Chapter 129

The sky that morning was a brilliant, cloudless blue, so bright it was dazzling to look upon. With the winds calm and the air still, it was the perfect weather for a voyage through the skies.

Though it was still early enough to be considered dawn, Erika, Yuno, Ventus, Lilium, Vincent, and a small group of handpicked knights had already completed their preparations.

All that remained was to board the merchant ship.

"Thank you for waiting. Please follow me and board in an orderly fashion."

Having finished the final checks for departure, a crew member from the Santia Trading Company opened the gate to the pier. The knights began to file onto the ship first.

Erika and her companions turned to say their temporary goodbyes to the party members staying behind in Travis, but one person was missing: Rainer.

According to Hugo and Francis, Rainer’s bed had been found empty since daybreak.

"Is Rainer still not here?"

"No... I wonder where he could have gone..."

Colette looked distraught. Rather than being angry that he had failed to see them off, her anxiety was clear; if it weren't for the impending departure, she likely would have run off to search for him immediately.

Rainer's recent behavior had been so out of character that such concern was only natural.

"That guy... I saw him head out after dinner last night, but he didn't get back until the middle of the night," Hugo muttered, crossing his arms and furrowing his brow.

As the eldest of the group, Hugo was observant, and he had naturally picked up on the shift in Rainer. In truth, Rainer was the only one who seemed to believe he was acting like his usual self.

"My men have finished boarding... Is there a problem?" Vincent asked, approaching the group after noticing their hesitation.

"It isn't exactly a problem, but we haven't seen Rainer—one of our companions—since this morning."

"Ah, the red-haired youth. I encountered him last night and spoke with him for a moment. He seemed to be agonizing over something."

"You spoke? About what, exactly?"

"It was a personal matter, so I cannot divulge the details. He seemed troubled by a friendship, so I merely offered some advice based on my own experiences."

Vincent was likely trying to respect Rainer’s privacy, but Erika could easily guess that the "friendship" in question involved Harold.

"From your conversation, do you have any idea why he might have disappeared?"

"I don’t believe so... though I cannot deny the possibility that our talk influenced him in some way."

Since Vincent couldn't truly know Rainer’s state of mind, that was the only answer he could give.

To summarize: after dinner, Rainer had gone into town, encountered Vincent, and likely confessed his inner conflict regarding Harold. After receiving some advice, he returned to the inn late at night, only to vanish before anyone else awoke.

What had Vincent said to him, and what was Rainer thinking now? In their current situation, they lacked both the time and the information to find out.

Vincent belongs to the Justus Faction... Did he plant some sort of suggestion in Rainer's mind? Erika wondered.

But even if that were true, was there any need for such a roundabout method to manipulate Rainer? What could be the motive? In a worst-case scenario, Vincent was an enemy who would draw his sword the moment they boarded the airship. But if that were the case, would he intentionally draw suspicion to himself by mentioning his secret meeting with Rainer?

(Worrying about it here won't bring me any answers.)

With so little information, Erika decided it would be unwise to change her plans based on mere speculation. With so many lives on the line and so many people involved, she had to avoid any reckless moves.

"...It is time. We must depart."

"Don't worry about us. We’ll handle things on this end," Hugo said firmly.

"Yes. We're counting on you."

Erika bowed to the four staying behind, then turned on her heel to head up the pier.

"Wait a second—!"

A sudden shout from behind made her stop in her tracks.

The voice was unmistakably Rainer’s. Erika turned to see him sprinting toward them, his red hair glowing vividly in the morning sun.

She thought for a moment that he had merely come to see them off, but Rainer dashed past Colette and the others, charging straight up the pier.

"R-Rainer? What is the matter?"

Having run a significant distance at full speed, Rainer braced his hands on his knees, gasping for air. After a moment to catch his breath, he looked up, his eyes clear and devoid of hesitation as he faced Erika.

"I'm going too! I'm going to save Harold!"

The declaration was entirely unexpected. Erika had thought he was struggling with his feelings toward Harold—that he was trying to distance himself. At least, that was how it had appeared to her.

"Why so suddenly...?"

"...I realized that I can't keep going like this. I don't have the slightest clue what Harold is thinking, honestly."

"That... is true for all of us."

It wasn't just Rainer. No one, Erika included, truly understood what went on in Harold’s mind. The fact that she wanted to be someone who could stay by his side and understand him, yet had failed so utterly to do so, was a source of great frustration and sorrow for her.

"Right. But if I don't know, then I just have to find out. And I realized that to do that, I have to face him and talk to him properly."

His answer was remarkably similar to the one Erika had found for herself. To face Harold head-on without fear of their relationship shattering. It was a conclusion Erika had reached only after much agonizing, several detours, and encouragement from Lifa. Rainer had evidently navigated his own internal labyrinth to arrive at the same place.

"That's why I'm going. Because I still want to be Harold's rival—and his friend!"

"Rainer..."

He spoke with conviction. This straightforwardness and inner strength were his defining traits, and his current resolve—having triumphed over his doubt—showed just how much he had grown.

"I'd say it's fine. Why not go with them?" Lifa chimed in.

"Yeah. That sounds more like you, Rainer," Francis added.

"And while you're at it, give him a piece of your mind for making us worry!" Hugo grunted.

"D-Do your best, Rainer!" Colette cheered.

One by one, his companions encouraged him. There was still work to be done in Travis, and as they had discussed, the journey to Burston would be perilous. Knowing all this, they still gave him their blessing. Erika saw no reason to refuse him.

"I understand. Let's go together, Rainer."

"Yeah!"

His gloomy atmosphere from the day before completely gone, Rainer boarded the airship with confidence. He walked straight up to Vincent, who had been watching the exchange, and bowed deeply.

"Um, thank you so much for everything!"

"I did very little. But if I helped clear the clouds from your heart, even slightly, then I am glad."

Erika assumed this was about their talk from the night before. Seeing them interact, it wasn't hard to imagine that Vincent had played a role in Rainer’s decision to face Harold.

"That's not true. If I'd just stayed stuck in my own head... I probably wouldn't have been able to take action like this."

"Haha, well, I experienced something similar in my own youth."

"Something similar?"

"Indeed." Vincent narrowed his eyes as if looking back across the years. "I have an old friend. Among our circle, he’s a man who is called all sorts of things—frivolous, lazy, a drunkard. But if it weren't for him... if Cody hadn't been there, I wouldn't be in the Knight Order today."

Cody. It was a name Erika knew well.

Five years ago, after the Battle of Bertis Forest, he was the man who had welcomed her into the Knight Order Headquarters when she was being turned away at the gates, eventually bringing her to Harold. Afterward, he had joined the effort to overturn Harold’s death sentence. She hadn't had the chance to meet him since.

"So he was your childhood friend, Commander Vincent?"

"Now that I think about it, Lady Erika, you have met him, haven't you?"

"Yes. He was very kind to me in the past."

Looking back, Cody had spoken of Vincent—then the Vice Commander—as someone he trusted implicitly. Their bond was clearly forged in steel.

"I see... He should be in Burston now as well. He’s the type of man who wouldn't die even if you killed him, so I'm sure he’s fine."

Though Vincent spoke lightly, Erika could sense the underlying flicker of anxiety. By speaking so casually, he was likely trying to convince himself more than anyone else. It was a reminder that even a man strong enough to lead the Knight Order was still human. He had his own vulnerabilities—just like Harold.

"Yes. I believe so too," Erika said, offering a small smile of encouragement that seemed to put Vincent at ease.

---

The first thing Harold felt when he regained consciousness was a crushing weight of fatigue. Then came the sharp pain in his arms and legs; he was kneeling, his wrists bound by heavy chains.

(I've been tied up like this before...)

It was a memory he didn't care to revisit, but it remained etched in his mind.

Compared to the previous underground dungeon, this room was brighter and cleaner, which was a small mercy. However, given the man standing before him, his mood plummeted to the absolute depths regardless of the decor.

"You’ve finally woken up, Harold."

"And you've finally developed a troublesome fetish, Justus."

"That’s the first thing out of your mouth? I’m glad to see your mind is still sharp."

The cadence of the speech, the minute gestures—it was unmistakably the Justus Freund that Harold knew. Yet, the body belonged to Sarah, a girl of barely ten years.

Harold couldn't fathom how this had happened. No such event had occurred in the game. However, based on his knowledge of the original story and the current circumstances, he could make an educated guess.

(Justus’s plan is to resurrect Estelle. To do that, he has to extract her astral body from the planet’s core and synchronize it with the vessel of a Star Child.)

Synchronization. And to extract Estelle’s astral body, Justus himself had to synchronize his own astral body with the core. It was the act of transferring one's consciousness and ego into a vessel other than one’s own flesh.

It sounded absurd when put into words, but no matter how much of a genius Justus was, he wouldn't attempt such a feat without practice. If he failed the final step, everything he had sacrificed and prepared for would be lost.

(So, naturally, he must have tested ego synchronization...)

Using his own ego. And before that, likely using others as test subjects. This "Justus in Sarah's body" was the fruit of that research.

"Hmph. How does it feel to inhabit the body of a brat?"

"There was a great deal of discomfort at first. But I’ve grown accustomed to it now."

(Accustomed to it now...?)

The way he spoke suggested he had been synchronized with Sarah for some time. Yet the real Justus had clearly been present in his own body until very recently.

As Harold’s thoughts threatened to grind to a halt, he forced himself to piece the data together. Just before he had passed out, there was one other person Justus had been synchronized with—a man who was not in this room. Cody Luzial.

He wondered if such a thing was even technically possible. And if it were, he felt a chill of terror at the thought of a man who would subject his own soul to such a process.

"The fragmentation... of your ego? You split your consciousness...?"

To Harold, it was an act of pure insanity. But the person standing before him was a scientist who had abandoned sanity long ago.

As if to embody that very madness, a deep, dark smile spread across the young girl's face.

"Correct. I’ll give you a hundred points for that, Harold."