Chapter 40: Echoes of the Past

“Ah… ahhh…”
The girl’s plight was heartbreaking, but it was ultimately beyond Bronya’s ability to comfort her.
In fact, given her status, did she even have the right to offer such tenderness?

As everyone listened in silence, the girl murmured sorrowfully:
“Sister… sister… have you… finally abandoned me…?”
Her weak sobs gradually faded, and the warm light behind the window remained as dim as twilight.
No matter how much Bronya knocked on the window, seeking a response, all she received was deafening silence.

“……”
The two others present could see that Bronya’s mood had hit rock bottom.
Yet, no one could change the outcome of this tragic helplessness.

Only Venti spoke softly, suggesting, “Let’s go back to the place where the girl’s sister was last seen. Perhaps there are still echoes there.”
These words made Bronya look up at him, her bloodshot eyes filled with deep grief.

“You… you knew about her existence from the beginning, didn’t you?”
Venti simply nodded.
“I’ll explain the details later.”

From the start, he had no intention of hiding it. In fact, Seele’s earlier remark about the “carefully chosen path” had already hinted at his intentions.
Bronya’s mood sank, and she turned her gaze back to the small house, now devoid of its warm light, as if bidding it farewell.

However, before leaving, she noticed a small music box hidden in the shadows beneath the windowsill.
This seemed to be the source of the music box melody she had heard earlier.

Bronya opened the music box and found an old, yellowed portrait inside.
The face in the portrait had faded with time, but from the Silvermane Guard armor the figure wore, she could tell it was someone of lieutenant rank.

An officer of this level would have been sent to the frontlines over a decade ago to fight in the counterattack. Many Silvermane Guard officers lost their lives in that bloody battle.
This one… was likely no exception. A soldier who had been willing to sacrifice everything for the Supreme Guardian to protect his comrades and homeland had, in death, received no compensation.

His family lived in the dark and lightless lower district, surviving only by scavenging in the dangerous Fragmentum for food, until they eventually vanished into the Fragmentum...

Bronya silently turned the stiff music box key, but all she heard was the uneasy melody of the nearly broken mechanical structure grinding against itself.
Then, the gears stopped, and the bitter melody came to an abrupt end, much like its owner.

This misfortune and the melody intertwined to form a profound sense of loss.
Bronya pursed her lips, put the music box away, and set off once more.

With Venti’s ability to ride the wind, they took the optimal route from above and soon arrived at the scrapyard they had visited earlier.
Beside a large, rusted garbage bin emitting a cold aura, they found the person—or rather, the spirit from the past—they were looking for.

A woman with an anxious expression paced back and forth.
“…Excuse me, are you looking for someone?”
Though she had a premonition, Bronya couldn’t help but ask.

“Ah, yes. My sister… she ran away from home! I’ve been searching everywhere, but I can’t find her…”
The young woman with short blue hair frustratedly held her forehead, clearly worried about her sister’s whereabouts.
“My sister is very frail, and she can’t see… If something happens to her out there alone, what should I do?”

As she spoke, she regretfully clenched her fists and began pounding her head, muttering softly:
“Ahh… I’m such a failure of a sister. How could I let this happen?”

To the three of them, this anxious aura confirmed that she was indeed the girl’s sister.
However, her words didn’t align with what the girl had said earlier.

Bronya instinctively took out the broken music box. As soon as she did, the sister, who had seemed on the verge of breaking down, froze.
“……”
Her gaze became almost vacant as she stared at the music box in Bronya’s hand.

“…This is… our music box…”
Her hand reached out and took the music box, then held it to her ear. Her anxious expression turned calm.
“Ah… listen, my dear sister… how pleasant, how…”

“Welcome… home…”
As if the spirit residing in the music box also longed for reunion, the three of them could faintly hear the girl’s weak voice.
Only then did the sister’s haggard face show a trace of relieved smile.

“Ah… I’m back…”
Before she could finish, the smile vanished—just as she herself dissolved into the Fragmentum.

Bronya instinctively reached out to grab her but found nothing.
After a while, she dejectedly withdrew her hand and asked softly:
“They… really existed, didn’t they?”
“Of course.”
Venti confirmed.

“Then why… did they reappear in this form?”
The young girl’s gaze, hidden beneath her hair, was exceptionally dim.

“It’s related to the Fragmentum, or rather, the Stellaron.”
Venti looked out over the empty and lifeless Fragmentum, his voice somewhat ethereal.
“The Stellaron gives rise to the Fragmentum, transforming the things and spaces it touches into special Fragmentum constructs. At the same time, besides erosion, the Fragmentum also records the aetheric information of the things it contacts, preserving it in a data-like form.”

As Seele struggled to keep up with their conversation, Venti sighed softly.

“Just like the Fragmentum constructs created through erosion and grafting, these spirits from the past have also formed echoes. They appear suddenly, at unknown times and places, reenacting the things they once did.”
“…So, when people cleaning up the battlefield saw figures from the past, it wasn’t hallucinations, but echoes?”
Bronya haltingly replied.

“Correct. These illusions constructed from echoes will proliferate with the Fragmentum until the phenomenon ends.”
“In other words, to set them free… we must deal with the Stellaron that gives rise to the Fragmentum?”
“Well… I’d like to say yes, but the Stellaron hasn’t been fully analyzed yet. And the Fragmentum phenomena activated by it haven’t been fully explored either, so I can’t give you a definitive answer.”

More importantly, even if the Stellaron were contained, the eroded Fragmentum phenomena wouldn’t disappear immediately.
The scars left by the cancer of the worlds would require a long time for the world itself to slowly heal. But Fragmentum would inevitably remain as a scar from this process.

As for the spirits trapped here… No, rather than being trapped, they are actually illusions fabricated by the Fragmentum’s erosion— shadows of the past.
These toys used by the Fragmentum to toy with the emotions of the living can only be unaffected by either fulfilling their wishes, allowing them to find peace, or simply ignoring them as echoes in an empty valley.

After explaining this to Bronya, her expression improved slightly, though she still seemed sorrowful.
Her grief wasn’t just for the sisters. Many, many people in the lower district had experienced similar tragedies.
What she had glimpsed was only the tip of the iceberg of the horrors inflicted on the lower district by her mother’s abandonment and the Fragmentum’s erosion.

Only now did she understand that becoming a qualified Supreme Guardian was far more complicated than she had imagined.