Jae walked the streets.
Though he wore the armor of a medieval knight, drawing the attention of passersby, Jae paid it no mind.
He had been through too much to care about that sort of thing. To avoid getting dragged into troublesome matters, Jae wandered in search of a deserted place, carrying nothing but a weapon.
“So this really is a world I don’t know.”
It had only been two days since he fell into Tengu City, but Jae thought that to himself.
In the world he had once known, hair colors were not this varied.
No, had they always been varied?
In memories blurred by thousands, tens of thousands of deaths, he could no longer recall what sort of people there had been.
And yet an instinct buried deep in his unconscious told him that the world he had reached was different from the one he had originally known.
It looked similar, but the essence felt different.
In truth, he had realized that the moment he first fell into Tengu City. That was why he had despaired the instant he arrived.
But now he no longer clung to that thought.
All he felt was that it was a world unlike the one he knew, with no stir of emotion at all.
That was only natural, because there was no emotion left in him.
Hope, despair, all of it had been swallowed by a vile emptiness. It was only natural.
Even so, Jae had to keep living. Because the undead compelled him to live, and the unkindled compelled him not to break.
“……”
For a moment, with his mind emptied of thought, Jae looked up at the sky.
Unlike the skies he had seen in Lothric or Irithyll, the orange-tinted heavens were a beautiful sight.
Looking up at the sky had been a habit from before he was Jae.
Back when he was still someone else, he had always looked at the sky whenever his mind grew complicated.
That habit continued even after he became Jae, and he would sometimes raise his head so as not to despair.
“……”
After watching the sky for a while, Jae started moving again.
He was still in the middle of the city, so there were many people around him.
Perhaps they might turn hostile at any moment. Of course, in a peaceful world that would never happen, but he was preparing for the possibility, however slight.
Rest should only be taken when no one else was around.
It was a truth born of the many experiences Jae had endured.
#
Fraxinus bridge.
Recently, Fraxinus had been observing a certain being—a Spirit? Human? Something full of questions.
The being that had suddenly appeared the day before yesterday had dropped the sword at its waist in front of a patrolling officer, then crushed the ground and vanished in an instant.
It was so fast that even the camera tracking Jae had briefly lost sight of its shape.
And it had even made a little effort to erase the officer’s memory.
“Reine. How is Knight?”
The identification name given to that being—[Knight].
It was only a temporary designation, but it came from Jae’s outfit, which resembled a medieval knight.
At Kotori’s question, Reine Murasame, Fraxinus’s analyst, paused briefly before answering.
“...At the very least, it’s not a Spirit. It has power similar to spiritual power, but fundamentally different.”
The conclusion reached after observing and analyzing Jae for the past two days.
He had not used any special abilities, but because he had not slept for two days, Fraxinus had judged him to be potentially a Spirit.
In the first place, he had appeared with flames and displayed superhuman physical ability, so it was reasonable to assume he was a Spirit.
But he was something other than a Spirit.
“Not a Spirit? That thing?”
Kotori could not think of any other possibility besides a Spirit.
If such an unusual being was not a Spirit, then what should it be called?
“Haa... Fine. What else?”
As the situation only grew more complicated, Kotori pressed her temples and asked Reine for more explanation.
Reine explained what she had observed so far about the being.
“...First, Knight’s power. Like I said, it’s similar to spiritual power, but fundamentally different.”
The power Jae possessed was Soul, a unique force from the world of Dark Souls.
Of course, it was fundamentally different from the spiritual power used by Spirits.
“An unknown being with an unknown power...”
Kotori’s headache had progressed to the point that even her stomach was starting to ache.
Having power similar to spiritual power meant that, at the very least, he was on par with a Spirit in terms of combat ability.
Just the fact that such a being was wandering the streets as if nothing were wrong was unsettling.
The only small relief was that Knight did not seem to harbor any hostility toward humans.
Kotori took that as comfort.
“...And Knight’s body is similar to a human’s.”
At Reine’s next explanation, Kotori nodded.
Given that Spirits also looked similar to humans and their bodies might even be identical, there was nothing surprising about that part.
It was easier to accept than the first statement.
“...Lastly, Knight is male.”
“...Ah.”
At the news that Knight was a man, Kotori let out a despairing sigh.
The fact that he had a body similar to a human’s was easy enough to accept, but this was different.
Even if Soul was different from spiritual power, Reine had said it was similar, so Kotori had thought her older brother might be able to seal it away.
But no—Knight was not a woman. He was a man.
Itsuka Shido, Kotori’s brother. The conditions for his ability to seal a Spirit’s power: a certain level of affection and a kiss.
Male to male already made the required level of affection difficult, and adding a kiss on top of that made the word impossible come to mind.
“Commander! Knight is showing abnormal behavior.”
While Kotori was sinking into despair, a crew member’s voice rang out.
Neal Knocker—Shizaki—operated the console and brought his screen up on the central monitor.
What appeared there was Knight standing alone in an empty lot where no one else was present.
The problem was that a greatsword was in his hand.
The greatsword in Knight’s hand was closer to a blunt weapon made entirely of iron than anything that could really be called a greatsword.
Unknown to the people on Fraxinus, it was the weapon of the being Jae had last fought: the Incarnation of Kings.
Holding the spiral sword, which had served as the kindling and core of the bonfire, in one hand, Knight looked around.
It was as if he were checking whether anyone was nearby.
“Are there any people around!”
“None!”
Fortunately, there were no civilians nearby.
Just as Kotori let out a quiet sigh of relief, something strange happened.
Fwoosh
On the screen, Knight conjured a small flame.
The small flame ran along Knight’s arm and flowed into the spiral sword, dyeing the blade red.
Then he drove the red-hot spiral sword into the ground.
Tatak tatak
Something rose from the place where it had been planted, and a bonfire formed.
Knight calmly sat down before it and stared blankly at the bonfire.
“...Ah.”
Watching that sight, a deep despair spilled from Kotori.
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