Ed was the first to speak.
“Uh... Bido, are you all right?”
Bido looked at Ed.
Was she all right?
The question had come from Ed’s mouth, but
at the same time, it was something Bido wanted to ask herself.
Was she all right, as she was now?
Her body was still injured,
and until just moments ago, Raen’s memories had been churning through her mind.
And yet, strangely, she felt as though she did not need to put the answer into words.
Bido slowly turned her body.
Then, carefully, she set the tips of her toes against the floor.
The medic cried out in alarm.
“Ah, if you move like that—”
But Bido did not stop.
Gripping the edge of the bed, she slowly raised herself up.
It was not as if her wounds had suddenly healed.
The torn flesh had not knitted together in an instant,
nor had the pain that could not possibly have vanished disappeared without a trace.
The throbbing remained.
When she took a deep breath, the inside of her body ached,
and if she put strength into the wrong place, the wound immediately made its presence known.
Even so, it was clearly different.
Bido could feel it.
A cold energy was quietly circulating within her body.
It was not something that boiled hot like blood,
but a sensation like a clear, solid grain sweeping through every corner of her body, holding together the places that had fallen apart.
It was not forcibly hauling a broken body upright.
Rather, it felt as though it was making clearer the places where her body was meant to move.
As if each and every function of her body had become one step sharper.
Standing on both feet, Bido looked at the people in the room.
Their startled faces.
Wollyeon’s wary gaze, Jincheong and Ed’s stiff expressions, the medic’s flustered eyes.
All of it came into focus with perfect clarity.
After briefly steadying her breath, Bido said,
“I’m all right.”
Her voice was not loud, but it did not waver.
She slowly bent down again and knelt beside Raen.
A moment ago,
the memories and emotions that had rushed in all at once surfaced again.
The light of the blue desert, the warmth of family, the terror of the black forest.
They no longer felt like unfamiliar afterimages.
It did not feel as though Bido had stolen those memories and seen them.
It felt as though, for a moment, she had crossed through a piece of Raen’s life together with her.
Bido carefully reached out and gently stroked Raen’s cheek.
The warmth beneath her fingertips was unmistakably that of a living person.
At that fact, Bido felt the faintest relief.
She rose again.
Watching her, Wollyeon took a step closer.
“What happened...?”
“I don’t know the details.”
Bido spoke slowly.
“But... I’m not forcing myself.”
After finishing, Bido once more felt inside her chest.
The cold shard was still there.
Quietly, distinctly.
And it was not merely a power that allowed her body to move.
Bido could clearly feel that something unlike before was awakening within her.
Bido slowly took a step.
The wound throbbed.
With each step, a dull pain spread through the inside of her chest,
and when she unconsciously drew a deep breath, the pain clung to her just as before.
But it was different from before.
Her strength no longer leaked away.
Her body no longer trembled as if it would collapse.
The cold energy quietly circled within her, holding fast to the center of her disordered body.
Bido’s gaze turned to Tiamar’s sword, set down on one side of the room.
Now she knew.
This sword was no longer a burden she had to cling to and endure by force.
Now, it was entirely hers.
Bido stopped before the sword.
Then she carefully wrapped both hands around the hilt.
The sensation against her palms was different from before.
Bido slowly lifted the sword.
Every gaze in the room fixed on her at once.
Worry rose on Ed’s face,
and in the medic’s eyes was a flustered look close to horror.
Wollyeon’s hand lifted slightly, as if by instinct,
and Jincheong also shifted his stance, ready to approach at any moment.
The weight of the sword aggravated her wound.
Her chest throbbed at once,
and the burden traveling through her arms and shoulders was plainly too much for a body that had not yet recovered.
Bido did not grit her teeth,
but she immediately understood that she could not swing the sword with her body as it was now.
Even so, she did not let go.
Because beyond that weight,
she could feel the energy dwelling within the sword more clearly than ever before.
Bido steadied her breath with great care.
And then she understood.
What she had thought of until now as savage was not the sword’s essence.
It was simply too vast and too ancient,
and she had not yet been able to read it in a form she could bear.
What lay within the sword was not simple murderous intent or violence.
It was will.
The other side of a being, engraved into this sword from a very long time ago.
A trace of the power left behind by Tiamar, the original master of this sword,
and a grain of soul that transcended mere power.
Just as the cold shard shone quietly inside Bido,
the energy within the sword now approached her in a form far clearer than before.
The two were not the same.
One was an ancient fragment that had flowed from a shard of the moon,
and the other was the dragon’s will remaining in the sword.
Yet strangely, Bido could distinguish between them and read them at the same time.
As if an outline that had been hidden in fog had become clear in an instant.
“Ah...”
Bido swallowed a short breath inwardly.
It was not that she had become stronger right now.
Nor had her body suddenly changed as if reborn anew.
She had not recovered enough to swing the sword,
nor did she understand everything this sword contained.
But there had undeniably been a change.
What she had not been able to see was beginning to become visible.
The grain she had not been able to grasp was beginning to catch at her fingertips.
Bido slowly set the sword back down.
Before the blade fully came to rest against the floor, the vibration left in her fingertips lingered for a long time.
Wollyeon asked in a low voice,
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
Bido did not answer immediately.
Only after she had felt, in turn, her own hand, the sword,
and the cold shard lodged inside her chest, did she quietly open her mouth.
“It’s much clearer than before.”
Bido spoke while looking at the sword.
“The power this sword holds.”
“Before, I only thought it was rough and frightening... but now I think I understand a little.”
Her gaze rested on the ivory-colored blade.
“This isn’t a power running wild.”
“Someone’s will remains within it too deeply, and I simply couldn’t withstand it.”
The room fell silent for a moment.
Ed looked at Bido, unable to easily continue speaking,
and Wollyeon narrowed her eyes as if hearing this for the first time.
The medic still looked more concerned about Bido’s physical condition than anything else.
Bido looked once more at the sword’s hilt.
Tiamar’s sword was still heavy.
But it was no longer overwhelming.
Someday, she felt she would be able to lift that weight completely.
Even if that time was not yet now, she had the unmistakable sense that she was moving toward it.
And in that moment,
Bido realized, ever so faintly.
The cold shard that had transferred to her from Raen was not merely a power that supported her body.
It was closer to a kind of catalyst,
one that revealed more clearly the things that had until now appeared only dimly.
The moon’s energy, the sword’s will,
and even the things within herself that were only just beginning to take shape.
Bido slowly withdrew her hand.
Now, truly, she was becoming different from before.
“Mm...”
Raen made a faint sound, as if slowly surfacing from a deep sleep.
Her long-lowered lashes trembled, and soon her eyelids carefully lifted.
“Mm...?”
Her eyes, not yet fully focused, stared up at the ceiling before turning toward Bido.
Raen blinked several times with a dazed expression.
“I’m sure... on Bido’s forehead...”
Bido immediately approached Raen.
She moved far more steadily than before, but her steps were still careful.
Reaching Raen’s side, Bido lowered herself and asked,
“Raen, are you all right?”
Raen looked up at Bido, then moved her lips in confusion.
“Uh... what happened...”
Then, suddenly noticing Bido’s posture, her eyes widened.
“Huh? Bido, how are you standing like that?”
Bido smiled faintly.
It was a very brief, pale smile.
“Thanks to you, Raen.”
The moment those words ended,
Bido’s expression abruptly hardened.
It was only for an instant.
But no one missed the change.
Ed immediately took a step forward,
and Wollyeon and Jincheong moved almost at the same time.
The medic hurriedly reached out, worried that Bido might lose her balance and collapse again.
Raen also quickly raised her upper body and grabbed Bido’s wrist.
“Bido?”
Bido could not answer.
Instead, her breathing grew shallow.
The cold energy lodged inside her chest
was moving in a way completely unlike moments before.
It was not quietly settled.
With a clear sense of direction, it was being pulled strongly toward somewhere.
At that moment, Bido understood.
What Raen had meant by the “feeling of being pulled.”
It was not a simple sensation.
Nor was it a vague premonition.
It was the feeling of one shard that had entered her responding by instinct to something far greater.
As if a scattered piece were trying to return to its source,
it was a pull so distinct it could not be resisted.
Bido’s head slowly turned to one side.
Beyond the empty wall.
Somewhere outside this city.
Though it was a distant place she could not see, it was as clear as if it stood right before her.
Ed asked urgently,
“What is it? Bido, what’s wrong?”
Bido could not open her mouth for a while.
What she was feeling now was not merely a direction.
Even the nature of what lay beyond that direction was being conveyed to her, faintly but unmistakably.
Raen probably had not been able to feel this much.
She must have only sensed the pull.
Otherwise, there was no way an ordinary girl could have borne this sensation within her for so long.
What Bido was now facing
was what existed beyond the pull.
A darkness so deep its end could not be seen.
A chill that seemed capable of freezing even breath.
A cold like an abyss that even moonlight could not reach.
And within it,
there was a definite will.
Bido’s lips slowly parted.
“Roan...”
The room went quiet.
Raen’s hand trembled ever so slightly atop Bido’s wrist.
Raen, too, knew the weight of that name.
But Bido’s face now was not simply the face of someone who had remembered a name.
Though she had not touched it directly,
it was the face of someone who had, for an instant, collided with something far away.
Unable to turn her gaze away, Bido said in a low voice,
“It’s coming closer.”
The words were almost a whisper.
But no one in the room failed to hear them.
Even at this very moment,
that cold energy was drawing closer to them.