No one truly knew—gathering positive Memory Banks was like mining light in a world constantly brewing storms.
Meanwhile, wounds, disappointment, and anger... they needed no invitation.
They came on their own.
And they stayed.
When his eyes caught sight of the girl, Knnight didn't know what he should feel.
There was a fleeting warmth... but also a bitterness that cut deep.
That moral dilemma didn't just shake his heart—it fanned the embers that had long been buried.
Memory Bank: Anger — it grew, slowly but surely, from fragments of unexplainable frustration.
Frustration because he could feel... something.
Frustration because the emotion was shapeless, hazy, yet undeniably real.
His body had given up.
His breaths were ragged, as if the world itself denied him air.
His soul had long since been wounded.
Yet even as he crawled through despair, he still searched—for a shred of positive memory, no matter how faint its light.
Not for power.
But to remain human.
Because only he knew: the price of the Law of Remnant... was sanity itself.
His body shattered. His soul torn. His mind barely holding on.
Yet Knnight persisted—gripping onto whatever warmth remained in his memories, resisting the tidal wave that threatened to destroy him.
In front of that girl—for the first time—he succeeded.
He held the collapse at bay.
He refused to surrender his will to nature.
He—a man on the verge of falling—remained standing.
Silent. Wounded. But—
Still standing.
---
But the world rarely allowed small victories to last.
Because just as Knnight drew a shaky breath—trying to stabilize his trembling mind—
—the front door creaked again.
BRAAK!!
"YOU BLOODY PIECE OF SH*T!!!"
Knnight reflexively turned around.
The dark aura that had almost dissipated now flared up again from the shock of that voice.
The girl who had asked to come inside, who had seemed harmless at first... was now stomping across the room with the fury of someone angry at every tile on Earth.
It was her.
The girl who appeared in the middle of the storm.
The girl now glaring at Knnight with a scowl so intense, even the Remnanctum couldn't contain it.
"LIKE I CARE IF THIS PLACE IS HAUNTED, CURSED, OR A FREAKIN' DEMON'S DUMPSTER—
AS LONG AS THERE'S NO HYPOCRITE GUYS HERE, I'M STAYING!!"
Knnight simply stared. Then calmly asked:
"...Did you just get dumped?"
She turned sharply, eyes red, nose running from unshed tears... and waved the flashlight she was holding like a weapon at the air.
"NO! I'M JUST—DEEPLY MOVED!!"
She sobbed briefly, then screamed:
"SO MOVED WHEN I CAUGHT MY BOYFRIEND TEXTING OTHER GIRLS USING A GHOST ACCOUNT—AND HIS USERNAME WAS 'LOYALTY KING 88'!!"
There Knnight stood, soul on the brink of shattering—completely frozen by the absurdity of her emotions.
"He said, 'I wasn't cheating, it was just for social research.'"
"RE—RESEARCH?! RESEARCHING WHAT—THE SHAPES OF HOT GIRLS' LOVE?!"
Knnight didn't know whether to laugh, hug her, or just leave.
All he knew was this:
She hadn't come to destroy the world.
She had come to destroy his solitude.
He sighed and said:
"...You do realize... you're standing in an emotional minefield strong enough to collapse this whole building, right?"
Lily glanced around, then casually sat on the dusty floor.
"If this place is going down because of anger, then fine.
My heart collapsed way earlier anyway."
Deep inside, the Remnanctum within Knnight shivered.
Because that day, for the first time...
the wave of emotions he felt wasn't pure destruction,
but something absurdly fragile—
called heartbreak.
And that—wasn't written anywhere in the Law of Remnant.
---
Lily sat cross-legged on the cracked, cold floor, using a piece of torn plastic as a mat.
Knnight still stood, like a statue in a museum of shattered emotions.
Whether it was the Remnanctum's lingering storm...
or simply because he genuinely didn't know what to say—
he didn't move.
"You know," Lily said, swinging the flashlight in her hand.
"I found this place because it looked creepy.
'The Cursed Building That'll Never Sell Until Doomsday'—
perfect title for my love life."
Knnight turned slightly.
Inside him, the Remnanctum rumbled—hesitating between laughing or rejecting the absurdity.
"And why'd you still come in?"
"Because Online Maps glitched. Then I started crying in the street. So I thought, screw it, I'll crash somewhere.
If this place's haunted, maybe at least a ghost would join me crying."
Knnight sighed.
The world was insane.
But this—
this was a whole new level of absurd emotional disaster he never signed up for.
"...And you found me. Not a ghost."
Lily gave him a sideways glance.
"True... but the vibe's kinda similar."
Knnight frowned.
"Did you come here just to insult me?"
"No," she said, tossing her small bag into the corner.
"I came to run away.
But maybe... I ran to the wrong place."
Her voice softened for the first time—genuine, fragile.
"I'm just tired...
Tired of hoping.
Tired of pretending I'm fine.
Tired of being seen as strong, while inside...
I'm like an old locker about to collapse at the back of the school."
Knnight stared.
Heartbreak. Disappointment. Injustice. Shame for looking foolish.
All of it—too familiar.
It was the very fuel of Remnanctum.
"You know," he said quietly.
"This place... doesn't reject broken people.
But it doesn't guarantee they'll leave whole either."
Lily looked at him.
Then smiled faintly, even as her eyes stayed red.
"Good.
I'm not looking for salvation.
Just a place that's... honest."
Somehow, for the first time in forever,
Knnight didn't feel alone.
Not because someone understood his suffering.
But because someone sat with him amid the ruins—
not to save him,
but to simply stay.
---
Somehow, in that fragile silence, the two eventually climbed the rickety stairs to the second floor—
seeking a slightly safer spot from the rain.
Silence blanketed the upper floor.
Only the sound of rain and the whistling wind through broken windows filled the air.
Lily sat against the cracked wall, hugging her knees to her chest.
She looked exhausted, but not scared.
Like someone who had long stopped caring whether tomorrow would be sunny or a complete disaster.
Knnight stood a few feet away, half-hidden in the shadows.
His mind was a tangled mess.
"That face...
the school uniform...
the way she tied her hair...
even her eyes."
But he knew—
Lily was not Elara.
Elara would never have appeared out of nowhere, asking to come in just to escape the rain.
Elara...
was long gone from his life.
Whether erased by time, or buried deep within the Remnanctum.
"Hey," Lily suddenly broke the silence.
"You still haven't answered.
Can I crash here for the night?"
Knnight paused.
He should've refused.
He should've stayed cold and distant like always.
But...
Those eyes.
The same eyes of someone he once vowed to protect.
Even if now... they were just a pale reflection of the past.
"...Do whatever you want," he finally muttered.
"But don't blame me if you have nightmares."
Lily grinned.
"Relax.
My life's already a living nightmare."
Knnight almost choked at her absurd reply.
"And don't ask too many questions," he added.
"This place... doesn't like questions."
"Same," Lily murmured as she laid down.
"I'm tired of asking why people keep hurting me anyway."
Inside him, the Remnanctum trembled softly—
reacting to the absurd, bittersweet wound she carried.
Knnight slid down to sit against the wall, a few meters away from her.
His gaze wandered to the cracked, blackened ceiling.
"She's not Elara."
"But why...
why do I feel like I need to protect her, even just for one night?"
Deep within his soul, the raging tides of the Remnanctum began to calm—
because for the first time, Knnight felt a possibility not just to survive,
but to rebuild.