"It was her."
Shiro stared at his hands. The skin on his wrist was faintly mottled, but he didn't seem to see it as he recalled every loop, every death, every failure. Everything was connected to the head maid.
Shiro's jaw locked so hard his teeth ached, his fingers curling into tight, trembling fists at his sides.
The green needle.
"Morning was barely an hour ago, yet it already feels like late afternoon. The rift must alter the passage of time when someone dies," Kaelen remarked, his brow furrowing as he scanned the sky.
Shiro barely heard him, as he was focused on remembering the face of the young lady in the gown with patterned, geometric shapes
'This place has taken too much from me.'
Vein bulged on his forehead.
'...I must leave.'
Yet, as if in direct defiance of his resolve, Kaelen's notice, broke through his rising grief with cold, absolute clarity.
"...A rift."
From the words Kaelen had just spoken, an intoxicating, razor-sharp urge to eliminate the anomaly sparked deep within Shiro's chest.
The urge didn't feel like anger.
It wasn't a hot, blinding flash of panic or the roaring static of battle. It was chillingly methodical.
A clinical calculation whispering that the head maid was the primary anchor of the loop. If she was the glitch holding this waking nightmare together, cutting her throat would shatter the whole damn illusion.
Kill her.
The thought breached his mind like a drawn blade breaking water. Unshakable. Absolute.
He looked at her and felt nothing human. No face, no identity, no soul. Just a localized obstacle bolted into the system of the rift. A stubborn knot in a rope he was desperate to sever.
His fingers twitched against his side, trembling not from terror, but from the brutal restraint required to keep his hands from moving.
She is the anomaly.
End her, and it all stops.
It was a suicidal play. A thin gamble in a world that had completely unraveled its own rules. But in a reality ruled by infinite repetitions, it was the only math that still added up.
Kaelen folded his arms. "We're wasting time. If we rush in blindly, we'll just repeat the same mistakes. We need a plan."
"...A plan."
A dark, humorless smirk nearly touched his lips.
"A plan? Give it a rest already!"
Kaelen's eyes suddenly went wide with genuine alarm. He stepped back a half-pace, sensing that something was utterly, terrifyingly wrong with Shiro's volatile composure.
"They're already dead! And soon, so will we. I don't have time to waste on planning."
Without another word, he turned and vaulted over the mansion's iron fence.
"No, wait! Shiro!" Hyu called after him, throwing an arm out futilely.
But Shiro was already moving.
"Hey! Stop right there!" the guards shouted from behind as they gave chase.
Shiro ignored them.
He sprinted through the courtyard, then jumped up onto the familiar balcony, running toward the corridor. At that very moment, the head maid stepped out of the dining room carrying a silver tray. Without warning, he swung the polearm toward her neck with murderous intent.
Clink!
The maid intercepted the blade of the polearm with her free hand while the other held the silver tray.
"I wondered how long it would take before the Sect sent someone," Serika said. "Let me introduce myself. I am the head maid of this manor."
"May I ask who you are and what brings you here?" she asked politely.
"It doesn't concern you."
Her smile remained unchanged. "Then... what can I do for you?"
"Drop the act," Shiro spat.
The smile on her face slowly faded. "I suppose you didn't come for a civil conversation."
The needle between her fingers pulsed with emerald light.
"Let me give you a word of advice. You should probably use a weapon you're used to. It makes it quicker to finish off your foe."
With a single flick, the polearm split cleanly into two. The glowing needle continued forward, grazing Shiro's right eye.
"KYAAAH!"
Blood burst from his eye, dripping onto the expensive marble floor. Before he could recover, Serika appeared directly before him. Twisting her wrist, she drove the needle-rod deep into his thigh.
Shiro collapsed onto one knee.
Without pursuing him, Serika simply stepped back and cooed, her voice sweet as honey with poison.
"What a waste."
Shiro gritted his teeth. His hand shot to the glowing needle lodged in his thigh. With a sharp pull, he ripped it free. The solidified green needle-rods shattered into countless motes of green light before his eyes.
"I..." His breathing grew uneven. "I need to leave this rift."
Ignoring the pain, he pushed himself back onto his feet. The broken half of the polearm remained clutched in his hand.
"Rift?" Serika gave him a questioning look, then sighed. "It's a pity. You're only going to die."
He charged.
The blade never reached her.
A blur flashed past. The next thing Shiro knew, glass exploded around him. His body crashed through the mansion window, plummeting into the courtyard below alongside countless shards of broken glass.
He hit the ground hard. Pain surged through his body.
Above him, Serika calmly looked down at him with a mixture of pity and contempt from the shattered window.
"That must deeply hurt, don't you think?"
Shiro slowly forced himself upright, his vision blurred from the blood pouring over one eye.
"Oh my, you're alive," she smiled. "But you're going to die sooner or later."
Her emerald eyes narrowed, reflecting Shiro's face.
"No... dying would be letting you off far too easily. Oh. I have an idea. You can deliver a message to whoever sent you."
Serika leaped from the balcony, then vanished, only to reappear behind Shiro in the next instant.
"?!"
Before he could react, she drove one glowing needle into the side of his neck and another into his head.
"Shiro!"
Kaelen's eyes flew wide at Shiro's body lying on the floor. Serika, seeming to sense Kaelen's gaze, glanced at him.
"Your friend, huh?"
Serika's smile widened as the needles on his neck and head stretched toward her hand like threads.
"Would you like to know what became of him?"
In that moment, Shiro rose at an unnatural angle. His right hand picked up a jagged shard of glass, gripping it so tightly that blood trickled between his fingers.
His body bent forward.
"...Shiro."
Shiro slowly lifted his head, his single, thin green-ringed pupil meeting Kaelen's gaze.
In the blink of an eye, Shiro closed the distance and swung the glass shard toward his abdomen. Kaelen, reacting with years of experience from the battlefield, twisted to avoid it and swung forward with a downward chop.
But the blade missed its mark.
Kaelen's eyes grew wider.
"...He's fast."
Even with a ruined thigh and half-blinded vision, Shiro's reactions were frighteningly quick. But there was one thing he lacked in his current state: technique.
Shiro did not retreat. Instead, he hurriedly kicked off the ground in a white blur, lunging for the throat.
Kaelen caught the blow and drove the hilt of his sword into Shiro's forearm.
Crack!
The bone snapped. The glass slipped from Shiro's hand.
Serika's smile vanished. For the first time, she looked genuinely alarmed.
This one... is far more dangerous. I cannot let this happen.
Her hands came together as countless droplets of glowing green gathered before hardening into long needle-rods that shot toward Kaelen.
Kaelen dashed forward.
Metal shrieked against the solidified energy needle-rods as his sword deflected one after another. He placed his free hand along the flat of his blade, and golden-orange energy flowed from his fingertips, racing toward the sword's tip.
"Sword Blast!"
A brilliant blast of energy erupted forward.
BOOM!
The fountain where Serika had stood exploded into fragments as dust swallowed the courtyard.
Then, Serika spun out from the smoke. Needle-rods appeared between every finger as she unleashed them in rapid succession. Kaelen deflected each one. Unbeknownst to him, that was exactly what Serika wanted.
She appeared within arm's reach. Catching the shattered fragments of her own needles, she thrust them toward his blind spot.
Kaelen reacted instantly, kicking up dirt from the ground, forcing her to raise her arm to block using the needle. That single hesitation was enough.
His sword flashed. Instead of blood splattering, there was only a whistle in the air.
At the back...
Kaelen snapped around.
Stab.
Shiro couldn't comprehend what was happening. Only the sharp pain searing through his neck.
"A decoy..."
"No."
Through his fading vision, Shiro felt a hot flood gushing out of his neck as his strength left him.
Then the world tilted, and darkness swallowed him whole, only for him to open his eyes again, gasping for air. His hands came together on his neck.
"...I can move."
Shiro lowered his fingers, slowly opened them, then closed them again.
He looked around. The familiar scenery had shifted to late afternoon. The people around were heading to their homes while merchants packed up. He could hear a child complaining to their parents before being warned about the crying woman at night who takes kids who don't want to go home.
"A sunset... how?"
His breathing stopped. "I... I died."
"Yes, I killed you."
Shiro turned. Kaelen stood nearby, arms folded.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Then, countless images flooded back like lantern slides. Serika, the glass, Kaelen's sword.
"You killed me."
Shiro met Kaelen's unreadable expression.
He wanted to question why he had killed him again, to blame him for the loop he had lost, or ask why he hadn't warned him.
But he could not. Not completely. Kaelen had suffered through it all as well. Shiro's own recklessness had cost Kaelen a loop and a part of himself. He barely knew Kaelen well enough for him to act as his babysitter or tell him when something went wrong. He was an adult.
His mind was a tangled mess. At this rate, there were only two possible endings left for him. Either he found a way to escape this nightmare, or he remained trapped within the loops until his sense of self finally eroded away, until even the name "Shiro" meant nothing to him anymore.
Shiro let out an exhausted breath. His lips parted, but nothing came out.
Kaelen studied him for a moment before the tension in his shoulders eased.
"...Looks like you've finally come to your senses." A faint smile crossed his face.
Kaelen walked to a block of stone.
Carved into the stone were the words: This town was founded in the year ■■■■ by Lord Haleford.
He sat down, pulled out a polishing cloth, unsheathed his sword, and began cleaning the edge.
Shiro lowered his head.
"I can already feel my memories slipping away as the loop progresses. One more and..."
Kaelen stared at the scenery before him.
Shiro did not need to ask the meaning behind what he said. He had heard those words countless times before. On battlefields, in medical tents, and from comrades who knew they would never recover.
Silence stretched between them.
Eventually, Kaelen broke it.
"Your reaction speed is terrifying. Honestly, it's faster than most people I've known. Not only that, you have a vast knowledge about rifts that most lack."
Shiro blinked.
"If I didn't know better, I would have thought you were a Projector or a Civilian Enforcer."
"Take that as a compliment. However, your close combat..." Kaelen rested a hand on the hilt of his sword, "...still needs a lot of work if our plan is going to succeed."
"Hold onto this. It might come in handy." Kaelen handed the token to Shiro.
****
"I hope this is the last time we're doing this," Kaelen muttered, stepping forward and knocking firmly on the heavy wooden door.
The door swung open, revealing Serika standing in the entrance. Her posture was pristine, though a subtle tightness lingered around her shoulders, a faint sign of exhaustion she quickly masked beneath an impeccable, aristocratic smile.
"Gentlemen, I am afraid you cannot enter without a prior appointment," she said, her voice smooth and refined. "Please return tomorrow during visiting hours—"
Her gaze flickered down, catching sight of the token resting in Shiro's palm. A momentary shift crossed her expression before her calm, noble exterior returned seamlessly. She dipped into an elegant bow.
"Forgive me. What may I do for you, sirs? If you seek the Lord of the manor, I shall inform him of your arrival immediately."
"No," Kaelen replied smoothly, maintaining a polite, respectful distance. "We are not here for the Patriarch. We are here for you. We would greatly appreciate it if you could cooperate with a few of our questions."
Serika tilted her head slightly, her expression the picture of gentle composure. "Is something amiss?"
"Not at all," Kaelen assured her, his voice light and unthreatening. "Just a few simple inquiries, and then we will be on our way."
"Very well. Ask as you wish."
"To start," Kaelen began, "could you tell us about the estate's water sources? Have there been any disruptions or unusual changes to the supply recently?"
"Our water is drawn directly from the mountain springs through the western aqueducts," Serika answered without hesitation, her tone steady. "The flow remains clean and uninterrupted, as it always has."
"I see," Kaelen said with a courteous nod. "And what about the estate's resources and provisions? Are the storage levels holding up as expected for the season?"
"Everything is fully accounted for, sir. Our supplies are replenished weekly, the larders are well-maintained, and there are no shortages."
Kaelen maintained a warm, attentive gaze. "That is good to hear. Lastly, the Patriarch has agreed to a formal inspection of his domain following certain suspicions. We have also received reports of several strange occurrences around the grounds, specifically claw marks discovered near the eastern side, as well as rumors circulating among the townsfolk. Could you shed any light on that?"
Kaelen kept his eyes fixed on her face, watching for even the smallest micro-expression.
Serika did not flinch. Her hands remained folded gracefully before her, her green eyes clear and undisturbed as she met his gaze without a flicker of deceit.
"The marks on the eastern side of town were merely caused by stray mountain beasts searching for food during the cold nights, nothing more," she said gracefully. "As for rumors, idle gossip often spreads among the townspeople. I assure you, there is no truth to them. However, if my answers do not satisfy you, you are more than welcome to ask the local townsfolk. They will gladly confirm that all is peaceful here."
Kaelen paused for a brief moment, reading her unblemished composure, before nodding politely.
"Okay. That will be all. Thank you for your time and assistance."
"It was my utter pleasure, gentlemen," Serika replied with a graceful curtsy. "May you have a pleasant evening."
She slowly drew the door back, offering one last polite nod before it clicked shut, sealing the manor entryway.
Shiro fell into step beside Kaelen as they walked down the stone path, keeping his voice low.
"We're really just leaving?" Shiro asked, glancing back over his shoulder.
Kaelen smirked slightly, his gaze shifting toward the shadowed side of the manor. "Of course not. Now... where did you say you entered the mansion last time?"