Haruto stayed near the wall for a long time.
Not because he expected something to happen.
But because leaving felt strange.
The carvings didn't change.
The ruin didn't react.
Everything remained exactly where it was.
And somehow—
that felt less natural than the desert.
He looked at Arthur's marks again.
The repeated lines.
The places where pressure became uneven.
The places where meaning disappeared halfway through.
His eyes stopped on a section he didn't remember noticing before.
Not hidden.
Just… overlooked.
A shallow line.
Then another.
Repeated.
Small.
Too deliberate to be random.
Haruto crouched slightly.
"…what is this?"
Belial looked over.
"…what?"
Haruto pointed.
No answer.
Belial stepped closer.
Looked.
Then tilted its head.
"…that wasn't there before."
Haruto didn't react.
He looked at the wall again.
The lines were shallow.
Almost invisible.
Not words.
Not symbols.
More like…
tallies.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Repeated.
Rows of them.
Some complete.
Some interrupted.
Haruto stared.
"…counting?"
Belial stayed quiet.
Haruto followed the marks.
They stopped suddenly.
Then started again lower.
Like whoever made them lost their place.
Started over.
Lost it again.
Started over.
His expression shifted slightly.
"…days?"
Belial looked at the wall.
Then away.
"…maybe."
Haruto kept staring.
Rows.
Rows.
Rows.
Too many.
Not enough.
Impossible to tell.
Then he noticed something else.
Near one group—
there was another carving.
Smaller.
Cleaner.
Only one line.
Not repeated.
Not desperate.
Just:
I noticed.
Haruto stared.
No name.
No explanation.
Just those words.
He looked at it for a while.
Then quietly—
"…noticed what?"
Belial didn't answer.
Haruto stood.
Looked around the ruin.
Same stone.
Same silence.
Same air.
Nothing changed.
But suddenly—
the place felt less abandoned.
Not because something was here.
Because someone had been.
For a long time.
Long enough to start counting.
Long enough to stop writing.
Long enough to settle for recording.
Haruto looked at the cloak.
Then back at the wall.
"…he wasn't trying to survive."
Belial looked at him.
Haruto continued.
"…he was checking if he still existed."
Silence.
Belial looked away.
That felt close enough to agreement.
Haruto turned and walked toward the entrance.
Outside—
the desert waited.
Nothing moved.
Nothing obvious.
But now—
he noticed something.
The horizon wasn't shifting anymore.
It stayed still.
Haruto stopped.
Yesterday—
the distance moved.
The heat changed.
The world corrected itself constantly.
Today—
nothing.
He stared.
One minute.
Two.
Three.
No change.
Belial stepped beside him.
"…you noticed."
Haruto frowned.
"…noticed what?"
Belial looked forward.
"…it stopped moving."
Haruto looked at the horizon again.
Still.
Too still.
Then—
a thought appeared.
Quiet.
Simple.
Wrong.
"…it's waiting."
Belial didn't answer.
That silence was enough.
Haruto stepped outside.
The wind arrived.
But didn't touch him.
It moved around him.
Like before.
Only cleaner now.
More intentional.
Haruto looked down.
His footprints remained.
One.
Two.
Three.
They didn't disappear.
Not immediately.
He looked back.
The old ones were still there too.
His expression changed slightly.
Not fear.
Not panic.
Just understanding.
"…that's new."
Belial looked down too.
Didn't joke.
"…yeah."
Haruto looked ahead again.
The desert remained still.
Like a page waiting to be written on.
Then—
far away—
something moved.
Not fast.
Not dramatic.
Just enough.
A shape.
Too far to identify.
Too deliberate to ignore.
Haruto stared.
It stopped.
He narrowed his eyes.
The shape remained.
Then—
slowly—
it moved once.
Toward him.
And stopped again.
Haruto looked at Belial.
"…you see that?"
Belial stayed quiet.
Long enough.
Then—
"…yeah."
A pause.
"…don't wave."
Haruto looked at it.
"…I wasn't going to."
Belial didn't look away from the horizon.
Its voice lowered slightly.
"…good."
A pause.
"…because I don't think it's checking if you're there."
Haruto looked forward again.
The shape remained still.
Then Belial quietly finished:
"…I think it already knows."
The wind passed around Haruto again.
And for the first time—
it didn't feel like the world was deciding whether he existed.
It felt like something had already decided.