The M-Prime residential district of the Monolith was unnervingly silent.

  Returning after so long, the air of the Monolith felt like a disposable product still in its wrapping—sterile, devoid of scent or warmth, simply drifting through the vacant space.

  Adin walked down the corridor, Sori circling around him.

  Paruru—

  Sori’s wing-ears gave a minute, sharp tremor. The creature had sensed a strange vibration in the air. It wasn't quite fear, but rather the trepidation one feels when encountering a grotesque entity for the very first time.

  Adin stopped and vanished into the shadows.

  Not far away, two men stood before a meticulously crafted sculpture. One appeared to be a Node residing in this district, but his mental state was far from normal.

  He was hunched over as if about to collapse, burying his face in both hands. He looked like a man drowning in his own skin, gasping for air amidst his own agony.

  The moans leaking through his fingers were the only impurities tainting the obsessive cleanliness of Ivory. A mass of self-pity and bottomless melancholy was swallowing him whole.

  "I am... nothing. Everyone in the world is laughing at me..."

  The Node’s muttering was wretched. That deep, self-destructive emotion seemed to soak the surrounding air in damp misery.

  And standing before him was a man Adin had never seen before.

  His name was Mimos.

  Rather than a mere observer of the Node’s misery, Mimos looked like an aesthete savoring the rarest perfume. He tilted his head slightly toward the Node’s near-dying shrieks.

  A bizarre sight caught Adin’s eye.

  Countless light sources from the ceiling illuminated Mimos, yet the shadow at his feet defied the laws of physics, spreading out in a perfect circle. The shadow rippled into dozens of petals, extending in a 360-degree radius like a black sunflower in full bloom.

  Mimos reached out slowly, very slowly, bringing his hand near the sobbing Node’s cheek. He didn't touch him, but the distance was so intimate it was almost a caress.

  "Charming. That wretched scent of yours."

  Mimos’s voice was so clear it sent a chill down Adin’s spine. It was the pure curiosity of one with a vacant heart.

  He didn't care whether the Node’s painful emotions were good or evil; he simply craved a 'temperature' to fill his own void.

  Suddenly, Mimos’s sunflower shadow surged violently, burrowing deep into the Node’s shadow.

  Shu-u-uk—

  Adin saw it. The damp, dark purple aura surrounding the Node was condensed in an instant into Mimos’s palm, as if sucked in by a vacuum.

  It was a theft. A spiritual pillaging.

  The Node’s sobbing stopped abruptly. He lifted his head blankly. As if the wretched depression that had been suffocating him had been carved out entirely, his eyes lost focus and turned hollow.

  Loss. A massive hole was punched through his chest, and he couldn't even tell what he had lost.

  On the other hand, a strange flush began to bloom on Mimos’s pale cheeks. He overlaid the Node’s miserable expression directly onto his own face.

  He now wore the face of the most pitiful man in the world, acting out a sorrow deeper than the Node he had just robbed. He licked his lips, savoring the stolen melancholy.

  Watching from afar, a cold shudder ran down Adin's spine.

  Mimos was one who used even painful emotions as ornaments. A predator colder than a corpse, satisfied only after filling his empty shell with the pus of others.

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  Mimos slowly turned his head toward the darkness where Adin was hiding. His dozens of shadows rippled like sunflower petals, seemingly lifting their heads toward Adin.

  Later, at the Heritage Garden.

  In the quiet air, Adin manipulated the humidity control panel while staring at the artificial sunlight breaking through the crystal leaves.

  Beside him, Leah was focused on her work, checking the nutritional status of ancient ornamental plants with refined movements. It was a peaceful routine, but Adin’s mind was occupied by the afterimage of that grotesque shadow in the corridor.

  Adin spoke in a nonchalant tone.

  "Leah, do you know anything about the man living in M-Prime 404?"

  The moment the question was asked, Leah’s hand froze for a fraction of a second. She looked up at Adin, and a flicker of unfamiliar wariness passed behind her usual gentle smile.

  "Ah, that man."

  Leah lowered her gaze and lowered her voice.

  "Almost no one in the Monolith knows him properly. No last name, no Node of origin... there isn't even a record of how he entered M-Prime. He appeared one day like a system error."

  Leah set down her tools, adding the strange sentiment shared by Ivory’s upper-class Nodes.

  "The only thing known is that he has... a lot of money. As if mocking the wealth built over lifetimes by Ivory’s old families, he pours in staggering amounts of capital, buying up the rules here one by one. But that’s all. He has no 'history'."

  Adin read a subtle tension in her words. For Ivory’s elite, having no past meant that an unknown impurity had blended into the system.

  "People seem to fear him."

  At Adin’s words, Leah nodded bitterly.

  "The people here love precise genealogies and transparent backgrounds. They don't seek connections with those they don't know. But because that man wields such overwhelming wealth, everyone watches him with a mix of caution and greedy fascination."

  Leah gently stroked Sori and looked deeply into Adin's eyes.

  "Why do you ask? Did you meet him?"

  Adin looked down at his own palm instead of answering.

  "Mmm... his shadow just looked a bit strange."

  Leah’s brow furrowed slightly.

  "It’s best not to get too close to him, Adin. In this Monolith, someone who lives without leaving a single trace... hides something that cannot be explained simply by being rich."

  Leah’s warning sank coldly through the peaceful air.

  Mimos, the man without a history. He was buying the order of the Monolith with money, but Adin instinctively knew that what he was truly stealing was something far more fundamental.

  Adin stood leaning against the railing of a high terrace in the Monolith.

  The artificial night air was cold, but everything in his head was in a state of disarray. Leah’s warning, the man without a history, and that grotesque theft of shadows—all of it tangled like a ball of yarn.

  He was about to turn back to his room.

  Thump.

  Adin froze at a strange weight felt from his feet.

  The intense lights of the terrace were shining from behind him, and someone was stepping on the end of his long shadow stretched across the floor.

  "You looked deep in thought, so I didn't want to disturb you."

  The voice from behind was so comfortable and soft that it instantly neutralized the wariness Adin had been harboring. Adin turned his head slowly.

  Mimos was standing there.

  The fear was fleeting. The cold instinct blooming within Adin instantly blew away the heat of emotion. Adin stood on the frigid air, staring at Mimos with an expressionless face.

  Mimos naturally approached Adin and rested his hands on the railing. His voice held an empathy that accurately gauged the other’s mood.

  To the point where Adin wondered if the grotesque unpleasantness he had felt before was an illusion, Mimos’s presence felt warm and harmless. Adin’s sharp intuition was wavering against his social charm.

  Mimos did not miss Adin’s flickering gaze. He chose a direct confrontation.

  "It’s because of my shadow, isn't it?"

  Mimos chuckled lightly, pointing to his feet.

  "It’s a bit different from others. Even under the perfect lighting of Ivory, these petals bloom as they please... It must have been quite creepy for someone seeing it for the first time, like yourself."

  The technique of dismantling the opponent’s guard by revealing one’s own secret first. By explaining Adin’s suspicion himself, Mimos took control of the conversation.

  At that moment, Adin felt his shadow being pulled taut from his toes.

  Mimos’s shadow touched Adin’s, and a tension vibrated underfoot as if an invisible hook were trying to snag Adin’s soul.

  Adin did not back down. He focused all his senses to feel the vacant soul beyond Mimos’s ornate and smooth words.

  Mimos felt a solid, intense attraction radiating from Adin. A 'dryness' that could not be stolen—the soul of this boy, where only the essence remained, was more tempting than any brilliant moment Mimos had ever collected.

  On the terrace where light and shadow intersected, the shadows of the ? beings twisted, pushed, and pulled against each other, letting out a silent scream.

  "Your shadow... it has no scent."

  Mimos whispered, stepping one inch closer. In his eyes flickered a deep, grotesque curiosity peculiar to one who had swallowed the lives of thousands.

  Adin heard the fragmented screams of countless Nodes within Mimos’s vacant eyes. A taut, invisible psychological war raged between them, threatening to freeze the very air.

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