Bab 59: Visiting Instructor [3]

Perhaps it was intentional. Or perhaps it wasn't, given that the guide never accounted for the lives of NPCs.

It was just a game, after all.

It was just a game, but….

——That's my boy…. that's my boy in there….

A woman stood by the edge of the grave. 

——Mom…. why isn't Dad coming back home?

A young girl, no older than ten, asked.

On the other side of the cemetery, a young man knelt in front of a different headstone.

——You promised, brother…. You said you'd be there at my graduation, remember? You said it like it was nothing. So why? Why aren't you here?

It was a funeral.

A funeral for the guards who lost their lives in the Index incident.

They weren't just NPCs anymore. They had stories. They had lives. They had families waiting for them.

A line of uniforms stood in silence. Fellow guards of the Index Prison. Their hands were raised in a salute while the rain soaked into their uniforms.