After a short nap, you leave your room and head toward the meeting location.
Lost in thought about Helentine's odd behavior this morning, you reach the same corner from earlier.
A familiar gust of wind rushes toward you—
(She stops in time.)
The collision averted just in time, you relax from your defensive stance.
Good afternoon, Commandant.
I'm ready.
The garden. There's something important there.
Helentine takes you by your hand, leading you through the labyrinthine garden until you finally arrive beneath a tall parasol tree.
The parasol tree towers overhead, its thick branches spreading wide and casting a vast canopy of shade. The tree has clearly been tended with care for many years.
You reminded me of something I need to do, Commandant.
She tosses you a shovel before using hers to prod at a marked patch of soil, gesturing for you to dig together.
Helentine moves with unexpected proficiency, her actions carrying a certain gravitas. She's rarely this serious about anything.
Hmm, the roots are tangled up here.
The parasol tree's roots are gnarled and twisted together. Helentine produces a chainsaw and cuts through the tangled mass until a corner of an intact metal box peeks through.
Unlike her earlier bold strokes, Helentine slows down as she nears the box, her movements growing more deliberate. You two work in silence, peeling away the soil layer by layer.
Removing the soil locked in place by the roots without damaging the fragile package buried beneath requires painstaking precision.
The shadow of the parasol tree's canopy shifts across you as time passes. Warmth lingers even in the shade, and before you know it, it is almost dusk.
Found it.
Her treasure turns out to be a large stainless steel box. Its surface is severely tarnished, with rust stains and corrosion covering the welded seams.
A director named Swan buried it with me when I was young.
She carefully cuts the box open, revealing several thick film reels wrapped in oil paper inside.
Helentine lifts the film reels from the oil paper, examining them. Her touch is feather-light, as though the slightest pressure might cause them to crumble.
They're ruined.
The films have faded. This isn't the way to preserve them. How could I have overlooked something so basic?
A breeze passes through the canopy, and the leaves rustle softly. Helentine stands motionless in the wind, staring vacantly at the yellowed films in her hands.
They're the original master reels of an unfinished movie.
The family used to invest in the film industry, so we were close with many well-known directors. Auntie Swan was the one I was closest to.
She's the one who got me interested in film.
Come sit next to me, Helentine. The film's about to start.
Coming, Auntie Swan! What are we watching today?
Young Helentine lugs over a cushion far too big for her, settling in beside Swan. The projector flickers to life, its beam cutting through the darkened room as images begin to dance across the screen.
Auntie Swan, why does this person keep staring at that person? The camera just stays there, even though there's no dialogue, and nothing's happening.
What do you think?
Is it an editing mistake?
It's not a mistake. Sometimes, just looking at someone is enough.
But I don't get it.
You'll meet someone ██ one day, and you'll feel whole just looking at this person. Then you'll understand.
The projector's beam begins to fade, replaced by the sunset filtering through the parasol tree. Helentine's eyes refocus on you.
She did, but it looks like they can't be played anymore.
They were a gift from Auntie Swan, but I didn't know film degraded over time back then.
What a shame.
It's called "Deviant Love". Auntie Swan made it based on her own romantic life.
It was also her last work.
I can't really recall the details of the plot, though it doesn't feel like I've forgotten them. It's like something was taken right out of the middle.
But I do remember how she was overwhelmed by grief when she got to the final scenes. She just stopped filming altogether.
The setting sun filters through the leaves, scattering golden fragments across you and the dirt-covered metal box. Helentine glances down at the box in her hands, then back up at you.
Would Auntie Swan really want that?
Auntie Swan, why are we burying the films?
It's so that it can remind ████■ when you grow up, Little Helentine.
Won't it be hard to dig up later if we bury it this deep under the parasol tree?
Some things only reveal their meaning when you work hard to uncover them yourself.
When you meet someone you ██, but don't know what to do about it, dig up this box together with █.
Auntie Swan made me promise to only retrieve the films with someone special. I don't think she wanted to bury her past.
Commandant, thank you for helping me dig this up.
Some of our family's guests are experts in that field as well. We can ask them when they arrive.
Beep beep beep beep—beep beep beep beep—
It's already 6:20 in the evening. I should head to bed now.
It's for my treatment.
If you don't mind, would you walk me back to my room, Commandant?
On the way back, Helentine seems far more relaxed and cheerful than usual, sharing amusing stories about her family.
Our lady has been acting rather peculiar lately. She seems far more at ease than before.
You walk Helentine to her door and help push it open. Through the gap, you glimpse a room with decor similar to the rest of the manor, except for one thing: the blue modulation pod in the center.
This is good enough. Thank you, Commandant.
After closing the door behind her, you head to the butler's lounge and find the head butler just finishing up his day's work.
You mean the one in our lady's room?
It's a custom modulation pod developed by the family. Recently, we noticed our lady has been exhibiting symptoms similar to alexithymia and struggling to identify and express emotions.
Clinically, patients with alexithymia can intensely experience emotions and physiological impulses, but they cannot identify, name, or verbally express what they're feeling.
The modulation pod helps our lady process her daily experiences, categorize her emotions, and identify what she's been actually feeling. This alleviates the alexithymia to some degree.
Do you think her recent peculiarities are connected to the modulation pod?
Thank you for your assistance, Gray Raven Commandant.
Meanwhile, the eerie blue light has flickered back to life in Helentine's darkened room after you left.
This afternoon didn't yield much progress, but there was an unexpected find... What Auntie Swan left behind might just come in handy.
Thanks to Auntie Swan, I think I know how to help you now, Nelly. But I'll need that commandant's full cooperation this time.
I'll set the stage tonight. Tomorrow... it begins.
