The large intersection, bustling with cars and people, was truly a blaze of lights.
Towering buildings, whose ends couldn’t be seen even when one craned their neck, stood densely packed, and giant, closely situated electronic billboards lit up the streets, day and night.
This place, merely a 30-minute drive from the capital, was the center of the nearest satellite city.
Countless people bustled about the street that sparkled all day long.
The old man, slightly detached from the long line of blaring car horns and the clamor of people, soon withdrew his attention and focused on the radio playing at a low volume.
The bustling crowds and the dazzling cityscape, whose lights never went out all night, were the typical, familiar face of a city to Renato.
Finding nothing new in the scene, the old man, who had been sitting idly listening to the radio for a while, suddenly lifted his head at the news that followed.
[This is a radio news bulletin. The capital, Central of Eternita, has currently been attacked by an unknown group of Esper terrorists. Evacuations are underway due to partial building collapse and fires caused by shelling, and the casualties counted so far are…]
“…Finally.”
Renato let out a remark close to a sigh and frowned.
His granddaughter, who possessed the blood of Lanilgraph, was finally using Anatolia’s weapon to cause chaos in the world.
She was once again drawing public attention to disgrace the old man’s name.
A familiar despair helplessly enveloped the old man, making him recall what had been taken away by the woman’s hands.
In the sudden shadow of death, the old man had ignobly surrendered what Roilnia wanted in order to prolong his own life.
He knew it was a foolish choice, but he couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t make the same choice if he went back in time.
That was unbearably humiliating.
Self-reproach took root and plagued Renato Lanilgraph.
The feeling of the death grip the woman had placed on his throat suddenly came back to him, and the old man nervously touched the area near his scarred Adam’s apple.
In her frantic face as she shook his neck, he saw the desire to seize everything he had laboriously built.
Renato sincerely regretted not having thoroughly cut out Roilnia’s twisted bud when he first saw it.
“Switch to another channel.”
“Yes, Chairman.”
Even if he regretted it, there was nothing Renato Lanilgraph could change.
It was a fact he had keenly felt through several past attempts.
If he carelessly tried to cling to the woman who had gone far beyond his reach, he would truly lose his life this time.
The old man once again chose to stand by and watch the situation Roilnia had brought about.
At the old man’s command, the news bulletin was cut off midway.
A classical channel he frequently listened to filled Renato’s ears instead of the news.
Just then, a requiem began to play in the car, starting with the fierce and intense performance of the violin strings.
The majestic resonance of the a cappella choir turned into a passionate emotion.
- Dies iræ, dies illa (Day of wrath, that day).
The heavy atmosphere of the music, as complex as his own emotions, deepened his gloom.
The restlessness, washing over him like a fierce wave on the seashore, did not subside easily, giving him a headache.
The old man tried to get some fresh air to alleviate his worries, hoping that the harsh winter wind mixed with the heavy snow would freeze his unresolved concerns.
“…Is the window broken?”
However, the window did not roll down even when Renato pressed the button.
It was the same even after pressing it repeatedly, as if it were broken, and the driver in the front seat did not respond when Renato asked him.
Since they had been talking normally just a few minutes ago, he shouldn’t be unable to hear him, but the driver remained stubbornly silent.
Frustrated, the old man leaned forward toward the driver’s seat.
“…!”
The driver was staring straight ahead with an unharmed face.
His posture, gripping the steering wheel and looking forward with his eyes open, was not significantly different from before.
The strange thing, however, was the complete lack of any further movement.
He neither looked at Renato, who was close by, nor did he blink or speak.
Even when the old man urgently shook the driver’s shoulder, he didn’t budge from his initial posture.
Just like a mannequin.
- Solvet sæclum in favilla (Shall dissolve the world in ashes).
A bewildered Renato searched for his cell phone to call for help.
However, as soon as he urgently turned on the screen, a signal for a restricted outgoing call area popped up in the middle of the display.
A sudden communication failure in the heart of this congested city was simply absurd.
Even when he ignored the message and pressed the call button, the call did not go through.
Putting his inoperable cell phone away, the old man looked outside the window to see if others were experiencing this mysterious situation.
Then he noticed something strange.
At some point, the car horns and the noise of people had ceased, and it was quiet.
The jammed cars should have been moving forward little by little, but they stood motionless.
Snowflakes were everywhere, yet no snow was accumulating on the car’s windshield.
It was strange. Something was deeply, profoundly strange.
The old man examined the world outside the window closely, and then he was aghast.
The snowflakes, which should have been fluttering in the wind as heavy snow fell, were frozen in mid-air.
- Teste David cum Sibylla (As David and the Sibyl testify).
Click.
At that moment, the door of the back seat where Renato was sitting opened automatically.
The door slowly opened, kindly beckoning him to step out.
The music, escalating in a high-pitched frenzy throughout, heightened the old man’s anxiety.
The slightly ajar car door felt like an entrance leading to another world from which there was no return.
Yet, Renato felt drawn by instinct and stepped out of the car.
Though it would have been right to remain inside, suspicious and questioning, he felt an urgent need to step out.
On the contrary, a great fear that something terrible would happen if he stayed put propelled him forward.
- Quantus tremor est futurus (How great a tremor there will be)…
What awaited the old man who stepped out of the car was an unidentified paranormal phenomenon.
“…This… can’t… be…”
The old man, standing isolated in the large intersection, faced the extraordinary event that had befallen him with his whole body.
Everyone he saw was completely frozen.
A person running, a person buying groceries, a person driving, even a cat curled up in the corner of a building.
All of them, without exception, were preserved on the street, motionless.
The snowflakes suspended in the air, not falling to the ground, made him doubt whether this was truly reality.
Renato touched a snowflake that brushed past his cheek every time he moved.
The sensation of it touching him coldly and then slowly melting away with his body heat belatedly convinced him that this was indeed the real world.
It was a scene that was not like reality, yet was reality—bizarre to the point of being grotesque.
Goosebumps rose on the old man’s back and arms. In a world where everyone was frozen, only he was alive and moving.
- Quando judex est venturus (When the judge is about to come).
The traffic light, which had turned green, showed no sign of changing color no matter how long he waited.
The electronic billboards, brightly broadcasting advertisements, were also frozen.
Moments later, one of the billboards turned black.
Thump. Thump.
One by one, all the machines that had been emitting light, starting from the distant ones, went out weakly.
Thud-thud-thud-thud.
Then, the surroundings quickly darkened, speeding toward Renato.
After all the building advertisements went dark, the city finally came to a complete stop.
It was a strangely bizarre silence that could never occur in this city.
The city, completely transformed into an atmosphere 180 degrees different from its previous liveliness, welcomed the old man.
- Cuncta stricte discussurus (About to strictly scrutinize all things).
‘W. A. Mozart, Requiem in D minor, KV 626: Ⅲ. SEQUENZ – 1. Dies iræ.
The cut-off radio.
The stopped cars.
The preserved people.
The ceased snowstorm.
The extinguished billboards.
The flickering streetlights.
And the sound of someone walking, clearly announcing their presence.
In this kaleidoscopic world where everything slept, the sound of someone’s footsteps echoed.
The old man, as if possessed, turned his head and looked at the crosswalk connecting the intersection.
“You… why…”
The figure, growing clearer with the lengthening shadow, was a man Renato could not fail to recognize.
The man, clad only in a shirt in the cold winter, was slowly approaching, crossing the crosswalk connecting the intersection, erasing the snowflakes in his path.
As he confirmed the man’s identity, a tremor spread through the veins in his body.
The old man slowly blinked.
With every blink, the man’s figure, which had been distant, grew closer.
Renato had only closed and opened his eyelids exactly three times, but the man’s form changed drastically with every passing moment.
One—
“They were talking too loudly, so I made them shut up.”
Two—
“They were too distracting, so I made them stop still.”
And finally, three.
“Is that a problem?”
Finally, the blindingly brilliant platinum-haired man stood before the shabby old man, cutting through the artificial stillness.
In that very brief moment of facing the blue-glowing gaze, the old man gained an urgent realization.
Everything is mere dust before this man.
Renato simply did not feel that the man before him was the same species as himself.
Was controlling all people and objects and placing them beneath one’s feet truly within the human domain?
Even though he was looking into his eyes, they contained not the old man, but something else.
It was a vastly distant, unknowable dimension beyond the comprehension of an ordinary person.
To this extent, the method Haimar Eilec chose to find Ben was an extraordinary, radical approach that other Espers would never even dare to attempt.
