Just another rainfall.

I've never guaranteed your survival for following me, Toland. If it was their lives that your hunters valued, they shouldn't have stepped onto the battlefield or had their recklessness take over them in the first place... Their deaths are not what you need to downplay for your mockery. You will always remember. As will I.

The rivalries in the halls of power never ceased, they've merely become a part of the opportunistic pursuit of profit. The only constant is the innocent being dragged into the cesspool. As vassals of a treasonous knight, your parents were forced to take you into their involuntary flight ere the fabricated incrimination could arrive... Czcibor, why? Why didn't you... flee even further?

Why are you still here? Our ideals have come to an end, and I witnessed their final moments... No, never mind. You wish to spar? Then pick up your spear. Entrust your future not to a failure, but to sacrifice, and the pain in your flesh. Come.

Father, you once told me that longswords are suitable only for valorous young knights. But the National Council's miscarriage of justice, the General Chamber of Commerce's rise to prominence—everything I've wanted to stop, my blade was useless to prevent. I couldn't remove your lesions, and with it by my side I watched as Schnitz left... I merely became accustomed to its prescence.

Golden plains, a field of wheat, the path of a nomadic city, and the wake of a Catastrophe. The manor's garden, the arena, and those who hand over their last coin along with their last harvest... Father, I've always tried to walk a righteous path.

Forget it, Schnitz. How am I to tutor Maria in your stead? I am no knight, and certainly no father. No one would call me 'gentle.' Besides... I never once imagined I would actually return to this place... Why, Schnitz? Why am I the one to remain?

Margaret doesn't speak to me, but considering how she was back then... we had no need to. She is just like you were at that age, Yolanta, too much so. She will experience the same things you did, and she will never regret them. That I should tarry at her side more? Hmph, there's no point.

The Grand Knight Territory's appearance is ever-fluid. Today, the city exhibits no trace of what it was twenty years ago, its sunset-lit silhouette sunken and gone... Yet its nightscapes still spring up to my mind at times wanted and at times not. Often, I find myself thinking that I should at least... try to seek out and reclaim that past.

The sound of a rainstorm in the wilderness...

'Fear neither hardship nor darkness...' Hmph. A bygone time unworthy of remembering. A dream, far too lucid.

Nearly the same struggles and sacrifices...

Blank paperwork for promotion within the order, excerpts from the recon knights' reports on our movements... Schnitz often sent these things, as his way of saying hello.

How should I present myself...? As the one slandered by the papers and the groundless gossip in town? Or as the wanderer who once treated that vilification as a badge of honor?

To think they all still believe that blood is not spilled in vain…

Follow me.

The sound of the wind in the barrens... Far too familiar.

It would seem they have yet to remember what to fear.

Yes?

Blade whetted again… for but another battle…

Do I need to repeat myself on the battle plan?

All those... I have yet to abandon.

It will be over before you feel the pain.

Face the tide? Hmph.

The sunlight will have to wait.

Even if there is but a sigh at the very end.

There is no one man who loftily sneers at the pointlessness of it all... Time speeds past us equally.

...Wake me up.

From the windows of Kawalerielki's towers, my eyes have grown tired of those men and their unpunished misdeeds.

'Failure can be endured.' ... But the price is always dear.

I have no promises to make.

I can tell who you are. Speak freely.

Do not add any frivolous decorations to my sword, Toland... In the Grand Knight Territory, there are merchants eying the Nearl name. They will do as you do, and ridicule me in your place.

Arknights.

Let us pretend that today was the New Year. Who could remember dates, after having trudged the wilderness for so long? ...But I am not wrong about the dates, I know. Everything that happens in Kawalerielki is measured by how many days it remains in the paper, no more and no less. No matter the story.

Do I long for the old days? No. I simply cannot forget. That which I saw in the places untouched by light... and could do nothing about.

No matter when or where, there are always those shouting out their naive ideals. However, the idealists are not the only ones who can move forward.