Chapter 1: The Sealed One

How many years have passed since then, I wonder.

In the darkness, having lost his body, he once again questioned himself.
A question he had repeated countless times.
Even today, no answer comes.

Even though it should no longer exist, he can still feel the shape of his own form with strange clarity.
He feels neither hunger nor sleepiness at all.

There was a time when he longed for the warmth of a woman, but even that desire has now dispersed.
An unseen wall, unchanged as ever, continues to confine him today.

The days he spent laughing and living among the good-natured villagers now feel like an illusion.
Where, in the world, did I go wrong, I wonder.

Will the day when an answer comes ever arrive?

Crack.

He thought he heard a dry sound.

He strained his eyes in the darkness.
What he found was—a small crack.

It was a definite sound.
Within the seal that had seemed as though it would last forever, it was the first change.