Chapter 56
Lunhard slouched against a tall shelf near the center of the room, directly across from Hoku.
He answered him in a steady voice, "This may not surprise you, given what you've already heard, but I am not a Passage Keeper, nor do I hold any official ties to that world. I have only a few unofficial contracts with three of their numbers."
Hoku's eyes immediately narrowed with suspicion. 'If he's going to lie, he should leave fewer clues,' the thought crossed his mind before he repeated it aloud.
"Your name has even been mentioned more than once in the third and fourth passages."
Lunhard watched him for another moment before easing himself off the shelf.
"It seems you've gained some confidence since the last time we met," he said, licking one side of his mouth.
Hoku lifted an eyebrow, puzzled, but remained silent.
Lunhard raised a hand in a placating gesture, "Allow me to explain more first."
"What I meant was that neither I nor any of the artifacts are bound to the Passages. Those relics exist only to lure in competition—born of the Keepers' own boredom. The Keepers themselves cannot leave their domains; if they did, they would break a certain law and become Corrupted."
Hoku frowned. "Corruption?"
Lunhard tapped his forehead between his brows. "In your own world, when someone breaks a serious law, aren't they locked away in cells?" he asked rhetorically.
Now, Hoku felt even less certain about Lunhard's line of questioning, but he answered anyway.
"They go to prison, or some sort of detention," Hoku replied, his voice uncertain.
"Indeed." Lunhard gave a slight nod.
"That is essentially the concept of Corruption. Here, there are no permanent laws governing our choices or lives. Who we kill, whom we impersonate, how vile we become—none of that incurs any punishment. But if someone exceeds their allotted resources, if they defy the Timestream our Abundant Creator has granted us a place within, then their actions leave irreversible marks. In essence, such transgressions twist them from within. That is Corruption. The organization I was once part of is a good example."
As he spoke, Lunhard's eyelids gradually covered more of his blue eyes.
He made an almost cunning expression. "And seeing as you were sifting like a fox through my materials earlier, I suspect you've already read something about the incident."
Hoku fell silent.
Although he hadn't appeared flustered, he averted his gaze, as though Lunhard's bluntness had been unexpected.
After a brief respite, he realized it would have been pointless to deny it. "I did read one of the documents. Most of the others I only skimmed, but one letter that was stained with blood I read in full."
Lunhard's dark lashes lowered briefly, and he closed his eyes for a moment.
When he spoke again, his voice was deeper. "Hmm... perhaps I know which one you mean. Archivist 7.16?"
Hoku shrugged helplessly.
The numbering itself hadn't made much sense to him.
"If that's true, then I'm supposing whoever wrote it was describing the beginning of their punishment," Hoku inferred aloud.
Lunhard glanced toward the desk, as if acknowledging the section Hoku was referring to.
"Well… according to that letter, one of the Archivists fell ill first. And let me inform you now, falling ill here in the Sequel is a dreadful fate. Disease exists in only a few of our Epochs, and it does not arise or spread naturally as it does in your world."
Hoku pursed his lips in confusion. "Not even common colds? Or terminal illnesses?"
Lunhard paused, then shook his head. "I'm not entirely sure what a 'cold' is—aside from a temperature reference—and 'terminal illness' sounds self-explanatory. But no, diseases do not spontaneously occur here, so they're practically nonexistent," he said.
Hoku listened keenly as Lunhard continued. "The first Archivist to suffer fell prey to a withering sickness," Lunhard said. "Slowly, he lost muscle and strength until he looked practically malnourished. By the time his colleagues believed him dead, the only thing keeping his form intact was his skin. It was as though he had been hollowed out from within. Assuming this affliction was a form of Corruption, the others prepared a service for him, knowing that the Sequence would not restore someone who died in such a way."
Lunhard pressed his lips into a thin line. "However, on the day of that service, right before their very eyes, the man they had pronounced dead suddenly sat up. He attacked one of the others without warning. According to the letter, he was no longer the same person who had passed away. After that, more members began to suffer the same wasting symptoms, even those who had never come into contact with the first. It seemed almost random, striking them one after another."
Hoku cleared his throat a couple of times before he managed to speak. "S-so... they're all dead? All of the Archivists?"
Lunhard lowered his gaze. "They are. Long dead. But their bodies still haunt this hall," he said, sweeping an arm at the shadowed archives around them. "I suspect most of them, in their final moments of lucidity, locked themselves in various rooms here. This chamber we're standing in is one of the few that remained empty... a small shame, as it turns out."
Hoku's face suddenly turned pale as he recalled the iron-like grip and freezing skin that had seized him earlier.
At the time, he had taken it for a lurking monster or some trick of this place.
But as Lunhard's words settled, a different conclusion surfaced.
It had not been a monster at all, but one of the wandering 'corpses', a former Archivist twisted by Corruption.
He raised a hand to his mouth and leaned forward slightly, steadying his breathing.
Lunhard's eyes sharpened at Hoku's sudden pallor.
"What's the matter?"
Hoku shook his head lightly. "Nothing." He hesitated, then added in a lower voice, "I'd rather not stay here any longer than necessary."
He knew it was useless to dwell on it.
If he wanted to avoid the same outcome again, he would need to focus on the most glaring matters first: finding a way out and rejoining the others if possible.
He looked back at Lunhard, who was still watching him closely, as though deliberately giving him time to think.
"You still haven't answered my earlier question," Hoku said.
"If you're not a Passage Keeper, and you weren't in this room until just now… then where have you been all this time?"
Hoku took a half-step back, putting more distance between them, and glanced toward the heavy wooden door leading out to the unknown halls.
Lunhard's concern faded into an amused smile at Hoku's persistence. "Straight to the point, are we? Very well," he said, clasping his hands loosely behind his back. "The answer lies with the Archivists themselves. Though they met a tragic end, they were nothing if not thorough and resourceful. Even in their downfall, they tried to protect what mattered most to them."
Hoku listened without interrupting as Lunhard continued.
It was only upon closer reflection that he noticed the measured pauses in Lunhard's speech bore an unmistakable pretense, like a story recited too often to be deviated from.
Nonetheless, Hoku felt his guard narrowly slipping.
He needed answers, and Lunhard had plenty to give.
As Lunhard slowly paced along the edge of the room, he flipped the card in his right hand. "The Archivists were the fourth-highest research division in the Sequel's hierarchy. Their specialty was preserving knowledge. In a universe where reality can reset or change, they sought to retain information between those cycles, which we call Sequences. Think of them as record-keepers across time."
Hoku furrowed his brow, trying to imagine what kind of person could meet all those criteria. The idea sounded less like a scholar and more like some kind of infiltrator savant.
Lunhard noticed the perplexed look on Hoku's face and chuckled."As you might imagine, those talents rarely manifest in a single person," he said. "But when they do, that person becomes... highly prized. In fact, anyone with an exceptionally advantageous mix of those abilities was elevated to a position of the Senior Archivist."
He paused by an old desk and idly brushed a layer of dust from a stack of papers. "Senior Archivist," Lunhard repeated, this time with irony in his voice. "This sounds like an honorable title," Lunhard said simply. "In reality, it was merely a convenient method. This was because, by granting one of their own a position that appeared distinguished, the Archivists ensured loyalty. The Senior became the core of their affairs, but at the same time, was bound by the responsibilities attached to that role."
Hoku's suspicion grew as he calmly inquired, "Were you that Senior Archivist?"
After reaching the left wall, Lunhard turned and faced him.
The gas lamps at the side illuminated his pale face, revealing smooth skin and eyes that appeared eerily intent.
"I was," he said simply. "After my predecessor chose to leave the Archivists, I took on the role. My predecessor's name was Madam Lamb."
Almost at the same moment Lunhard finished speaking, a faint 'fwish' sounded, and the sensation between Hoku's fingers changed, becoming granular beneath his touch.
He barely had time to look down before realizing that nothing was there.
In the next instant, however, he felt a weight settle into his back pocket.
To be continued…