"There's a rough outline," Elias murmured, his voice low and heavy in the night. His eyes never left Alia's face, the firelight reflecting in his pupils like the embers of an unspoken thought. "But what I really want to know," he continued, each word slow, deliberate, "is what his true wish actually is. He's already the king of the underworld, standing at the very peak of that domain—so what more could he possibly desire? We know he seeks the Grail, yes. But if we can uncover the wish he intends to make with it, then we can tailor our trap precisely for him."
As he spoke, his fingers moved unconsciously in the air, sketching circles, as though trying to corral invisible threads of possibility into some coherent pattern.
Alia lifted her gaze to him, the lamplight catching in her eyes, painting them with a complex sheen of doubt and memory. "I know Jim has always had his own plan," she said slowly, the words dragged from the depths of half-forgotten recollections. Her tone carried a cool restraint, tempered by uncertainty. "Perhaps he was never satisfied with merely pulling strings from the shadows. Maybe what he truly wants… is to step into the light. To stand before everyone, to be seen by all, and to have them not just fear him—but kneel willingly in submission."
Her voice wavered between speculation and a faint, reluctant understanding, as if she were trying to piece together a portrait from fragments, outlines, and blurred edges.
Elias frowned faintly, the lines on his forehead deepening as her words collided with the scraps of information he held. "If it's true that he wants to rule openly, then he already has countless paths available to him," he mused aloud, his tone half reasoning, half disbelief. "He wouldn't need to rely on the Grail for that. And besides…" His eyes narrowed. "I can't shake the feeling that he knows far too much about the Grail already. If he understands it that well, then he must also know about its cost—its dangerous drawbacks. Rationally speaking, what he could gain from it hardly balances against the risk."
There was logic in his words, but also hesitation, the weight of unanswered questions pressing between each syllable.
Alia fell into silence for a long heartbeat. Her fingers toyed with the hilt of her blade, tracing slow circles along the metal as though stroking old scars she had never quite let heal. "You're right," she said at last, her voice lower now, almost urgent. "That point is deeply suspicious. Even more so is the fact that, as you said, he understands the Grail—but in all your father's notes, there isn't a single mention of him. Not even the faintest trace. That absence… it unsettles me."
Her words carried the sharp edge of insistence, as if tugging at that single thread might unravel an entire web of secrets.
"Or perhaps he was there," Elias said suddenly, his voice cutting the quiet like a stone dropped into still water. "And we simply failed to recognize him."
The idea rippled outward, unsettling, undeniable. The firelight caught his profile, casting sharp shadows across his features, giving him the look of a man who had devoted himself wholly to solving a riddle that no one else dared approach. For a fleeting instant, he was less warrior, more seeker—eyes burning with a relentless obsession that would not be easily extinguished.
Alia stared at him, her own composure faltering under the intensity of his conviction. Something in his persistence stirred the softest part of her heart, the fragile place she usually kept hidden even from herself. Drawing in a steady breath, she whispered, "I can't explain it, but I have this feeling—if we can uncover his true identity, and if we can expose his real wish… that will be the key. That will be how we finally, truly, defeat him."
Her words were no longer tentative. They carried the weight of an oath, heavy with fatigue yet firm with resolve.
A cool gust drifted through the window, brushing past them, making the lamplight waver. Their shadows swayed and stretched across the walls, overlapping, merging—like two incomplete halves of a map that had yet to be filled. In the silence that followed, a quiet determination settled between them. Not the reckless kind born of blind courage, but the tempered resolve forged through deduction, vigilance, and the steady exchange of truths.
Each unspoken word was a step toward clarity. Each glance between them was an unvoiced promise: they would see this mystery through to the end, no matter how deep it ran, or what it demanded in return.