—Laila.

—Laila Kristrad.

—Open your eyes.

Laila took in a desperate breath, as if she had just been pulled out of water. As air filled her tightly constricted lungs, her tingling face finally began to move.

Gasping for breath, she turned her head to see Eustar’s face. He was leaning against an old tree stump, having laid Laila down on the soft grass. Though he looked slightly tired, his expression was calm.

“You’re awake.”

“…Did I faint?”

Eustar nodded with a slight smile. She could see a small insect perched on his gently curved knuckles.

“Was it your first time with ‘overlaying’?”

Laila furrowed her brow.

“You mean possession?”

“Similar, but a bit different. Possession is when a ghost borrows the body of a medium. They can speak through the medium’s voice, and the medium can exhibit abilities different from usual due to the spirit’s influence. For example… Yes. What would happen if you stabbed a medium in a state of perfect possession with a knife?”

Laila, still lying down and blinking, spoke as if sighing.

“If perfect possession is possible as you say, nothing would happen even if you stabbed the medium. When possession occurs, though the body belongs to the medium, the spirit has control over it.”

Eustar smiled.

“That’s right. That’s what possession is. ‘Overlaying’ is not strictly possession. It’s like looking into the core memories of a soul. Depending on the method and level of cooperation, it can be like secretly peeking at a private diary or reading a notice posted in a public square.”

After pondering for a moment, Laila said:

“That’s why I was able to see what happened to that child Bin. That was ‘overlaying.'”

“That’s right. It’s quite shocking at first.”

Laila sat up, feeling dizzy.

“What happened to it? The sink, I mean. And the ghost…”

“Ah, I took care of that. The sink disappeared cleanly too.”

His words “took care of” oddly bothered her. Laila recalled the ghost of the young boy being sucked into Eustar’s hand. Stretched out as if forcibly pulled, it was in pain. It was wailing…

Suddenly, she remembered what happened in the forest. Back then too, Eustar had eliminated those children’s ghosts without blinking an eye. And he had ‘fed’ them to something.

Eustar stood up.

“Thanks to you, I was able to resolve it smoothly. Thank you, Laila.”

It was at that moment. Laila saw a faint dark smoke spreading behind his shoulder, just like she had seen before. But when she closed her eyes and opened them again, the smoke had cleanly disappeared.

It must have been an optical illusion due to the darkness, Laila thought. His removing that bead might have been some kind of trick of the eye, or maybe some absurd magical tool…

“Come on, Laila. Get up. I’ll take you home.”

Laila looked at the hand he extended. He had taken off his gloves at some point, and her gaze was drawn to the strange ring on his middle finger.

A sapphire, or perhaps another gem, cut into a heptagon? It looked somewhat unbalanced, but it was appealing.

“That ring…”

At Laila’s words, Eustar raised his right hand.

“You mean this?”

“What kind of ring is it?”

Just as Eustar was about to answer her question, Laila’s steps came to an abrupt halt. Her red eyes were glowing even redder and brighter.

It was fire.

“Laila!”

Eustar hurriedly chased after Laila, who had suddenly started running down the forest path. Her short hair, falling just past her shoulders, shook wildly.

Her house was on fire.

Like a nightmare, it billowed black smoke, its red tongues of flame licking greedily as if to devour Rizykus’ ominous night.

Laila ran, heedless of the branches scratching her cheeks. Then, with the sound of a collapsing pillar, she stopped in her tracks.

“There she is!”

One of the villagers surrounding her burning house shouted, glaring at Laila.

It was then that she realized all the people of Rizykus were here to burn down her house. She could see them holding pitchforks, sickles, and sharpened plows…

To kill me, Laila thought.

The red light licked across their faces, smeared with soot. Faces as red as blood. Laila recalled a fragment of a story her mother had told her. Laila, demons…

—Demons have faces like flames, my dear.

“You witch! Bring my child back to life!”

“Burn her alive!”

Stones flew. None of them hit Laila, but the villagers’ momentum was fierce.

They looked ready to throw her into the raging flames right then and there. And if she screamed in agony, they seemed like they would dance to it as if it were music…

“What are you all doing?!”

As Eustar shouted, the villagers’ menacing gazes all turned to him at once. Some people still raised their sickles threateningly at Laila, but others showed signs of hesitation.

“That witch killed the children!”

A red-faced man thrust his pitchfork at Laila as if to stab her. Eustar stood in front of her protectively and smiled slightly.

“That’s a misunderstanding. It wasn’t Laila who killed the children.”

“Stop talking nonsense! If it wasn’t that witch, who else could have done such a thing? You must be in league with the witch too! You devil, consorting with a witch!”

Laila tried to step forward at the painful insults. But Eustar stopped her with a gentle movement that wouldn’t be noticeable to the people.

“I’m sorry to disappoint, but I’m not a devil, just an ordinary human.”

“Cut the crap!”

The man picked up a stone the size of his fist. But before he could swing his arm to throw it, suddenly, rough and thick vines sprouted from the ground at his feet.

“W-What is this! Aagh!”

The man’s hand, entangled in the vines, trembled, and the stone fell to the ground. The people raised their farm tools even higher with terrified faces, pointing at Laila.

“It’s the witch! It’s her doing!”

“Burn her at the stake right now!”

At that moment, Laila, standing behind Eustar, could no longer hold back and shouted.

“It wasn’t me!”

Eustar said:

“She’s right. What just happened was my doing. Don’t worry, it’s not devil magic or anything like that. It’s just one of the magical tools used to catch monsters.”

The people of the quiet and isolated village of Rizykus were ignorant about things like monsters and magical tools. Even if they vaguely knew what these things were, they were people who couldn’t imagine such things actually existing.

As the villagers hesitated, Laila’s house continued to burn mercilessly.

The rafters collapsed, and the roof was no longer even visible. Laila suddenly thought of her mother’s chair. The chair that creaked at the slightest touch, so worn out it was.

Her mother had said she gave birth to her there. And she met her death there. That chair must have burned completely too. The old bed, the cradle that might have been made hundreds of years ago, the dried herbs and the few books…

Eustar said:

“The children of this village, your children, didn’t die because of Laila. It was because of the ghost of Sync. You created that ghost. The dead child, Bin. You all know who that is, don’t you?”

A murmur spread among the people. Some screamed, some staggered as if about to faint. Tomi’s father, holding a blue-tinted sharpened sickle, shouted in a wailing voice.

“What nonsense are you spouting! If you want to die too, if that’s your wish, I’ll burn you along with that witch!”

He approached, huffing and puffing. With each swing of his arm, the sickle blade cut through the air, and his dirty leather boots trampled the dry soil.

I can’t take it anymore, Laila thought. I can’t bear it any longer…

The pain she thought had disappeared bit somewhere inside her body. It was like being bitten by a snake, and Laila screamed.

“Your son killed Bin!”

The man’s body, which was about to swing the sickle at Eustar, froze like stone. Some people gasped, and the embers that had reduced Laila’s house to ashes now seemed to search for another victim, spreading to trees and grass.

The man, who had been glaring with gritted teeth, said:

“You… filthy witch, what, what are you saying? What about my son? How dare you frame my son!”

Laila raised her red eyes to glare at him.

“You know better than anyone that it’s not a false accusation. When Bin’s body was discovered, Tomi told you everything, didn’t he? You dumped the bodies of the two like rotten meat to hide it. And all of you too. All of you knew but kept your mouths shut! While their insides were being eaten by wild beasts, you were desperately trying not to admit that your child had killed someone!”

The faces of the villagers, which had been fierce moments ago, turned pale. Those who knew the truth, those who didn’t… Laila felt nauseated by the bewilderment spreading among them.

There was a cracking sound. It was the last standing wall finally collapsing. The flames flickered across Laila’s face. It seemed as if a curse might pour out of her wide-open eyes at any moment.

“Get out of here right now. If you all don’t leave, I’ll throw you into those flames. I’m a witch, and I have the power to do such things.”

Someone took a step back. As if that sound was a signal, people scattered with screams.

Even Tomi’s father, who had been about to attack with the sickle, fled into the forest faster than anyone else, and soon all that remained before the two were the burnt-down house and the licking flames.

Laila stared at her burned-down house with empty eyes. Though she hadn’t loved it, it was still everything to her. From the moment she was born until now, that place had been her entire world.

“Come with me, Laila.”

At Eustar’s words, Laila laughed helplessly.

“Where to? I can’t live properly anywhere I go. You know why. Because of this hair and these eyes.”

“I told you. Your eyes are beautiful, and special. I need your eyes. Help me.”

He held out his right hand. For a moment, Laila felt a strange sense of déjà vu again. The urge to follow his words, the firm feeling of not wanting to refuse, stabbed her. Like a protruding nail.

Without answering, Laila carefully took the hand he offered.

His lukewarm body temperature held her firmly.