In a room with the curtains drawn, the only sound that could be heard was the constant thumping of a heel hitting the floor in a steady rhythm. The delicate scent of flowers mingled with the pungent scent of medicine, and the atmosphere was so depressing that no one dared open the door without being asked.

She hadn't moved since they put her there. In fact, if they had told him she was dead, he wouldn't even be surprised, but he clung to the heartbeat he could hear when he came closer, concentrating on his hearing.

'A heartbeat?' his mind froze at the thought, 'I was there, how could I not have noticed until it was too late?'

But it wasn't just him. When he turned his head, that monster was already there, talking to his sister. There was nothing he could change, nothing he could do to stop them, and he felt useless because of it.

There were bandages around her upper body, covering her shoulders and chest like a cage, as if she might fall apart if they were taken off. He had a doctor look at her and took a Mana Stone to aid her himself.

He couldn't trust the Church. But a simple doctor would have to keep everything he saw. They wouldn't have been able to identify the nature of the wound anyway.

All he could think of was that the doctor, frightened by his forceful approach, would look at Rowena and tell him that her heart wasn't damaged at all, according to outward appearances. "It beats powerfully," he had said.

A bitter laugh rang through the dimly lit sleeping chamber. "A fake," he muttered to himself.

He had seen his sister's real heart torn from her chest as if her body were made of paper. It had also completely disintegrated, so there was no going back to that contract.

Of course, he knew what he had seen even without an explanation. When he was finally able to run over to her, it wasn't him who had caught her collapsing figure, but the very monster that had put her in that state.

Alan couldn't forget the way it had looked at him, carrying his bleeding sister in its arms, offering her to him as if it wanted her to be safe; as if she was precious to it. Then why did it offer her a pact at all? This would change her life, maybe even end it completely.

Even though he couldn't see the scar right now, he knew it was there. The star-shaped scar on her chest, as well as the other one on her lower back. She wasn't used to physical pain. How could she stand it?

He couldn't imagine. His leg was pounding faster and faster, he barely noticed someone knocking to get his attention.

Suddenly, he stopped his movements and stood up with the urge to chew out whoever was getting on his nerves. However, he swallowed the emotion as he opened the door and left the room, before even acknowledging the intruder.

"Young Duke, will you have a word with me? I won't take up much of your time, I promise."

Alan tightened his lips but nodded his head. "Of course, Your Highness."

 

The King of All, that was... "Number 1?"

Pan nodded his head. "Yes. Him."

When a Visitor reached the Phantom stage, it found a name, at the Demon stage it perfected its body, and once it transcended that and became a Sentinel, its infamy granted it a title. "Harbinger of Destruction," "Angel of Belligerence," or "Ruler of the Seven Seas" were just some examples.

"Is 'King of All' his real title?" Her nose scrunched up at the thought.

Pan chuckled, which threw her off a bit. "No. It is a title we gave him to create distance. He is different from us."

"How?"

He didn't say anything more, just sipped his tea. She couldn't see his eyes either, so she couldn't tell what he was thinking.

"Anyway," she began, trying to lighten the mood and keep the conversation going, "what's his real title?"

For a second she thought he wouldn't answer that either. "God of Death," he said, " that is who he is."

She couldn't understand his words, so she did a mental double-take. "Like, the God of Death, as in a guy with a hood and a scy-" She realized she had thought of that earlier. "Wait, is that him? The statue?"

"It used to depict him."

She thought it was the same with Aurora. She knew that Aurora didn't exist, because it was a story about the first Saintess and her Numbered - Uriel. Even if the thought was interesting to her, imagining there might be someone out there watching them, the Church was still pretending there was a God when they knew there was none. In this case, another made-up being was carved in the form of a Numbered.

"Then who is the woman with him?"

He looked at her through his veil and cocked his head. "Why is that important?"

"Because she was important to a Numbered," she assumed, "apparently he was protecting her and her child. I'd rather know that than not know, you know?"

"I don't know," he said, "but the woman's name was Eva."

"Eva? So the Grim Reaper's name is Adam or something?" She laughed, finding comfort in making light of a subject that naturally frightened her.

After all, they were suddenly talking about Number 1. An existence that people in Celia's world didn't even want to acknowledge as real.

"No, the child's name was Adam."

She hadn't even said that seriously, but now she felt stupid. "Of course it was."

With a sigh, Pan looked down into his teacup. "It's... no, a storm is brewing on the horizon. I can't say much more than that, but things have already been set in motion." It was frustrating.

It was equally frustrating for Rowena to know that he knew a lot of things, but he wouldn't tell her. "Why can't you tell me? It would make things so much easier, you know?"

"That's not the problem," he said, "it's that the possibility of failure increases when you know more than you should at the wrong time. The Divine Principle is only a watchman. It cannot take a being out of existence when it was naturally put there. That is why we are still here."

"What do you mean 'still here'?" she asked, then realized the meaning herself, "So they can't kill you. But because they can't kill you, they basically... cursed you? With these Numbers, I mean."

They cut them off so that they would not disturb the balance of the world, or even several worlds.

"So it is."

"But if they control what I am and am not allowed to know 'yet,' wouldn't that imply that they can see the future?"

"Reading into the flow of time and space and looking into possible futures is but one of many things that exist in the grand order of worlds."

"Seriously?"

"Every ability you have seen a Visitor have is part of the cluster somewhere. We cannot create what is not possible." He cocked his head for a moment, as if considering something. "And you already know about Prophets. They just happen to be sensitive and get this information by accident."

It was true, she already knew that there were people who could see at least one possible future. The novel she had read was just one of many over the centuries.

"But what do you mean, you can't create something new? Do you remember 'The Pale Man'? He's a fucking vampire. Vampires don't exist."

"Not in this world."

"Crazy." She thought for a moment. "Wait, but aren't you a black dragon?"

"My dominant soul is, indeed." Dominant, meaning it was the soul that ate the other one.

Sure, they used to associate drakes with dragons, but in reality, no one believed in their existence. "So dragons really exist, huh?"

"I was one, after all."

She couldn't believe what she had heard. "You were actually a dragon? I thought the shapes of the Visitors were random?"

"They aren't. They are formed as the sum of two souls. The dominant part of mine was that of the Black Dragon. I used my power to destroy a nation, then I was killed."

"That's an awfully short version," she said, at a loss for a better response, "no wonder they call you 'Harbinger of Destruction'."

"Well, that's one reason."

'One reason, huh?' she thought, not eager to know what other deeds were atrocious enough to gain him this title. After all, he was a Visitor.

"How can a dragon turn into a Visitor at all? Can anything turn into a Visitor? I thought they were all once human."

"'Humanoid' would be a better term. They are all the same species, though different races. More precisely, everything that consciously wields Mana can turn into a Visitor upon its death."

"I thought you needed a soul for that. Animals can't use Mana, so do they not have souls? They can also feel and think." After all, the difference between a monster and an animal was the use of Mana.

"They do have minds, but souls are... a little different from what you think."

He didn't continue, so she sighed and thought about what he had said. Maybe she could salvage something from it if she looked at it from a different angle?

"Pan, does that also mean that there might be a Visitor out there who can see into the future?"

He said nothing. But the way he sipped his tea, she could tell somehow.

"Damn. How overpowered."

"Not as much as you think," he replied, "what can be seen is never without the approval of the Divine Principle. There are things they would never see."

"But in essence, they still see the correct future, right?"

"A version of it, yes."

A form of clairvoyance. There was something about their enemies she simply couldn't let go of, and this information made her feeling worse.

"Say, does this particular Visitor have anything to do with the storm you were talking about?"

"Hmm," was all that could be heard at first as he furrowed his brow, though she couldn't see it through the veil, "I do not know."

And this time, it wasn't something he had said because he couldn't answer properly. It was truly all he knew.

She couldn't tell how much time they had already spent in the shrine, her teacup never emptied, it didn't run cold, and she didn't feel the urge to go to the restroom, so it didn't seem like even an hour had passed.

Suddenly, the lights flickered before her eyes. She looked up to see what was going on, only to realize that there was nothing really illuminating this old cave.

Her hand was empty when she looked down. Where was her cup?

Blinking, it was as if someone had pulled the rug out from under her feet, even though she had been sitting in a chair.

"Pan?" He was gone.

As if she had seen this place before, everything went dark. Endless blackness spread all around. But where was she?

She couldn't remember, because the time she could spend there was only a fraction of a second. And then, when she closed her eyes and opened them again, she saw a gray sky.

No, not a sky, but a darkened ceiling.

Blinking again, she instantly tried to struggle out of the softness of the bed she seemed to be lying on. It was a bed she had known for a few days. Getting up wasn't as easy as it sounded, though, as a sharp pain shot through her chest and shoulders.

It was not a new kind of pain that would last, but rather an echo of the past. It hurt as if it wanted to remind her of what her body had been through, but the wounds themselves were already healed and didn't have any reason to hurt anymore.

In the first place, the Mana Heart had already closed the wound that had been created in its wake. She could also feel the bandage, so she had obviously been treated by someone, possibly even with a Mana Stone.

If everyone knew that she was an Executor - or a Paladin, as they would call it - it was all on her. No one else could be blamed, she knew.

It was frustrating. When she finally sat up, the door opened and she stared into a brightly lit hallway, eyes wide at the unexpected action.

Her eyes met the other person's and saw a reddish tint staining them as new tears formed the second she looked at them. A sniffling maid came over to her, dropping a vase she had been holding in her hands without even flinching as she knelt beside her bed.

The shattering vase drew attention from the hallway, sending servants in different directions to share news of the awakened young ducal daughter in their care. But Norina didn't mind at all, as she was busy crying next to her mistress, burying her face in her blanket.

"I didn't mean to make you sad," Rowena said, awkwardly placing a hand on her quivering shoulder, which rested on the covers next to her legs, "it must have been terrible to witness something like that."

Most people didn't know how these contracts were made. They only happened with exclusive agreements. It was a rare thing on the grand scale of the entire population. Ordinary people wouldn't even get to see a Numbered, let alone a Numbered within the first five hundred.

And the maids trial by fire was a Number in the top twenty, after all, as she hadn't known about her sister's contract yet.

As she continued to cry, someone else stumbled in, her hand covering her mouth as if she was shocked to see the woman she worked for. Perhaps she was indeed shocked.

Unlike her colleague, she hadn't seen what had happened up close, but she had seen it from a distance.

Ava had been too afraid to get closer, but she could not run away either. It was horrible, she didn't think her mistress would ever wake up after that, but now she sat there, looking as calm as ever.

Then a terrible rumbling shook her awake. "I will go and get something nutritious to eat, my lady."

"I will go," Norina finally said, wiping her face, "it is my job."

"It's my job too," Ava countered, "Stay with the lady so she doesn't have to be alone. You shouldn't be walking around the palace in your condition anyway." It sounded harsh, but Rowena heard the sentiment in her words loud and clear.

Stunned, Norina remained on the floor. Instead of leaving the room - when she realized what she must have looked like - then got up anyway and fetched some tools to take care of the shards and the surrounding mess she had created earlier.

"I'm sorry, although we were already out of vases..." she said when she returned with a broom, a bucket and a cloth.

At these words, now that the light from the corridor had helped and her eyes had fully adjusted to the circumstances, she realized that her room had been covered. A sea of blue flowers filled the room, as if someone had raided an entire greenhouse.

"I thought I hadn't seen many of these even in the palace garden?" Why were there so many in her room now?

"The young lord, he," Norina began as she cleaned, not sure how to put it, "I would say he was trying to leave his presence in case you woke up during one of the meetings he had to attend."

'Meetings? How many meetings could they have had in a few hours at most?' An ominous feeling rose in her. "Norina, how long have I been unconscious?"

A moment of silence ensued. "This is the third day, my lady."