Half an hour earlier.
A dense veil of mist drifted through the streets of Old Dunling, carrying with it a faintly acrid scent unique to the city. The waterways, purified before being released, exhaled clouds of disinfectant-laden steam into the air. At times, to accommodate the work of the Purge Agency, stranger substances were poured into the Furnace Pillars—Merlin's custom alchemical concoctions among them.
Without anyone truly noticing, this city of steel had developed a mechanical ecosystem of its own. A few switches pressed upon a control panel, and the entire metropolis would transform itself according to whatever objective had been set before it.
Railways extending farther into the horizon. Furnace Pillars roaring with increased output. Entire districts grinding into overdrive as gears meshed and engines strained beyond their limits.
It was terrifying in a way, as though the city had been built from the very beginning in preparation for something yet to come.
Standing at a street corner, the girl lifted her gaze toward the colossal whales drifting above the clouds. Their immense forms glided through the overcast sky, appearing and disappearing within the heavy cloudbanks like creatures torn from ancient mythology.
For a fleeting moment, she was overwhelmed with emotion.
Compared to this city of iron and steam, she felt impossibly small.
Insignificant.
The old butler approached from behind. Yawi draped a heavy coat over Seriu's shoulders. The days surrounding Divine Birth Festival were always the coldest of the season—the final breath of winter. Once this chill had passed, warmth would return, and spring would once again set foot upon the land.
"Are we really going?" Yawi asked. He still disliked the itinerary ahead.
"I gave Lady Vanrud my word," Seriu replied. "She wanted me to visit. I'm not someone who breaks promises."
"No, no, no. We could simply invite her here."
Yawi gestured toward the manor behind him. Compared to 121A Cork Street, the difference wasn't merely a matter of being several times larger.
Seriu looked at him.
As always, her face remained expressionless.
Yawi sighed. He already knew there was no changing her mind. Resigned, he produced a pistol and began checking the ammunition.
"What are you doing?"
"Just in case."
Even he wasn't entirely sure what that precaution was meant to guard against.
Perhaps age was finally catching up to him, because the thought suddenly struck him as rather amusing.
"Seriu, you've done something remarkably clever."
"What exactly?"
"I mean strategically."
"Strategically?"
Clearly, Seriu had no idea what he was talking about.
"Lloyd, of course! The man's a complete lunatic. Impossible to predict. You could spend all day winning his favor, and the next moment he might decide to shoot you simply because he felt like it. That's why I dislike people like him."
Yawi glanced toward the girl.
"Uncontrollable. Unpredictable. You never know whether the next second he'll be weeping his eyes out or smiling while pulling the trigger."
"That does sound like him."
The final scene surfaced in her memory.
A man on the brink of death, only to suddenly descend into madness—telling strange stories with a grin on his face before dragging Lawrence down into hell alongside him.
"Exactly," Yawi said. "Which is why his life can never be dull. He's like a pirate. Every day is another storm."
Strangely enough, there was a trace of envy in his voice.
And perhaps rightly so.
Who wouldn't envy such a life?
Like some damned pirate tale.
The great Captain Lloyd Holmes and his beloved pirate ship, the Winchester, sailing across the Seven Seas. Robbing north and south, east and west. So long as there remained ships upon the ocean, that bastard would never know boredom.
"But a life like that isn't for everyone," Yawi sighed. "People grow old. Even the youngest heart eventually longs for a place to belong."
He was mortal.
They all were.
Everyone grew weary. Everyone would one day wish to set down the helm and find a place to rest.
But Lloyd was different.
He would never stop.
And when he finally did, that would be the end of him.
Men like that only ever have one destination.
The sea.
"So before you conquer that lunatic," Yawi declared, "you have to conquer his family first."
"His family?"
Seriu raised an eyebrow.
"Lady Vanrud? Wait a second... do you honestly think Lloyd even possesses a concept like 'family'?"
Yawi blinked, caught off guard by the bluntness of the remark.
"He won't be bound by anything, Yawi. Even if he became a pirate, he'd probably steal someone else's ship. Maintaining his own vessel would simply be too much trouble."
"Don't overthink it," Seriu added at last.
"It's only a holiday."
...
121A Cork Street.
The atmosphere inside brightened considerably upon Seriu's arrival, though in truth the joy belonged mostly to her and Lady Vanrud.
Lloyd sat quietly to one side.
Despite being his own home, he looked more like an awkward guest than the owner. Meanwhile, Yawi—the actual visitor—watched him from across the room with unwavering suspicion.
Lloyd had no idea what he had done wrong.
As far as he could remember, he had come straight home after getting off the train.
Surely he hadn't offended the old man already.
Though he was accustomed to Yawi behaving this way, the hostility felt especially jarring amid the warmth of the holiday gathering.
Sig sat trapped between them.
He understood none of it.
These people belonged to a world entirely separate from his own.
The unfortunate young man shifted uneasily in his seat, desperate to finish dinner and retreat to his room as quickly as possible.
After devouring his meal, he wiped his mouth and prepared a discreet escape.
Unfortunately, that was when Yawi finally spoke.
"And who might this be?"
Though Yawi frequently barged into Lloyd's room armed with a pistol, he knew very little about Sig.
"My roommate. Sig."
Lloyd immediately threw an arm around him, presenting them as lifelong brothers.
Sig tried to pry himself free, but Lloyd's grip proved far stronger.
"Pleasure to meet you," Yawi said with a polite smile.
"Y-you too."
Sig shifted awkwardly.
He was an introverted man. Perhaps timid was the better word.
People like these made him uncomfortable.
One glance at Yawi and Seriu was enough to tell him they belonged to a different class of existence altogether. Their manners and politeness sometimes felt less like courtesy and more like the condescending mercy of high society toward those beneath them.
"What do you do for a living?" Yawi asked casually.
"I'm a mechanic."
At least, he had been before the factory dismissed him.
After overcoming his addiction to hallucinogens, Sig survived by taking whatever odd jobs he could find. Fortunately, mechanics were always needed in a city built upon machinery.
The pay wasn't what it used to be.
But life was quieter.
Yawi nodded.
Mechanic sounded far more respectable than demon hunter.
That thought naturally drew his gaze back toward Lloyd.
The moment their eyes met, Lloyd straightened in his chair like a student caught misbehaving.
The more Yawi looked at him, the more irritated he became.
The old man forced himself to calm down.
At his age, constant anger wasn't healthy.
A better mindset. A better mindset.
After repeating that to himself several times, he finally looked away.
Sometimes ignoring a problem was the wisest choice.
Lady Vanrud placed a record upon the gramophone.
Music filled the room.
Candlelight danced across the walls as everyone sat atop ammunition crates, welcoming the evening's simple happiness.
A holiday.
Holidays were good.
For one night, an entire year's worth of bloodshed could be set aside.
No matter what private ambitions lurked within their hearts, tonight they were all friends.
They sang.
They laughed.
They celebrated.
Yet the moment felt like a beautiful illusion.
A dream destined to vanish with the dawn.
Once morning arrived, the world would become cold and merciless again, as though none of this warmth had ever existed.
Or perhaps only on this single day, during this brief pocket of warmth, did people's tightly sealed hearts open even a crack.
For an instant, Lloyd found himself strangely dazed.
Like someone who had become so absorbed in a role that he suddenly remembered who he truly was.
He was Lloyd.
Lloyd Holmes.
Without anyone noticing, he slipped away.
Returning to his room, he stood silently for a while before taking a seat beside the window.
It was his favorite place.
A private observation deck overlooking Old Dunling's sunset.
The gloomy sky often appeared ablaze, burning all the way to the horizon before sinking beneath it.
He reached for the familiar box.
The last relic he possessed from the Demon Hunter Order.
After the Night of Divine Descent, he had brought it to Old Dunling and buried it, hoping to leave the past behind forever.
Yet the past had found its way back.
The demons were not gone.
The Night of Divine Descent remained shrouded beneath layers of conspiracies and secrets.
He could not stop.
Not yet.
Opening the box, he gazed upon the final Nail Sword resting within.
In the dim light, its blade shimmered with a cold, merciless gleam.
A trace of nostalgia surfaced in his eyes.
Many years ago, on this very day, the Demon Hunter Order had captured the Holy Grail and carried out that great execution.
It had been humanity's most glorious victory against the unknown.
And also its last.
The beginning of every story.
The origin of every tragedy.
The one responsible for all of it.
"Watson?"
"Happy Holy Birth Day!"
Lloyd suddenly called out, but no one answered.
The room was empty. He was alone—completely, painfully alone.
"Well... happy Holy Birth Day."
He muttered the words to himself, not even sure who he was saying them to.
Then a voice spoke from behind him.
"And the same to you. Happy Holy Birth Day."
The sound startled him so badly that he nearly jumped out of his seat.
Everyone has those moments they would rather erase from existence—moments when you are carefully cultivating a little sadness, preparing to indulge in your melancholy, only to discover that someone has been standing there watching the entire performance.
It was mortifying.
"Seriu?"
Lloyd turned toward the girl standing beside the doorway. She moved so quietly that she never seemed to make a sound.
"So what's this about?"
He sat back down, closed the case, and discreetly hid the spike-sword within.
"Nothing. I just came to see how you were doing. And to thank you for saving my life."
Seriu took a seat nearby. Her voice carried neither joy nor sorrow, leaving Lloyd strangely unsure how to respond.
"Oh, that? Easy. Your Stuart family is rich anyway, so perhaps—"
Before he could finish, Seriu spoke with a trace of frustration.
"Yes. A life-saving debt. But does it still count if the person wasn't actually saved?"
The memory of that final battle was enough to make anyone's heart tighten.
Every step had balanced on the edge of disaster. One mistake would have doomed everything.
Yet despite all of it, Lloyd's ending had merely been mutual destruction with Lawrence.
"Wasn't saved?" Lloyd thought for a moment. "Then just pretend I was buried alongside you."
"You think you're worthy of that?"
"Fair enough..."
They had fought side by side through life and death. They had shared experiences that would have bound most people together forever.
By all logic, this should have been the ending of a story.
The heroes survived.
They celebrated being alive.
They confessed what had remained unsaid.
That sort of thing.
But things felt different when it came to Lloyd and Seriu.
Both of them were rational people, disciplined to a fault. Even in the face of death, Lloyd had done little more than spit out terrible jokes while marching toward his end. There had been no tears, no emotional confessions, no heartfelt final words.
It was, in truth, a death perfectly suited to Lloyd.
Saying the stupidest things imaginable while doing something impossibly cool.
As he had looked up at the falling starfire that day, he had felt no fear at all.
Only relief.
The wishes of a dying man had all been fulfilled.
And yet he had survived.
Apparently fate had decided he was born to work forever.
"That reminds me of something."
Lloyd suddenly spoke.
"Something from the past?"
Seriu remained seated beside him, content to listen.
"Yes. A long time ago. Back when I was still with the Demon Hunters."
His gaze drifted toward the lights beyond the window.
It was as if, somewhere beyond those countless lanterns, the past still lingered.
"Holy Birth Day was the festival we looked forward to most. Back then we weren't Demon Hunters yet. On that day food was unlimited. Anything you could imagine was there."
A smile appeared on his face.
"It felt like the Vikings' Valhalla. Everyone stuffing themselves without restraint, wishing the feast would never end."
He chuckled softly.
"We were just a bunch of orphans who'd never seen the world. Back when we were street kids, we'd fight from one end of an alley to the other over a scrap of food. How could people like us have imagined a scene like that?"
His smile widened at the memory.
"One kid even dropped to his knees and started crying. Kept shouting that he'd finally found heaven."
The lights outside flickered in his eyes as he continued.
"Then came the years after we became Demon Hunters. By then, endless food wasn't enough to satisfy us anymore. So the Church gave us something even better—freedom."
"Only for a day, and only within Florence, but for that one day we could wander wherever we wanted."
His voice softened with nostalgia.
"Those days were truly wonderful. The drunks rushed straight into taverns. Some headed for dances. Others bought flowers and went looking for the girls they loved."
He paused.
"Though being Demon Hunters, none of those stories ended particularly well."
Then, inevitably, he began rambling again.
"You know, humans are greedy little monsters. Once upon a time a single chicken leg was enough to make us happy. Then we wanted more. And more. And more."
Seriu looked at him.
"And which type were you? Where did you go on Holy Birth Day?"
Lloyd thought carefully.
Then his eyes lit up, and all traces of melancholy vanished.
"The casino!"
He practically burst with enthusiasm.
"We weren't like those idiots. We'd planned everything an entire month in advance. We calculated the prices across Florence and realized the money the Gospel Church gave us was nowhere near enough."
He leaned forward excitedly.
"So naturally, we started with the casino. Fastest way to make money. And besides, we were Demon Hunters. We weren't exactly afraid of getting into a fight."
The story was beginning to drift in a very strange direction.
Seriu could only stare and listen.
Growing more animated by the second, Lloyd pulled out the pack of cigarettes Red Falcon had bought him and lit one.
Smoke curled lazily through the room.
"Number 011's Authority belonged to Shandafon. He was supposed to be our gambler, but he insisted gambling relied on luck, and he treasured his luck too much to waste it."
Lloyd laughed.
"So I had to do the gambling while he used his Authority to cheat."
Who could have imagined that a power designed for slaying monsters would be used for something so absurd?
For a long time, Seriu had believed Lloyd's madness came from everything he had experienced.
Now she realized she had been mistaken.
He had always been completely insane.
Life had merely made him worse.
"Unlike real gamblers, we knew when to stop. But I suppose we won a little too much."
"A little?"
"The casino noticed us."
He grinned.
"But we were Demon Hunters."
His eyes sparkled with fond remembrance.
"So we fought our way out of that casino and headed straight for our next destination."
"That was a ridiculous amount of money. We spent the entire day tearing through the most lively streets in Florence."
"And when the mounted police finally showed up?"
He laughed.
"We all jumped into the Tiber River and swam home."
The smile lingered on his face.
"Those were good days..."
His voice gradually faded.
His eyes became distant.
The story sounded less like a group of holy warriors and more like a gang of psychiatric patients escaping an asylum to embark on an absurd holiday adventure.
It was chaotic.
Senseless.
Utterly insane.
And yet, to Lloyd, those memories were among the most precious things he possessed.
But they could exist only in memory now.
The other patients were gone.
Every last one of them dead.
Even the asylum itself had long since been shut down and rebuilt.
Time was cruel like that.
Once it passed, it never returned.
Never.
Yet Lloyd remained alive.
One patient had escaped.
His illness had not been cured.
If anything, it had only grown worse.
He disguised himself as a normal man and blended into human society, but beneath that mask remained a restless lamb, forever waiting for an opportunity to avenge the dead.
His gaze hardened like iron.
Within the case, the spike-sword gave a faint, resonant hum.
Then, unexpectedly, someone embraced him.
Only for a moment.
A gentle embrace.
And just like that, the flames of vengeance that had begun to stir were extinguished.
Seriu spoke softly.
"As long as you're alive, good things can still happen."
A brief pause.
"Your definition of 'good things' is admittedly a little strange... but beautiful things still exist."
Her voice was quiet.
"If you're dead, there's nothing left at all."
Silence lingered between them.
Then she smiled faintly.
"...Happy Holy Birth Day."
Seriu said.
"Happy Holy Birth Day, Mr. Lloyd Holmes."