Ikanel felt distressed. Though he wanted to die, Freia prevented even that. But Ikanel couldn’t defy Freia’s words. He had ruined her, and yet, terribly, he still loved her.

“Then what am I, what should I do? It happened because of me, yet I can’t do anything.”

“Yes. That’s right. You can’t do anything. Don’t do anything.”

Freia smiled benevolently.

“The story where you are the protagonist has ended.”

It was a puzzling statement. Her voice grew increasingly distant. Ikanel knew he would soon wake from the dream. When he woke, he would see the dark green ceiling of his room and have to return to the terrible reality.

“Ikanel. Now leave everything to ‘them.'”

Ikanel could barely hear what Freia was saying.

“I cannot forgive you, but in the end, I couldn’t hate the world.”

Her final words echoed like a reverberation.

“If that’s the case…”

Ikanel became urgent. He wanted to be trapped in the dream forever.

“Freia. Freia!”

Ikanel called out.

“Freia, are you truly Saint Bernadette? Freia!”

He asked as if shouting for the last time. Everything around him turned completely white.

The light was blinding. Ikanel blinked for a moment. In that instant, he awoke from his sleep.

His eyes were vacant. There was nothing in them.

Every sensation of his contact with Freia just moments ago was chillingly vivid. He wasn’t sure if it was merely a dream or some mysterious phenomenon.

Ikanel just lay there, blankly staring at the dark green ceiling. Shortly after, the Second Prince Crusis requested an audience. Without even rising from his bed, he simply said briefly, “Come in.”

♣ ♣ ♣

Oblivion was a medical institution established by the country for commoners who couldn’t afford proper medical treatment. Though that was its original purpose, for the past few days it had been in chaos with homeless people flocking there to escape the blizzard.

Rooms and corridors were packed so tightly with people that there was no space to step. Among them were not only those who had always been homeless but also families who had lost their homes overnight when their old roofs collapsed under the weight of snow.

Originally, Oblivion only accepted people with specific diagnoses, as it was obvious that all beggars would flock there if they accepted everyone. But now it was an emergency situation, and if they only admitted those with illnesses, the people who couldn’t enter Oblivion would all freeze to death.

Fortunately, the patients here had all been miraculously healed by the Saint, so there was room for new people. Therefore, on the doctors’ own initiative, Oblivion began accommodating disaster refugees. However, they hadn’t anticipated that the number of people would increase so rapidly. It was due to the intensifying blizzard.

In truth, the situation at Oblivion wasn’t much better. Their stored food supplies were limited, and now even firewood was running out. People gathered with their siblings, families, or friends, pressing their bodies together to overcome the cold with each other’s body heat.

Even then, as Oblivion couldn’t accommodate all the people flooding in, healthy individuals had to take turns staying outside the building for certain periods to endure.

Snow was there.

Snow walked effortlessly through the building’s interior, which was so crowded there was no room to step, as if crossing an empty field. While the entire building was bustling with noise, Snow alone was quiet.

The strange sight of her, completely white from head to toe, walking carefully through Oblivion without encountering a single obstacle was enough to draw people’s attention. Yet no one looked at her. They seemed unaware of her presence among them.

This happened because Snow herself wished for those people not to recognize her.

Since the calamity began, Snow had become somewhat strange. Now even she recognized this fact.

She had become capable of many things. Though she had once grabbed Sir Mihail Callisto’s sword with her bare hands and bled profusely, now there wasn’t even a scar on her hands. When she looked around, she could clearly see events happening far away.

Above all, when she looked at someone’s face, she could see their past, present, and future. This confused Snow the most. No matter whose future she saw, it was terrible. What Snow saw most often was someone’s death—their eyelids flickering for the last time before their breathing slowed as they were buried in the blizzard.

The same was true for Oblivion. Though it was functioning somehow now, soon the blizzard would intensify, and the door leading outside would be buried in snow. Then all these people would be trapped. In Oblivion’s future, Snow saw a literal hell.

People seemed to think that if they endured well like during the last calamity, things would be fine, but Snow knew this wasn’t the case. At this rate, the world would disappear. It wasn’t just Akelan that would perish. Truly, literally, the end of the world would come. That weight was terribly heavy and chilling. It was all happening because of her.

Snow headed to the room where she had performed miracles. When she had gone there with Elios, it was filled with patients whose lives were hanging in the balance. Snow had healed a blind girl there, and all the other patients at Oblivion had miraculously become healthy.

Back then, Snow had far fewer capabilities than now. When she fell from a high place, she didn’t get carried by the wind to appear instantly where she wanted but simply fell straight down. Then Elios would catch her. She couldn’t even imagine reading other people’s memories. How incredulous Snow had been when she discovered Elios’s identity herself after he had concealed it from her.

But now Snow could appear wherever she wanted just by thinking about it, and she could clearly see what others were thinking. She didn’t understand by what principle this happened, but it did. Whether she was a saint or a witch, she was certainly not an ordinary being.

However, she could no longer heal anyone as she had before. Instead, Snow had gained the power to harm many people. Countless people were dying in the blizzard. But Snow could no longer save the dying as she had before. When she tried to create and heal, only destruction remained.

The proof was this room where she now stood. While Oblivion was desperate for more space to accommodate people, this room alone was completely empty.

A large crack ran through the middle of the floor. It was unusual to see such fissures in the sturdy stone floor.

When Snow first entered this place earlier, she saw people lying with blue lips. This space had originally accommodated patients who were on the brink of death. There were quite a few people who had become critically ill due to dropping body temperatures while coming to Oblivion from afar, and they seemed to have been placed in this space. Snow had simply wanted to make this room a little warmer than the others. Somehow she felt she could do it.

So she instinctively raised her hand and then lowered it. She expected warmth to envelop the room in a circular pattern. But it didn’t happen as she thought.

The entire Oblivion shook with a rumbling sound. Dust fell from the ceiling with a hiss, followed by the sound of cracking, and the floor here began to split.

Snow was startled and hurriedly withdrew her hand.

But people who were even more startled than her had already begun evacuating the patients. Some argued that they should leave Oblivion as it might collapse at any moment. Snow watched them, nervously biting her lips.

In the end, the prevailing opinion was that since there was nowhere else to go immediately, they should wait and see what happened. Oblivion didn’t move again afterward, and people only evacuated the critical patients’ room, leaving behind just a trace of anxiety.

As a result, the already insufficient accommodation space had become even more cramped. Snow hung her head low.

Looking at the crack she had created, she felt she shouldn’t stay here any longer. Snow was now a disaster wherever she went. She was a witch who brought cold, hunger, and death.

Freia’s voice, which had been chaotically ringing in her head, had subsided at some point. But it hadn’t completely disappeared. It couldn’t possibly disappear. Because she herself was Freia.

Now and then, a directionless murderous intent would poke at various parts of her heart. But it wasn’t unbearable. So Snow initially thought that perhaps the calamity might subside. Since she could now control her emotions as Freia.

She felt terribly sorry for Brother Ian and the many innocent members of the Nigritia household who had died. But Snow thought that while she wouldn’t forget them, she needed to let them go. She couldn’t sacrifice this world for anger toward people who were already dead. That would truly be a calamity.

Brother Ian… Thinking of his final appearance, Snow—Freia—felt like she might burst into tears at any moment. He was the only person in the world who had taken her side. How could she forget him? She couldn’t, as long as she was alive.

In terms of such emotions, Snow was Freia, and Freia was Snow.

But regarding feelings toward Ikanel and his children, Snow was not Freia, and Freia was not Snow.

Snow wanted to save, while Freia wanted to kill. Snow fiercely fought against herself. She tried to fight even at the cost of sacrificing herself. Whether as a result of that effort or not, the voice urging her to kill someone had definitely subsided.

However, as Snow glimpsed the future full of despair, she had to admit that the fading murderous intent had nothing to do with the end of the calamity. Still, in a few hundred years, nothing would be alive on the earth, and people here would meet their end buried in snow.

The future did not change so easily.

This meant that although Freia had let go of revenge for whatever reason, she had not escaped from that abyss of despair.

Snow left Oblivion and trudged onto the snowy path. She didn’t know where to go anymore. She just wanted to disappear like this. Her very existence on this land was harmful.

It was when Snow had taken a few steps. Faintly, she heard a hesitant voice saying, “Saint…?”

Snow stopped in her tracks. She could see a figure quite close by. She didn’t know why she hadn’t noticed them approaching until now.