The air in the room seemed to freeze.
The flickering candlelight cast swaying shadows between Steve and the girl, making this sudden midnight visit even more like an absurd drama.
Caren didn't respond, simply staring at him with her clear, cold golden eyes that were unsuited to her age, as if evaluating an incomprehensible ancient relic.
Steve's calm smile remained unchanged, as if he had anticipated her silence.
He maintained a playful composure, lightly flicking his wrist in an exaggerated gesture reminiscent of a street magician.
Ether began to gather in the air, golden magical dust dancing like fireflies behind him, swirling and finally solidifying.
However, what emerged from the light was not a cute star-shaped magical staff embedded with jewels.
A deep, metallic buzz shattered the silence.
Steve suddenly produced a weapon filled with violent aesthetics, utterly unfit for the term "magical girl."
It was a massive crimson meteor hammer, its head covered in jagged spikes as if forged from congealed blood.
A heavy silver chain connected the hammer's head to the handle gripped in his hand. The chain reflected the candlelight coldly, making a heavy metallic scraping sound with every slight movement.
The presence of this weapon instantly robbed the room of its already faint warmth.
Instead, a cold, steel-like atmosphere permeated.
However, Steve lifted the heavy weapon as lightly as if it were a bouquet of roses, rattling the chain, his smile growing brighter and filled with suspicious charm.
"You don't have to be so wary."
His voice was as gentle as coaxing a child to eat disliked vegetables, but combined with the weapon that could easily crush a skull, that gentleness twisted into extreme grotesqueness.
"Look, this is the certificate for becoming a magical girl, right? A design I specially customized, inspired from another world, combining destructive power and beauty."
"Just sign this contract, and not only will you be freed from daily suffering, but you'll also gain such immense power... Won't you seriously consider it?"
Steve enthusiastically swung the flail, the resulting gust causing the candle flames to flicker wildly, nearly extinguishing.
The girl's silver hair fluttered slightly in the wind, but her expression remained as calm as a still lake.
She looked at Steve, then at the ominous "magical staff" in his hand, and remained silent for a full 10 seconds.
During those 10 seconds, she seemed to be using her small brain to perform some kind of ultra-high-speed logical analysis, trying to understand all the extremely strange and wonderful things before her.
Finally, she reached a conclusion.
Her cherry-colored lips parted slightly, and the sound that emerged was like the cold stone slabs of a winter church.
"I refuse."
"And, has your brain been eaten by a demon?"
Her talent for sharp-tongued remarks was already emerging.
However, the moment she finished speaking, Steve's expression changed dramatically, reminiscent of a opera face-changing act.
That playful, mischievous smile vanished without a trace in an instant.
Instead, there was a deep stillness and gentleness like a sea of stars.
The meteor hammer in his hand also turned into particles of golden light, quietly dissipating into the air as if it had never existed.
With that, the cold, heavy atmosphere in the room vanished.
Steve let out a small sigh, mixed with self-mockery and a slight approval of her sharp reflexes.
"Sorry... This joke wasn't funny, it seems."
His voice changed too.
No longer frivolous and seductive, it became steady and clear, with undeniable sincerity in every syllable.
Steve took half a step forward and quietly met her gaze.
"My name is Steve Weis, Caren Ortensia."
"I'm not here to mock you, but to offer you a choice."
"A true choice to be freed from suffering."
He stared into her unwavering golden eyes and continued.
"I know well what your life will become if things continue like this."
"You will become a perfect tool, a vessel to bear others' sins and pain."
"You will be called a 'saint,' but behind that sanctity hides the suffering of being possessed by demons that erode your mind and body day by day."
"You will gain the power to exorcise demons. However, to obtain that power, you will taste a thousand times the suffering of an ordinary person."
"Your life will be defined by the words 'devotion' and 'sacrifice,' but you will never live for yourself."
Steve's words lacked any emotion, as if recounting a history already written.
But it was this lack of emotion that made the statement more realistic and cruel.
For the first time, Caren's pupils contracted slightly.
Because what he said most accurately reflected what she had experienced and what she was about to experience.
"What I've done doesn't come from a savior's sense of superiority."
"I believe a child's life shouldn't have its ending decided before it even begins."
"Your life lacks something decisive: the ability to choose."
"You can only passively accept all of this, even taught to regard this pain as honor."
"This is... too tragic."
Steve paused for a moment to give her time to understand what he said.
He saw her fingers gripping the Bible tightly, her knuckles turning slightly white from the force.
Even if, in the future, she chose the path of thorns by her own will, it should be the result of her "choice," not the "only" outcome.
"Before that, I want to give you more options."
"A child like you should have the right to pursue your own happiness."
"This is the most basic and natural thing in the world."
Steve's gaze swept across the simple room and finally returned to her face.
"If the guardians who should teach and protect you are neglecting their duties for various reasons and can't give you this most basic right... then this meddlesome outsider will give it to you on their behalf."
Silence.
This silence was longer than any before.
The candle flames burned quietly, making soft crackling sounds.
A crack finally appeared on the girl's face, which had been as calm as an icy lake.
It wasn't fear or surprise, but a complex emotion mixed with confusion and emotion that she herself couldn't understand.
She had never heard such words before, nor had anyone stood in her position and said, "You have the right to pursue happiness."
In her world, enduring pain was a duty and the meaning of her existence.
The man before her had started talking in the most absurd way but, with the most sincere words, shaken the foundation of her worldview.
Her small heart busily tried to find loopholes in his words, to classify him as another "demon" with ulterior motives.
...But she failed.
That overwhelming kindness was pure and unadulterated, so irresistible that she couldn't refuse or argue against it.
She held the Bible, lowered her head, her long silver-white hair hanging down, hiding her expression.
After a while, she asked her final question in a voice almost inaudible.
This question was her last logical line of defense.
"...Why?"
She looked up, confusion in her golden eyes.
"Why go so far for a complete stranger like me?"
Steve maintained a calm and serious expression, looking at her with eyes filled with curiosity and confusion, as if about to state the most significant truth in the world.
He answered her.
An answer that transcended theology, logic, causality, and even common sense.
"Because..."
Steve paused slightly, freezing the air in the entire room.
"I feel like you could become my mother."
"..."
In that instant, time stopped.
All expressions on Caren Ortensia's face—confusion, agitation, wariness—froze in an instant.
Then, they shattered like glass, leaving only pure and complete blankness.
Her mouth opened slightly, her extraordinarily intelligent golden eyes lost focus, as if her soul had been blasted out of her body by this incomprehensible statement.
Her brain, precocious and resilient enough to analyze theological texts and endure demonic corruption, completely shut down in this moment.
She was completely plunged into a logical abyss by this shocking and bizarre remark, frozen in place like a delicate doll.
PS: The heck?