A monster follows the traces left on a letter, searching for proof that someone was once here.
Lians doesn't know what tears are. But after the hero Noah died, she put his letter beneath her pillow, just as she always did.
It read: "There's a flower in the corner, called a rose. It reminds me of you."
"It reminds me of you."
Following the place names in the letter, she traveled from one place to the next. At every stop, someone remembered him. The empire had forgotten him, but in every corner touched by his letters, he was still alive.
Someone told her that when the hero got drunk, he would always talk about one person.
"That person never cries."
"But she was the reason I wanted to become a hero for the first time."
Later, she saw a rose growing in the corner of an old wall. It was exactly like the one drawn in the letter. She crouched down but didn't pick it. She only watched as it swayed gently in the wind, then stood upright again. She sat beside it for a long time.
A rose no one had ever watered finally understood why it had bloomed. He had been shining on her all along. She had simply never noticed.
