Perhaps he understood why he kept walking. He had always pushed forward in a way he didn't understand. Perhaps because he never accepted defeat, no matter what.
His memories took him back to the laboratory where he had been before Alexander took him. From the moment he opened his eyes to that cold, metallic world, he learned one thing: follow orders and survive. Life itself had no value—it was merely a requirement to continue executing orders. One of the tests was throwing a group of children into a forest full of monsters; the sole survivor would advance to the next test.
He watched children die, one after another, like fragile sacrifices. He himself often came close to falling, but he was always the sole survivor. The strange thing was that he wasn't even gifted with special physical abilities like the others. Just a silent, cold will—and it wasn't even pure will. He simply didn't care about staying alive. He kept moving forward because something kept pushing him, no matter how many times he fell. Because falling due to weakness wasn't something he favored—he preferred to fall by his own choice.
He remembered one child. That stupid child always tried to help him, even once throwing himself as a shield against a monster's attack for him. Arthur never understood why. That child used to say: "I care about you." Empty words in a world where there was no room for caring, where they didn't even have names to call each other. Just numbers and the sounds of commands.
Even when Old Alexander came, destroying the laboratory in an instant with his men, and found him the sole survivor amidst the rubble, took him, named him "Arthur"... even then, Arthur didn't change. He remained the same—he didn't care. He only followed orders if he chose to. He never let anyone dictate to him, not even Alexander. He respected him, yes, but he never understood the old man's obsession with reading that clichéd novel.
An unpleasant feeling made him think that perhaps his entry into this novel had something to do with Alexander, but he violently pushed those thoughts away. Now, all he wanted was to leave this world, or sleep forever, or find out why he had been thrown into this annoying world. So he decided to go to the forest. Not to obey the "System" and its orders, no. He went only because he found a letter in the imperial palace library addressed to him—or so it seemed—even though the writer of the letter wrote "Arthur and Niklaus are no different." And that bothered Arthur greatly.
He didn't even care about the mysterious secret of "removing the magical seal" that the System had told him about. He didn't understand its meaning or its source. But he realized one thing: if he wanted to discover why he was here in this disgusting world, he had to find whoever wrote that letter and strangle them. To do that, he needed to be strong. There was no room for weakness or humiliation in his equation. He hated weakness more than he hated orders.
He shook his head violently, as if shooing away annoying flies. He got rid of the thoughts threatening to tear his skull apart. He looked at Adele on his shoulder. Her eyes were closed, but the tears hadn't stopped, wetting the skin of his neck with a strange coldness. And Ethan on his back, completely absent, his breathing shallow like the breath of a candle about to go out. Their blood had mixed on the snow, and his footprints were a trail of pain.
His body was in a state of extreme collapse. Every muscle screamed, every wound bled. But his legs kept moving. A brutal, illogical force pushed him forward. Death here? It might be a relief.
He remembered how he had accepted dying Maria's request. He clenched his teeth in a moment of pure disgust. He didn't like breaking his word. And he didn't like being bound by a promise.
He raised his head. The road still had no end. He saw snow wolves, white as mist, standing on a nearby hill. Their piercing golden eyes focused on him without clear hostility, as if they were waiting.
He didn't ask himself why. He didn't care about reasons. They were just landmarks in this frozen desert. The wolves moved slowly, heading toward a slope. He followed them. His gait was more of a stagger than a walk, but he followed them. They led him to the mouth of a dark cave carved into an icy rock.
He stepped toward the inner darkness with pale quietness, his steps heavy on the cold stone floor. Then, suddenly, his legs could no longer carry him. He collapsed to the ground. He moved his arm with instinctive speed, catching Adele's head before it hit the rock, while Ethan slid off his back and fell heavily beside him. Ethan's blood and Niklaus's own blood mixed again on the cold cave floor, forming a small dark pool beneath their exhausted bodies. Ethan remained unconscious—no movement except the quiet breaths of approaching death. Adele, perhaps disturbed by the fall, murmured a very faint cry before her voice fell silent again, exhausted.
In the cave's heavy silence, amidst the smell of blood, snow, and despair, Niklaus didn't move. He just lay where he had fallen, his empty eyes staring at the dark stone ceiling, as if watching the shadow of something that no longer existed. Survival. That was all that remained. Even the questions had become a heavy burden he no longer had the strength to carry. There was only darkness, cold, the weight of the bodies he had chosen and been forced to carry, and the silence in which everything eroded except the sound of blood slowly seeping out, bleeding until the last gasp of will.
Before Niklaus completely sank into unconsciousness, his fingers moved slowly, almost involuntarily, toward the simple magical ring carved with faint symbols on his finger. With an effort like moving a mountain, Niklaus opened his storage space and spoke the password, and from the small void emerged several vials of what he had learned from Maria. He hadn't expected to need them so soon.
He reached out with extreme difficulty and took several small glass vials, their liquid contents shimmering in the faint light coming from the cave's mouth. There were three healing potions: two of medium grade, one of high grade, and small vials of burning offensive solutions.
In a world where skilled alchemists were extremely
rare, these potions were worth a small fortune. But their real value lay in their ability to save what remained of their lives in this cave.
Niklaus looked weakly at the vials. His eyes were clouded by the haze of blood, pain, and exhaustion. His body was spent, his deep wounds bleeding. He had managed to resist fainting thanks to his body's resilience and strength, but the pain was a raging fire under his skin. The high-grade potion would heal all his wounds and restore noticeable energy. The medium-grade? It would ease the pain and speed natural healing, but it wouldn't work miracles.
He looked at Ethan lying beside him. He was a ghost of himself. The pallor of death on his face, his breathing frighteningly shallow, his wounds deeper and more dangerous, blood loss massive. Without quick, strong intervention, he would die in this frozen cave.
Niklaus clenched his teeth until he almost heard them grind. He didn't hesitate long. He grabbed the medium-grade healing potion, opened it with a trembling hand, and poured its bitter contents down his throat in one go. A surge of false warmth spread through his stomach, easing the burning pain into a dull, mild ache, but the overwhelming exhaustion remained like a stone on his chest.
Then, with slower, more deliberate movement this time, he took the high-grade potion—the vial shimmering with a thick golden solution. He leaned over Ethan, opened his cold, unresisting mouth, and poured the precious potion with surprising gentleness down his throat. He made sure Ethan swallowed it, then let him slide back onto the cold floor.
"Because I don't want to be in your debt... and you'll be
useful."
This unspoken phrase circled in Niklaus's head before he closed his heavy eyes. This was the only justification his mind accepted for his inexplicable action. It wasn't pity. It wasn't mercy. It was just settling accounts. Ethan—so he could benefit from him more.
Little Adele, touching his arm with a cold hand, unintentionally pressing on some of his wounds.
Then he fell into the abyss of sleep—not as one who rests, but as one who falls from a mountain peak. His breathing became heavy, cold sweat beaded on his forehead despite the cave's cold, and his stern, relaxed features in sleep looked strange—almost fragile, slightly breaking the ice of his usual persona. His dried blood on his torn clothes was a silent witness to what he had endured.