"I won't drag this out."
Isabel didn't bother with subtleties.
No—rather, it was more accurate to say she couldn't afford to, standing at the precipice of the wish she had chased for so long.
"Give me the sail."
It wasn't a smart negotiation tactic.
That only made her desperation more obvious.
"I suppose that wouldn't be the worst option. But why should I?"
"…Carl Marcus, I took a significant risk to help you."
"That was for the Ark. More precisely, for both the Ark and the Kronos Union."
"You said you'd help me realize my wish."
"I can't make that happen with just the sail fragment I have."
"…Don't play word games."
Isabel glared at me.
At the same time, Ether surged around us, coiling like a living thing to suppress the surveillance devices she had disabled earlier.
[Carl, Marcus…]
[How dare you. How dare you. How dare you. How dare you. How dare you. How dare you. How dare you. How dare you. How dare you──]
[Did you. Lie… to me?]
The Ether wasn't Isabel herself.
But the Ether suffusing the room was perfectly conveying her intent.
Her control over it remained eerily flawless.
["C-Commander!"]
Esther shouted in alarm, tension crackling between us.
Still, it seemed this was as far as I could take teasing Isabel.
"No need to look at me like that. Depending on the circumstances, I might give it to you."
"…Really?"
"Yes."
Even though I had just used the sail as bait, a mere hint of offering it made Isabel's expression crumble.
Before the sail, Isabel could no longer maintain her usual rationality.
'I could just hand it over… but there's no reason to do so just yet.'
Technically speaking, the sail fragment I possessed was a rather ambiguous item in terms of usefulness.
But it had one clear purpose—it was bait to move Isabel.
Indeed, the moment she caught wind of the sail, Isabel had taken the extraordinary risk of moving not as the commander of the Shadow Order but as the lady of the White Line.
That showed just how deep her yearning for her wish truly ran.
"Why do you need the sail?"
"…For my wish."
"What is your wish?"
Isabel's lips halted.
To speak, or not to speak.
That hesitation was written all over her face and body.
"..."
A long silence followed.
Her lips parted several times, only to close again.
It was no surprise.
What Isabel was about to say could not only brand her a traitor—it could threaten the very existence of the Shadow Order.
"You don't intend to tell me?"
"…It's just…"
If Isabel couldn't be honest with me about her wish, then of course, I wouldn't hand over the sail.
It would mean she didn't trust me.
I stared at her.
Eventually, as if finally deciding, Isabel looked up with a firm expression.
"Looks like you're ready to talk."
"…Yes."
"Then speak."
"My wish… the longing I've carried all this time… is to return to humanity's home. The place where it all began."
She spoke as though expelling a burden.
It was something I already knew.
Still, hearing it from Isabel's own lips gave it weight.
"How?"
My calm question caused her eyes to tremble violently.
"…Wait. You already knew?"
"I did."
"How…?"
Isabel couldn't hide her agitation.
This was likely a wish she'd never shared with anyone—something she had carried in solitude for a long time.
So, my matter-of-fact tone struck her deeply.
"Does it matter?"
Her mouth, mid-thought, froze again.
That wasn't the point.
What truly mattered was something else.
"I'll ask again. How?"
She still couldn't fully suppress her unrest.
"…We complete the sail and return it to its original place."
The sail's original place.
It was clear she meant the hidden area deep within the White Line.
"And what happens then?"
Her voice settled as if she no longer intended to hide anything.
"Everything will change."
Everything would change.
That was all Isabel said.
"I see."
"…Where is the sail?"
"It's safe. In a place only I can access—no need to worry."
"…Right. Of course."
Isabel didn't ask me to hand it over right then and there.
Instead, as though she had made a crucial decision, she called my name softly.
"Carl Marcus."
Each word, deliberate.
"Aren't you tired of this place? This damned planet?"
Isabel finally began spilling everything she had bottled up.
"I'm sick of it. Sick to the point it's driving me insane."
"The constant screeches of monsters. The screams of people. Corpses, corpses, corpses."
"Every night, I can't sleep. Voices whisper to me, begging—please, let us escape this place."
"Why? Why did it have to be like this?"
"I wanted to know. I had to."
"Why I was here. Why I had to face such horrors every day."
"And eventually, I found the answer."
"This was never meant to be humanity's home."
"The environment was only roughly adjusted to suit us. From the very start, we were not the rightful owners of this world."
"Our original sin."
"The sin of abandoning our home and invading this distant planet."
"We shouldn't be here."
"This isn't our place."
"We have to go back."
"To where humanity was born."
"To our home."
* * *
At last, Isabel had spoken her truth—but I had no way of knowing what she was thinking now.
Her face was a whirlwind of conflicting emotions.
"Well then… let's continue this conversation another time. We have plenty of it."
With that, Isabel rose from her seat.
I had half-expected her to demand the sail again, so this was somewhat unexpected.
"Carl Marcus."
Her lips moved again.
"I don't know what your goals are, or what you're aiming for… but I believe you understand the contradiction the Ark lives with."
The contradiction of the Ark.
Whether it was truly a contradiction, I didn't know.
But Isabel clearly believed it with all her heart.
"That's why… I believe you'll make the right choice."
And with that, Isabel left the Tripathi family's guest parlor.
The moment she stepped out, the Ether that had blanketed the room vanished entirely.
[───Kkik…]
A moment of silence.
It was Esther who broke it.
["What… what kind of conversation was that? What did I just hear?"]
Esther seemed unable to recover from the shock.
She had remained completely silent throughout the exchange, listening closely—and that silence made the impact all the greater.
'Exactly what it sounded like.'
["What the…"]
Her mouth hung open in disbelief.
The sudden revelation had hit her hard.
Knock knock─
"Come in."
The door to the guest parlor opened, and Ganesha Tripathi stepped in.
Perhaps Isabel had left him a word on her way out—or maybe he had been watching.
"Did your conversation go well?"
"It did."
"That's good to hear. Though, I must ask—what kind of matter brings the young lady here, of all places?"
A natural question from someone who'd just been asked to leave his own parlor.
Still, my answer was already prepared.
"We discussed the Kronos Union's role in the upcoming wave."
"Ah, I figured as much."
Whether or not he truly believed me was unclear—but I didn't concern myself with that.
There was no chance Isabel would speak a word about her wish or the sail to anyone else.
"Well, I suppose I'll take my leave."
"That's a shame. I would've liked to treat you to a meal while you were here…"
"No time."
"Yes, that's understandable."
Ganesha nodded solemnly.
"Next time, then. I'll have good wine waiting."
He smiled.
For some reason, that smile looked a little wistful.
* * *
Leaving the Tripathi estate, I made my way toward Maybell Pilgrim's workshop before the Kronos Union arrived at the Ark.
Once they arrived, there would be no time to spare.
I needed to upgrade the Zeus-444 Railgun beforehand.
'With the multi-wave approaching, I have to be fully prepared.'
Even with the Kronos Union joining the Rose Line, dramatically boosting the Ark's military power, reducing casualties was always a priority.
I quickened my pace.
The path from the Rose Line to the Red Line wasn't short.
And I couldn't exactly ride Horus inside the Ark, so travel took time.
Perhaps because of that, my mind had time to wander.
'Her wish…'
What filled my thoughts was, unsurprisingly, Isabel's wish.
Could the Shadow Order route—Isabel's wish—be the true ending to The Defense I had been seeking?
Was it all just a long journey toward escape?
'Then… is it simply a matter of protecting the Ark while collecting all the sail fragments?'
Even if I did collect them all, reforging the shattered sail wouldn't be easy.
But compared to The Defense's brutal difficulty so far, it almost sounded… manageable.
Which only made the creeping doubt harder to ignore.
'Is that really all there is?'
The stated goal of The Defense had always been to protect the Ark.
The constant waves, the escalating stages—it all supported that premise.
But what Isabel had revealed suggested there might be no need to protect the Ark at all.
'There are definitely parts that don't add up.'
If this truly was an invaded planet, as she claimed—why had humanity come here?
To expand their colonies?
But facing endless waves of monsters and horrors just for that? It didn't make sense.
Wouldn't they have chosen a safer planet?
'…Wait.'
Suddenly, a thought struck me.
The Ark.
Ark.
The word itself meant vessel, a refuge.
For some reason, I didn't think that name had been chosen lightly.
Ark.
Maybe humanity didn't come here to conquer.
Maybe… they had lost their home—and fled here, to this alien world.