Yesterday, that body had been taken into the custody of the Knights of Order after I parted ways with them and returned home.
The stalkers hadn't followed me all the way to my house.
Though, if they had...
I would have had to take care of them this time.
Today, the fountain was peaceful.
There was no crowd gathered around it, and the water shimmered beneath the morning light like crystal.
It was unfortunate that I didn't have the inner peace to appreciate it.
I urgently needed to confirm something.
I rushed toward the academy with only one thing running through my mind.
The name...
**Edevane.**
As I approached the academy entrance, I immediately noticed that Edevane wasn't there, patting his stray cat like he usually did.
But his cat was still there, calmly eating fish.
Which meant he was likely somewhere inside.
Anyway, I hadn't intended to meet him first.
There was something I wanted to check before that.
I quickened my pace and continued through the academy grounds toward the student council building.
I was impatient.
And, despite myself, a little anxious.
I quickly reached the council room.
As soon as I opened the door and stepped inside, I saw everyone already doing their usual work.
Everyone except Shirohana.
She was standing behind my chair, almost as though she had already known that I wouldn't be in the mood for jokes today.
They greeted me as soon as I walked in.
"Ah... good morning."
I barely managed to say it before rushing toward my desk.
Before Reinhardt could even sit up from the sofa and put his work aside, I had already reached the desk.
I pulled the chair back just enough to access the drawer beneath my table.
Shirohana remained behind me, quietly looking out of the window.
I opened the last drawer.
Inside were the student records.
I pulled out the documents and slammed them onto the table in my haste.
Reinhardt and Celestria both looked surprised by my impatient behavior.
I immediately began flipping through the pages, searching for one particular name among the many students listed under my class.
For some reason...
I felt like I didn't want to see what was written there.
I had doubted him.
But I hadn't wanted to see the answer like this.
Then I found it.
My fingers stopped moving.
For a brief moment, I froze.
There, beside the name...
**Ravian...**
was the last name.
**Velrath.**
Not **Ravian Edevane**.
But **Ravian Velrath**.
I had ended up confirming something that stung more than I expected.
Even though I hadn't spent much time with him.
Even though it was inefficient to become attached to anyone other than my family.
Though...
This wasn't attachment.
It was something else.
At least, that is what I want to tell myself.
I was seeing a shape of myself from my childhood in him.
And those eyes...
When I first saw him, there had been something in those eyes.
The eyes of someone who simply wanted it to end...
but was too afraid to end it himself.
Or perhaps too afraid to let the people he refused to abandon end it for him.
A scene suddenly flashed through my mind.
Yesterday, when I had been roaming around the area where the first murder had occurred, I had seen several nameplates attached to the mansions of nobles and wealthy families.
One after another.
Among them...
There had been one belonging to the **Velrath family**.
The moment I saw that nameplate, I suddenly remembered something I had heard once.
The Velrath family had adopted a son from the head of the Edevane family.
According to the information I had gathered, the Velrath family had been on good terms with the Edevane family before the Edevanes were stripped of their status after being accused of spreading false information.
The head of the Edevane family, **Caelan Edevane**, had been the head of the Information Department.
His wife, **Elara Edevane**, had been a researcher.
For a noble family, having only that much information available in public records had always seemed suspicious to me.
At the time, however, I hadn't paid much attention to it.
I certainly hadn't expected it to surface here.
I took a deep breath.
Then I closed my eyes for a brief moment.
When I opened them again, I turned my gaze toward the window.
Shirohana was standing there.
Soft rays of sunlight fell across her figure.
The lower half of her face was hidden behind her sensu fan.
Her eyes met mine.
She looked as though she already knew.
As though she had known the answer all along...
but had simply been waiting for me to find it myself.
My eyes widened.
I immediately placed the document back into the drawer.
Then I stood up and started heading toward the exit.
My sudden movement caught Reinhardt and Celestria's attention.
As I approached the council room's door, Reinhardt also moved to follow me.
I stopped.
Without turning around completely, I glanced back at him.
"You stay here. I have something to do personally."
"But..."
Before Reinhardt could finish, I looked directly into his eyes.
He saw my expression.
Whatever he saw there made him stop.
He stepped back.
I continued out of the room.
The moment I left the student council building, I began searching for Ravian.
I checked the academy classrooms.
The backyard.
The training grounds.
The battle stadium.
The various club rooms.
Everywhere I could think of.
I even extended my sensory ability as far as I could.
But I couldn't find him.
Eventually, I stood beneath a tree inside the academy grounds and looked toward the sky.
The sun would set soon.
Many thoughts and possibilities began running through my mind.
Then one of them locked into place.
You don't say...
He is...
I immediately turned.
From beneath that tree, I ran toward the corner of the academy grounds.
Then I jumped over the wall.
I knew the principal would eventually find out about it.
I'd simply put that incident under the tab of *investigation purposes*.
That should be enough.
Probably.
I quickly continued toward the nobles' district.
But the moment I left the academy and started running through the alleys, I sensed three figures beginning to tail me.
*Tch...*
These monkeys.
I stopped.
The three figures also stopped.
They were about to hide.
Before they could even settle into their positions, I suddenly accelerated toward one of them.
My body blurred forward.
Before the stalker could react, I was already behind him.
I struck the side of his neck with the edge of my hand.
His body went limp immediately.
Before he could even make a sound, he collapsed unconscious.
The other two attacked me the moment they saw their companion fall.
Both rushed toward me at the same time.
I caught the first hand that reached me.
Then I kicked the other attacker away, sending him flying.
Using the momentum of the first attacker, I twisted his arm and threw him aside as well.
A waste of time...
After dealing with them, I immediately continued toward the nobles' district.
But as I ran, something occurred to me.
Valdrik wasn't among the stalkers this time.
And that...
confirmed one of my fears.
It had been my mistake not to take the variable called Julian into greater account.
As I approached the nobles' district, I began searching the entire area.
I moved from mansion to mansion, jumping across rooftops while avoiding the eyes of the people below.
...
This way, it would take too much time.
I stopped for a moment and confirmed whether anyone was following me.
It didn't seem like it.
Then...
I realized I didn't need to play detective anymore.
There was another method.
**Oniki.**
A skill that allowed me to pinpoint voices within the range of its domain.
It was essentially a sensory skill.
However, in my case, I needed a certain amount of focus to use it properly.
And I also needed to be familiar with the voice I was searching for.
Fortunately...
I was familiar with his.
I extended Oniki.
The sensory field spread throughout the nobles' district and even beyond its immediate surroundings.
I focused.
Searching.
Listening.
Then...
There it was.
Ravian's voice.
*Ah... there it is.*
He was fighting someone?
"Ah, so now that I have become a problem, you will get rid of me, huh?"
Ravian's voice echoed through the alley.
He was fighting another figure.
The sound of two blades clashing rang through the narrow passage.
Sparks burst into the air with every collision.
Ravian stood on the ground, his weapon locked against his opponent's.
Then the other figure was pushed backward by the impact.
He landed temporarily against the wall.
Valdrik.
He immediately kicked off the wall and launched himself toward Ravian, a knife gripped tightly in his hand.
"Hah... before dying, may I also take the head of a servant whose master was one of the roots of my suffering?"
Ravian laughed.
He shifted his stance, preparing to counter Valdrik's attack.
The two were about to clash again.
"Like I will let you get away with this."
My voice cut through the alley.
In the next instant, I teleported between them.
My kick knocked Ravian's knife aside while I simultaneously seized Valdrik's knife-wielding hand.
I forced his arm upward, redirecting the blade away from Ravian.
Valdrik's eyes widened.
Shock flashed across his face as he struggled to process my sudden appearance.
"You..."
His voice carried a mixture of irritation and disbelief.
I didn't give him time to say anything else.
I stomped him unconscious.
Valdrik's body collapsed.
I straightened myself, casually brushing my shoulder as though removing dust from it.
Then I looked toward Ravian.
He was standing directly in front of me.
For a moment, he wasn't looking at me.
He was looking up at the sky.
The moon was faintly visible overhead, its pale light barely emerging against the fading evening.
Then Ravian tilted his head toward me.
I saw his empty eyes slowly fill with light.
A slight smile appeared on his face.
It was almost as if...
he had simply been waiting for me.
Silence spread between us.
Neither of us moved.
We simply stared at each other.
Then Ravian spoke.
"I was waiting for you, my friend."
---
I clenched my teeth.
Annoyance, anger, worry...
Perhaps it was a mixture of all three.
I didn't know.
All I knew was that I felt suffocated.
“You are aware that this will not end in a good way for you,” I said.
Ravian looked at me in silence.
There was no surprise in his expression. No fear, either.
It was almost as though he had already known the consequences from the beginning.
“Then why?” I asked, my voice carrying a faint trace of anxiety.
“Why...”
Ravian repeated the word quietly.
A faint smile appeared on his face, but it slowly changed into something resembling sadness. It was the kind of sadness that seemed difficult even for him to understand, much less express.
“I wonder what was in my hand... and what was not.”
His eyes narrowed slightly.
“Who to blame and who not to...”
He paused.
“Maybe I wanted relief.”
His eyebrows lifted slightly before his face tilted downward, as though he were trying to reach into the emptiness inside himself and remember something that had long since disappeared.
“Relief from this unknown future... the feeling of futility...”
His voice became quieter.
“I don't know what I'm doing. For what I'm doing.”
He paused briefly before raising his head again.
“Don't you understand this emptiness?”
He looked directly into my eyes.
There was a smile on his face.
A breaking smile.
His eyes widened faintly, filled with a strange mixture of excitement and hopelessness. It was as though he had finally found someone who might understand him, while at the same time realizing that understanding alone would not save him.
There was also something else in his expression.
A person wandering without anything to hold onto.
Even if our reasons and circumstances were different, I could see it.
Some part of him resembled the person I had once been in my past life.
Just... in a different way.
A scene suddenly flashed through my mind.
Faces are forgotten, but scenes and voices are still there.
A boy was standing in an alley.
From the narrow opening between the buildings, he stared toward the main road outside. Crowds of people passed by while cars moved continuously along the street.
His eyes were blank.
He didn't know where to go.
He didn't know when he had last eaten, or when he would eat again.
But he wasn't thinking about any of that.
Nor was he jealous of the people in the crowd.
Some carried food.
Some carried toys.
Some carried books.
Others wore new clothes.
The boy simply stood there.
Without blinking.
Watching the road.
Watching the cars passing by.
Thinking about jumping into it.
Ending every last bit of suffering that he knew would eventually fall upon him.
Though...
His body stopped him.
Every part of his muscles seemed to want to move forward, yet at the same time, every part of them was stopping itself.
His heartbeat began to accelerate.
His breathing became heavier.
Before every other voice could disappear from his mind...
A baby's cry suddenly came from behind him.
The boy snapped out of his thoughts.
The blankness that had slowly begun covering his mind receded.
I shook my head, snapping myself out of the memory.
Tch...
What am I doing, thinking about that now?
I took a deep breath.
Then I looked at Ravian again with a silent stare.
“Then why were you provoking the knights?” I asked.
Ravian looked away for a moment.
Then his eyes sharpened.
“Each time I hear the words ‘justice’ or ‘righteousness’ from their mouths, I couldn't help but feel furious at them.”
His voice grew slightly louder.
“Like they weren't one of the reasons I lost my family.”
He paused briefly.
“Only if someone had bothered confirming anything.”
A faint laugh escaped him.
“Though I wasn't targeting them specifically...”
He looked toward me again.
“But they just had to show themselves in front of me.”
His gaze lowered, and a faint smile appeared on his face.
“So I just hanged them with words that I thought suited them well.”
Silence returned to the alley.
We stood facing each other beneath the moonlight, its pale blue glow spilling between the buildings.
Valdrik lay unconscious nearby.
For a brief moment, nothing moved except the faint drifting of dust in the night air.
“Without confirming...?”
I broke the silence, a puzzled expression appearing on my face.
Ravian slowly lifted his head.
He looked at me with a serious expression.
His lips parted.
“It...”
I waited.
My eyes remained fixed on him.
Then, in the instant Ravian uttered that single word, I sensed something.
A beam of light.
Coming from above.
My eyes widened.
Before I could even fully comprehend what I was sensing, my body reacted.
I quickly moved toward Ravian and raised a barrier between us.
But I was too late.
The beam of light descended from the sky.
It pierced straight through Ravian's chest.
“!”
The sight froze me for a fraction of a second.
As the brilliant light passed through his body, I saw a faint smile on his face.
The soft radiance illuminated his features.
It was almost peaceful.
I didn't have time to think about where the beam had come from.
Who was behind it.
Or why.
Perhaps I hadn't prioritized thinking about those things.
In an instant, the beam had already pierced straight through his chest.
Before I could reach him.
Ravian's body began to collapse.
I immediately rushed forward and caught him by the head before he could hit the ground.
“Ravian!”
I lowered him carefully, his head resting against my lap.
Then I began desperately casting healing magic.
I knew I wouldn't be able to save him.
Healing magic on others was my weakest area.
But I continued anyway.
I poured as much mana into the spell as I could.
The light gathered around my hands.
“Get healed...”
I gritted my teeth.
“Get healed...”
More mana.
“Get healed!”
I increased the output to its limit.
But that beam of mana was not normal.
It had punched a perfectly straight hole through his chest.
His wound refused to close.
“Why...?”
I concentrated harder.
Why isn't this hole closing?
I tried again.
And again.
My focus tightened until everything else around me seemed to disappear.
Trying.
Trying.
Trying.
With every second that passed, my heart tightened further.
The more I watched the life leaving his body, the more suffocated I felt.
Damn!
Damn!
Damn!
Damn!
How incompetent can I be...?
Ravian suddenly moved.
His hand trembled as he slowly raised it.
Using every remaining ounce of strength in his body, he grabbed my sleeve.
I looked down.
His fingers barely had enough strength to hold onto the fabric.
He looked at my worried expression.
Then he gave me a faint smile.
A smile of relief.
Seeing it, I doubled my efforts.
Why isn't this hole closing?
I continued pouring mana into the wound.
Then Ravian slightly pulled my sleeve toward himself.
His voice was barely audible.
“My...”
He struggled to breathe.
“Diary...”
His fingers loosened.
His hand slipped from my sleeve and touched the ground.
The last remaining strength in his body had vanished.
His pale face was illuminated by the soft blue rays of moonlight.
I continued casting healing magic.
But Ravian didn't respond.
His head rested on my lap.
My eyes became wet before I even realized it.
I stared at his face.
That faint smile was still there.
But there was no life behind it anymore.
I simply stared at his dead body for a while.
Sitting there in silence.
Unable to think straight.
Then, not long after...
“Kurogane-san...”
A familiar voice came from behind me.
Several footsteps stopped at the entrance of the alley.
The voice snapped me out of my locked mind.
Vaelgrave.
She was standing behind me, accompanied by her subordinates.
I suppressed the emotions rising in my throat.
Then I gently lowered Ravian's head onto the ground.
I stood up.
Turning around, I faced Vaelgrave.
She stared at me with a confused expression.
“What are you...”
Her words stopped.
Vaelgrave and her subordinates looked past me.
At the two bodies lying in the alley.
For a moment, no one spoke.
The faint blue light of the moon illuminated the dark alley, while the soft orange glow from the lamps carried by the knights spread across the ground.
But I barely noticed any of it.
Only one word was running through my mind.
Diary.
I stared at them with sharp eyes.
I made my decision instantly.
I needed to find Ravian's diary.
I decided to leave his body in the care of the knights.
Just as Vaelgrave was about to move toward me, I jumped backward.
My feet landed on the roof of the mansion behind me.
I took one last look at Ravian.
Then at the knights surrounding the alley.
And finally, I turned away.
I escaped into the night.
“Kurogane-san!”
Vaelgrave immediately tried to follow.
She jumped toward the rooftop, but she couldn't reach it before I disappeared.
She landed back below and looked up at the roof where I had vanished.
Her expression was filled with confusion and serious anger.
She didn't know what I had done.
And more importantly, she had just lost the opportunity to punish the criminal herself.
Meanwhile, I continued moving.
Jumping from one rooftop to another, I activated my concealment skill.
My mind was already occupied with a single question.
How could I reach Ravian's diary?
At first, I thought the diary would be in his current house.
But then I stopped.
I tried to think from Ravian's perspective.
Ravian, as I knew him.
Would I write a diary in a place where I was suffering?
Nah.
Then where?
Somewhere I felt safe.
Where?
...
My intuition gave me an answer.
The Edevane family's house?
If Ravian had been adopted after reaching a certain age, then it was possible that the Edevane family's house was still considered home to him.
It was only a possibility.
But it was enough.
With that thought, I stopped moving aimlessly.
I stood on the rooftop where I was.
I closed my eyes.
Then I began using every search skill in my arsenal that could help me locate the Edevane family's house.
...
I searched.
One location after another.
I mentally eliminated the places that didn't fit.
Then, after examining almost every house I could think of, I finally found it.
The Edevane family's mansion.
It was in a rather unexpected location.
I immediately took off toward it.
Just in case, I maintained my concealment skill while moving.
The mansion was not located in the area where nobles normally built their residences.
It was somewhat far away.
And, more importantly, it was relatively close to an area that had now been reduced to ruins.
As I approached the mansion, I slowed down.
I gazed around while walking toward the entrance.
There wasn't a single noble mansion nearby.
The Edevane family's residence stood almost completely isolated.
I assumed the house, or at least the land it stood on, had never been sold.
Now...
It gave off the atmosphere of an abandoned ghost house.
I entered through the broken door.
The moment I stepped inside, I was greeted by silence.
Furniture was scattered throughout the mansion.
Some pieces had been broken.
Others were still standing, but were completely covered in dust.
Fungi had begun growing in several places.
Plants had slowly begun creeping into the building as well.
The mansion had been abandoned for long enough for nature to begin reclaiming it.
And yet...
The moonlight entering through the broken windows was strangely beautiful.
It painted the abandoned interior in pale silver.
I began searching the entire mansion.
Dust.
Plants.
Broken furniture.
Piles of fallen stones.
Everything had to be checked.
But I wasn't looking randomly.
I was searching for somewhere that looked slightly cleaner than the rest.
If Ravian had visited this place, then there was a good chance that his presence would have left some trace.
A place he had used would likely look just a little different from everything around it.
I climbed to the second floor.
Then turned right.
I continued deeper into the corridor.
The farther I went, the quieter it became.
Eventually, I found a balcony at the end of the passage.
Moonlight poured into it.
I walked toward the balcony.
As I got closer, I noticed something.
There was less dust here than in the surrounding areas.
Then I saw it.
A chair.
Beside a small tea table.
There were faint signs that someone had sat there before.
My eyes narrowed.
Someone had been here.
Recently enough to disturb the dust.
But there was no diary in sight.
I began searching around the area.
While looking, I noticed a lantern.
There was still lamp oil inside it.
I reached for the lantern and examined it carefully.
Then I noticed the rod on which it was hanging.
I pulled it.
Click.
A small block suddenly fell downward.
Behind it was an empty space.
My eyes widened slightly.
I reached inside.
There was a book hidden within.
I pulled it out.
The cover was worn.
Dust clung to its surface.
But there was no mistaking what it was.
A diary.
Ravian's diary.