Hearing Jin's question, Simon didn't answer right away. He remained silent for a moment before looking past him once again, almost as if he needed to make sure that what he was seeing was real.
Pier was still there, breathing heavily on one knee. Prince had already raised his head from the ground, while Manus remained standing with one hand gripping his sword. None of them had been cut into pieces, and after confirming that all three were still perfectly fine, Simon finally felt some of the tension leave his body.
The relief didn't last long, however, as Simon soon noticed the expressions on their faces. Pier was still trying to understand what had happened, Prince looked completely shaken, and even Manus had yet to fully recover his usual calm. Their reactions were far too similar to his own, leaving Simon with only one conclusion.
Whatever he had experienced just now, the three Ancient Undead had experienced it as well.
An illusion? A curse? A nightmare? Or perhaps some kind of future prediction?
Possibility after possibility passed through Simon's mind, yet none of them could fully explain what had just happened. Pier, Prince, and Manus seemed to be thinking about the same thing, but before any of them could reach an answer, Jin's voice suddenly pulled their attention back toward him.
"Simon Polentia, let me ask you a question."
Simon looked at him cautiously, still unsure what the Shadow Monarch intended to do next. Instead of attacking again, however, Jin simply stood there with both scythes lowered at his sides before asking something Simon never expected to hear in the middle of their battle.
"Why do birds fly?"
"...?"
Simon blinked.
For a few seconds, he genuinely wondered if he had heard that correctly.
Only moments ago, they had been fighting to the death. Well, to be more precise, Simon, Pier, Prince, and Manus were the only ones actually fighting for their lives.
As for the one responsible for putting them through all that, Jin? Not only was he the one constantly bringing them close to death, but he had been fighting as though he were simply taking a stroll through the park.
He hadn't even broken a sweat.
And now, after all of that, Jin suddenly wanted to ask him a philosophical question?
Simon stared at the armored figure in front of him, completely lost over how the conversation had taken such a strange turn. With everything that had happened one after another, his brain was already struggling to keep up, and Jin's sudden question certainly wasn't helping.
At this point, there was probably a tiny Simon somewhere inside his head going gu gu ga ga.
Jin didn't seem to care about his confusion and simply waited for a few moments before speaking again.
"What do you think?"
Hearing that, Simon finally realized Jin was actually expecting an answer.
He fell silent once more, although this time for a completely different reason. Simon still had no idea why Jin would suddenly ask him something like this, but after everything that had happened since the Eighth Legion appeared, he could no longer believe that Jin had come here simply because he wanted to fight.
From the beginning until now, Jin had never shown any real hostility toward him. Even after overwhelming the Seventh Legion and reaching Simon himself, he had stopped instead of finishing the battle, and whatever that strange experience had been, Simon was still alive without a single wound on his body.
Of course, that conclusion was only possible if one ignored the death after death Simon had gone through before. Because of this, Simon had developed a really bad impression of Jin. Well, even calling it a "bad impression" was still somehow underestimating everything Jin had done to him.
And Simon still couldn't understand why Jin had put him through all of that.
Now, with a sudden philosophical question added on top of everything else, Simon truly felt like he was about to grow a second brain just from trying to understand what Jin was thinking.
And there had to be a reason Jin had come here.
The problem was that Simon had absolutely no idea what it was.
Still, with Jin apparently waiting for his answer, Simon pushed those thoughts aside for the moment and seriously considered the strange question. Birds flew for many reasons, but after thinking about the most basic answer he could give, he finally spoke.
"...Is it for survival?"
Jin didn't tell him whether the answer was right or wrong. Instead, after a brief pause, he repeated the question.
"Why do birds fly?"
Simon remained quiet as Jin continued.
"Someone might say it's because they must soar into the sky. Someone else might say it's simply because they want to. Others might believe they fly because they have no other choice."
Jin slightly raised his head as he spoke, his voice remaining calm despite the ruined battlefield surrounding them.
"Some even believe that birds wished to reach the sky so badly that they gave themselves wings."
Simon listened without interrupting, and after another brief pause, Jin continued.
"But first, let me tell you a story."
"A story about someone named Icarus."
The unfamiliar name made Simon focus even more closely as Jin began explaining.
"Icarus was a young man trapped on an island with his father. He wanted to escape, so his father made wings from feathers and wax, giving them a way to fly away from their prison. But before they left, his father warned him not to fly too high."
Jin paused for a moment before continuing.
"But, Icarus still chose to fly closer to the sun, and just as his father had warned him, the heat melted the wax holding his wings together. He fell from the sky and died."
By the time the story ended, Simon's earlier confusion had slowly turned into curiosity. The answer seemed obvious at first, yet Jin wouldn't have suddenly told him this story in the middle of their battle if that were all there was to it.
Sure enough, Jin soon asked another question. "But, why did he do it?"
Simon narrowed his eyes slightly.
"Was it arrogance that made him ignore the warning? Or was there another reason?"
This time, Simon didn't immediately try to answer.
Something about the question felt strangely important. The more he thought about it, the more it began to sound like one of those questions in stories where a single answer somehow decided what kind of path the protagonist would take for the rest of his life.
Unfortunately for Simon, he had never read any of Knox's novels.
If he had read the Honkai Impact novel Knox had written in this world, perhaps he would have been better prepared for this kind of situation. Instead, the poor boy was once again left standing there with his brain dangerously close to returning to gu gu ga ga.
Even so, Simon refused to give up immediately. He squeezed every last brain cell he had, trying to figure out what kind of answer Jin wanted from him, but the longer he thought about it, the less confident he became.
In the end, there was only one thing he could ask.
"...Why are you asking me this question?"
Simon waited for an answer, but Jin remained silent. The Shadow Monarch simply stood there, giving no indication of what he was thinking.
The moment the words left his mouth, Simon immediately wondered if he had just made a mistake. Jin had gone through all that trouble telling him the story of Icarus and asking him what sounded like an incredibly important question, only for Simon to respond with another question.
Yet just as Simon began preparing himself for whatever serious answer might come next, Jin finally spoke.
"Well, actually... there's no big reason. I just wanted to kill some time~"
".....Huh?"