Hearing that, Karl felt his balance waver.
"What do you mean you're going to exterminate them?"
Karl's hands trembled as he spoke.
The birds that had been announcing the dawn suddenly seemed to fall silent.
Kael looked at him.
"Why do you think you've never heard of other villages where this happened?"
Karl's eyes widened.
"Do... do you mean you do this always?" He clenched his fists tightly.
"This is savage... this is barbaric." His tears fell as if he was trying to deny what he'd heard.
"This has nothing to do with savagery or barbarism. It's only to protect the rest of the people."
Kael pointed west.
"To the west, the same thing happened a long time ago.
If we hadn't done it, your life would have ended."
"So should I thank you?" Karl bowed low toward the ground.
"I'll stop you." He picked up a long branch from the ground and pointed it at Kael.
Reflected in his eyes was a young man resting his sword on his thigh, who didn't seem to have considered drawing it yet.
"You?" Kael pointed at Karl and smiled.
Karl ignored his question and took one step, then another, advancing quickly toward him.
The next moment, Kael vanished from before him.
Then he felt an indescribable pain in his stomach.
He fell to his knees. "I don't want this..."
He said that.
James watched everything in silence, unwilling to intervene.
"It doesn't matter what you want. Do you think I don't want things too?"
It was the first time he had shouted.
"What matters is what actually happens."
Karl stood with difficulty.
He headed into the depths of the forest, then disappeared.
"Weren't you too harsh with him?"
James watched Karl's figure disappear into the forest and said.
"He has to grow up."
"What if you push him to become something else?"
"I can tell he's special, even among us. Can you bear that responsibility? Another Max might appear, you know."
His gaze turned to James, but he did not reply.
---
Karl kept running. Before him appeared the image of his sister, as she always was.
He sped up, as if trying to catch up with her, as if trying to stop her.
He remembered how she would always set out curiously to explore, and how he always failed to stop her, just like the first day of the incident.
His speed increased.
The sound of his breathing mingled with his mother's voice entrusting him with his little sister's safety.
The image of his mother appeared, preparing dinner for him, reading to him.
"Maia... Mother..." A choked voice escaped him.
He kept running until he stopped. Before him, there were two paths.
Should I return home? He thought to himself.
To do what?
He clenched his hands so tightly that drops of blood fell to the ground beneath him.
How can I save them?
The diary... perhaps the answer is there.
He remembered the small book he had found in Leonard's house.
He took the other path and headed toward it.
Near the trail where he had first seen Kael and James's wagon.
Beside it, there was a tree with scratches on it.
There, he dug with his hands in a place that seemed freshly excavated.
And he took it.
The ominous symbol appeared before him.
He opened it.
Most of it was things he couldn't read.
He flipped through the pages. Several texts appeared before him that seemed like another language, as if sealed, he couldn't tell.
But on one of the pages, there was a sentence written in very bad handwriting, as if its writer had been hallucinating or on the verge of losing his mind.
"The void cannot be reversed. There is no cure."
He fell, as if collapsing into a bottomless abyss.
He remained there, staring into the void. He didn't move. Only his tears fell faster.
---
But after moments, something changed.
He clenched his hands.
He refused that thought.
He refused to lose his sister.
He wiped his eyes.
And continued searching through the diary.
It was as always... unreadable.
But unlike the papers, it didn't seem to have complex contents. Rather, it seemed sealed by something? As if someone had placed a barrier preventing what was inside from being seen.
He stared at the pages for moments, then realized something.
Perhaps Kael and James could read it.
Perhaps... perhaps there was hope.
He closed the diary and pressed it against his chest.
"I'll return to you, Maia. I'll find a way."
In that moment, his eyes gleamed the same way his sister's had gleamed. But he didn't seem to have lost anything—rather, as if he had gained something else. Something that had always been inside him, waiting for the time to wake.
---
In the forest where James and Kael were.
The sun began to crawl upward slowly, making the forest return to its life, indifferent to what would happen near it.
"I think there's something wrong," James said.
Kael looked at him.
"What do you mean?"
James raised his head toward the sky.
"He hasn't returned. That child. Hours have passed."
Kael tensed.
"Do you think something happened to him?"
James shook his head slowly.
"I don't know. But there's something else..."
He paused.
"I feel something strange. Moments ago. There was a... presence. Then it vanished."
Kael drew his sword slowly.
"Alex?"
"No. Not him. Something else. Deeper. More..."
James searched for the right word.
"...Ancient."
Both looked toward the depths of the forest.
Toward the direction Karl had gone. He had felt it the moment the diary opened.
"Something bothered me," James continued his questioning. "Why weren't the contents of the house burned?" And looking toward the same direction, he added, "Why did we find other things even after their visit?"
The question hung in the air. Kael looked at him without answering