The moment Ince Zangwill vanished, the light abruptly disappeared, replaced by the densest, deepest darkness.
From within that darkness, the sound of poetry drifted forth—serene and tranquil, lulling one to sleep. Even the countless pale hands clawing up from beneath the pitch-black water slowed their desperate grasping, no longer thrashing wildly, as if they had found some kind of spiritual salvation.
In this "night," a figure stepped out—it was none other than Ince Zangwill, who had just been dragged into the Spirit World.
Compared to before, he had lost the soft hat atop his head, and the clothes on his left shoulder were tattered, a chunk of flesh having been torn away. Pale yellow pus bubbles emerged one after another with soft gurgling sounds.
His gaze was no longer indifferent. It was filled with agony, as though he were enduring torture beyond anyone's imagination.
The fountain pen "0—08" continued to write:
"Some felt regret, others felt relief. Ince Zangwill possessed an 'Evil God's Umbilical Cord,' one that originated from the infant inside Magois' belly, originating from the 'True Creator.' By using the 'umbilical cord,' he successfully broke free from the unknown entity's confinement and forcibly returned to the real world. However, he also completely lost that wondrous artifact and will, for a short time, bear the resentment of an Evil God's offspring that cannot be born.
"This has reduced his strength to the level of certain merchandise during a department store's seasonal clearance—only 55% of its original value. Hmm, that number is very precise."
……
On a street deep within the East Borough.
Old Kohler clutched a paper bag containing a ham and hurried back toward his rented apartment.
He glanced around warily, terrified that those starving souls with wolf-like glints in their eyes might lunge at him and snatch away his "New Year's gift."
Back when he was still in the countryside, he had once seen wolves. He never imagined he would experience that familiar feeling again in Backlund.
"It was still too expensive and too big. I could only chip in with others to buy one, then saw it into portions… This is enough for me to eat through the entire New Year holiday—two slices per meal, three slices, no, at least five slices of ham each time. I can even cut some off to stew with potatoes, and I won't even need to add salt…" At that thought, Old Kohler gazed down at the ham cradled in his arms, looking at the red meat marbled with generous streaks of white fat, and his throat contracted involuntarily as he swallowed.
As he walked, he noticed the surrounding fog growing much thicker. The church bell tower, once still somewhat visible in the distance, was gradually swallowed by a color that mixed pale yellow with iron-black. Even the pedestrians around him, once beyond ten paces away, were reduced to blurry shadows.
Old Kohler instantly felt as though the world had forgotten him. He raised a palm to cover his mouth and nose.
"Why does the fog smell so foul today?" he muttered under his breath, quickening his pace.
One step, two steps, three steps—Old Kohler felt his face growing hot, his forehead as though it were catching fire.
His chest tightened, his throat grew uncomfortable, and soon he was struggling to breathe.
"Am I sick? Damn it, I wanted to have a wonderful New Year, and now all my savings are going to end up at the clinic, at the hospital… No, maybe I just need to sleep it off. Wrap myself in my blanket and sleep it off!" Old Kohler whispered to himself, his head growing hotter and more muddled by the moment.
Hah, hah, hah—he could hear his own labored breathing. His hands went limp, and the paper bag containing the ham thudded heavily to the ground.
Old Kohler instinctively crouched to pick it up, but collapsed right there.
He pressed his hand against the bag of ham, struggling to pull it back toward his chest.
In that moment, he felt thick phlegm surge up, blocking his throat. He fought against it with all his might, producing sounds like a bellows being pumped.
Thud! Through his blurring vision, Old Kohler saw someone else collapse just a few steps away—gasping for breath, roughly his age, perhaps fifty or so, with graying temples.
In an instant, a moment of clarity struck him. He knew he was about to die.
It reminded him of his wife and children. They had fallen ill just the same—stricken suddenly by plague, dead within moments.
It reminded him of the time he had been hospitalized for an illness. His roommates had been chatting and laughing in the evening, only to be wheeled off to the morgue by morning.
It reminded him of the friends he had known when he was a vagrant. After a single winter, so many had disappeared. They were found stiff beneath bridges or in sheltered street corners. A small number died from the sudden acquisition of food.
It reminded him of the days when he had still been a decent worker, when neighbors in his district would die just as suddenly. Some died from headaches and convulsions, some accidentally fell into freshly molten steel, some died from agonizing bone pain and edema, and some simply collapsed silently inside the factory—batch after batch after batch.
It reminded him of something a drunkard had said in a bar, back when he had been gathering information. The man had said:
"People like us—we're like straws in a field. When the wind blows, we fall over. And even without the wind, we might just fall on our own"…
The wind has come… The thought flickered through Old Kohler's mind.
He clutched the paper bag of ham tighter with one arm while reaching into the pocket of his worn jacket with the other, trying to pull out that precious cigarette he had always been too reluctant to smoke—now crumpled beyond recognition.
What he could not understand was why he, a man in perfectly good health, should suddenly fall ill. It wasn't as though he had never experienced thick fog like this before.
What he could not figure out was why, just as his life was finally getting on track, heading in a direction that was good enough to be called beautiful—having received advance payment from Detective Moriarty, having bought a ham he had desired for so long to celebrate the New Year, eagerly anticipating savoring its taste—why he should suddenly collapse.
Old Kohler pulled out that crumpled cigarette, but his arm could no longer summon the strength to raise it. It struck the ground with a heavy thud.
He summoned every last ounce of his strength, trying to cry out the words that had accumulated in his heart, but could only let those weak syllables circle at the edges of his lips, unable to escape.
He heard his own last words.
He heard himself ask:
"Why?"
……
In an apartment on the edge of the East Borough.
Liv hung up the last piece of freshly laundered clothing and waited for it to dry.
She glanced at the sky outside. The fog, which had thickened at some unknown point, made it difficult to judge the time.
"Well, at any rate, it's still early, and our washing is all done…" Liv's expression gradually grew heavy.
Finishing work too early was not a good thing. It did not mean she could rest. It simply meant insufficient work, insufficient income.
Liv took a breath and turned toward her eldest daughter, Freya, who was wiping her hands and whose gaze kept drifting toward the vocabulary booklet on the table beside them.