Early morning light broke over the jagged peaks of the mountain edge, casting a warm, golden hue across the steep slopes overlooking the city below.
Kurt stood alone at the edge of the blackened crater left by Darwin's violent explosion. His mana had recovered sufficiently overnight for him to walk and think clearly, though a faint, dull fatigue still lingered deep in his bones.
He looked down into the blackened pit, his single dark eye narrowing in quiet sorrow as he lamented Darwin's tragic, senseless end.
'Ah, crap… First Peter, now you. Darwin. I didn't know you two long, but I knew you well enough to understand that you didn't deserve to go out the way you did.
'He, an innocent priest and loving grandfather, and you… you were just an innocent front deskman working for a hotel. Looking like you never harmed a soul, you were polite, helpful, and completely ordinary.
'And they turned you into a disposable puppet... a human bomb just to throw at us.'
