In that hushed and desolate expanse, countless bookshelves encircled a massive round table. Lloyd sat on one side; Arthur and Merlin occupied the far end, so distant it seemed less a span of space and more an unreachable horizon.
The air was thick with the scent of age—dust, parchment, forgotten years. It spoke of antiquity the way a silent bard might sing: without voice, yet heavy with meaning.
Lloyd leaned back slowly in his chair, surprise and a trace of shock settling into his features.
Alchemy.
A word nearly swallowed by the river of history. It had once been the most secret wisdom of a bygone age. Every alchemist guarded his knowledge like a dragon hoarding gold, encoding discoveries into cursed parchments layered with intricate ciphers. When they died, their secrets died with them. Thus, through the stubborn pride of its practitioners and the turning of eras, the glorious art of alchemy withered into obscurity.
Now it lingered only in folk tales and half-remembered legends. Those who truly understood it had become rarer than relics.
And yet, a living alchemist now sat before him—more than that, the technical director of the so-called Perpetual Pump.
The faint contempt Lloyd once carried had long since vanished. His expression grew solemn. He understood far too well the worth of an alchemist.
"So the one who truly wished to see me… was you?"
Merlin inclined his head. His voice emerged dry and rasping.
"To be precise, we came for your deduction. Joey has relayed your thoughts. We believe it is… a possibility."
A possibility.
It was the very word Lloyd had spoken with Joey back at 121A Cork Street.
According to Joey, demonic entities had been active in Old Dunling for some time. Yet their movement patterns suggested something unsettlingly clear: the creature retained reason.
The Geiger counter could not detect it. Like Lloyd himself, once the Secret Blood settled, it bore no corrosive trace of demonic erosion. In other words, the thing committing those acts might not have been a demon at all—but a demon hunter.
They had both reached that conclusion.
And it was no small matter.
Lloyd's own strength alone testified to the broader combat capabilities of the demon hunters. After Lancelot's pursuit, all had believed the creature dead. Yet the subsequent report from the Cleanser Unit revealed no corpse within the steam well.
What if the one carrying out the massacres had been a demon hunter all along? Only a hunter could evade the Watcher System's surveillance. Only a hunter could withstand such relentless assault and survive. Perhaps in that steam well he had not died at all—merely calmed his Secret Blood and departed by another route.
An unknown hunter had appeared in Old Dunling. Combine that with the Evangelical Church's newly crowned pope, and the rumors of rebuilding the Demon Hunting Order—
The thought alone was chilling.
"It is only a possibility," Lloyd said firmly.
"That thing is not a demon hunter. At the very least, not one within the Order's sequence."
"Do you have some internal method of identifying your own?" Arthur asked calmly.
"It's not a matter of identification. Most hunters are dead. Any survivors would hide quietly, not engage in some damned spree of vengeful slaughter."
He spoke plainly. After the Night of Holy Descent, he had once believed himself the last of his kind. Clearly, he had not been the only fortunate one.
"Besides, if it truly were a hunter, it would not slaughter like that. Within the Order, we had countless methods to interrogate heretics. If one merely wished to inflict pain, there was no need to go so far."
The Demon Hunting Order had never been holy or radiant. To reach its ends, its abyssal dungeons had been paved with corpses.
Arthur fell silent. He did not press further about the Order. He understood well enough that Lloyd would never speak of the Night of Holy Descent.
"If not a hunter," Merlin finally said, breaking the quiet, "could it be someone capable of controlling demonization—to a certain extent?"
Lloyd's gaze shifted toward him, cooling.
"Highly unlikely. Demon hunters are, in essence, those who can freely control demonization. The Evangelical Church conducted centuries of experimentation to stabilize the Secret Blood. And that's not even accounting for the implantation of the Silver Shackles or the alchemical matrices."
It was said that the sharpness of a blade could reveal the strength of a nation. The same applied to Lloyd. The secrets a single hunter embodied were like a glimpse of the deep blue sea—suggesting unfathomable depths beneath the Church's surface.
"Though… there is an exception," Lloyd added.
For a fleeting moment, someone surfaced in his memory—a desperado who had clawed through life in endless struggle.
Lloyd seldom remembered faces clearly. But Sabo was different. His features were blurred in recollection; the bloodstained mask was not. Nor were the venom-laced words that seemed to curse the entire world.
"I have won everything life offered me… everything. Just one step short. Just one—"
A chill ran through Lloyd.
That malformed dwarf possessed a willpower beyond ordinary imagination. Even inferior Secret Blood had failed to consume him entirely. Many had perished under the Order's own ritual, yet Sabo endured.
But endurance was not immunity. Losing his sanity had only ever been a matter of time.
"Perhaps… a degraded hunter?" Lloyd ventured. The term felt easier for others to grasp.
"What do you mean?" Arthur asked.
"You're suggesting it can suppress demonization—like controlling Secret Blood?" Merlin said quietly.
"Total control is impossible. Even the Order never achieved that. At best, partial control. Inferior to a true hunter in stability, in overall strength… in everything."
"Then it would seem someone is attempting to replicate the Order's Secret Blood technology in secret."
"That much is obvious. Even your Purge Mechanism has attempted it, hasn't it?"
Lloyd thought of Eve.
At first he had not understood the faint trace of Secret Blood within her. But once he realized Arthur was the Duke of Phoenix, matters became clearer. Long ago, she must have entered the Purge Mechanism's hidden core—though she had since forgotten.
The Purge Mechanism harbored secrets no fewer than the Order's. In truth, not knowing its full extent unsettled him even more. For all he knew, a squad of Old World Divine Armor might burst through the doors at any moment, freeze him, and dissect him for study.
The silence that followed was deliberate.
He had spoken thus to test whether Eve's Secret Blood truly originated from the Purge Mechanism. From the stillness of Arthur and Merlin, his suspicion seemed confirmed.
No wonder your father dotes on you so fiercely. You were once a monster too.
The thought drifted through Lloyd's mind, almost amused. Eve was one. Selu was another. He was beginning to notice that those he grew close to were rarely what one would call normal.
Was this how aberrations found one another?
The thought remained unspoken. Arthur had already attempted to kill him more than once.
"Alchemy… perhaps alchemy could bridge that gap."
Merlin's hoarse voice cut through Lloyd's wandering thoughts.
"Alchemy?"
Lloyd knew little of the near-lost art. Within the Order, he had been a warrior—a blade in the dark. The hand that wields the sword has no need to know how the sword was forged.
"The recent incidents are not limited to demonic activity alone—"
"Merlin."
Arthur's voice dropped, sharp and commanding, interrupting him.
The young yet deathly pale face turned toward Arthur. Merlin spoke slowly.
"There is no need for secrecy," he said evenly. "I trust Mr. Holmes' character."
"Are you certain you understand this lunatic's way of doing things? I keep a volume of his darker history thick enough to shame a dynasty. Deliver it to the Hall of Su Yalan, and under the laws of Ingerville he would rot in prison until death—assuming, of course, he lives to be two hundred."
Arthur did not trust Lloyd in the least. The hostility in him was undisguised.
Lloyd, however, seemed unbothered. Only his gaze toward Merlin shifted—subtly, almost imperceptibly—like a predator recognizing another of its kind across a frozen field. There was, in that glance, the faintest trace of rare appreciation. Few men, these days, possessed discernment.
"Let us change the subject," Merlin said softly. "Mr. Holmes, may I ask you a few questions?"
Once more, he turned to Lloyd. It might have been the first time their eyes met directly.
Within those gray-blue irises, Merlin's hollow stare was reflected back at him. Lloyd felt a strange discomfort crawl along his spine. Merlin's eyes were empty—like those of the dead. As though whatever soul had once inhabited that frame had long since departed, leaving behind nothing but a walking husk.
"What do you wish to ask?"
Lloyd swallowed and straightened in his chair.
"Mr. Holmes… are you familiar with the Trolley Problem?"
Lloyd blinked, faintly surprised that something so worn by philosophers would be brought forth here.
"You mean—a train thunders down the tracks. On one side, five people. On the other, one. The question is whether to sacrifice one to save five. That dilemma?"
Merlin nodded.
"And what would you choose?"
Lloyd fell silent for a moment. Then he leaned forward slightly, like a beast lowering its body before the hunt.
"The essence of the question," he said at last, "is whether we possess the right to sacrifice the interests of the few to safeguard the many."
His eyes sharpened.
"Like the Purge Agency. Like the Demon-Hunting Order. In order to resist the fiends—must we sacrifice a small number so that more may live?"
Merlin smiled faintly. "Go on."
"If it were my choice," Lloyd answered without hesitation, "I would kill the one to save the five."
"And why?" Merlin asked, resting his head upon his hand, interest flickering at last in his lifeless expression. "Merely because more people would be saved?"
"Of two evils, choose the lesser."
Lloyd's reply was simple.
Time seemed to thin and stretch. The round hall began to crumble, stone dissolving into dust, until once more they stood within that desolate Interstice. The man smiled at Lloyd.
It was a principle he himself had taught him. A creed he had always upheld. At times, Lloyd felt they were so alike that he was little more than the man's shadow.
Of two evils, choose the lesser.
Merlin rolled the words silently over his tongue.
But Lloyd's thoughts broke free of the current.
"That's your question? It feels… disappointingly simple."
"Many people speak easily," Merlin replied. "Yet when confronted with reality, they choose differently. And some… fear choosing at all. To be precise, they fear the 'sin' that must be borne after a choice is made."
"Don't tell me there are six unfortunate souls tied to a track somewhere right now, waiting for my verdict," Lloyd muttered darkly. "That would be in truly poor taste."
Were they all mad inside the Purge Agency?
"How could we?" Merlin answered gently. "We would never commit such an inhuman act. Yet because it cannot be proven in practice, I require you to answer with solemn sincerity—from your own heart."
His fingers interlocked. His expression was grave.
Lloyd matched his seriousness.
"Then that is my answer. Of two evils, choose the lesser."
Merlin did not respond. He seemed to sink into deep contemplation. After a long silence, Lloyd spoke again.
"So that is all? To be honest, it lacks originality."
A faint smile curved across Merlin's deathly face.
"Mr. Holmes… do you truly take me for such a dull man? That was not the whole of the question."
"So there is a second dilemma?" Lloyd gave a low chuckle.
He was a man of iron will. His body was a prison, and within it he was chained together with a demon. He had to remain resolute—always strong. Only then could he suppress the fiend's will. Only then would this body bear the name Lloyd Holmes—and not some damned John Watson, nor any other cursed identity.
He was Lloyd Holmes. He always had been.
Somewhere along the way, the air between them grew taut, like drawn steel.
Merlin exhaled softly.
"The second question," he said.
"Imagine five people tied to a single stretch of track. There is no fork. Only one rail."
In Lloyd's vision, the constructed world rose around him. Five wretched figures bound upon the iron line. In the distance, a steam locomotive wailed its long, mournful whistle as it approached.
"There is no switch to divert the train. Only you—and another person—standing beside the track. There are but two ways to prevent the train from crushing them."
Lloyd felt the faint tremor of danger.
The world shifted at Merlin's words. A figure appeared beside him.
Its form flickered, shifting swiftly. It could be Eve. It could be Celia. It could even be that insufferable Arthur. It could be anyone among the countless souls of the world.
"First," Merlin continued, a foxlike smile touching his lips, "you may push the person beside you onto the tracks. The train will strike him first, then halt. The five will live."
"Or…"
"I step onto the tracks myself," Lloyd finished quietly. "Sacrifice myself to save them all. Is that it?"