Edmund had always gone to the sa physician whenever he suffered from nightmares.
The hands that covered his forehead, offering to erase the mories of his bad dreams.
The vivid sensation of that touch made Edmund realize the person's identity, and his eyes snapped open.
***
"......."
Where was he...?
"You awake now?"
Through his blurred vision, he saw Elodie’s face.
She was gently stroking his hair, his head resting on her lap.
Had his mind ever felt this clear before?
His thoughts, always muddled like they were wrapped in fog, felt sharp and distinct for the first ti.
Was this how the world was supposed to look?
The headache that had always plagued him upon waking was gone.
"Haah..."
Still basking in that overwhelming sense of peace, his forehead pressed against the back of her hand, Edmund suddenly ca to his senses and sat up straight.
"...Was I really like that the entire ti?"
"You didn’t sleep for long."
Elodie pointed toward a candle she had prepared earlier—one ant to ward off nightmares.
Right... he rembered now.
Before falling asleep, he had asked her to light that candle.
The scent drifting from it was soothing, comforting.
For a fleeting mont, he had dared to hope that perhaps he would dream of sothing happy for once.
"No, I—haah... You didn’t need to go so far as to offer your lap."
Feeling guilty, Edmund glanced down at the child's legs, where his head had been resting.
Had he been troubling her without realizing it?
"Ugh... Tingly, tingly."
Of course, her legs would be numb.
With a quiet sigh, Edmund reached out and carefully massaged her calves, just as he had done for his younger brother, Zeno, when they were children.
"You're good at that."
"Every ti Zeno lost a spar, he’d throw a fit about leg cramps and demand that I take responsibility."
"A spoiled brat."
"I agree completely."
Rembering his troubleso younger brother, a faint smile touched the corners of Edmund’s lips.
"Edmund."
"Yes?"
"Did the nightmare disappear?"
His hands stopped.
Whenever he had nightmares before, the mories of them would fade, but the pain they left behind would remain vivid.
But tonight was different.
He rembered everything clearly.
And yet, he felt freed from the tornt that had always clung to him.
'But...'
Wasn’t this just a comforting lie?
A selfish delusion, born from his desperate hope that he bore no responsibility for his parents’ deaths?
Hadn’t he simply dread what he always wished to see?
Maybe all he had done was remind himself of how wretched he truly was.
As his thoughts began to spiral downward, sinking into that familiar abyss—
"No, you’re wrong."
"What?"
"You’re wrong."
Elodie shut down his thoughts before they could fester.
As if she had read his mind.
‘Like I’d let you sit here digging yourself deeper into despair.’
She didn’t want Edmund to keep drowning in misery.
Hadn’t he suffered alone long enough?
Hadn’t he already been pushed to his physical and ntal limits over sothing he never even did?
It was ti to stop.
"What you saw just now—it was all real."
"......."
"Soone tampered with your mories, planting false ones in your head. But they burned away with the candle’s fla."
"How could you possibly..."
"I saw your dreams too."
The truth he had unearthed tonight wasn’t a hallucination or manipulation.
It was his real mory.
The true nightmare he was ant to rember.
Edmund wanted to say sothing, anything—but no words ca out.
His lips barely parted before he shut them again.
After struggling for a long while, he finally managed to whisper, his voice hoarse with emotion.
"Then that day... I really..."
"Yes. You were asleep."
"But even so, can I really say I’m not responsible? I was the only one who survived. I couldn’t protect them. Isn’t that the sa as being at fault...?"
"Ed."
Elodie gripped his hands tightly.
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
More firmly than usual, she spoke each word with perfect clarity.
"It wasn’t your fault."
"......."
"It wasn’t."
For five years, Edmund had blad himself.
Even knowing the truth now, accepting that he bore no guilt felt impossible.
The effects of his conditioning still lingered.
That whisper in the back of his mind told him he was a fraud.
That he was only trying to erase his guilt to make himself feel better.
That his hands would never be clean.
"It wasn’t your fault."
Elodie kept repeating it.
Again and again, until he had no choice but to hear it.
By the ti she had said it twenty tis over—
"...Alright."
Edmund, surrendering to the warmth of the small hands that couldn’t even fully cover his own, finally answered.
***
"Should I chase away all your bad dreams?"
Packer watched in disbelief as Edmund followed the Ratson girl without hesitation, as if entranced by her words.
At that mont, he knew.
‘It’s over.’
The plan had failed.
There was no need to analyze the cause—it was Gracia Ratson.
An unexpected variable.
There was nothing he could do about it now.
Accepting his failure quickly, he made a decision.
Survival ca first. There would be no future plans if he didn’t make it out alive.
He rummaged through his hidden vault, retrieving a communication orb that he had never used except in dire ergencies.
Frantically, he shook it.
"Hey! Hey!"
— What is this all of a sudden? I have a schedule, you know. You can’t just contact without warning—
"This is important! The plan is completely falling apart!"
— ...Excuse ? I recall you assuring that everything was under control. Did you lie in your reports?
Packer, furious at the accusation, raised his voice.
"I didn’t! Everything was going smoothly until that damned rat showed up at Valkyrisen!"
It was Packer who had planted the term ‘rat’ in Zeno’s mind.
He was the one who had induced hallucinations through potions, using them as the foundation for brainwashing.
He wasted no ti getting to the point.
"Get out of here before it’s too late. I’ll reorganize and prepare for any future disruptions—"
— Ah, so despite acquiring godlike power, you’re still helpless against her?
"Goddamn it, do you really need to admit that myself? This is no ti for—"
— I suspected as much. You can’t defeat the real thing, can you?
The mocking laughter on the other end made Packer’s veins bulge.
A veiled taunt—no matter how much he struggled with his false god’s power, he would never compare to a Ratson chosen by the true deity.
His rage boiled over.
"You expected this? Weren’t you the ones who offered the power of a false god in the first place?!"
— It was a high-risk experint. The results simply confird our calculations.
"S-So you used as a test subject? You knew it would fail?!"
— Perish the thought. Do you think I wasted all that money and ti hiring you for nothing? Of course, I hoped for your success.
I was rooting for you. If a fake could replace the real thing, that would have been ideal.
For a while, it almost worked—until the Ratson girl appeared. How unfortunate.
The man on the other end spoke with feigned regret.
— But I suppose a fake is still just a fake. Once the real thing shows up, the imitation is worthless.
The casual remark, spoken with an air of amusent, made Packer’s rage flicker into unease.
No. No way.
They wouldn’t abandon him here, would they?
— You even called to warn personally. How considerate. I’ll break this communication orb now. Once it’s shattered, all tracking will be severed, so don’t even think about trying ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ anything.
Ah, not that you could.
Today might just be your last day.
— It’s been fun.
And with that, the communication orb instantly turned transparent.
"Hey."
Packer couldn’t believe it. He shook the orb desperately.
But the glass sphere remained dull, unresponsive.
"Hey! HEY!!!"
Goddammit, he should never have trusted those shady bastards!
‘No, this isn’t the ti for that. I have to escape, no matter what...’
But avoiding Valkyrisen’s trackers would require nothing short of divine intervention.
Abandoned by both the heavens and his supposed allies, he was on his own.
Sohow, he had to survive.
‘I need to make them doubt that Ratson girl.’
If he could turn suspicion toward her, then the people she had healed would also co under scrutiny.
Even if the truth ca out later, he’d be long gone by then.
‘Yes. Edmund—he hasn’t completely escaped my influence yet.’
No matter how much that girl had helped him, five years of brainwashing wouldn’t disappear overnight.
If he pushed hard enough, if he provoked the right response—he would find a weakness.
Just then—
The door to the infirmary, which he had temporarily repaired, creaked open.
Startled, Packer turned his head.
Standing there was Edmund.
Expressionless.
Utterly devoid of emotion.
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