"For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love."

  — Carl Sagan, Contact

  A warm spring came.

  Even in the ice age prophesied by the ancients, spring arrived.

  The snow began to melt. Water flowing down from the palace spires soaked the stone steps. No one drank that water. The kingdom had fallen, and the lords had disappeared. The survivors scattered. What happened in the Audience Chamber and the banquet hall became a rumor and spread across the continent. The curse of the jar. The invisible flame. Stories of the blue light that brings death were exaggerated, and the royal palace became a forbidden zone. Paradoxically, that protected the capital of the royal palace. Few aimed for this ice kingdom. There was nothing to gain compared to the effort required, and above all, fear overcame greed.

  Ari took Eren and went down south. It was her hometown. A small village. An old house on a hill. The villagers recognized her.

  "The Witch of the Jar has returned."

  But no one chased her away. After the kingdom fell, people were busy. It didn't matter who was a witch and who was a scholar. Surviving was what mattered. The house was empty. Ari's teacher had already passed away, and only books remained on the shelves, covered in dust.

  Eren lay on the bed. His left arm was gone. The amputation surgery had taken place two months ago. Right before leaving the royal palace, a remaining healer had come with a saw and an iron. The necrosis was spreading past his wrist up to his elbow.

  "If we wait any longer, we will have to cut up to the shoulder."

  The healer's voice was dry.

  Ari held Eren's hand. The hand that was not necrotic.

  "It's okay."

  Eren said.

  "There's no way it's okay."

  "Still, it's okay."

  The surgery was fast. The screams were long.

  Kadan died, and Eren lived. But he was not the same as before. He could move. He could walk, sit, and drink water. However, he grew fatigued easily. He would lose his breath after walking just a little, and he had to rest for a long time after climbing stairs.

  "I feel old."

  One evening, Eren said with a smile.

  "And I'm not even thirty yet."

  Ari did not answer. She looked at the burn scars remaining on his face. The red marks on his scalp where hair no longer grew... The trembling of his right hand, which had not necrosed but had not fully recovered either...

  "I'm sorry."

  Ari said.

  "For what?"

  "I misinterpreted it. I opened the jar. I..."

  "Ari."

  Eren cut her off.

  "If it weren't for you, I would have died a long time ago."

  "Even so..."

  "There is no 'even so'. You saved me. Although you couldn't save the kingdom."

  Silence flowed.

  "The kingdom was already finished."

  Eren added.

  "Even before we opened the jar. From the moment Kadan decided to bring it here."

  Ari gave up her research. Ancient artifacts, ancient scripts, theories—she laid them all down. Instead, she recorded.

  When she woke up in the morning, she sat at her desk. She spread out parchment, dipped her pen in ink, and wrote things down one by one.

  About the jar.

  About the blue light.

  About the invisible death called Radiation.

  The things she saw.

  The things she understood.

  The things she did not understand.

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  Kadan's greed.

  The lords' ignorance.

  The scholars' arrogance.

  And her own mistakes.

  At first, she wrote like a technical report. Dryly. Objectively. Excluding emotions... But she could not do that.

  The night Eren screamed, the moment the healer cut off his arm, the sight of Kadan dying while gasping for breath, the spire she looked back at from inside the carriage leaving the royal palace—she recorded it all.

  "Is this the right thing to do?"

  One day, Ari asked.

  Eren was slowly reading the parchment she had written.

  "What is?"

  "Leaving a record. The ancients erased all records. Because they judged that to be the best course of action."

  Eren set the parchment down.

  "But are we wiser than the ancients?"

  He asked.

  "Erasing the records was what the ancients came up with. Looking tens of thousands of years ahead."

  "I don't know either."

  Ari answered.

  "Do you think the ancients knew something like this would happen? That fools like us would appear?"

  "Fools always appear."

  Eren laughed.

  "The problem is, fools don't know they are fools."

  Ari looked at Eren. The scars still remaining on his cheek and head. But he was smiling.

  "Still, since the ancients failed, we have to try a different method."

  Ari said.

  "You said it yourself. If the reason of the ancients was always right, they would have predicted and avoided the severance of civilization too."

  Eren burst into laughter as if he remembered something.

  "What's so funny?"

  "Your expression when you ran off right after saying that."

  "It's not a joke."

  "That's why it's funnier."

  Ari chuckled as well.

  "We are really something."

  Eren said.

  "We destroyed an entire kingdom. Like heroes in a legend."

  "Usually, heroes save kingdoms."

  "We did the opposite. And we did it spectacularly."

  "We weren't the ones who destroyed the kingdom."

  Ari said quietly.

  "Arrogance destroyed it. If we had done it, we would have become kings by now."

  "Right."

  Eren nodded.

  "Because it crumbled from arrogance, the throne simply vanished."

  Spring deepened.

  The grass on the hill grew. The sound of children's laughter returned to the village. Eren recovered little by little. He still tired easily, but he became able to go outside the house and bask in the sunlight.

  Sometimes he would go down to the village and chat with the children.

  "Mr. Wizard!"

  The children called to him.

  "Show us some magic!"

  Eren smiled and waved his hand.

  "Magic is dangerous. You shouldn't use it."

  "Why?"

  "If you do it wrong, you lose an arm."

  He showed them his empty sleeve. The children closed their mouths in surprise.

  "I'll tell you a story instead."

  Eren said.

  "Once upon a time, there was a foolish kingdom..."

  Summer came.

  Ari's records grew thick. She gathered the fragmented materials she had brought from the royal palace. Pieces of records from the ancient civilization.

  Fragments of warnings scattered here and there. And she compiled them into a single document.

  "On the Jar: The Legacy of the Ancients and Our Arrogance"

  She wrote in the preface:

  "To you who are reading this record.

  That you are reading this means that we failed. The ancients erased all records. We ignored that and dug them up. What will you choose?"

  The final page of the document. Ari hesitated for a long time.

  'What should I write.'

  'What kind of warning should I leave.'

  'What words could stop someone in the future.'

  Eren sat next to her.

  "Are you done writing?"

  "Only the last line is left."

  "What are you going to write?"

  Ari picked up her pen. She dipped it in ink. And she wrote.

  "Do not open. Those with arrogance shall perish."

  "Is this the best?"

  Ari asked.

  "I don't know."

  Eren answered.

  "But this is all we can do."

  That autumn.

  Ari printed three copies of the completed document.

  One for the small library in her hometown village.

  One for the public archives in the southern port city.

  One for a wandering storyteller.

  "Why give this to me?"

  The storyteller asked.

  "A storyteller refusing a new story?"

  Ari smiled gently and added,

  "You travel around telling stories. I want this to spread far and wide."

  "But this isn't a story, it's a warning."

  The storyteller took the document. After looking at it for a moment, he replied.

  "A warning is also a story. It's just a story that no one wants to hear."

  The storyteller sighed.

  "Well, I can't always tell entertaining stories, so I will pass it on. To everywhere I can go."

  Winter arrived once again.

  Eren's condition neither improved nor worsened.

  He still tired easily, and he was still missing an arm. But he could smile, he could walk, and he was alive. One snowy night, the two were sitting in front of the fireplace.

  "Ari."

  Eren called.

  "Yeah?"

  "Will what we did have any meaning?"

  "I don't know."

  Ari answered honestly.

  "Maybe no one will read it. Maybe even if they read it, they'll ignore it."

  "Then what?"

  "Even so."

  Ari said.

  "We did it. What we could do."

  Silence flowed.

  "That's enough."

  Eren said. Snow fell outside the window. It was a silent night. Ari held Eren's hand. It was warm.

  "You know?"

  Eren said.

  "What?"

  "I still think you are a wizard."

  "Why?"

  "You saved me."

  Eren smiled.

  "That alone is magic enough."

  Ari felt like she was going to cry. But she held it back.

  "I'm thankful to you too."

  "For what?"

  "For staying with me to the end."

  "Where would I go."

  Eren laughed.

  "I'm a guy with one leg. I can't go far."

  "It's an arm, an arm."

  "Ah, right. It's an arm."

  They both laughed. A few years later. Ari's document slowly spread.

  Some scholar read it,

  Some lord copied it,

  Some monastery stored it.

  Most of it was forgotten. Part of it became legend. A very small portion was taken as a warning. Was that enough?

  No, it was not enough. But it was better than doing nothing.

  Eren died at thirty-two.

  Peacefully, as if falling asleep. Ari buried him on the hill.

  In a place overlooking their hometown, she wrote this on his tombstone:

  "Eren, Wizard and Witness, The man who smiled to the end"

  Ari lived for a long time after that.

  She kept recording.

  She kept warning.

  She kept testifying.

  She didn't know who would listen,

  But she spoke anyway. Because,

  "That's what a witness does."

  Eren had said that. And he was right.

  When Ari died, the final record found in her house was written like this:

  "To the ancients, we defied your will. We ask for forgiveness. To someone in the future, we will not be able to stop you. We ask for forgiveness.

  But even so, we leave this record behind.

  Believing that someone will learn.

  Believing that someone will stop.

  No, I do not believe it.

  I only hope.

  Even if that is arrogance,

  It is better than silence."

  — Ari, Witch of the Jar and the Last Witness

  Spring came again.

  The snow melted.

  The grass grew.

  On the hill, two tombstones.

  The wind brushed past.

  The world continued.

  The records remained.

  Someone will read them.

  Someone will ignore them.

  Because that is what humans do.