Immortality stole death from the world—but it could not steal the ruin of the mind. When the heart corrodes beyond repair, only one answer remains: the Rite of Termination, carried out by the pale-eyed Executors of Calm Finis.
Daria has frozen her heart to carry that blade. Emotion is a flaw to be purged, attachment a weakness to be erased—and she has mastered both disciplines better than anyone. But the writ placed in her hands names a target she cannot erase: Ethan, the boy who once broke a s
Executor Dahlia — Before the Last Bell Rings - Dark Water Source, Frozen Tears
Coldness brought her back to consciousness.
The regular drip of water, like a leak from a broken faucet. Darkness. And a cold so deep it seemed to freeze her to the very core.
Daria first tried to look at the back of her left hand. The faint glow of the Executor's crest was her only light. But her fingertips merely trembled slightly, and she had no strength at all to lift her arm.
(Where—)
Fragments of memory rushed in with the murky water. Burning torches. Mockery. Mia's twisted smile. And—the shattered white fragments.
(The shell.)
Slowly, she moved her fingers toward her chest. The leather cord was still around her neck. But there was nothing at the end of it. Only the sensation of wet clothing met her hand.
—*Now we'll always be together, Daria.*
The voice of a young Ethan echoed in her mind.
(No.)
Expressionless, Daria slowly shook her head. They were no longer together. The last connection was gone. The small token of promise she had picked up in the basement of those ruins—was now scattered somewhere in this cold water.
She tried to raise her body.
In that moment—
A violent pain, ignoring all bodily structure, tore through her left leg. Even through the skin, she could tell the bone was bent in a direction it should never go. It was swollen purple, and dark, blackened blood oozed from the torn flesh. A compound fracture.
Normally.
If she were not undead, it would have been a fatal wound long ago.
Daria held her breath. She did not voice the pain. The freezing of her emotions was still a part of her. But—something creaked deep in her chest.
(*I want to cry.*)
She had thought that before.
But now, it was different.
She didn't *want* to cry—she *was* crying.
Before she knew it, the cold water was faintly rippling. A slight trembling transmitted from her own body. The face reflected on the water's surface was her usual expressionless mask. Her narrow, bluish eyes remained frozen, devoid of any emotional light.
And yet.
Something hot traced its way down her cheek.
Daria brought her hand to her eyes. Her fingertips were wet. It wasn't water. It was far warmer than the underground spring.
(—Ah.)
A voiceless voice leaked from the back of her throat.
(*I'm crying, aren't I?*)
The emotions she had kept frozen for so long. The pain she had locked away for her missions, to keep living. From the moment the shell shattered, it had been breaking down, little by little. And now—it was completely broken.
Daria collapsed, sobbing aloud.
"Uu... aah..."
It was not for a mission, nor was it the discipline of an Executor. It was simply the weeping of a wounded girl. All the sadness and loneliness she had frozen since she was seven years old, all the grief for what she had lost, fell onto the murky water and vanished.
How long did she cry?
By the time her tears dried and her sobs turned to shallow breaths, the trembling in her body had subsided a little. Instead, the back of her throat burned with thirst. Water was right there, but it was clouded with mud and blood, utterly undrinkable.
(*I have to move.*)
Daria plastered her expressionless mask back on and tried to rise by bracing her hand against the wall. Her right leg somehow moved. But her left leg—the moment she put even a little weight on it, the bone creaked, and pain bleached her vision white.
She decided to crawl.
Clinging to the wall, reaching out with her right hand, she crawled through the mud. Every few centimeters, her left leg struck a stone on the water's bottom, sending excruciating pain through her. Still, she could not stop.
(*If I stop here, it's over.*)
As an undead, she would not die. But if those fanatics found her, she would be restrained in an even worse state. That, she had to avoid.
More than anything—Ethan.
His name burned hot in the depths of her chest.
She thought she had been betrayed. That smile looking down from the high ground was meant to abandon her. But, but—was that really true?
(*I want to know.*)
She had to confirm it. Her mission was not yet over.
Daria groped her way along the wall of the underground waterway. Toward where the water's flow grew slightly stronger. Seeking cleaner water, deeper, deeper in.
At a certain point, the decaying concrete wall changed unnaturally.
The texture shifted from cold stone—to metal.
(*This is—*)
Daria raised her head. The faint light of the Executor's crest wasn't enough to see the details. But she could tell that a part of the wall had collapsed, and behind it, a metal door was embedded. A relic of the old civilization. Something from an era even older than the underground water source.
As if climbing, she reached for the metal door. The hinges were completely decayed, and it came off easily with a push. Inside was a small storage vault. Several thick metal boxes were lined up, barely maintaining their shape.
Daria opened the nearest box.
Inside was a bundle of metal plates. Fine characters were engraved on their surfaces. The script of the old civilization, over a thousand years old. It was a typeface she had seen in Fortuna's archives.
With the faint light, she read the title engraved on the first plate.
—*Project Name: "Silent Harvest" 47th Interim Report—*
(*Silent Harvest... a soundless reaping.*)
The Quiet Apocalypse. The phenomenon that turned humanity undead a thousand years ago.
It was—an artificial project.
Daria's fingers trembled. She turned the next metal plate. Experimental data was lined up. Subject numbers, types of administered nanomachines, cell immortalization rates, predicted periods until mental collapse.
(*Nanomachines.*)
The micro-machine technology of the late old civilization era. This was dispersed to grant humanity immortality. The project's objective was "the permanent labor-force conversion of humanity." In other words, the goal was to create slaves that never died.
However, the project failed.
On the last metal plate, it was inscribed thus:
—*Mental collapse rate exceeds predictions by 85%. 70% of subjects exhibit violent tendencies due to Heartrot. Project is a failure. Recommend sealing all data. Signed, Calm Finis Establishment Preparatory Committee—*
(*Calm Finis.*)
Daria gasped. The silver crest on her left cheek pulsed with light.
The very founding of the organization was built on deception. It was created solely to conceal the cause of immortalization. The Executors—she herself—were nothing more than cogs to seal away the truth.
The strength drained from her entire body.
The metal plate slipped from her hand, landing with a splash.
(*What have I been... for?*)
Twenty years. She had frozen her emotions and carried out only the orders given to her. Believing it was for the sake of order. Believing it was a righteous act that would bring a quiet end to the world.
But its foundation was a lie.
She felt like crying again. But her tears were already dry. Instead, the depths of her chest felt hollow.
(*—No.*)
It wasn't empty yet.
Daria raised her head. She saw something else deeper in the vault. Not a metal box—a tattered waterproof cloth bag. From the feel of it, it wasn't a thousand years old. At most a few years, or perhaps a few decades.
She pulled the bag closer and opened it.
A bundle of paper spilled out.
Letters.
Hundreds of letters. All in the same handwriting, unsealed, just folded and stuffed into the bag. On the edge of the paper was the censorship stamp of Calm Finis—a seal pressed in red wax reading "Censored - Delivery Not Permitted."
With trembling fingers, Daria opened the letter on top. The handwriting was disordered, the ink blurred. But the penmanship—there was no mistaking it.
—*To Daria. I heard you were chosen as an Executor. Congratulations. I'm truly, truly happy. I'm proud of you. I want to see you, always, always. I'll be waiting for your reply.—*
The date was the year she underwent the emotional freezing ritual.
She opened the next letter.
—*To Daria. Still no reply. Are you busy? Or am I already a nuisance to you?—*
The third letter.
—*To Daria. Why won't you answer me? Did I do something wrong? I'll apologize, so please tell me. If you've thrown me away, then I'm already—*
With each letter she turned, Ethan's handwriting grew more disordered. The calm wording disappeared, his emotions laid bare.
The fifth letter.
—*Daria, I might be going crazy. The people in town find me creepy. But I thought I'd be okay if you were here. I thought you, at least, would understand.—*
The tenth letter.
—*Do you not remember me anymore? If so, that's fine. But if you do remember, I want you to end it. We promised a long time ago, didn't we? That someday, we'd die together.—*
Daria's hand stopped.
(*He—thought he had been abandoned.*)
No. That wasn't it.
The letters had simply never reached her due to censorship. Calm Finis strictly limited contact between Executors and the outside world. Much less correspondence with someone who could potentially become an execution target—there was no way it would be permitted.
She opened the last letter. The date was just two years ago.
—*To Daria. I no longer expect a reply. But even so, I'm waiting for you. If you ever happen to read this letter—it surely means I'm nearing my end. So please. I want you to end it with your own hands. That was our promise. I'll be waiting, always, always.—*
The letter slipped from her trembling fingers.
Inside Daria, everything connected.
Ethan's madness was born from the loneliness of rejection. He interpreted the letters not arriving as being abandoned. That despair accelerated his Heartrot.
And then—his position as the cult leader.
That was a charade to set himself up as an execution target. A cult leader in the fourth stage of Heartrot would warrant an Executor being dispatched. Moreover, the likelihood of that Executor being Daria was high. Because Calm Finis had a tendency to exploit personal connections between Executors and targets to facilitate missions smoothly.
(*Ethan—from the very beginning, you...*)
Something in her chest collapsed with a sound.
That smile back then. That face looking down from the high ground. That wasn't—abandonment. It was the opposite. By deliberately pushing her away, he deceived his followers. To complete his plan to have himself ended, without Mia realizing.
(*Was it all an act?*)
Pretending to be a madman, being set up as a cult leader. For years and years, in solitude, just to entrust his end to a single Executor.
Daria clutched the bundle of letters to her chest.
"...I see."
The words slipped from her mouth involuntarily. An unconscious murmur that rarely escaped in tense situations. Her voice trembled, wet with tears.
(*You were waiting.*)
All this time. Always. For years. Even while believing he had been thrown away.
The shell was shattered. But—in his letters, he repeated it.
—*Even so, I'm waiting for you.*
Those words pierced deep into the bottom of Daria's heart. She was no longer an Executor for orders. No longer a cog in the organization.
As simply Daria—she would end Ethan.
She resolved this by her own will. The concealment of Calm Finis, the flaws in the order document, no longer mattered. This was a personal choice, to fulfill the promise they made that day, at age seven, in the basement of the ruins.
Daria bound her left leg with torn cloth, immobilizing the fractured part. Excruciating pain shot through her, but she no longer voiced it. She held the bundle of letters to her chest and tucked them into the waterproof bag.
Then, clinging to the wall, she began searching for an exit.
Agonizing pain with every crawl. She plunged her face into the water, coughing. Spat out the muddy water. Even so—in her heart, she repeated Ethan's words.
(*Waiting.*)
(*Waiting—*)
Like a spell.
Her tears were dry, but there was a heat deep in her chest. The frozen emotions had broken down. But in their place, for the first time, a warmth was lit within her—the will to act for someone else by her
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