VI. 1916, The Trenches, The French-German Front
7
I woke up in my room. It was an unpleasant awakening. My whole body was drenched in sweat. I had an acute headache, and the room was pitch black. The ticking of the clock on the side table had a rattling edge to it. Maybe the clock was broken. I sat up. I always fall asleep praying that the whole world will have changed by the time I wake up, but it never does. I've had plenty of unpleasant awakenings. I'll probably have nothing but unpleasant awakenings until the war is over. But there is one other possibility. That's if I die. If I die, I'll wake up in an era without war.
I downed the glass of water next to the clock in a single gulp. There is no era without war. So the question is, where will I be reborn?
Marie was asleep next to me in the bed. She lay on her back. I stroked her chestnut hair. It was like delicate spun glass, so soft it looked like it would break at the slightest touch. Marie seemed to have noticed me, and she woke up, muttering something.
“...Oh. You're awake, Raine.”
“You're the one who just woke up, Marie.”
That made her giggle.
“You were sleeping like the dead. I thought you really had died.”
“Nope. Still alive.”
“Yeah. Still alive.”
Last night, I buried the dagger that had been stored in the attic. It had the number III on it. I buried it as deep as I possibly could and hardened the soil over it so it could never return. Maybe we'd get lucky and an exploding mortar would destroy it. I had considered shooting or exploding the dagger myself, but there were penalties for wasting ammo and since I wasn't an artilleryman I couldn't just go out and grab a bomb. So I had no choice but to bury it. Maybe someone will dig it up soon. It's inevitable that the dagger will return eventually. But we needed to be freed from the dagger, if only temporarily.
“You were so agitated last night.”
“I was the same as usual.”
“You had a bad dream.”
“...They were all headless,” I said, looking down. “And their bodies disappeared. That wasn't a dream. That really happened. When I looked in from inside the trench, there were four corpses in the bunker. But when I went up topside and looked down, they were gone. When I went back, they were still gone. It all happened in just a few minutes.”
“Didn't someone just take them away?”
“Not possible. No one passed the bunker. Moving four corpses is at least an eight man job. There's no way anyone would just miss eight people carrying bodies. No, even if they somehow pulled it off with just four, there's no way they wouldn't have been seen.”
“Why were the heads missing?”
“I don't know. I figured they were probably just blown off by a shell.”
I remembered the battlefield and felt sick. I was up to my waist in stagnant water, shivering with cold and clutching a gun. I jumped over a corpse to try and make another corpse. The awful memories were dyed with murderous cruelty, and they tormented me every time I recalled them.
“Let's not talk about corpses,” said Marie, leaning closer. “You always look like you're in pain.”
“I see.” I laughed. “How is everyone on the first floor? Were they toasting to the end of the world as usual?”
“Yes, but the number of people at the party decreases every day. I wonder if by the end that pastor will be all alone. He'll have to preach to the houseplants.”
“He's a respectable man. By the way, what time is it?”
“It's 2:00 at night.”
“Jean isn't here.” I looked at the bed next to me, which was empty. “I wonder if he's still downstairs.”
“Jean is dead.”
“Dead?”
“You collapsed from your fever and missed it all. Jean was killed by a stray bullet from a machine gun. I don't know if it was the enemy or friendly fire. Either way, he isn't here anymore.”
“...He said he wanted to be reborn as a Mediterranean diva. I wonder if he got his wish.”
“He did. I'm sure of it.”
“Then let's go give that diva a bouquet of flowers.”
“Yes, and some to Hale as well. He carried you back on his shoulders. If it hadn't been for him, you would have been buried with all the other bodies.”
“He saved me again. That's the second time, now.”
“You're not going to die.”
I nodded. We silently held each others' hand. Marie's hand was small and cold. Her hand was always cold when I took it in the middle of the night.
“Marie, I can't really remember who I was before, where I lived, what I've done anymore. But I haven't forgotten anything important. The incident that happened at Lapis Lazuli Castle, the fact that I was Raine, and the fact that you were Marie. But I'm not sure if I've really been reborn, if I'm alive in 1916.”
“This isn't like you. Whatever happened to the snob I usually have to deal with? We've been reborn and we're here. That much is certain. Because I love you. I don't fall in love easily. Or would you rather I went off and fell for someone else?”
“I don't know.”
“If I ever lose my memories of being reincarnated and fall in love with someone else, will you come take me away?”
“I'm sure you wouldn't want me to.”
“What if in my next life I come back as a squirrel?”
“You won't become a squirrel. We only ever become humans.”
“Why is that?”
“I guess it's the work of the dagger.”
“Who made those daggers in the first place?”
“Wasn't it Geoffroy?”
“No, it wasn't.”
“It's like those daggers have always existed since the beginning of time.”
“'In the beginning, God created the world. Then there were the daggers.'” Marie laughed, amused at herself. “No wonder we can't destroy them easily. We can't just destroy the world.”
“I don't know about that. We need to, somehow.”
“But if we do that, then we won't be able to see each other again. You know, sometimes I think 'maybe this isn't so bad'. All we have to do is endure a bit of pain occasionally, and we can live forever, and be together forever. Or do you not want to spend eternity with me?”
“I get bored easily. I can't imagine eternity.”
“I can. Eternity is just one point. Staying at a single point is what we call eternity. We perceive time by jumping from point to point. But eternity is a single, lonely point, connected to nothing. There's no flow. Everything is still, everything is unchanging.”
“In that case, even if we could go to a world of eternity, we'd just become lifeless dolls. We wouldn't talk, we wouldn't breath, we wouldn't touch each other. It would be boring.”
“No, it would be wonderful. We'd be together forever.”
“How is that any different from death?”
“The differences don't matter. Not for lovers.”
“Only if they can be together. If you were trapped in eternity alone, that would be unbearable.”
“If you were alone, you could wait.”
“And you'd just keep waiting forever? Is that not so bad?”
Marie laughed under her breath.
“There's a story. When a soul is born, it splits in two, and the two halves are born into the world as two people, one male, one female. They were originally one soul, so they spend their whole lives looking for each other. Maybe they pass each other in a cafe. Maybe they become lovers. Maybe they die without ever reuniting.”
Marie put her face on my chest.
“Maybe we were like that.”
“I don't know.”
“You're so mean.”
Marie smiled.
“I saw a German soldier,” I said.
“Did he have a gun?”
“Yes. He had a Mauser. No matter how you look at it, he was a German infantryman. But he wasn't just a German soldier. He was someone of great significance to us.”
“Who was he?”
“Someone like us. Someone who is constantly reborn.”
“But, that means... That's impossible...”
“I'm certain.”
“I wonder what they want.”
Marie sat up, her face grim.
“I don't know. But there's something I'm curious about. It's the headless corpse I saw in the trench.”
“Are you talking about corpses again?”
“Yes, but this is a bit different from before. Right before my eyes, an enemy soldier suddenly turned into a headless corpse. Without question, he was alive right up until the moment I saw him. But when he emerged from around the bend, his head was missing. He had turned into a corpse. Not only that, but an allied soldier, Christophe, also suddenly turned into a headless corpse.”
“Did they just suddenly lose their heads?”
“Yes. I've been thinking about the mystery of the headless bodies for a while now. But maybe this isn't all that difficult to solve. Whether it was the German soldier or Christophe, they just had their heads blown off by a grenade. They probably had powerful explosives shoved in their mouths. The French army has developed a type of terrible bomb that uses flechettes, and the German army has a grenade that looks like a hammer called a Stielhandgranate. Someone snuck up behind them and put grenades in their mouths. They were both killed by the same person.”
“But... if a bomb explodes, it makes a huge noise, right? Wouldn't you have heard it?”
“We probably did. But the sound of artillery explosions were echoing all around us. The massive explosions of the shells drowned out the sound of a grenade. Perhaps the culprit deliberately timed their grenades to match the falling shells. Looking back, a shell did go off quite close by immediately before the German soldier died. Jean, who witnessed Christophe's death, also mentioned shells.”
“Even if someone snuck up on them and put a bomb in their mouths, wouldn't they just spit it out?”
“They probably held it in until just before the explosion. For example, I've heard that the Stielhandgranate explodes about four seconds after a cord inside the handle is pulled. The murderer moved in time with the sound of the shells, pulled the cord, then ran away at the last possible moment to avoid being caught in the blast.”
“Could they really have escaped that quickly?”
“There was only one place they could escape to: the feet of the people they'd just killed. The trench was flooded. The culprit dove into the water under their feet to avoid being directly exposed to the shrapnel from the explosions. Both Jean and I were at the scenes of blasts. The reason we didn't see him was because he was in the water. He must have swam away through the muddy water.”
“If their heads were blown up, there would have been marks left everywhere. It would have been a bloody mess.”
“Yeah. Most of the pieces of meat probably sank into the water. But if we examine the walls of the trench, we might find some traces.”
“That's disgusting,” Marie said with a slight shiver. “So, what's the truth behind the cases of headlessness?”
“Christophe's murder was a dry run, a practice session for the culprit to figure out things like the timing of the explosion and their escape method. The murder of the German soldier, on the other hand, was done simply because the killer needed a corpse. A corpse to replace their own. He blew off the head with a bomb to disguise the victim's identity. He swapped I.D. tags and notebooks with the corpse. He plans to make the army believe that he's dead because his things were found on an otherwise unidentifiable corpse. It's a better option than being hunted down by his own countrymen as a deserter.”
“That doesn't make sense. The murderer went out of their way to show you their headless corpse. There was no need to go to the trouble of making the headless corpse in front of you, and there were plenty of other ways to escape the army.”
“Indeed. You could say he was targeting us. If he wasn't intending to threaten me, he could have just blown the head off of a corpse lying on the ground. But whatever his method, it's a fact that he's escaped the army. He's free now. Do you know what that means?”
“No.”
“He's going to kill us.”
The man in the German uniform who had appeared before me was Geoffroy.
Another man who continued to be reborn.
8
Marie lay in Jean's bed. Her sleeping face was peaceful, and she looked totally unconcerned. Just looking at her like this made me feel as though I'd been cleansed of all the filth I'd accumulated during the war. I was filthy and desolate. It wasn't just the war. Perhaps I was still carrying all the burdens of fate I'd accumulated over the centuries.
I aimlessly passed the night, unable to sleep. Suddenly, without knocking, Hale entered the room. He had a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a glass in the other.
“Care for a drink, sub-lieutenant?”
“You know, I was just thinking I was thirsty,” I nodded. “She's asleep. Let's head downstairs.”
“Wait, you're both still dressed?”
“You notice some strange things, Hale.”
We moved to the next room. It was directly across from my room, and I had the strange sensation that I'd been sent to some sort of mirror world. We sat on the bed and drank.
“Even though you're an officer, you're so pushy. That'll kill you some day, you know. You should just give orders from the rear.”
“No one asked for your advice. Didn't they teach you in school to respect your betters?”
We both laughed uproariously.
“You're a good man. I'm glad I helped you out.”
“I haven't thanked you for that yet. That's twice now you've saved my life.”
“It's Jean you should be thanking. He took a bullet trying to carry you out of the woods.”
“And what can I do to thank him now?”
“Survive.”
“And send him flowers.”
“Might as well write a letter, too.”
“Of course.”
We spent some time sipping whiskey in silence. Hale was probably thinking about Jean. God knows I was. You could say our silence was dedicated to Jean. We'd both grown desensitized to death, but at the very least, we hadn't forgotten our dignity as human beings.
“Hale, I saw a lot of headless bodies the other day. Christophe, one of the German soldiers. And then there's the four recruits in the bunker. What do you make of that?”
“A shell went in the bunker and they got their heads blown off.”
“I think so, too. But then their bodies disappeared. That's what I'm curious about.”
“They must've sank in that muddy water and we couldn't see them anymore. That's your answer.”
“No, it's not,” I said, raising my right hand in denial. “Maybe if they were sank on purpose, but they couldn't have just sank on their own. Bodies float.”
“They sink if water gets in their lungs.”
“As a general rule, corpses don't drink. Those corpses didn't even have mouths. Even if water entered via the neck, it's unlikely all four corpses just so happened to sink at the same time.”
“Then someone must have carried the bodies away.”
“No one carried them. You and Rolo both testified to that extent. Let's draw a map of the trench and see if it tells us anything.”
I tore a page out of my notebook and copied the map that existed in my mind onto the page. As I spoke with Hale, I was able to produce a rough but mostly accurate map. (See figure)
“Rolo came towards me from the direction of the front line, saying his glasses had been washed away. I ran into him near the bunker and confirmed no one had passed him by.”
“What sort of an idiot wears glasses during battle, anyway?”
“Anyway, you were west of us, and you and Jean both testified that nobody passed you. So nobody could have approached or removed the bodies.”
“Couldn't they have just pulled it up from above?”
“After I saw the corpses in the bunker, I immediately went up topside. The bodies were gone by the time I got on top of the bunker. In that time, nobody had approached from above ground. But more importantly, why would somebody have taken the bodies away and hidden them in the first place?”
“Well then I guess they disappeared.”
“Oh, that's unusual. You actually changed your mind about something.”
“I'm a christian mystic by nature,” Hale said with a snort. “You hear about that British battalion that disappeared in Turkey last year?”
“Disappeared?”
“Yep. Completely vanished. Last August, 341 men of the Royal Norfolk Regiment disappeared during a battle on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey. During the assault, they all plunged into a cloud of fog on a hill and popped out of existence. The Turks, who saw the whole thing from afar, won without a fight. On the battlefield, even the living disappear. So it's no wonder that the dead would, too.”
“That's certainly strange enough,” I said. Hale's story had come as a surprise. “341 soldiers disappeared and the British army did nothing?”
“Well, of course they demanded the Turks return the POWs. But the Turks claim that no fighting took place and there are no prisoners to return. The truth is still a mystery.”
“Was the cloud that made them all disappear really just a cloud? Couldn't it have been a poison gas weapon? The Germans are using poison gas weapons that look just like white smoke. The gas billows like clouds and flows across the plains.”
“I've never heard of a gas that can kill an entire battalion in an instant. I've heard of gasses that paralyze and gasses that corrode, but never a gas that can kill a man instantaneously.”
“Ah,” I nodded. “I also hear that the Gallipoli peninsula was a fiercely contested area. Just like Verdun is now. Perhaps some mysterious force is at work in places where life and death intersect. Or maybe people are hallucinating. I've seen plenty of people who thought they saw enemy troops they'd killed rise from the dead and attack them again. For them, believing the dead can return to life isn't insane. Neither is shell shock. There's no reason not to believe a shell could hit you.”
“So, sub-lieutenant, you're saying that the disappearing bodies you saw were just a hallucination.”
“I'm saying it's a possibility. I am the only one who saw the bodies disappear. Of course, it's a fact that four of our men are gone and that you saw the bodies. But that's only part of the story, and it doesn't mean the bodies disappeared. I'm the only one who saw the moment they vanished. 'But I was hallucinating'. If someone tells me that, I have no way to argue with them.”
I shrank my shoulders. I was rather talkative tonight. Maybe it was the whiskey. I put down the glass and decided not to drink for a while.
“Hmmm. Is it possible that, I dunno, someone put weights on the four bodies and sank them down?”
“Of course it is. I'd already thought of that. But what would they accomplish by that? No matter who the culprit is, sinking the corpses serves no purpose.”
Not even if it were Geoffroy. If it were him, he might have deliberately tried showing me the “disappearing” corpses. However, he'd already fled the scene beforehand and hadn't shown himself since. Even if it were his little magic show, it was too performative. For one, there was no guarantee I'd look into the bunker again after going topside. It was an unforeseeable coincidence. To an extent, that I'd look in might have been predicted by someone knowledgeable in psychology. But it was entirely possible that I just wouldn't check. Under such unsure circumstances, why would anyone have made the corpses disappear in such a flashy way? That was why it was hard to imagine any sort of artificial trickery.
“The bodies couldn't have sank on their own. It's unlikely someone else sank them. Either way, we're stuck.”
“If I had an answer already, I wouldn't have been so troubled by it in the first place.” I smiled weakly. “Let me tell you what other ideas I had. The bunker I saw from the trench wasn't the same one I looked into from above. In other words, there were two bunkers that were punched open by siege guns. But one look at the map makes it clear, there is no other bunker, and the communications room next to the bunker was still intact. Even if it was flooded, there's no way to to look inside from above if there's no hole.”
“What else?”
“An even dumber idea I had was that a second shell landed directly inside the bunker after I looked. It landed in the exact same place as the first one. In other words, it went straight inside the bunker and blew the bodies to bits. But I didn't see a second shell enter the bunker, and the surface of the water was perfectly still when I looked. It's pretty unlikely.”
“You're just full of interesting ideas today,” said Hale. I'm pretty sure he was making fun of me.
Hale looked tired.
“I think we talked a bit too much tonight.”
“Yeah, probably. But there's nothing wrong with talking too much. My old man always said that.”
“Then a toast to your father.”
“Not bad. Cheers! To my father, who was run over by a supply truck in the Balkans and died when I was just a wee lad! He was a soldier, too.”
I raised my glass.
Hale drank his whole glass in one gulp, tucked the map into a red book he had, and left the room. He was sleeping in the next room over. I also left the room and returned to Marie. Marie was still sleeping with the face of a child. I stroked her hair. I saw her face move slightly, but she didn't awaken.
Geoffroy was targeting Marie. It was obvious. Perhaps he had joined the army for the sole purpose of tracking us down. Or perhaps he'd just followed the dagger. Where there's a dagger, you'll find us. And he'd found us. He went out of his way to create a headless corpse so he could escape the army. It was safer than just running away. Geoffroy would come for us. I needed to kill him. As long as he kept trying to destroy Marie...
9
When I woke up, it was still the middle of the night. The night lasted frighteningly long. It was as though the whole world was covered in night. But Marie was next to me. I could still hear the faint sound of her breathing. Thank God. She was safe.
My head ached. It was probably the alcohol. I got out of bed, grabbed a glass, and left the room. I walked down the darkened hallway and down the stairs. The only remnants of the party that had once been held here were scattered dishes and the echoes of noises long gone. A pitcher of water was in the kitchen, so I poured myself a glass and drank.
From the corner of my eye, I noticed a black shadow cross my path.
Then I noticed a knife against my neck. I felt the cold blade on my skin. I tried to calm my breathing and my racing heartbeat.
“Yo.”
I heard a voice from behind me. It didn't take long for me to trace it. It was the voice of the German soldier who'd been looking down on me from atop the bunker, his gun at the ready – Geoffroy.
“It's nice to see you again.”
“Can't say I agree,” I replied, unable to move. “I'm surprised. I didn't expect you to show up so soon.”
“Where is Marie?”
“Oh, you know, around.”
“Yes, I'm aware that she's somewhere around here. But that's not really what I wanted to know. You understand the situation. Don't make this harder than it needs to be.”
“That's my line.”
I grabbed Geoffroy by the wrist and twisted, aiming purely for pain. Geoffroy flinched and pulled away. I pulled my gun from the holster at my waist, thanking my lucky stars that he hadn't noticed I had it. Guess it was good that I didn't turn on the lights. I removed the safety and pulled back the slide. I pointed the muzzle at Geoffroy. The gun's sight shone sharply in the darkness.
“A German soldier snuck into the French army's quarters. A French sub-lieutenant captured him. That's the current situation. I have every right to kill you.”
“If you're going to kill me, kill me. Even death is but a temporary setback to one who will be reborn.”
“You might not be reborn this time.”
“It will never end. You know that, don't you?”
“Well, that's alright.”
I looked at the knife in Geoffroy's hand. It wasn't an army knife, but one of the cursed daggers.
“You dug that out of the ground?”
“What are you talking about?” Geoffroy tilted his head. “Oh, I see. You tried to escape by burying it. But unfortunately for you, this dagger isn't the one you buried. This is dagger number VI.”
“Okay, so I'll bury that one, too.”
“You can't escape the daggers. Don't you understand that yet?”
“I've never thought of trying to escape,” I said, spreading my hand. “You have anything else to say? I'd like to wrap this up soon.”
“You still have no idea what this is about, do you? No, you don't remember at all.”
“I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“Well, that makes things easier for me.”
Geoffroy raised his arm and threw the dagger at me. The dagger missed and stuck in the wall behind me. I'd ducked with lightning reflexes and was safe. However, that had cost me my chance to take a shot, and I let Geoffroy escape.
Geoffroy broke the window and ran outside. Shards of glass danced in the air, shimmering in the moonlight. I pointed my gun after him, but I could no longer see him in the darkness.
I turned back and pulled the dagger from the wall. It was heavier than it looked. It felt right in my hand.
As I gazed at the dagger, without a sound or the slightest hint of movement, I found myself surrounded by several soldiers who'd rushed in. They surrounded me with guns in hand.
“Sub-lieutenant?”
Among them was Rolo. Rolo looked into my face through crooked glasses.
“Ah, Rolo. I see you found your glasses.”
“Yeah. Turns out they were swept in the opposite direction. Sub-lieutenant, we came running when we heard the sound of glass breaking.”
“I see. It looks like this dagger was thrown from outside.”
I made up some excuse and showed the dagger to the others. They looked it over with interest, but nobody showed any sign of knowing what it meant.
“That's strange. There's supposed to be a sentry outside. Should I take a look?”
“Yes, please. I'll be waiting here.”
I knew there was no point in searching, but I couldn't go back to bed after that, so I decided to sit on a chair in the living room and wait. Rolo and the others walked outside with grim looks on their faces. I gave them some words of encouragement, but they only nodded, faces not softening at all. Of course, they were all excellent soldiers who had survived up until now.
I put the dagger on the table. I didn't know what I'd say to Marie when she came downstairs. But she didn't wake up. I thought I should bury the dagger before she did.
I remembered the strange thing Geoffroy had said. He seemed to know something I did not. Had he gone mad because he learned that secret? A secret that caused his world to collapse?
I placed my elbows on the table and dozed off. I was awoken by noisy voices coming from outside and raised my head. Rolo and company were just coming in through the front door.
“Sub-lieutenant, we found a weird one.”
Rolo was dragging a young person with an androgynous face that could have been male or female. They were dressed in fluffy white clothes and an intricately woven skirt, with black boots and a feathered hair clip. They obviously weren't a German spy, but they equally obviously weren't from any of the surrounding villages. I might have thought they were a local noble's kid if they weren't making such an unsophisticated noise.
“Have a seat,” I said, offering a chair. “What were you doing out there in the middle of the night?”
“What's it to you? I've had this stupid soldier grabbing my arm for a while now. Do something about him, Mr. Sub-lieutenant. Then we'll talk.”
“It's fine, you can let go.”
Rolo and the others stepped back. I told them they could rest while I handled our visitor, and they obediently went upstairs.
“See? They're good soldiers, you don't have to be afraid of them. Now then, what's your name?”
“Snowy.”
“Snowy...?”
For some reason, the name was nostalgic. It sounded like an obvious alias, and yet I couldn't shake the feeling it was an important name, important to me. Perhaps I had already met Snowy before. A long time ago, back when the origins of my reincarnations were still ongoing. I can't remember all of my past memories; in fact, there's much I've forgotten. I wondered if Snowy was among them.
“That's an interesting name. Where are you from?”
“From far away.”
“And what were you doing roaming around in the middle of the night?”
“I'm a detective.”
“A detective?”
“Yeah. I was just thinking about those bodies that disappeared from the trenches. That's a lot of work for me. That's why I'm walking around looking for chaos – this world has a self-correcting function, and when it gets all out of whack, it seeks to restore order. But there will always be more chaos than order in this world. That's why there are detectives like me around. It isn't about order, consistency, or anything so neat and tidy. A detective needs to be someone who breaks things. That's why we're charged with managing the chaos.”
“I don't understand.”
“Even if you don't get it now, you will soon enough. Whether you want to or not, actually.”
Snowy's smile was pregnant with meaning. I sighed.
“I get it. It's chaotic. So, what was the person in charge of managing the chaos doing out here, anyway? And at this time of night?”
“You didn't listen to a thing I said, did you? I explained all that already. The short version is, I'm going to start stirring things up. What's happened so far isn't enough to be called chaos. That's why I'm going to cause some real chaos. Until we destroy each other.”
“Only children and armies like destruction. Are you planning to start a war, Snowy?”
“For you, it's a war, but for me, it's just a point. A point is a point, and it can't be anything but a point.”
“Then why is it a war to me?”
“Because 'war' is a sad word. It suits you, Mr. Sub-lieutenant.”
“That's ominous. How did you know that bodies had disappeared from the trench to begin with?”
“Because I'm a detective.”
“I see.”
We faintly smiled at each other.
“The bodies disappearing from the bunker is no mystery to me,” Snowy declared proudly. “The only thing I find mysterious is how people get so caught up in such stupid phenomenon.”
“You're awfully confident.”
I didn't trust a word Snowy was saying. I was beginning to suspect the poor kid was suffering from a mental illness.
“The six daggers are the keys that connect the world,” Snowy said, picking up the dagger from the table. “You believe in reincarnation, don't you, Mr. Sub-lieutenant?”
“...You know?”
I was so surprised I grabbed Snowy's hand. Snowy looked hurt, so I immediately let go and apologized. My attitude towards them did a complete 180.
Despite their height, Snowy seemed to be looking down on me from somewhere far above.
“The order in your world is kept by the daggers. More than you understand, those daggers hold the world together. But now that's all over. The daggers are stuck in the book. They've become bookmarks. And if you remove the bookmarks, the world will return to chaos.
“The daggers have placed a terrible curse upon us. I don't recall them ever bringing any order.”
“The daggers bring about your fate of being continuously reborn. Your fates repeat themselves without any deviation. The daggers form a wedge that ties your existence, Mr. Sub-lieutenant, to their fate.”
“What will happen to us if the daggers are removed?”
“We'll all be engulfed in total chaos. Someone once said that the whole world was a single point. Unfortunately, they were right, and it's a very serious circumstance.”
“Then, what do we do? How can we be saved?”
“Saved? You're gonna have to figure that out yourself.”
With that, Snowy abruptly stood up from their chair and disappeared through the door. It seemed to me that they genuinely had disappeared.