose me, Silvanus."

She had always waited.

Waited, and waited, and waited.

Time repeated itself endlessly. One group after another came and went, yet not a single one of them had ever chosen her.

She looked up at Silvanus, her face filled with joy.

"I finally found that person."

Silvanus watched as the tears on Daisy’s face gradually turned into tears of blood.

Silvanus watched as Daisy’s face began to distort before his eyes, gradually reverting to her original form.

Empty eye sockets.

A grotesquely twisted face.

Her body slowly withered, becoming gaunt and skeletal.

She parted her lips, her voice trembling into a soft, tearful whisper.

"C-Could you... put my hair clip back on... one more time?"

Silvanus seemed oblivious to Daisy’s increasingly horrifying and grotesque appearance. Calmly, he removed the hair clip from the collar of her uniform and fastened it once more into the bangs beside her temple.

Looking at her, he gave a small nod and said gently,

"You look beautiful, Daisy."

"Do you know... this is the first time I’ve ever been happy because I was beautiful."

Daisy spoke softly.

Then her body collapsed into a pile of dry bones, scattering across the ground.

At the same moment, the space surrounding Silvanus began to warp.

[Ding! A Special Ending has been unlocked!]

[You have destroyed the loop and achieved the ending "Ashes." The loop has been closed forever.]

[Permanent Skill Reward Obtained: "Glory Lily"]

The system notifications echoed in Silvanus’s ears until he returned to their original world.

Beneath his feet was a clearly raised mound of earth beneath the canopy of a great tree.

The sight was both unfamiliar... and strangely familiar.

Silvanus tightened his grip around the hair clip in his hand before looking over his shoulder at Nick.

Tilting his chin toward the mound, he said,

"Dig."

Nick still had no idea why they had suddenly appeared there, but upon hearing Silvanus’s command, he dropped to his knees without the slightest hesitation and frantically began digging into the grave.

"AAAAAHHHH——!!!"

Behind them, a piercing scream rang out, blending with the howling snowstorm.

Violent tremors rippled through the earth, shaking the towering trees until heavy sheets of accumulated snow cascaded down without end.

Silvanus turned his gaze toward the castle.

At last...

The moment had arrived.

The moment when the true play would finally begin.

The perfect time...

...for Erebus to descend.

Silvanus thought to himself as one hand unconsciously drifted to his waist.

There, no longer restrained by his control, the grotesque mass of flesh that Daisy—

No.

The monster—

had bestowed upon him had already begun to spread.

"I found it!"

At the same moment, Nick shouted excitedly.

Surprisingly, it had been buried so shallowly. It felt as though whoever had buried the body hadn’t even bothered to dig a proper grave. They had simply covered it with a thin layer of dirt and called it a burial.

"Destroy it."

Bang! Crash!

As the sound of bones shattering rang out, the scream grew even more piercing.

At the same time, the monster finally came into view.

Unlike the terrifying speed it had displayed before, however, leaving the castle had clearly weakened it, especially now that its true body was continuously being destroyed.

All Silvanus could make out was a writhing mass of hair in the distance. It surged and twisted into ever-changing shapes, dragging its enormous body as it relentlessly crawled toward them.

Its body still seemed far away...

But those deadly strands of hair were now less than two meters from them.

"You’re too slow."

Silvanus lightly kicked Nick’s arm as he spoke in a low voice.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, Nick replied despairingly,

"These are human bones! They look rotten, but they’re still incredibly, incredibly hard. What are we supposed to do?"

He, too, had noticed the strands of hair slithering toward them like a nest of serpents.

He hadn’t forgotten how razor-sharp they were.

If this kept up, they would be killed before they managed to destroy the monster.

Victory was right in front of them!

[One person stands there while the other does all the work. Doesn’t Nick think there’s anything wrong with that?]

[I know Nick has only made it this far because of Silvanus, but he seriously doesn’t get mad at him at all, not even in a situation like this!]

[Silvanus is so confusing. He wasn’t like this when he was with Daisy.]

[So he really does treat people differently based on gender?]

[Well, Daisy wasn’t one of Erebus’s believers, lol.]

[Am I the only one who thinks something’s off? I feel like Silvanus is deliberately stalling for time.]

[Finally, someone said it! I was thinking the same thing. If he wanted to, couldn’t he crush those bones instantly?]

[Earlier I saw him touch his stomach. If I remember correctly, that’s exactly where Daisy’s curse was left on his body.]

[Just a guess. I’m only guessing.]

[I think we’re guessing the same thing, lmao.]

["I deliberately got myself injured so He would save me, because I knew He would be happy to save me?"]

[I love that interpretation!!!]

[No way... could that actually be true?]

[Whatever. I really want to see Erebus descend too!]