TBR CH95

“…What do I think? The pessimistic tone is completely unfounded nonsense. The instability issues have already been dealt with. Why not reaffirm our confidence? Humanity now possesses an army stronger than any monster—that is our own miracle. And the ‘Kingfisher’ is the brightest miracle among them all. He will be the sharpest blade to bring the Dawn Project to its completion.”

— The 23rd Discussion of the Former Dawn Project, focusing on the instability displayed by the special armed unit at the time.

*

Isidor leaned against the wall, raising his hand to inspect his wrist carefully. Those emerald green eyes had dimmed.

His fingers were cold like ice, and one of the stars on the bracelet was gone. He knew Asta had never seen this bracelet before, but the black star was a cruel metaphor—he had no idea how much it might have guessed.

From the moment the monster stepped into the archive room, Isidor had pressed a hand to his chest, realizing his heart had started to pound like mad. The sound of his heartbeat was like an unending downpour, surrounding him from all sides.

He tried to slip away silently, but Asta was his opponent.

Only a monster can catch a kingfisher.

He didn’t know why Asta had started to chase him. The flight around the bookshelves felt like a dance, both of them moving in perfect sync—spinning, spying on each other through the gaps in the shelves. Even the timing of their pauses was identical, like familiar dance partners who never stepped on each other’s feet.

Did it suspect something?

They were too close. When their fingers brushed, it felt like his entire soul was trembling—the world had flipped upside down. But he still tried to escape. Maybe it hadn’t seen his eyes in time. Maybe the smell of blood on him had masked its sharp attention.

The monster grabbed his bracelet. In that instant, Isidor felt his heart sink like a lump of iron—cold and heavy. Then the bracelet snapped, and he could breathe again.

No matter what, Asta must not see him like this. Isidor thought—even if the day of confession ever came, it couldn’t be in such a wretched, disgraceful state. The dagger in his hand was still dripping blood, and the smell of rust and slaughter clung to him. This wasn’t even his usual way of killing. The Kingfisher’s methods were always clean and elegant, but this time he had deliberately turned the scene into a mess to mislead others.

If only he had left sooner. If only there hadn’t been something he still needed to confirm…

Isidor’s train of thought came to a screeching halt. A terrifying idea suddenly surfaced in his mind.

When he’d heard the footsteps, he remembered instinctively logging out of the account and clicking shutdown. But maybe, in his rush, he hadn’t confirmed the command—hadn’t seen the screen go dark with his own eyes. Sometimes it didn’t turn off. That was a major mistake.

A black book appeared silently in front of him.

He reached out—and was startled to find his arm trembling uncontrollably. Isidor tried to smile, a gentle smile, as if nothing had happened. But there was no audience. He didn’t even know if he was doing it right.

He opened the black book.

At the very least, he had to figure out why the monster had come there.

*

Asta lowered its eyes, gazing at the black star in its hand. This was the only thing it had managed to grab—from that mysterious human who had suddenly escaped, this was the only mark left behind.

Isidor had never worn such a bracelet before. That gave it some relief, but doubt still hung cold and immovable in its mind. Things only seemed to be getting worse.

…No matter who that person was, never before had a monster sensed such unfathomable power from a human.

It stepped forward. Through the gap in the bookshelf, the tip of the blade glinted like a cold star. This was another item the human had left behind—a dagger that resembled a sword.

The human hadn’t meant to leave it. As a specialized weapon, it should’ve been taken for safety reasons. But now it lay abandoned on the wooden floor, left there solely to draw its attention.

Asta picked up the dagger and kept it.

The archive room returned to silence. Only a corpse remained there with it. The monster had no interest in the corpse. It remembered why it had come, so it circled the shelves and walked toward the deeper electronic browsing section.

Here, everything was even quieter. All the secrets were stored peacefully as data, undisturbed by the smell of blood.

Among the dimmed monitors, one screen still flickered faintly.

That human…? Asta paused, then walked toward it. It recalled the broken surveillance at the entrance, the unconscious guards, the corpse hidden among the shelves, and the scent of blood just beginning to coagulate. The human had come to kill someone—but perhaps had stayed behind for the data.

Data—The words “Dawn Project” appeared before its eyes.

Asta grew thoughtful. It scrolled the mouse wheel, the words flickering in its pitch-black eyes. The Dawn Project—it was instantly obvious this was a research program targeted at it.

Even in this classified archive, much of the information about it was vague and incomplete. The monster stared at this custom-designed plan, feeling something complex gradually wrap around its mind.

Was it the plan involving “God’s Child” Xier and the special forces meant to kill him? Or the reason why that fleeing human had been reading the document?

The section titled “Its Weakness” was blacked out, only a rectangle left in its place.

Asta memorized everything on the page. Then it reached out to close it. But just then, it noticed a symbol in the top right corner of the “Dawn Project” header—a log history icon.

…Past versions of the Dawn Project? Asta shouldn’t have had any interest. After all, they had failed to kill it. But compelled by some strange impulse, it clicked the mouse.

The page reloaded.

Lines upon lines of dense text appeared—countless observation records of Project Alpha, and experiments meant to kill it. Some of the experiments Asta vaguely remembered, like the bizarre one to replace seawater with magma—who in their right mind had approved that? It skimmed quickly through the entries until its eyes froze on a particular word.

Kingfisher. This time, that word appeared very close to its own name.

Suddenly, Asta sensed something. It closed the page at once. Then, that familiar black-covered book appeared out of nowhere. The world consciousness had snuck off while it was focused, and now had quietly returned.

Clearly feeling guilty, it still did its job dutifully and showed Asta the words written on its body:

“The Black Book says you were looking for me,”

It was Isidor’s handwriting: “This is awful. I wasn’t feeling well this morning, so I stayed in the staff dorms all day. I didn’t expect you to come out on your own. Will you still come over?”

The last line seemed hastily added, as if the writer had hesitated for a long time before deciding to say it, scribbling it down just before the Black Book set out:

“…I really, really want to see you right now.”

Asta could sense the cautious, probing gaze of the world’s consciousness, as if it were trying to gauge the monster’s current stance. But this only made things more complicated.

The monster pulled a fountain pen from its suit pocket, staring at the words on the paper. Each letter seemed to melt under its gaze, twisting and dancing in flames, filled with hesitation and uncertainty.

That can’t be you.

But should I doubt you?

The only friend, the only human. Asta briefly closed its eyes, seeing Isidor smiling gently at it in the darkness, those emerald eyes burning brightly, vibrant like a kingfisher’s feathers. Before it could process, the pen’s nib was already pressing against the pristine paper.

Before the ink could bleed, revealing its doubts, Asta wrote:

“Wait a bit, I’ll head over soon.”

It set the pen down, feigning nonchalance, and casually exchanged a few words with the world’s consciousness, as if the earlier incident hadn’t fazed it. Asta felt awful—it never lied, but now it had to.

Sometimes, a lie is needed to expose another lie, shining brighter than the truth.

The world’s consciousness vanished from its side, off to relay the monster’s message, slightly reassured. After the Black Book left, Asta reopened the browser. There was still information to gather. The missing pieces, though centered around it, had never stirred much emotion before. But now, even its own heart was a mystery.

…Perhaps human emotions were too complex, and staying with Isidor had rubbed off on it, picking up these bad habits.

This thought gnawed at it, so the monster now needed countless new puzzles to solve, avoiding the constant dwelling on human deception.

Asta inputted all the accumulated unknowns into the machine, waiting for more complex answers. The more data it had, the heavier the mysteries pressed, like gray clouds.

Many pieces of information were missing; many puzzle pieces still needed fitting.

“Kingfisher” was a weapon created by the institute to kill it.

“Kingfisher” was also the culprit behind the institute’s catastrophic incident seven years ago.

The records stated that his misjudgment led to the complete annihilation of the special forces unit, and he bore all the blame.

After that, Asta could find no further trace of him.

Asta exited the information search system, thought for a moment, and opened the browser’s basic search page. This question wasn’t about secrets—just its personal curiosity. It was its greatest confusion now:

“I feel like someone’s been lying to me, but I have no proof and don’t even want to question him. Why?”

The monster wasn’t sure if the query fit the format, but it tried to capture its emotions and hit enter.

It was thinking of Isidor. Isidor had said the human internet could connect countless people, and most questions could be answered through others’ experiences.

Asta’s expression wasn’t great, its face strikingly pale in the dim archive room. In its tentacle form, it would’ve been miserably clinging to a human by now, but Isidor wasn’t trustworthy either.

This made its mood utterly wretched, like a soaked animal with no home to return to.

Listlessly, it clicked the first result and was slightly startled.

The page was an exaggerated pink, littered with candy, balloons, and roses. Glittery decorations filled every corner, and the text, in a slightly darker red, was styled in ornate cursive. The monster strained to read through the chaotic patterns.

—It was a forum.

An emotional forum, no less. Asta didn’t know it had stumbled into one of the largest emotional forums in the human world, called “Love Letters to You.”

Here, self-proclaimed love gurus and lovestruck youths obsessed over every detail—down to a text arriving ten seconds late—posting for advice as if it were a world-ending crisis.

Isidor, of course, would never tell the monster about this.

Snapping back, Asta found the garish webpage oddly intriguing after a while. It was filled with drawings of various desserts, a stark contrast to the institute’s cold aesthetic.

The monster kept reading. The search engine perfectly matched its query to a forum post, the poster’s concern eerily aligning with its own.

“I always feel like he’s lying to me,” the poster wrote, “but I don’t want to look for evidence, and even thinking about it makes me resist. What’s wrong with me?”

The top-voted reply, in a mentor-like tone, advised:

“You love him too much. Love requires both people to nurture it. I don’t know his attitude toward you, but this is classic insecurity. Either let him go, wear love down to mere liking, and walk away, or face him bravely. Trust me, someone who loves you wouldn’t want you to suffer in silence.”

Asta stared at the words, rereading them. But it wasn’t the look of a solved problem—new confusion spread in its dark eyes, its question naive yet brutal:

Love, Asta thought, that word again.

Isidor never explained what “love” was, yet this human forum casually defined its behavior as “love.” The description didn’t quite fit—perhaps, as a monster, it couldn’t grasp such complex human emotions.

This wasn’t an answer at all.

Isidor checked himself again, ensuring he looked exactly as he always had. The smell of blood was gone, his bracelet tucked deep in the wardrobe. His demeanor softened, his emerald eyes evoking something gentle, tinged with slight guilt but brimming with longing and the joy of reunion.

But Asta still hadn’t come.

Half an hour had passed since it said it would come, and Isidor had already made all the preparations beforehand. When he saw the message, he felt a joy that seemed to touch his soul. At least it had responded, it hadn’t recognized him, and perhaps there was still room to salvage things.

He couldn’t focus on anything else now, so he simply sat there, rehearsing over and over what his reaction should be.

He should smile when they met, handle any potential doubts casually, and allow himself to be emotional—after all, he hadn’t seen it in days. But not too emotional. He pressed a hand to his chest, waiting for his heartbeat to calm. The intensity of his feelings made Isidor feel feverish, his forehead even a little warm.

But when he spread his fingers, he found his hands were still cold.

He breathed into his palms, resolving to act as he always had. How much did Asta know? How suspicious was it of him now? He refused to think about those questions. He was Isidor, an ordinary clerk who had spent seven years entwining his life with the monster. That was all.

But all his preparations crumbled the moment they met.

Isidor went on tiptoe, throwing himself into Asta’s arms the second he saw it, heedless of everything. This embrace had clearly been brewing in his subconscious for a long time, deep and profound. The human hid all his expressions where the monster couldn’t see, his emerald eyes wide open, as if determined to etch something into his irises, to engrave it in his memory forever.

He blinked to keep tears from falling, thinking that if Asta pushed him away now, he’d probably lose it on the spot.

But Asta didn’t resist. Instead, it hesitated, then slowly placed its hands on Isidor’s back, gently soothing his emotions. The human’s hair was as soft as its own, a deep brown—a color that only evoked normalcy, but was undeniably gentle and warm.

Thank goodness, Isidor thought.

It was as if a taut string had suddenly snapped. He felt dizzy, as if all the luck in the world had crashed onto him at once. He lost the drive to perform, and with genuine, fearful abandon, he stopped thinking about anything unnecessary and burrowed deeper into the star’s embrace.

Let him indulge in its gentleness just this once.

“What’s wrong?” After about two or three minutes, Asta finally spoke.

“Nothing,” the human said, straightening his back slightly so his breath grazed Asta’s ear. His voice was muffled, as if a bit embarrassed by his actions, but resolute to stay shameless and keep clinging:

“I missed you, Asta,” he said, his emerald eyes flickering faintly. “Really, I was so scared you wouldn’t want me anymore.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because we’ve been apart for days, and I’m no longer your handler,” Isidor explained, almost confessing. “Because I really miss you, and when you miss someone, you get insecure. And because I was sick today—in the human world, sick people are more fragile and need more warmth.”

He didn’t mention anything about deception, Asta noted.