(How many times am I supposed to feel like I’m going to throw up today?)

  All day, Ethan had tailed and personally verified the speeches of Avalonia’s presidential candidate and the incumbent conservative president.

  The content of the speeches, supporters’ reactions, the bodyguards’ behavior, how the crowd’s eyes moved, even the children’s reactions—everything was under observation.

  (Avalonia’s candidate… Isabel is probably using a mind-manipulation Exceed.)

  The thought made Ethan shudder.

  Even Ethan, who loathed Avalonia’s policies, had felt himself almost get swallowed by Isabel’s speech more than once.

  Each time, he calmed himself with ether breathing—but honestly, it had been close.

  (From the incumbent conservative president, I didn’t feel that much. He’ll probably win by leaning on his base, vested interests, and turning women into “resources.”)

  Trying to settle his stomach, Ethan popped gum into his mouth.

  It was 18:00. Even in April in the Nordica Republic, the sun was sinking.

  (I’m on dinner duty again today.)

  Ethan checked Diana’s location on his wristphone and frowned.

  (In a place this unsafe… an abandoned factory site?)

  Her location pinged on the outskirts of Eldrant—an abandoned factory site no decent citizen would go near.

  (A real estate meeting here? At this hour? Impossible. This is bad…)

  Ethan cut into a back alley as a shortcut, hurrying to retrieve his bike.

  (These—)

  The stench of danger hit him.

  Five ahead. Five behind. Seven men, three women.

  They stared at Ethan with glass-marble eyes, mouths half-open, drool hanging.

  And every one of them held a metal pipe or a knife.

  (Returners? No. Humans under mental control?)

  Their unnatural movements made Ethan reach that conclusion.

  Without warning, a woman holding a crossbow fired at Ethan.

  He knocked it aside with a circular parry.

  At the same time, the group surged from both ends.

  Ethan sprang toward the alley wall, avoiding being pincered, then kicked off the wall and dropped from the air onto the nearest man’s head with Duality Martial Arts: Crater Drop.

  He felt the skull crack.

  Ethan grabbed the man by one leg and swung him like a human-sized flail.

  Face slammed into face—bones shattered, teeth sprayed.

  In the storm of violence Ethan created, the alley instantly became a dumping ground of broken bodies.

  He tossed aside the man he’d used as a flail and glanced over the fallen.

  (Even after being beaten this badly, none of them screams, none of them runs in fear.)

  (…They’re just humans. Someone programmed their actions… and that’s exactly why it’s the worst.)

  (And this—this is a delay tactic.)

  Normally, Ethan would have observed a little more.

  But Diana flashed in his mind, and he took off toward the bike storage.

  As he ran, his wristphone rang.

  “Is this Ethan?” a girl’s voice—middle-school age.

  “It is.”

  “It’s Elina! Faelan actually went to middle school today, for once, and—”

  Her voice was clearly panicked.

  “I got a chat from Fae that said, ‘Help me. I’m at the abandoned factory site,’ and then he stopped responding!”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “…Understood. I’m heading there. Just in case, tell the adults on the underground defense team too.”

  Ethan sprinted at full speed toward the abandoned factory site.

  —

  Around the same time, at the abandoned factory—

  Victoria arrived alone, opened the designated entrance, and stepped into the darkness.

  She had Pulseveil at full output.

  Inside, she could tell there were two kinds of emotions—both “fear,” but different shades: terror and trembling.

  Victoria had come because a call had come in on her wristphone.

  The caller was unknown. But the number had been Director Crawford’s.

  Victoria hadn’t answered.

  She checked the voicemail—long.

  “Diana Crawford is at the abandoned factory site. She’s being held in the former auto-repair Zone C. If Victoria does not come alone, she will be taken up to heaven tonight.”

  After hearing that, Victoria had come by herself.

  There was no light source—only a few emergency lamps barely glowing.

  Victoria opened the door.

  Inside were two towers—like enormous, clumsy twenty-meter-high Jenga stacks.

  The scaffolding was steel beams, the boards thick plywood, the floor concrete.

  And at the top, two figures with their hands bound, desperately trying not to fall—

  Diana and Faelan.

  On the floor were three men.

  (I can’t read their emotions—)

  A bad feeling crawled over Victoria.

  One man stood in the center. The other two were near the Jenga towers, poised to pull boards at any moment.

  “Welcome, Victoria,” the man in the center spoke in a mechanical voice.

  There was no emotion in it.

  “Since you came, I’ll grant you a choice.”

  “Which one do you want to save? Choose.”

  “We’ll pull a board from the Jenga of the one you don’t choose. The one pulled will fall and die… The one you choose will live.”

  Victoria started to move—Shadow Step.

  “If you move from there, or use projectiles, both will die.”

  “And if you can’t choose, both will die.”

  “Choose. Life is a chain of choices.”

  The emotionless malice hit Victoria like a spike through the chest, draining the blood from her body.

  (They’re dolls. Programmed to do this. But… I can’t find the mastermind!)

  —No.

  It isn’t that she can’t “find” them.

  She’s being watched—from somewhere she can’t see.

  On a beam in the darkness, a single red dot blinked—

  like a recording light.

  (…I’m being observed. They’re collecting my “reactions.”)

  Cold sweat ran down Victoria’s back.

  (Mom… Mom, I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I’m such a useless daughter. Dead or resurrected, I still end up doing this to you…)

  Victoria vomited right there.

  The nausea wouldn’t stop.

  (Fae… thank you for always admiring Ethan as your master. Maybe it’s because of you that Ethan can still be human. And I put a child like you in danger… If Fae dies, Ethan will break for sure.)

  Victoria started hyperventilating.

  (I can’t breathe—ether breathing, I can’t do it—)

  “Ms. Sinclair!”

  Diana shouted.

  Victoria instinctively met Diana’s eyes.

  “I’m fine,” Diana said, trembling, smiling anyway. “My son grew up well. So please—save that boy.”

  “Director Crawford…”

  Victoria shook.

  “Even if I die, my husband and my daughter will greet me in heaven, so I won’t be lonely.”

  Diana was shaking as she laughed and cried.

  (Your daughter is right here!!)

  Victoria grabbed her own arm with her right hand. Her nails bit in until blood ran.

  “If you don’t choose, this happens.”

  The two men pulled out boards.

  The unstable towers swayed; Diana and Faelan nearly slipped off.

  “Stop! I get it! I’ll choose—just stop!”

  Victoria screamed.

  “…Director Crawford. I choose the middle-aged woman.”

  Wracked with guilt toward Faelan, Victoria forced herself to say it.

  The man in the center nodded like a machine.

  The next instant, the board beneath Diana’s tower was pulled, and the stack collapsed.

  Diana fell headfirst, hit the ground, and her neck bent in an impossible direction.

  Victoria’s thoughts stopped.

  Everything stopped.

  Breathing. Gaze. Emotion.

  Then she heard only a tearing sound—

  not outside.

  Inside her.

  Victoria’s memory ended there.

  When Ethan arrived—

  what he saw was the “men” reduced to chunks of flesh scattered across the floor.

  Faelan trembling in the corner, terrified.

  And Victoria—holding Diana’s dead hand, weeping tears of blood.

  —

  A few days later—

  Ethan wore a cloak and held a private funeral for Diana at a plain temple.

  Victoria didn’t come. She said, “I have no right to attend the funeral.”

  Instead, at Ethan’s side was Ria, dressed in mourning clothes.

  It was April, yet a cold rain fell that night.

  “Thank you for coming, Ria,” Ethan said, eyes bloodshot.

  “I was looked after by Diana-san when I was little too,” Ria said softly. “And I thought… it would be lonely for you to do this alone.”

  “Sorry to make you worry… and to have you come by ride share…”

  “It’s fine. I limited it to women drivers.” Ria hesitated. “More importantly…”

  “Hm?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  Ria fell silent.

  (It was the first time Ethan ever called me while crying…)

  Feeling the depth of his wound, Ria’s chest tightened.

  The funeral ended. Night deepened.

  They’d just finished a light dinner when Ethan’s eyes sharpened.

  “I’m going out for a moment.”

  He left the table, opened the door, and headed behind the temple.

  “Where are you going?” Ria asked, worried.

  “There’s something bothering me. Stay here, Ria.”

  Ethan didn’t look back as he closed the door.

  Behind the temple was a parking lot. In a normal funeral, there would have been many cars.

  But this was private—only Ethan’s bike was there.

  A ladybug flew through the air.

  “Quit hiding and come out,” Ethan’s voice cut coldly.

  A squad from Guardians of Humanity appeared from beyond the wall.

  “Ethan Crawford. You’ll be processed as an enemy of the state.”

  Daniel—

  Ria’s older brother, the officer Ethan respected, his friend.

  To Ethan, Daniel looked like he was forcing his voice to stay empty of emotion.

  (Daniel… you’re excellent… so they picked you for the Guardians… damn it.)

  Surrounded by twenty Guardians members with guns, Ethan took a Duality Martial Arts stance.

  Inside, Ethan was a mess.

  Grief over Diana’s death.

  Grief over Victoria being broken.

  The trauma Faelan had suffered.

  And now—even Daniel he respected had become his enemy.

  (Maybe this is what the world is. ‘The sound of impermanence’… huh.)

  Strangely, his emotions melted coolly inside him.

  Maybe it was a kind of resignation—

  If good people die first in this world, then his duty was to do what he could where he stood.

  Ethan’s breathing deepened like never before.

  Then a voice spoke.

  “Brother?”

  Ria. She had followed him.

  “Ria!?” Daniel sucked in a breath—no words came.

  And in that split second, his superior crushed it.

  Daniel’s finger trembled—off the trigger.

  “We will begin the sweep. Process Ethan Crawford, including the witness.”

  The Guardians raised their guns and pulled the triggers all at once—.