Guts turned the handle, ready to step into his room.
But instead of the familiar walls, he found himself face to face with rows of shelves stacked with books.
He frowned, standing still for a moment.
The library…?
The carpet swallowed every sound. The scent of old paper and glue rose faintly, dust drifting in the glow of a flickering lamp.
The door clicked shut behind him. Guts expected to find his chamber again, but it was the muffled silence of the library that welcomed him.
Beatrice barely lifted her eyes from her book. With the tip of her finger she moistened the pulp, turned a page with obsessive care, then slipped in a ribbon to mark her place before closing it with a neat, soft clap.
Beatrice : You still don't know how to knock, I suppose.
He didn't answer, sweeping the room with his gaze, as if hoping to find a more reliable exit than the one he had just taken: a wooden ladder, a small stool against a shelf, piles of bound volumes packed like bricks.
Guts : Why did this door bring me here again?
Beatrice : Chance. Doors do as they please.
She reopened the book at the same page, smoothed the corner with her nail, never raising her head.
Without insisting, Guts turned toward the exit. His hand rested on the handle, the cold metal under his palm, ready to vanish.
Beatrice, still seated, spoke in a neutral voice, without looking at him:
Beatrice : If you're here, then speak now.
Guts turned back and fixed his eye on Beatrice, a small impassive figure behind her book.
He moved forward without a word and sat heavily against a shelf, the wood creaking beneath his weight. The lamp hissed, then steadied.
Beatrice, mocking:
You're making yourself comfortable… I'll remember that next time.
She moistened her finger again, turned another page.
Guts sighed, lowered his eyes for a moment, then began to speak.
Guts : You remember—I'm not from this world.
At first… I thought it would be simpler. Less complex. Easier… almost like a child's game.
Since… that event—I tried to make the right choice. To take the lead. And now… maybe I regret it. Maybe if I could, I wouldn't do the same again.
Beatrice listened in silence, never interrupting. The tip of her finger stayed pressed to the margin, motionless.
Guts : Sorry… for what I am. I never should've been here. I wish I'd never come… never disturbed the habits of this manor.
A brief smile flickered at the thought of his first days here, quickly extinguished.
Beatrice : And you think none of this would've happened if you weren't here?
Silence fell. Guts gave no answer.
Beatrice closed the book with a soft clap, kept it under her hand.
Beatrice : It's fate. And you suffer it.
Guts tensed at once, his features hardening. He hated that word. Refused to believe in it. The idea that everything was already written dragged back the darkest memories, the ones he fought to bury.
Guts : I want to leave this place. To find a way back to my world. To fight my battle… and stop disturbing a world that doesn't belong to me.
He raised his eye to her.
Guts : You're not a simple girl either. You're waiting too, aren't you? You must believe in fate.
This time, Beatrice stiffened. Her fingers closed too tightly around the spine, and the binding cracked faintly.Beatrice : So… you mean to erase your passage here? As if you never existed?Guts : I've done it before… and I regretted it. Because I believed him.His voice dropped, rough, firm:
And for Ram—it was me. I killed her. No one else. I'm not looking for excuses.
Beatrice finally lifted her eyes.
Beatrice : And you would abandon Emilia to her fate in this world?
You would run from Rem's gaze—the one to whom you took what was most precious?
If you flee now, I doubt you'll ever be able to look at yourself again.
Guts found nothing to say. She was right… and he knew it. But for him, continuing would only be another way of yielding to what he called fate. The lamp threw a longer shadow across the steel at his side.
Beatrice : Do you remember the Sanctuary? That place is… special. Maybe you'll find answers there. Roswaal awaits you.
She moistened her finger, reopened the book halfway, traced a line with her nail as if to underline the obvious.
Guts' eye hardened. He had almost forgotten… or almost forgiven.
But the memory surged back, sharp and bitter: Roswaal, the man who had manipulated him, forced him to choose a path that was not his own.
Once again, he was walking on someone else's dream.
The door behind him stirred with a draft from the corridor.
Then he opened it. The library kept its scent of paper. The door closed. And the discreet clap of a book echoed again behind him.
Beatrice, eyes on her pages:
He is different.