After Sethiel left, the world did not immediately return to calm.
Instead—it felt as though a stabilizing wedge had been removed, and every sound hollowed out.
That night, Silent Man and I did not speak again.
He deliberately kept his distance from me, even avoiding the light, as if his shadow itself were something dangerous.
It was not coldness.It was fear.
Not fear of me—but fear of himself.
When we stopped at a stretch of abandoned stone ground, dawn was just beginning to break.Ash-colored morning light was trapped in the clouds, refusing to fall.
That was when—
The Rose moved.
There was no pain.
The mark simply turned cold, as if a memory that had once burned too fiercely had been extracted, leaving only its structure behind.
I stood still, my breathing growing lighter.
This time, the world was not pulled into the Rose Garden.
Instead, the Rose quietly overlaid itself onto reality.
Faint patterns surfaced across the ground—not complete flowers, but dismantled memory structures.
I saw fire.
Not war fire—but tribal bonfires.
People stood in a circle, hands placed upon the same piece of land.
There were no words for father or mother.Only—
Brother.Sister.Younger brother.Younger sister.
Those titles were not spoken aloud.They were assumed.
And suddenly, I understood.
In that world, "siblings" had never been a concept of blood.
They were positions.Assigned roles.
Much like how, in some rural communities, children call every elder aunt or uncle—
a relationship accepted by consensus, not genetics.
This was not incest.
It was order.
And order was being recalibrated.
The image shifted rapidly.
The tribe fractured.
Light and dark were divided into two clear lines.
One safeguarded nature.One guarded the night.
The two lines extended in parallel—stable, predictable.
Until—
A shadow appeared between them.
Not light.Not dark.
Something labeled: "Outside the system."
I did not need to look to know who it was.
I turned.
Silent Man stood at a distance, his expression calm, as if he had always known this moment would come.
He was not drawn into the vision.
He was the one excluded by it.
This time, the Rose did not show me past lives.There was no blood.No tragedy.
Only a judgment—cold, almost cruel—pressed directly into consciousness.
—Variable confirmed.—Stability decreasing.—Correction required.
I finally understood.
This was not a warning for me.
Nor was it a judgment of Sethiel.
The Rose Memory Core's first warning was directed at only one person.
Silent Man.
He spoke softly, as if supplying the world with its conclusion.
"I'm not part of this system."
It was not self-reproach.Just a statement.
"I was human," he said."Then I died. And after that…""I was left behind."
To be left behind was itself an error.
The rose patterns dimmed, as if the marking had been completed.
There was no punishment.No erasure.
Because—
This was not the Rose's task.
My chest tightened.
And in that instant, I felt it.
Not the Rose.
The world.
The species that depended on stability to survive were beginning to react to this "variable that should not exist."
The air grew restless.
From afar came presences that did not belong to ordinary humanity.
Not from one direction—but many.
Human tracking formulas from another spatial layer.The undead's sensory network.Even residual system echoes from the old fantasy continent, now lingering in the seams of reality.
Their purpose was singular.
To eliminate the variable.
Not out of hatred.
But because—
As long as Silent Man disappeared, the Rose War could return to its stable process.
My death.World reset.Order restored.
I finally understood.
Silent Man was not being hunted.
He was being abandoned by the world.
He looked at me, without pleading.
Only one sentence:
"If they've come to make the war proceed more smoothly—then I'm probably the one who has to die."
I had no time to answer.
Someone had already moved.
The Third Rose War, without any declaration of war, officially entered the Purge Phase.
And Silent Man became the unanimously acknowledged target of all species within this space.
The wind changed first.
Not a natural wind, but pressure distortion caused by forcibly opening space.
The ground hummed, like a world adjusting its frequency.
Fine fracture-like sounds appeared in the air—not shattering, but alignment.
Silent Man lifted his head first.
"They're here," he said.
I didn't even have time to ask who.
In the distance, the air began to warp.
Not a glowing portal, but the kind of visual distortion seen when an old videotape corrects its tracking.
Then—figures appeared.
They were not monsters.Not aberrations.
They were human.
Wearing unfamiliar yet excessively rational equipment, their silhouettes clean, their lines sharp.
Not soldiers—engineers.
Their eyes held no hatred.
Only confirmation.
One of them raised a hand, as if reading data.
"Variable locked," he said.His voice had been filtered through some device, stripped of emotion.
"Unregistered unit.Origin: residual from post–second cycle.Data classification: Vampire."
He looked at Silent Man.
"Purge protocol initiated."
My heart clenched.
"Wait—!" I shouted.
He didn't even look at me.
"Non-target unit," he said."Please maintain distance."
Distance.
I understood then.
To them, I was neither enemy nor ally.
Just irrelevant data within the purge process.
Silent Man stepped forward, placing himself in front of me.
The movement was instinctive—older than memory.
"Who are you?" he asked.
One of them replied:
"Human."
"From another spatial layer.Inheritors of the old world's correction authority."
He paused.
"Elves are extinct.The undead cannot stably execute resets.Only humans can still maintain the full Rose War process."
So—
The last executors of the world were humanity itself.
"Your existence increases reset failure probability," the man continued."Therefore, deletion is required."
The air sank.
Not energy—gravity.
Silent Man was forced downward, his knees nearly hitting the ground.
I heard a low sound escape his throat.
Not pain.
Suppressed fury.
"…I see," he said quietly.
He straightened.
And in that moment, something completely loosened.
Not reason.
Restraint.
His pupils contracted in the dark, their color deepening rapidly—not pure red, but the shade of blood sinking into night.
His teeth showed.
Not exaggerated fangs—just two short, sharp points.
Enough to make one thing unmistakably clear:
He was no longer human.
"You want the war to proceed smoothly," Silent Man said."And I'm the obstacle."
He looked directly at them.
"Then come."
The first man moved.
Not a charge—but instant proximity.
As if space itself had folded.
Silent Man barely had time to react, raising his arm to block.
Metal and bone collided with a sound like an explosion.
The force was inhuman.
His arm was knocked back—but the next instant, he seized the man's wrist.
The motion was too fast to be conscious.
"…So this is vampire strength," I heard him murmur.
Not excitement.
Confirmation.
He slammed the man into the ground.
The stone cracked—not explosively, but as structure failed under impact.
The second attacker followed immediately.
A suppression field deployed, thickening the air, trying to pin Silent Man in place.
His body stalled.
My heart nearly stopped.
Then—
He roared.
Not words.
A beast's sound.
The field shattered.
He vanished.
Not teleportation—speed beyond perception.
The next frame:he was behind the third man.
A hand strike fell.
Not a slash—a break.
The man collapsed, still upright.
The remaining humans finally changed.
Not fear.
Data error.
"Reaction exceeds prediction." "Abnormal power amplification.""Vampire classification… output impossible."
Silent Man stood at the center, chest heaving.
He wiped blood from the corner of his mouth.
It was his own.
He turned toward me.
The red in his eyes receded slightly.
"I'm fine," he said.
As if to reassure me.
But I knew.
This wasn't "fine."
This was—
him officially standing against the world.
In the distance, the humans began to withdraw.
Not retreat.
Recalculation.
"Variable confirmed.""Purge failed.""Reporting to upper layer."
Space distorted again.
Before disappearing, one of them looked back at Silent Man.
"Next time, it won't be just us."
The air returned to stillness.
As if nothing had happened.
Silent Man stood there, slowly drawing his breath back under control.
His teeth retracted.His eyes darkened.
He looked down at his hands.
"So… there's no going back," he said.
I walked to him and took his hand.
It was cold.
But he didn't let go.
The Rose's first warning was complete.
The purge protocol had begun.
And Silent Man—
for the first time, used vampire power to survive being hunted.