Hegrian's faction had formally declared their withdrawal from the project.

The major announcement quickly spread throughout Eden.

It was now known—the Pick Me Up project had failed.

[Tonight, an evacuation fleet will be prepared on the runway in front of HQ.]

The speech from Hegrian was being broadcast on Eden’s exclusive TV channel.

[This will be the final convoy to leave Möbius. If you wish to escape, hesitate no longer. Join us. We will turn no one away.]

Clink.

Ice cubes rattled inside a glass.

Tell took a sip of red wine.

[Once more—tonight, the evacuation fleet will be at the HQ runway...]

Flick.

With a wave of her hand, Tell turned off the screen.

"So they’ve decided to split the city in two, huh?"

A public broadcast, openly announcing escape.

Alone in the CEO's office, Tell sat with her legs crossed, slowly twirling her wine glass in her fingers.

"How many will try to leave?"

No one responded to her question.

Icar had said she had something important to do and left earlier.

"A third, at minimum. At this rate, we can’t keep operations running."

Tell and Icar's governing philosophy resembled Earth’s democracy more than anything else.

Individualism—prioritizing personal will above collective consensus.

That’s how Icar had always spoken to the spirits and gods.

Do as you please.

Your freedom is guaranteed.

You have the right to live your own life.

"...And this is the result."

If they’d ruled with a firmer grip, broadcasts like that wouldn’t be stirring the atmosphere now.

At this very moment, chaos must be breaking out in all corners.

Nearly half the population was probably preparing to escape.

"Hmm."

Tell could easily silence such ridiculous incitement with just a gesture.

But she didn’t.

“......”

There was no despair in her over the project's failure.

No lingering regret over the end of Möbius.

She was simply waiting.

‘What am I...’

...waiting for?

She remembered Icar from the night before, in the meeting room.

Her younger sister had been in conflict—unsure of what the right answer was, unable to decide.

‘If I were human...’

Couldn’t she have said it like this?

Tell murmured softly.

"Let’s stop. Let’s quit all this and leave together. Let’s live a new life."

But she couldn’t say that.

As the Goddess of Purity, she could not reject her essence.

Icar’s purity—

She had seen it.

And because she had seen it, Tell couldn’t deny it.

Because she had been born that way.

Her sister had desperately longed for it.

‘If only you would let go.’

If you would abandon that mercy.

Then maybe... we could begin again.

Not as the Goddess of Mercy, not as the Goddess of Purity.

But as something else entirely.

As beings with human hearts.

Sometimes kind, sometimes cruel.

Sometimes loving, sometimes full of hate.

As something that complex.

“...Heh heh heh...”

Gulp.

Tell drained the rest of her wine in one go.

A hollow laugh slipped out.

"I know."

I do know.

Because I am another you.

I know what decision you'll make—because I know your essence.

And you must know, too.

What I’ll do next.

Because we are two halves of one.

Vrrr...

A faint vibration in her pocket.

A text message from her sister.

[Please come to Basement Level 12 of HQ.]

Click.

Tell rose from her chair and stepped into the express elevator.

Night was falling.

The basement levels of Möbius HQ.

This was a place almost no staff ever entered.

Because it belonged to the Game Director—Lucardis.

Only a few top-level executives and spirits directly affiliated with the Director were allowed access.

‘Basement 12, huh.’

Ding.

The elevator doors opened.

The stale, dense air unique to underground facilities weighed down the space.

Thick and thin mechanical lines crisscrossed the walls and ceiling.

It was a room built with a distinctly mechanical design.

"Ah, unni."

Icar stood in the center of the room, greeting her cheerfully.

She smiled brightly.

"What is this place for? It’s my first time seeing it."

Tell’s eyes locked onto a machine in the center of the wall.

A large, cylindrical glass chamber.

Its purpose was unclear.

"Grandpa built it in secret."

"That old man?"

"Yup."

Click.

Icar pressed a button next to the machine.

A section of the cylindrical glass slid open, revealing the interior.

"You just put in a battery here, and it starts up."

Battery?

The kind used on Earth?

But for a machine this large, a simple battery felt absurd.

It looked big enough to fit a whole person inside.

"Grandpa is amazing. He built this all by himself."

"...What does it do?"

"When you activate it, a special defense system goes online. It deploys a dimensional barrier on a galactic scale!"

Icar spread her arms wide.

"It can block anything. Even if disaster comes rushing in, the dimensional barrier will hold!"

Her eyes sparkled.

Like she was dreaming.

"If we show this to Lord Hegrian, maybe he’ll change his mind! And it’s not just that. We might even be able to reconnect Earth and the dimensional gate."

Ah.

So this is what Hegrian had pointed out in the meeting yesterday.

With this device, two of those major issues could be solved.

Wait.

Was it really this simple?

"We could make the game a hit too!"

Icar’s voice climbed in excitement.

"I know. The ideas I came up with weren’t fun. But yours—yours are different. You know, this morning Grandpa told me—he submitted your project proposal behind your back! He said it was brilliant and revolutionary!"

“......”

"A guaranteed blockbuster game!"

She kept going, her words tripping over one another.

"Actually, Grandpa said he’d been building the game based on your original proposal from the start. Mine was just a decoy! Hehe. Isn’t that crazy?"

Tell thought back.

Yes, she had submitted a proposal during the early game planning phase.

But that proposal...

‘I thought it had been scrapped.’

Because it was a system Icar would never accept.

"Unni, Grandpa already fixed all the problems in the project! There’s no need to worry anymore! So—"

"Icar."

"Huh?"

Tell spoke in a sleepy, drawn-out voice.

"You’re insane."

"...Insane?"

"Was it from then, maybe? When Möbius was collapsing, and the emotional waves intensified."

As countless dimensions were destroyed, waves of emotion surged through the system.

And Icar, the Goddess of Mercy, had been directly exposed to it.

‘Why did this girl have to feel something so pointless?’

Empathy.

The act of taking on others’ emotions as your own.

That’s why Icar had absorbed the terror of death radiating from billions of souls.

Because that’s what mercy is.

Because the Goddess of Mercy must do so.

"Unni."

Icar said softly.

"Yesterday, I thought about it. All day. What’s right, what’s wrong. What I should do."

"And?"

"I got so lost... I ended up talking to Grandpa."

"And?"

"I got my {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} answer."

She smiled at her sister, as if the world were finally at peace.

"I’m going to give up my life."

"......"

"Because it matters more. Because I can’t betray those children’s final wishes."

Icar said.

"Unni, this feeling—that’s my purity."

Purity.

The Goddess of Mercy—Icar—had finally chosen one over the other.

She had decided to cleanse her heart.

"I’m counting on you to take care of what comes next."

"Why me?"

"Because you love me, unni."

Icar smiled.

"You love me purely. Because you were born that way."

“......”

"But I’m not like you. To me, those children are more precious than you are. So I’m leaving you behind—to be pure for them."

Tell froze where she stood.

Icar began walking, step by step, into the machine.

She had known what the machine was for all along.

"What’s the point in asking? You never say no to my requests. You never have."

Vrrrr...

The lights of the machine began to come on.

It had detected a high-density energy source.

Tell reached out a hand.

“Are you going to stop me?”

“......”

“You can’t. You’re the Goddess of Purity.”

Because she wasn’t human.

Because she honored the purity of the heart.

She couldn’t stop it.

She couldn’t stop her sister from leaving.

“Because you’re not human.”

Icar smiled—a blooming, flower-like smile.

And then she said,

“Goodbye.”

Clack.

As Icar stepped inside, the cylindrical machine began to seal shut.

A yellow liquid began to fill the inside of the glass chamber.

Within it, the Goddess of Mercy slowly closed her eyes.

Wooooom!

The device, having confirmed the energy source, initiated activation.

Lights flickered on throughout the chamber. The conduits on the walls began to feed energy into the system.

The energy source—

Was the Goddess of Mercy herself.

As a divine being of the highest order, her very existence was a dense mass of interference power.

She had made herself the battery.

“......”

Inside the machine, Icar had closed her eyes.

Her consciousness was already gone.

She wasn’t dead.

She was alive.

But alive as she was, her interference power was being drained away.

So that’s how it is, thought Tell.

Using her sister as a biological energy core could indeed supply the immense power the project required.

No one had asked her to take on this role.

She had chosen it herself.

“Why didn’t I stop her?”

Tell muttered.

Overpowering Icar would’ve been simple.

But she hadn’t done it.

“Because it would’ve been pointless.”

Her heart had died.

Her sister’s dead heart wouldn’t return until the dream was fulfilled.

“A dream...”

Blub-blub.

Bubbles rose in the liquid inside the machine.

The goddess inside was probably dreaming now.

“A pure dream.”

To save those children.

To see those children one more time.

To reverse Möbius’s fate.

That dream, in its weight, surpassed even Tell, the other half.

Mercy had cast aside her other half.

Because that was purity.

Purity means being able to throw everything else away for the sake of one thing.

“...I see.”

Tell accepted it.

She didn’t resent the sister who had left her behind.

Everyone’s the same.

Even if they have many precious things, there is always one that outweighs the rest.

Icar had abandoned all else for one goal: to restore Möbius.

“So you... used me, huh?”

Tell’s lips twisted into a crooked grin.

She knew—her sister knew—what her actions would make Tell do.

It was a thoroughly calculated sacrifice.

“Because you couldn’t do it yourself. Because you didn’t want to. So you dumped it all on me, didn’t you? The dirty work. The ugly role.”

Stagger.

Tell swayed unsteadily.

A gloomy murmur spilled from her lips.

“So I’m just supposed to inherit your selfish dream... and sacrifice myself to the end?”

In that moment—

A storm of hatred surged in the girl's heart.

Bang!

Tell slammed her forehead against the glass, facing Icar inside.

From her crimson eyes, a smoky darkness began to rise.

“Because you didn’t want to get your hands dirty. Because you didn’t want to play the petty villain. You act like you nobly sacrificed yourself—and I’m supposed to do the rest?”

Drip.

Blood-red tears began to stream from Tell’s eyes.

“I don’t give a damn what happens to Möbius. I don’t care if this world ends, or the entire universe goes up in flames.”

Hypocrisy. Hypocrisy. Hypocrisy.

That’s all it is.

You said it was for those children, but really, it was just to ease your own emptiness, wasn’t it?

You dressed up your desire as mercy, but inside—it was hideously selfish.

“Answer me, will you?”

Tell pressed her forehead harder against the glass.

Inside the machine, Icar said nothing.

Vengeance. Resentment. Hatred.

A storm of every dark emotion swirled within her.

I have to let go, Tell thought.

If she granted this lunatic’s wish, she would be completely destroyed.

Tell stumbled back from the machine.

Truthfully, maybe she’d known.

That Icar would do this.

And even knowing—she hadn’t stopped it.

“...Ahaha.”

A dry laugh escaped her lips.

“Because I’m not human.”

She couldn’t hate her.

She couldn’t turn her love into hate.

Because that’s how she had been born.

As the Goddess of Purity, Tell had been engraved with one thing from the moment she was created.

That was—

Pure love for Icar.

It was impossible.

Just as Icar could not abandon the lives of Möbius—

Tell could not abandon Icar.

She couldn’t betray the final wish of the sister she loved.

“Huh... huhuh... huhuhuhuh...”

Tell laughed, clutching her head.

Her sharp nails dug into her scalp.

Her long black hair tangled and fell loose, streaked with blood.

“Ahaha... ahahahahaha...”

Her laughter—mad, deranged—filled the underground chamber.

“Yes, yes... I love you, so I can’t refuse. Your request, your final will. I have no choice.”

Tell looked at Icar with distorted, trembling eyes.

“I’ll give you what you wanted. No matter what I have to do—I won’t let Möbius fall. That’s what you want, right?”

Blood dripped down the face beneath her disheveled hair.

“Kihihi... kihihihihihi...”

Limping, the goddess began to walk down the corridor.

Ah... yes.

This ending.

It had always felt inevitable.

“I feel relieved. Relieved. So relieved.”

It had become simple.

Everything had become so simple.

Now, she only had to pursue one thing.

Tell smiled.

The moment Mercy disappeared...

Only then could she become truly pure.