Along with that whispered sentence, something indescribable—slimy and swift—slid into my right ear.
It was like a maggot without substance, instantly burrowing deep into the burning-hot cochlea, and it was still wriggling, drilling inward, deeper, heading straight for my brain.
Fragmentary mutterings flooded my mind like a tide.

Darian before me, the lord, the ground beneath my feet, the sky overhead... everything instantly twisted and distorted, melting like ice into pools of endlessly writhing, garish-colored blobs.
Warm, viscous water rose to my chest. Snails without shells danced on the turbid surface, leaving slimy trails.
Black crows picked up rotten mice, laughing gleefully as they dove into bottomless rock crevices.
The sky cracked open. Within the clouds, a beautiful, clear eye opened.
That eye gazed at me, extending an invitation in a way that surpassed language.
...Ah, yes... let's go...

"Young man! Snap out of it!"
Darian's utterly desperate roar exploded like thunder at the edge of my consciousness, just as I was about to completely succumb!
I jolted violently, like a drowning person struggling to regain a shred of awareness.
Extreme terror and disgust chilled me to the bone. That thing was still burrowing in! Must stop it!
"Everfrost Rune—!!"
I roared, desperately mobilizing all the magic power left in my body, frantically pouring it into my own head.
"Now! Freeze my hearing, my vision, my ears right now!!!"

All the magic in my body, like a bursting dam, flooded into my right ear and the surrounding area in an instant, shattering the insane mutterings, the kaleidoscopic illusions, and my teetering consciousness into complete oblivion.
Unimaginable agony surged. Thousands of red-hot, rusted iron needles brutally pierced my brain.
Warm, dark red liquid streamed madly down my cheeks, completely smearing the edges of my rigid vision into a blurry crimson.
I clutched the cold pendant on my chest, mustering the last shred of clarity and every ounce of strength, and violently yanked downward—tearing my entire head open from beside the now completely frozen, solidified right ear fused with the foreign object into my skull!
Riiip!
The sound of flesh tearing was clear and nauseating.
Damn... it hurts! Damn it all!!
I gasped for air like a broken bellows, my whole body drained of strength as I knelt on the ground, my left hand desperately pressing against the right side of my face where blood gushed from an empty wound.
My vision darkened in waves from the pain and blood loss.
Stagnate... Stagnate it! Quick, use the rune to freeze the wound! I'll lose too much blood! I'll die!
And the pain... stop it, stop this damn pain! Hurry! Magic... I still have magic... Consciousness... my consciousness is already... fading...
My heart pounded wildly in my chest. Each beat brought tearing pain and dizziness, making me fear it would burst any moment.
A sharp tinnitus screamed in my mind like countless demons shrieking, layered and encircling, making me want to vomit, throwing my sense of balance into chaos. I couldn't tell up from down for a moment.
But... but that insane muttering had finally stopped. The twisted illusions were gone. I was immersed in incredibly real, vivid agony... At least I'm alive, at least I'm "conscious."

I knelt there like that for a long time, panting heavily, my consciousness struggling repeatedly in the daze brought by pain and blood loss. In just a few short minutes, I felt I was on the verge of fainting multiple times, barely clinging to a fragile thread of clarity only by the cold touch of the pendant I tightly pinched between my fingers.
The pain finally gradually subsided and grew numb under the forced Stagnation of the rune.
After a moment's hesitation, I tentatively lifted the Stagnation on my vision and part of my hearing.
Darian's anxious shouts immediately flooded in like a tide. However, lacking the resonance of my right ear, his voice sounded strangely flat, as if coming from all directions. It took me a few seconds to confirm he was standing not far in front of me.
"Young man! Can you hear me? How are you?! Just now you..."
"...I can hear you, Young Master Darian. What about the eyeball? Is it still there?"
"You're still worried about that damned thing?!"
Darian's voice carried lingering fear and exasperation.
"Hurry! Can you stand up? Take my hand!"
I extended my trembling, blood-stained hand, grasped Darian's somewhat fleshy palm, and with his help, swayed unsteadily to my feet.
Losing one ear seemed to have thrown off my balance. The ground before me seemed to tilt and sway; I felt like I might fall again at any moment.
Darian continued,
"Your ear... I know some basic healing magic. I probably can't reattach it, but I should be able to ease your pain a little."
"Thank you for your concern, but that won't be necessary. I've already used the rune to temporarily stop the bleeding and the pain. More importantly..."
I quickly scanned left and right. My gaze immediately locked onto that large, faintly glowing green eyeball on the ground not far away.
Not daring to look closely, I squeezed out the last of my magic, used the first rune to instantly create a multi-layered ice cage, heavily encasing and sealing it. Only then did I quickly step forward, pick it up, and tightly stuff it into my chest pocket.
Darian was startled.
"You... what are you doing?! Put it down! Are you also infected?!"
"No, Young Master. I am very clear-headed. That's precisely why I must take it."
"It's something Mr. Wilson has been searching for. It can be used to complete the sacrificial ritual mentioned in that ancient book... I absolutely cannot let it remain here, where others might find it."
"...I see."
Darian let out a long sigh of relief, but the suspicion in his eyes didn't completely vanish.

I turned and looked toward Lord Vitus, who had been standing quietly to the side all along, as if an outsider.
He had removed his glove again earlier while I was fighting the foreign entity and mutilating myself to survive. Now, seeing me stand, he unhurriedly put it back on.
I said,
"Your Lordship... this thing probably isn't the crystal left by that Star God priest you mentioned."
"...It seems not."
A perfectly measured expression of apology and seriousness appeared on the lord's face.
"My sincere apologies, Adam. It appears that the true sacred crystal was swapped out by someone long ago. I was careless. I rashly asked you to retrieve it without carefully investigating, nearly causing you to... I am truly sorry."
I waited for him to finish and said,
"I saw you took off your glove again just now. Were you prepared to burn me to ashes with your fire, just like you dealt with the musician Karl, in case I was corrupted by that thing and lost my mind?"
Darian's eyes widened again in alarm, his panicked gaze darting between me and his father.
Vitus, however, remained unperturbed, even nodding frankly.
"That is correct. Adam, though it may sound cruel, I believed that was the most reasonable and responsible judgment at the time."
...That calm-to-the-point-of-coldness tone, that matter-of-fact attitude... feels familiar.
"I'm not questioning the 'justification' of your action. On the contrary, I want to ask: why didn't you act?"
Lord Vitus raised an eyebrow slightly, seeming somewhat surprised by my question.
"Naturally, it's because you ultimately demonstrated sufficient rationality and formidable willpower, successfully resisting the corruption."
"That musician was also very rational and appeared no different from a normal person. You... weren't you just putting on a show? Or perhaps... you simply couldn't attack me, just like those dancers?"
Lord Vitus narrowed his eyes. The well-maintained calm on his face finally developed a crack, revealing a flash of poorly concealed anger.
Beside him, Darian was terrified out of his wits, hurriedly whispering harshly at me,
"Young man! Wh-what nonsense are you spouting?! So disrespectful! Apologize to Father at once! Take it back..."
The lord raised a hand to stop him.
"Darian, step aside."
His gaze locked onto me again, his voice growing low.
"Adam, what exactly are you trying to tell me?"
I raised my hand to wipe the half-dried blood from my cheek, took a deep breath, and suppressed the violently swelling unease and fear caused by that terrible suspicion.
...Can't avoid it. Must confirm.
"The dancers over there, the musicians, and the higher-order things lurking here... if they all swarmed us, I don't think we could survive."
"So, just as 'we' cannot speak that name, perhaps 'they' also cannot directly attack us. They can only use various inducements."
"Then... were you really looking for a way out when you sent me to get that 'crystal'?"
Darian was stunned for a moment, his expression shifting from panic to incredulous anger.
"You! You make it sound as if my father... my father—"
He didn't have the courage to finish the second half of the sentence; his voice trailed off.
The lord's expression didn't change. He simply said calmly,
"Adam, what I told you about the ancient book, the ritual, and the holy water being the key to leaving this place is not my personal 'opinion.' It is a clearly recorded 'fact' in that forbidden book. Darian can attest to this."
"I believe what you say is a 'fact' recorded in the book, Your Lordship."
"But... wasn't it you who replaced the true sacred crystal with this evil eye and induced me to retrieve it?"
"...Child, please do not forget: it was 'I' who first pointed out that holy water is the key to leaving this place. If I were truly one of those evil beings, why would I reveal this sole hope to you?"
"Please also recall carefully. Before you volunteered the information about the 'power of holy water,' Young Master Darian had already recalled fragments about the ancient book. Even if you hadn't spoken then, he would have remembered the escape method sooner or later."
"You merely... took the initiative, using a piece of half-true information to steer our hope toward that platform."
Lord Vitus fell silent, no longer responding. Only something seemed to churn deep in his eyes.
Darian, however, seemed utterly enraged by my words. He abruptly drew the longsword Jackson had dropped on the ground and immediately leveled it at my neck.
The blade instantly cut my skin, fresh blood beading.
"I order you to shut up immediately! Be quiet!"
His voice was sharp and distorted with anger and fear.
"It's clearly you who touched that evil eye and became confused, spouting nonsense here! Why slander my father?!"
The cold blade pressed against my carotid artery, but looking at this blustering, pitiful figure before me whose sword hand was trembling, I felt not a shred of fear.
"...Young Master."
I spoke calmly.
"I remember you said you were on your way 'to rendezvous with Lord Vitus' when you were unfortunately dragged into this world... So, may I ask, exactly when and where... did you truly 'find' your father?"
"That, that was of course..."
Darian's words abruptly cut off. The color drained completely from his face, even paler than when he saw Karl's hollowed-out chest.
The hand holding the sword trembled violently, almost losing its grip.
I no longer looked at him, walking around his fear-stiffened body to stand before the lord.
Ignoring his deep, ancient-well-like gaze, I extended my hand, still stained with blood.
"Forgive my rudeness, Your Lordship... Please perform a simple proof... a truly very simple one."
"Please, use your fire magic... to burn my wrist."

The lord gazed at my wrist for a moment, then revealed a faint smile and said to me,
"Good lad. You have courage. You remind me of Grey Wilson from back in the day."
With that, his head slumped powerlessly to one side, then thumped as it detached from his neck and rolled to the ground.
Leaving behind a body that remained standing perfectly upright.