At the same time, over at the opposite end of the room, a white puff of air formed at the sigh of a quiet crimson-haired girl.

“Hah...” For Celeste, this trip had been nothing but abdominal discomfort. From their long hike in Erden's Tower to that encounter with the shadow wolf to being chased by the rock drake.

She couldn't act at all when the shadow wolf attacked them in the forest. Urie and Elicia took down the shadow wolf by themselves.

—I didn't do anything...

The defining trait of a person with a blue mana seed was their composure, yet currently, Celeste found her thoughts disquieting. She opened her eyes and glanced towards the bob-cut little girl holding her hands to an odd pedestal. In Celeste's eyes, Elicia had always been amazing.

—Unlike me, Elicia is never quiet. When we first met, she always got mad at me since I wasn't speaking properly but... Elicia never stopped wanting to be friends with me.

Words were precious to Celeste, so she had great hesitation in letting them go. Even when finding herself flustered, she would keep them from flying out of her mouth on their own—in most cases.

At the rock formation where they took a brief rest, Celeste was worried when she saw that Urie was injured. She was concerned but she didn't know what to do. It was also Elicia that knew to wrap his wound with bandages to stop the bleeding.

—As I thought, Elicia is amazing... Urie too. Even though he was injured... I only worried him again.

“I...” Her stomach churned in constant agitation as she thought of how inept she was at everything. At this point—having yet to overcome her timidity—her blue mana seed's blessing of composure only made her quieter.

She had already been a burden on the hike—eventually having Urie take her bag... Even during their brief rest, she had been too immersed within her thoughts that she couldn't taste what she was eating. Again, Urie noticed and got worried.

—I miss home... I miss mama and papa...

If Celeste could only go back home, she would. But she couldn't.

She felt wary of the sudden change in environment when she first arrived here so she was grateful to Gideon for finding her, and appreciated Sacha taking her in. Rivelle's persistence in trying to interact with her had also distracted her enough to not feel too depressed over her circumstances—at first.

But the longer her stay here became, she would occasionally remember her mother—how she would especially bake bread on her birthday.

—Mother always made bread rolls for me on my birthday... This was the first time I didn't get to have any.

This led to sneaking bread rolls out from the kitchen at Urie's house. Curiously, there would always be a fresh batch ready for her to take each time she felt sad.

—Urie found out I was hiding at the back garden to eat when he went out to have tea.

And the ashen-haired boy eventually started joining her. Their repeated interaction always involved only a few words, but with one bread roll at a time—the murky feeling which had built up within Celeste slowly alleviated.

“Ah, this is comfortable...” The chilly sensation coming from the pedestal in front of her soothed the uneasy feelings over the trip, and had reminded Celeste of the year she spent in this bright and dazzling version of the world.

[Celeste!]

—Huh, who?

[Celeste! You're not supposed to be there!]

A gentle wisp of blue undulated over Celeste's right shoulder. The first time it appeared and during its occasional visits, it always spoke with a gentle tone of voice.

[Dear child, we won't make it in time! Stop him from holding onto the pedestal!]

—Stop? Who? The headmaster?

[Stop the flame's child from holding onto the pedestal!]

Celeste opened her eyes right then. From across the room in front of her, a pedestal glowed with intense, foreboding red light; holding onto a small flame on top of that pedestal's platform, Urie was showing a blissful expression.

“Urie!!!” The usually timid voice cracked as she yelled.

Celeste pushed herself off from her pedestal and broke into a staggard sprint. Her heart raced as she kept hearing the urgent cries in her head.

“Ugh!!” She covered her face with her arms as an intense wave of heat prevented her from approaching any further. Reflexively, her mana seed went into rapid mana circulation—covering her skin in a chilly blue hue and releasing a cold mist from her body in an attempt to offset the increasing temperature.

“Urie, wake up!!!” She voiced as loud as she could, but her words couldn't reach his ears. Soon, fatigue from forcing her mana seed past the limit caused her to buckle to the ground.

Her lips quivered as in front of her eyes, Urie dissolved into motes of red light before being sucked into the mouth of a small flame. The small flame then extinguished itself, vanishing into the pedestal's indent.

“Ah, Urie's gone...” Rapidly blinking her eyes in disbelief, she stared in silence at the empty space in front of her. The ashen-haired boy had disappeared, just like that.

For the first time in a long while, Celeste's composure broke. Her pearl white teeth pressed onto her lower lip unwittingly and from her crimson red welled bitter, uncontrollable tears.