Ajax stares at the face of Kinser, rather, the metal helmet of Kinser.

Ajax reaches for the surface of the helmet with his right hand, Kinser unmoving. He touches it.

The helmet feels... crisp... delicate... it seems like if he applies any force to it at all, it will crumble. It doesn’t feel cold at all to Ajax, but clearly it is.

It’s clearly frozen to an absurd degree.

Kinser is lying on top of Ajax. Water vapour is condensing on Kinser’s flash-frozen armour; the surface of it appears like Kinser had spent a minute in freezing rain.

Kinser is dead.

Ajax feels himself breathing faster.

Kinser is lying on top of him, frozen to death. There is no more life in him than in a brittle glass statue.

Ajax breathes in and out faster and faster.

Kinser, a man once containing heart and soul, a man who had tried to kill him. This same man is...

Ajax hyperventilates. The air gets colder in the room.

Ajax frantically pushes Kinser off of his body. Kinser’s body along with his heavy armour weighs like two Shaulas to Ajax. Yet Ajax throws him to his left, flipping his body over in the process.

He’s... he’s dead... I...

Ajax stands up from the ground, continuing to hyperventilate.

He doesn’t feel himself getting dizzy. He doesn’t feel like he’ll fall unconscious if he continues to do this.

Odd.

Ajax stands over Kinser’s corpse. When Ajax threw him off, Kinser’s frozen arms disconnected from his body, as if he were a broken toy.

“C-can’t y-you... c-can’t you help him or do something?”

Ajax speaks to Vonis, staring at him in deep fear.

“...wh-wha--”

“Th-There’s magic in this place, right? Is there... is there... healing magic?”

“N-n-n--”

“Come on! He c-can’t be dead! I can’t... I can’t be responsible for his death! I di... I didn’t mean to...”

Ajax kneels next to Kinser. He grabs Kinser’s severed left arm by the elbow joint with both hands. It feels hard and too light to be a grown man’s arm.

This is how it feels to an Ajax overflowing in power.

“Maybe... maybe I can... maybe I can reattach it...”

Ajax tries to force Kinser’s left arm back onto his exposed frozen shoulder. It doesn’t hold. Ajax applies more force.

If I can... if I can do at least this...

“Wh-what are... he’s d--”

“NO! No, he’s not, he can’t be!!”

Ajax tries more frantically. He applies even more force. Kinser’s right arm breaks where Ajax is holding it into the upper arm and lower arm.

As if it were cheap glass.

Ajax has... squeezed too hard.

He looks over at Vonis in horror.

“C-can’t you d-do... CAN’T YOU DO SOMETHING?!”

“N-no--”

“ISN’T THIS GUY YOUR FRIEND, WHY AREN’T YOU HELPING ME!?”

“B-bec-”

“HELP ME!!!”

“I can’t because he’s FUCKING DEAD!!! YOU FUCKING KILLED HIM!! HE’S DEADER THAN DEAD, YOU’VE FUCKING BUTCHERED HIM!!! YOU’VE BUTCHERED BOTH OF THEM!!”

Ajax freezes at her outburst.

It is at this moment when he acknowledges the frozen corpse of Creta besides Kinser. He’s frozen as well. His arms are severed too, as well as his lower legs. As well as his head.

Vonis falls to tears. She has just shouted at Ajax, an entity who could destroy her so easily. She slowly starts to grapple with the reality of her impending death.

Ajax however doesn’t move towards her. He doesn’t attempt to silence her. He doesn’t attempt to kill her for angering him.

He moves away from her and vomits.

He can’t taste any of the food he had for breakfast, only acidic stomach fluids. Actually, Kinser had ripped out his insides. The partially digested food had left his body through that other exit, it seems.

Ajax, not wanting to desecrate their corpses, had run to the destroyed bed and vomited into the hole in the mattress left by Kinser’s war hammer.

Ajax tries to push away the pain of having taken two lives.

Ajax then realizes that he’s been continuing to soak up the heat in this room. He can’t feel the room temperature but he can see Vonis shivering more and more.

If it gets any colder, Vonis would freeze to death. Ajax consciously turns off his absorption power. It comes easy to him. As simple as turning off a faucet.

That dream... the one before I woke up... it had... it had given me some of the knowledge to use this... whatever this is.

Ajax thinks about the pain. The excruciating pain he’s felt. He acknowledges the fact that Creta had destroyed his beating heart. He acknowledges the fact that Kinser had ripped out what looks to be his intestines and his liver on the floor next to Vonis.

He thinks about the pain of it all. The thought of the unbelievable pain allows him to take his mind off of his actions.

He looks down at his naked torso. No scars. No wounds. No scratches. Nothing. He looks over at a spot on his right forearm near to his elbow.

He had injured himself riding a bike once and the incident had left a small but visible scar there.

But, even that was gone.

His body is... perfect.

The pain I felt... how can I possibly get over that... why... why did he send us here... just to experience pain after pain after pain. The only consolation is that I can’t seem to... die... why do I have this power? I can’t feel heat or cold. I heal from any injury. I can absorb heat and... freeze people...

He starts to think it over, still trying to take his mind off of the nearby deaths. Ajax realizes.

Hold on a sec. I can... heal... I was stabbed in the heart... I should be d-dead... does that... does that mean... that Shaula could also still be alive!?

A ray of hope.

Ajax realizes that if he can heal, that perhaps death would be harder to meet for Shaula as well. The perfect thing to take his mind off of the death of Kinser and Creta.

Hope for the purpose of diversion.

“Hey, you! The woman, Shaula. Where is she? Tell me how to find her.”

“Wh-wh--”

“QUICKLY!! TELL ME WHERE SHE IS!! DON’T TEST ME RIGHT NOW!!!”

“Ok, ok!! O-open the door and turn left, g-go d-down the hallway and y-you’ll see a door at the end of it with a s-staircase. C-climb up it t-two floors and you’ll reach the third floor. I... oh no... I-I don’t remember... I don’t remember which door it is on th-the third floor... I-I think it’s close to the stairwell door... p-please d-don’t k-kill me, I don’t remember...”

Vonis starts trembling in panic but Ajax ignores her.

Ok, she’s on the third floor. I’ll just have to search every door up there.

She’s given him enough information. He can think about everything else after finding Shaula. He can’t do anything while her condition is unknown.

Ajax finally considers his nudity.

“Where are my clothes?”

Vonis raises her left hand slowly and points to a box at the footboard of Ajax’s destroyed bed.

Ajax walks over to the box and looks inside. The clothes he woke up in are there. A pair of red pants without pockets or zipper. Ajax didn’t recognize the material.

There is also a thick, white, long-sleeved shirt as well as a thick navy-blue, short-sleeve shirt. He grabs the long-sleeve shirt because he doesn’t really know the environment around the area of this facility he’s in. If he’s unprepared, he could be uncomfortably cold.

If Ajax is truly in a different world, for all he knows, the seasons could be different. It could be early spring or late fall.

He can see tall, green trees past the window that Kinser had shattered. There is no trace of snowfall and although he can’t feel any cold air through the opening in the windows, it’s possible that the temperature will change drastically at night.

Ajax still hasn’t acknowledged the fact that anything he touches can freeze to the lowest temperatures possible or the fact that he can’t feel or be hurt by flames that can melt iron in seconds.

In a state of odd denial, he tries to make decisions as if he is still a normal human with normal physiological demands. It’s his own coping mechanism.

Wait, no, this is good consideration for Shaula. She might not have my powers, she might not be immune to heat and cold... never mind...

His coping mechanisms are what he’ll have to make use of to deal with his entrance into this crucible. This hell he’s found himself in, away from his family, from everything he’s ever known.

Ajax puts on his white long-sleeved shirt and red pants. They fit him well. Ajax looks over at Vonis.

“...I wasn’t wearing this when I got here, right? Who dressed me while I was asleep?”

“I-I did...”

“Thank you. Thank you for taking care of me. But... you’ve said some nasty things about Shaula...”

Vonis looks at Ajax with shock and horror. Is this it? Is this the moment when she... dies? For her words against... against his beloved--

“...no, never mind, I’m in a hurry... We aren’t from this world. We aren’t spies... we’re not... like you...”

Ajax runs out of the room in a flash.

He enters a hallway. There are lines of doors on the left and right wall of this hallway. It looks like the corridor of an apartment building floor if all of the walls were made of drab concrete.

There is lighting in the form of brightly burning torches, distributed in even intervals along the hall. The construction seems not exactly shoddy but... primitive?

Ajax can see a door right at the end of the hallway a bit far from him. Every single other door is closed and there is no one walking down the path in front of him or behind him. No holy knights, no women dressed like Vonis, no archbishops...

Ajax disregards this fact. He prepares his body for a sprint. He turns on his energy absorption to feed off of the air in the hallway.

This will make him feel better. He’ll be distracted from the pain he’s experienced by a wonderful high.

Ajax takes his first step. He is propelled down the hallway like an olympic athlete.

Ajax runs at full speed down the hallway towards the staircase door. He runs faster than he’s ever run before.

As he runs, the torches fizzle out. He’s absorbed their warmth and made it his energy.

He reaches the door which says ‘Staircase’, opens it and finds a set of stairs up to higher floors and down to lower floors.

Huh... so I can even read this weird language. I’ve been speaking to everyone in this Omicron language so easily. I’m even thinking in it as if I lived here my whole life... This world is bizarre.

Ajax doesn’t feel at all tired after his quick sprint. He doesn’t feel out of breath at all.

In fact, he feels better than ever. The warmth of the air in the hallways (warmth that he can’t feel) has become his strength.

He shoots up two floors and opens the door to the third floor; the sign on the door indicates that it is the third floor.

He opens the door and sees the same torch set up. However, there is another brightness. Sunlight.

Every door in the hallway here is closed. Except one. Four doors ahead of him, on the left side of the hallway, Ajax sees an open door with light pouring out of it, illuminating the hallway.

Ajax has a feeling. A feeling of optimism. Of despair. Of vitality. Of weakness.

Multiple feelings in fact, all of them interfering constructively and destructively, turning his once stable mind into a jumbled mess of consciousness...

He walks slowly to the open door.

Will she be--