After we left the Undead stronghold, the world didn't become safer.
It only became quieter.
Not the quiet of peace—but the hush before a storm, when even insects stop daring to make noise.
Silent Man walked ahead of me. His steps were steadier than before, and also farther.
Not farther in distance—but in something else:
a deliberate blank space.
I noticed.
Not because he stopped protecting me.
On the contrary—he protected me more thoroughly than ever.
At every turn, he stepped forward first.At every pause, he placed himself between me and the world.
But he no longer looked at me.
Not the obvious kind of avoidance—more like he had deleted "looking at me" from the list of things he was allowed to do.
I tried to speak.
"What are you thinking about?"
He didn't answer right away.
That hesitation cut deeper than any coldness.
"Nothing," he finally said.
I nodded.
I didn't press.
Because I could hear it—
it wasn't a lie.
It was the truth, compressed until it barely had shape.
[Silent Man's POV]
I know I'm making a mistake.
Not the mistake of getting close to her.
But this—
the moment I admit closeness, Hannah will be re-flagged by the world.
This isn't a guess. It's confirmed.
Inside the Undead stronghold, I understood something fully for the first time:
The world is not hunting me in real time.
The world is waiting for me to choose.
The moment I choose her, the process will automatically supply the cost.
And the cost will never land on me.
"…"
I clench my fist, then loosen it.
This is harder than fighting.
At least a fight has an enemy.
This time, my enemy is myself.
I think of Sethiel.
I think of the one who, a thousand years ago, stood on the same boundary line—and did not take one more step forward.
Back then, I didn't understand.
Now I do.
Not because Sethiel was calmer.
But because—
if he stepped forward, even the right to "remain" would be stripped away.
I don't want to become the reason for that.
[Hannah's POV]
I know he's retreating.
And it's the kind of retreat he won't even admit to himself.
If he were simply cold, I'd be angry.
If he were simply avoiding me, I might force an answer out of him.
But he isn't.
He is using a kind of restraint so extreme it borders on cruelty—to push me out of his world.
That gentleness is more brutal than rejection.
So I did something irrational.
Not to prove anything.
But because—
I couldn't stand being protected, and still not being chosen.
When night fell, I deliberately shifted off our path.
Not dramatically—just a slight deviation. One wrong angle.
I knew it.
The moment I took that step, the Rose would know my location.
The mark on my chest went from warm to burning, like a warning—or like waiting.
I stopped.
I didn't look back.
I wanted to see if he would call me.
Just one sentence.
Even just—
"Don't go too far."
Silent Man didn't speak.
I closed my eyes.
And then the world moved.
[Retrieval]
No warning.
No pursuit.
The Rose is not a hunter.
It is a system. A memory. An order.
The frequency of the air suddenly snapped straight, and every sound was drained out in an instant.
When I opened my eyes, the ground beneath me was no longer ground.
It was the Rose.
Not a single flower—but an entire garden woven out of overlapping rose-vines.
The Rose Court.
It was colder than any previous time.
No illusions. No gentle guidance.
Only a verdict pressed directly into my mind:
— Core node unstable.— Capture protocol initiated.
I didn't even have time to feel fear.
Because in the next second, I understood—
this wasn't punishment.
It was retrieval.
[Silent Man]
I felt it.
Not through the mark—but through something being severed.
The world suddenly lost a weight.
In that moment, I forgot everything else.
I turned.
But the air was already empty.
No Hannah.
Only a blankness forcibly corrected into place.
My throat tightened.
Not from losing control.
But because—
I knew this was exactly the price of my retreat.
I didn't call her name.
Because I finally understood:
The Rose is watching.
If I call, if I admit, the process will upgrade this retrieval into an endgame.
I stood there, nails biting deep into my palm.
Blood ran down, and I felt nothing.
"…Maybe," I whispered.
Not to anyone.
"From the very start, it was a mistake."
Not a mistake to meet.
But a mistake that—
this world was never going to allow us to exist on the same line.
The Rose Court unfolded in another layer of space.
And the world had already begun calculating the next step.
What ended wasn't distance.
What began was—
the world entering love for the first time, and claiming the first round.