"A meteor shower... haven't seen one of these in a long time."
The royal palace stayed dark today, as always. No need for lamps — the only person still living here had no use for them.
The current king, Anz III, stood by the window, watching the sun sink toward the horizon.
Once it set, night would follow.
Night would bring the meteors.
And the meteors would bring voices from beyond the heavens.
He stroked a hand thick with disordered fur. Even a light touch pulled clumps of it loose.
Not a good sign, either — because once he lost control again, that hair would simply grow back in.
Anz III's face carried a bone-deep weariness. Only middle-aged, and yet he looked closer to sixty, seventy years old.
Regret flickered through his eyes. He pressed both hands hard against his skull, voice breaking apart into a choked sob.
"What have I been doing, all this time? My country... my people..."
Lately, Anz III had noticed the stretches of clarity in his mind growing longer than before. That should have counted as relief.
Instead, it made everything worse — because clarity meant seeing, in full, exactly what monstrous things he'd been doing.
That day, he'd heard a voice from beyond the heavens. Incomprehensible whispering — and yet, somehow, his mind had snapped instantly clear.
At first, he'd believed a god was helping him.
He'd learned, soon after, exactly how wrong that assumption was.
Because he'd discovered that his blood — or rather, whatever lay within his blood connected to his transformation — had become contagious.
Watching a small mouse bite into his ankle, drink from him, and flee already transformed into a crazed Demonic Rat had left him genuinely terrified.
Then the voice from beyond had returned.
He'd lost consciousness instantly. And when he'd woken — memories surfaced that pushed him further still toward collapse.
While under that unknown thing's control, he'd spread his blood to his own attendants. Anyone who came into contact with it became contagious in turn. Each new source, once loosed into the outside world, would create further sources still.
By now — how many infected people already walked the royal city?
None had shown symptoms yet.
But once they did — what kind of hell would break loose?
Anz III felt utterly gutted.
Whatever unknown thing lurked beyond the heavens seemed determined to torment him specifically. It had forced a piece of information directly into his mind — one that laid out the entire cause behind everything.
It turned out this unknown presence had set its sights on him and his kingdom long before now, simply without settling on the ideal method to handle them.
Then Eliphis had provided the turning point.
"Eliphis..."
That terrifying man with the ability to manipulate minds had brought something back from the demon race. He'd intended to use the Demonfall Egg to seize control of Anz III directly.
Once the unknown presence discovered Eliphis's plan, it had come up with a genuinely elegant solution. It had interfered directly with the Demonfall Egg's mechanism, locking Anz III into a repeating cycle of beastification.
The purpose: transform him into the perfect vector of infection.
The modification, by now, was complete.
It had named the resulting condition "Beastification Syndrome." Because the symptoms traced back to the Demonfall Egg — and because this was precisely what the unknown presence intended — triggering it was almost absurdly simple.
All it required: extreme negative emotion.
Curing it was, in theory, equally simple. Eliminate the negative emotion entirely.
But even gods carried negative emotion. How could any human ever hope to purge it completely?
To Anz III, the situation was utterly, irreversibly hopeless.
And as the second person to draw the unknown presence's attention — a man wielding mind manipulation as his own gift — Eliphis made the perfect detonator.
This unknown presence had waited a genuinely long time for the "dish" that was the royal city.
It no longer wanted to wait.
This once-in-a-century meteor shower would strengthen its connection to the present world. And on the final day of the shower —
It would use Eliphis to set the royal city off entirely.
Why did it want this? What did it stand to gain?
How could any human possibly comprehend the will of a "god"?
As the only living person who understood this horrifying truth, Anz III wanted nothing more than to end everything through suicide.
The clarity granted to him existed, specifically, to torment him with that impossible choice — because the moment he tried, his sanity would slip away again before he could finish.
Even during his lucid stretches, he had no means whatsoever to ask for help or get word out to anyone. All he could do was remain conscious, watching the country he loved most march toward destruction.
"Eliphis! This is all your doing! If not for you—"
Anz III smashed everything within reach in a wild frenzy. A few objects into the rampage, he collapsed helplessly to the floor.
Blaming Eliphis solved nothing. Anz III himself had invited the wolf in, welcomed him close.
And even without Eliphis, the unknown presence would have found some way to make trouble eventually.
Only one choice remained.
"Please... whoever you are... please, kill me... Save my country. Save my people."
Meanwhile, Fingri was still watching the battle unfold.
He watched the Fallingstar Beast rampage majestically down the street, Eliphis dangling from its jaws like a lifeless puppet. He watched the Light Eagle Corps captains take turns leaping onto its back like bullfighters, each one attempting a rescue.
Somewhere in the middle of the chaos, Captain Guts vanished from the crowd entirely.
Probably off chasing a Minior.
How to describe it. From where Fingri stood, the whole scene carried a distinctly cheerful energy.
If the party currently getting mauled hadn't been the Light Eagle Corps specifically, Fingri would probably have burst out laughing outright. Might even have stuck around and joined the general chaos for the fun of it.
Unfortunately, this time it was the Light Eagle Corps.
The moment his eyes landed on Eliphis's face, the memory of his own hometown's slaughter surfaced without his permission.
He couldn't honestly claim to feel nothing about it. Every time Hell March activated, it summoned the phantoms of every villager before him — pulling his emotions straight back into that particular hell, over and over.
His feelings toward Eliphis had never resolved into anything simple.
On one hand — Eliphis had personally led the Light Eagle Corps in cutting down the mutated villagers. That fact alone had planted a faint, persistent dislike somewhere deep in him. Though he recognized it, honestly, as his own selfishness more than any real fault of Eliphis's.
On the other — Eliphis had brought peace to those same villagers, afterward, and had shown Fingri genuine consideration too. For that, gratitude ran deeper than the resentment.
Later, as Eliphis's reputation climbed and he ascended into the kingdom's upper circles, Fingri had come to genuinely admire and respect him.
"I still don't know when he's actually going to make good on helping me track down the real culprit."
Fingri's fists clenched.
If he ever actually found the "evil mage" responsible for his entire village's transformation...
He'd probably do something genuinely irrational on the spot. Something so far past reasonable that nobody could stop him.
Might even earn himself a permanent reputation as a complete idiot for it.
Even if the true culprit turned out to be some powerful, well-connected minister — he'd still storm the royal palace himself and end the man.
"Forget it. Better I leave."
After thinking it over, Fingri decided against getting involved.
He couldn't fully explain why. Eliphis could, technically, be counted among his benefactors.
But some quiet, gut-level instinct told him to keep his distance from this man.
He turned to leave. Pulled his hood back to get some air.
Then — a sudden sense of presence.
He spun around.
Elsa stood behind him, a Minior cradled in her arms, staring straight at him.
"Uh... hello?"
A flicker of awkwardness crossed Fingri.
But up close like this, something clicked — hadn't this person been spending time with the Skyrim Group lately?
Oh.
She's actually part of the Light Eagle Corps.
I assumed she was one of Luluwo's own team.
Fingri knew Luluwo fairly well by now — they'd met while working alongside Leon, hunting through a hundred ways for the little boy to die.
No — a hundred ways to save the little boy.
He'd taken a real liking to her fast, someone always thinking sideways, coming up with strange-but-effective solutions to problems nobody else could crack.
Luluwo, in turn, appreciated Fingri's own ability to swing between deadly serious and thoroughly ridiculous without warning. Close enough by now to genuinely call each other friends — a relationship, lately, drifting comfortably into "frenemy" territory.
"Um — you might not believe this, but I'm actually just leaving. I don't want to fight anymore."
Right as he said it, a Minior shot past between them.
Elsa's gaze snapped sharp instantly. She lunged, grabbing at it — but with too much force, cracking its outer shell.
The Minior's core — its actual body — fled straight toward Fingri.
"Gotcha."
He caught it casually, turning it over to inspect.
"Strange. Why's this one red inside? The one I saw earlier was yellow."
The shells all looked nearly identical from outside. The color inside varied wildly.
Genuinely odd.
"Want this one?"
Noticing the girl hadn't looked away from it once, Fingri privately concluded she was genuinely easy to read. He tossed it over to her without ceremony.
Elsa caught it cleanly. Two Minior in her arms now.
"Thank you!"
The genuine gratitude in her voice left Fingri feeling a little brighter himself. He decided to keep the conversation going.
He ran a hand through his hair, settled into what he was certain read as a genuinely handsome pose, and leaned back against the nearby wall.
He was mid-sentence —
When he jolted upright, yelping — the frozen wall had chilled him straight to the bone. His whole body shook.
His attempt at cool had failed, spectacularly, in real time.
"Shh — it's genuinely cold. Ah — don't worry about that."
He rubbed the offended arm.
"By the way — you're friends with Luluwo, right? I've seen you around a few times. Turns out I'm pretty close with her myself."
Something in Elsa's expression softened, just slightly. Fingri couldn't tell if it was the Luluwo connection, or simply the comedy of watching him fail so thoroughly at looking cool.
"You really like these little creatures?"
He meant the Minior — deliberately avoiding the word "monster."
Elsa nodded.
"I think they're genuinely cute."
An idea struck Fingri. He leaned in, enthusiastic.
"Perfect timing, then! My party's heading to the Gourmet Zone tomorrow — there are even more adorable little creatures there. Want to come along?"
Lately, Matilda had been giving him the cold shoulder over all the time he'd burned on the boy's rescue effort. If he brought along someone new, someone outside the group, maybe Matilda would hold off on scolding him in front of company.
That was Fingri's actual reasoning.
Though he genuinely hadn't expected Elsa to say yes.
"Sure. Where should I meet you tomorrow?"
She agreed without the slightest hesitation.
"Huh?"
The next day.
Liurnia of the Lakes.
Fingri arrived at the massive bonfire near the Academy's gate town with Matilda and Aleya in tow.
Elsa was already waiting when they got there.
She's genuinely eager, isn't she.
Doesn't it worry her that I might just kidnap and sell her?
"Let me introduce everyone."
Fingri walked her through the group, and introductions settled in easily enough.
"Let's go."
Elsa immediately lifted a foot, ready to head for the bonfire.
Fingri called her back.
"Hold on a moment — actually, a few of my juniors haven't shown up yet. Mind if we wait for them?"
"Sure. No rush."
She found a spot to sit, entirely obedient about it.
In truth, she'd slipped away from the Light Eagle Corps in secret. Since returning yesterday, Eliphis had locked himself back inside his room, refusing to see anyone. Nobody knew what exactly had happened this time.
Sitting around camp wasting the day held no appeal either, so she'd simply snuck out.
Whatever had happened that day had clearly landed a genuine blow — worse, even, than the one he'd taken against Wolnir. His entire mental state read as fundamentally wrong now.
The real problem: nobody knew why. Nobody, of course, had any idea he'd endured that particular ultimate humiliation.
Without his mind-manipulation ability in play, people would likely have already grown restless with a commander who kept breaking down this often.
Elsa was, honestly, one of them.
Which was exactly why she'd run off today.
After some waiting, the Bone Party finally came sprinting over in a panic.
The adventurers among them piled on apologies.
"Sorry, Mr. Fingri! We're late — something came up unexpectedly!"
"It's fine, you're here now — let's head out—"
Fingri had already started waving everyone forward when he noticed someone missing from the group.
The bearded one. Tusk.
"The unexpected thing was actually about Tusk," they explained, sighing.
"Someone in his family got sick, apparently. He had to stay home and take care of them. Couldn't make it."
"Yeah, his older sister, from what I heard. Strange, though — isn't she a maid at the royal palace? Don't they have doctors on staff there for exactly this?"
"We'll bring him something back, at least."
Fingri offered a moment of genuine concern, then waved the group forward, heading for the bonfire.
"Let's go!"