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Franz, steady your breathing. You're going to crush your Originium dice into powder.

Their former owner, Bielefeld, was a rare great caster of Erdenherre who lived a century ago.

He once used the dice to control the wind and lightning in the central valleys of Gaul, masterfully sinking the indomitable flagship of Corsica I and ruining the enemy's formation in a single stroke.

The Battle of the Four Emperors...

Indeed. It was a delightful victory. The Gaulishmen couldn't even manage to cobble together a complete banner. The lamentations of the fleeing and the cheers of the victorious alternated, like a grand duet.

Unfortunately, we lost Bielefeld in the subsequent attack on Lingones. I saved those dice as a tribute to him, in his honor.

If the will of a caster wavers like the grass in winter, how could he ever hope to control the wind and lightning?

Ebenholz remains silent. The Witch King's tone is calm, even... gentle.

It was a feeling not unlike he had discovered a child who'd stolen an old item from his home, stopped him, and explained the item's provenance after the necessary scolding.

How long have you been gone, Franz?

Gone...?

The weakening golden melody seeks an exit from the secret chamber, with Ebenholz and the Witch King standing outside the door. Before them lies a steep, dark red staircase.

This is... The Graf's spire in Urtica.

A series of changes have taken place since the Vyseheim incident, and he had been gone for over a year. But he could never forget the place.

Do you dislike these stairs?

These carpets, blood red, engraved with dark patterns beneath the pristine handrails.

The Messengers who came from the capital every once in a while, exchanging glances. The servants standing in every corner...

Sorry, it's hard to like them.

Right.

When I was your age, I would wake up in the middle of the night and take these stairs to wake up my tutor.

The Witch King ascends the stairs. The sound spreads far down the long corridor as the lamps along the walls light up one by one, illuminating the path beneath the feet of the spire's owner.

Between the lamps float interconnected intricacies of witchcraft. The tutor sent by the Empresses was intended to perform poorly, so many a night Ebenholz would sneak into subtler corridors to practice.

He unconsciously followed the Witch King. For a moment, he seemed to think that the man was still living in the spire, only waking up in the middle of the night to head to the door, for whatever unknown reason.

The short-horned Elafia opened the door. I didn't go in. I stood in the doorway and asked him.

Over the course of three months, I reviewed the six hundred and thirty-four scores collected throughout this ancient spire, all composed by famous musicians and grand casters.

I took the melodies apart, including those that were incomplete or unplayable.

Why is it that the art of which Leithanien is so proud, accumulating the beauty of 'elegance' and 'harmony' of a thousand years, flows with dead melodies and crusty notes?

I turned this sculpture by the door into a sandbox, quickly deducing the situation for the next century.

Iberia would form an alliance with the sea, Victoria's steel knights would spew steam, boots coated with mud and blood would tromp into foreign lands, the Gaulish irises would bloom in the deep forests of Einwald...

But what of Leithanien? The country's horns and fangs have rotted nearly right out of our heads. First with Siracusa, then with Sturmland... Moss and vermin infest every nook and cranny of the spires.

'Why do you turn a blind eye to all of this?'

'Nein, why do you not know of it?'

The short-horned Elafia was still half-asleep. But more detestable than the sand still sprinkled, unwiped in the corners of his eyes, was his long silence. The fear and emptiness he tried to hide.

He claimed to be the most knowledgeable man in Urtica, and even all of Einwald, but he couldn't answer a single question.

Then you kicked him out of the spire, and his entire house fell into decline... I've heard the story.

Just for that. You truly are unreasonable!

Junge, if I were you...

Those hypocritical servants who secretly partook of the wine cellar would never drink a drop of water again. They would feel the pain of their throats cracking inch by inch until their deaths.

As for the teacher who tried to mold me into useless rubbish, he would find himself impaled by Arts dozens or hundreds of times stronger than his during one of those perfunctory demonstrations.

His expression of fear could be frozen into a fine sculpture.

The foolish ministers who tried to manipulate me with a melody would be manipulated themselves, and the obvious contradictions between the twins black and gold could be exploited...

Exploitation without purpose, arbitrarily taking lives... In your own words, those heinous acts are completely meaningless.

'Witch King'.

The purpose of a stairway is to lead you to a higher place.

I despise these stairs as well, but because they are too short. Graf Urtica's spire is so small, with such a narrow view.

Franz, you see this spire as a cage. So, how will you break free of it?

How will you defeat your enemies?

<i>Who</i> are your enemies?

You are despicable, Ebenholz.

You are hateful, Ebenholz.

You are pitiful, Ebenholz.

Is it them?

Nein, of course not.

Then, is it the 'Witch King'?

Is he the nightmare that's troubled you for a lifetime?

Nightmare?

The increasingly empty house, the white-haired child holding his trembling hand on his knee, softly singing a song that begins with 'The Sky is blue and fine'...

The sound of the cello spreads out like an endless grassland, while the sound of the piano turns into a flowing stream. He washes away all weariness, allowing him to walk a long way, with the dark of night no longer so heavy...

He often dreamed of these things.

Dreams are already fleeting, and if he has to miss these beautiful moments, he would rather never sleep.

Nein. I have never dreamed of you.

Memory?

Memory?

<i>Fall des Hexenturms,</i> <i>Triumph der Goldmond: Vorspiel zu Zwillingstürme</i>...

The theaters across the country must perform certain plays each quarter, all with similar themes. With Urtica being the old tyrant's homeland, such plays were put on twice as often.

And as Graf of Urtica, he was required to attend all of them.

How many times did he sit in the audience, watching the Witch King perish during a duet of justice, shortly before leading a standing ovation?

Statues on the streets.

Illustrations in books.

He has seen countless Witch Kings.

Without exception, a mysterious light surrounded their twisted horns, and even their voices had a strange tremor, as sinister effects were added to them.

They were quick to anger, cruel, bloodthirsty, with grotesque and exaggerated expressions under their masks.

Not one of them, not a single portrayal, matched the appearance of the man before him.

The ambitions of the masses need adornment, their desires need release, their hatred needs relief.

And you, Franz...

The larger the shadow that obscures your fate, the more your failures have to stand on.

Every one of you is happy to imagine such a Witch King, for the purposes of that attribution.

'Imagining,' you say?

The cruel decrees, the inhuman experiments, the fires of war, all the suffering you inflicted, the countless innocent lives lost, all of it... you call that imagined?

We're talking about you, Franz. You've never made the slightest effort to represent the people you now claim have died.

A sudden headache washes over him, much like the nights he was haunted by the Voice of Mundane.

On those nights, he could only grip his flute desperately. He felt as though he was dying, so he would exert all his strength to curse the man before him... until his surroundings became clear.

But the Voice of Mundane is long gone, so why does the pain still flow?

Ebenholz cannot see his own bloodshot eyes, but the layer of red webbing in his field of vision becomes increasingly heavy.

Pain stirs all memories, tearing through all emotion, as if trying to draw everything out of his head to transform into something tangible.

Nightmares. Memories. Imagination.

Look back on your rather short life.

Countless times you've cursed the name entwined with your own, that indelible mark...

Could it all have been nothing more than facing the void? Looking into the mirror?

The Witch King is dead.

By the time you were born, by the time of that night twenty-three years ago. And his death was genuine.

What meaning is there in calling a dead man your enemy?

The terrifying experiments of your childhood, the pain that's lingered throughout your life, the cold eyes and mockery of so called 'representatives' and 'servants,' the criticisms and accusations of others... Do you still dwell on these things?

Nein. You know very well that compared to what I've lost, all those are insignificant.

Correct, you don't care. You really are upholding the promise you made to him. You're prepared to walk through the long night, bearing it all.

But Ebenholz, why, after all this time, are you still in such pain?

I...

Accepting a punishment is not the same thing as finding redemption.

Why can't you forgive yourself, the man who has always been protected, to the very last?

Why can't you let go of the sacrifices they made for you?