Wallmond, a nomadic city of Leithanien, is famous for being unusually generous to the Infected — generous enough to provide them their own clinics and housing.

But in that very city, Rhodes Island's doctor Atro had gone silent for a month. Her close colleague Folinic, after twenty hours holed up in the comms room waiting for word, finally heads for Wallmond herself, bringing her junior Suzuran along.

The moment they arrive, the worst news lands on them: a 'Catastrophe' had struck the village where Atro was last seen, a month ago.

Wallmond's name literally means "the Eighth Moon," a nomadic city that once formed a bustling commercial district in western Leithanien alongside seven neighboring cities — until a massive canyon called the Grand Rift appeared and changed everything.

1. The Smoking Slacker Turns Out to Be the Governor

The first person Folinic and Suzuran run into in Wallmond is a rude middle-aged man clocking out with a cigarette in his mouth. He points out the general direction and walks off without a second glance.

It turns out that man was none other than Severin Hawthorne, governor of Wallmond — someone who could brazenly claim "I've already clocked out" with a straight face.

Leithanien is famous as a nation that treats the Infected generously. But to Folinic's eyes, that 'generosity' looked suspicious somehow — the shops and cafés long shuttered, the Infected quarter standing empty.

Severin's aide Tatiana shows up late to guide the two of them to the council hall. But the way she calls Severin 'Minister' every single time, with almost excessive formality, hinted at some story behind it.

In truth, that very morning Severin had come back from a defeat at the village council. Against the decision to bury the Infected dead outside the village with no funeral rites, he alone had held out, refusing to let that happen to his dead son.

2. "This Isn't a Disappearance — It's a Murder"

A protest erupts in Zwölfton Street, the Infected quarter, and Folinic and Suzuran end up helping quell it before they know it. Only then does Severin reluctantly open his mouth.

A fire broke out at the makeshift Infected clinic Atro had set up, and her whereabouts have been unknown ever since. Eight people died — four village residents, Severin's only son Thorvald, and three Infected.

At Severin's claim of a 'simple accident,' Folinic finally can't hold back. "This is a murder case."

Worse, a rebellious Infected they meet during the crackdown drops a shocking line: "Not a single person made it out of that tent the day of the fire." A story completely at odds with Severin's account of an accident.

In the end, Tatiana decides to tell them everything. Clear traces of Arts were found at the fire scene, and the bodies showed no sign of having had any chance to flee — they were struck down in an instant.

Tatiana also passes along something Atro had said before. When Severin once asked if she wouldn't leave with the refugees, Atro had answered like this.

Rhodes Island does not abandon you.

— Atro

3. The ID Card Found in the Ashes

Folinic's group wasn't the only one searching the burned-out clinic. Outside the village, the archer GreyThroat, the blunt bodyguard Ayerscarpe, and Click — an aspiring creator rescued after getting stranded in the mountains — were combing the same site.

Click was originally a "genius" who'd wandered into the Winterwish mountains to film content for her channel and ended up stranded. In front of her rescuers GreyThroat and Ayerscarpe, she talked a big game — though what she actually did was mostly just sneak a few photos.

What this group found was also a Rhodes Island supply crate. And on Folinic's side, amid a spot with no ash left at all, they pick up one item that, strangely, hadn't burned.

It was the very ID card she'd always hated wearing around her neck. As Suzuran quietly steps aside, Folinic allows herself exactly one moment to cry aloud, then returns to her doctor's face.

Folinic tilts her head at Severin's claim of suddenly knowing 'from experience' that the site was safe, despite saying he had no experience handling bodies. She doesn't forget to add a little jab either. "Quite composed, for someone who lost family."

4. Turns Out the Rioter Boss Is Actually Kind?

An armed band of Infected was also lingering at the burned-out site. Self-proclaimed 'Mudrock's Squad,' led by the Sarkaz warrior Mudrock.

The villagers treated Mudrock as an object of fear, but all he actually did was lay down a single flower and mourn quietly. "Autumn here is bitterly cold... rest in peace."

He barely lets his guard down around either GreyThroat's group or Folinic's — "Talk without force behind it means nothing," he says — yet oddly, he never picks a fight first either.

Ayerscarpe kept scolding Click at every turn. Even as Click grumbled, "Did you really have to needle me at a time like this," it was always Ayerscarpe, behind GreyThroat's back, quietly looking out for her.

5. Severin's Second Secret

Severin takes Folinic and Suzuran down to the underground freezer. Among the eight frozen bodies, Folinic finally recognizes Atro.

But partway through the conversation, Suzuran notices something unexpected about Severin's body. Severin, too, was actually an Infected with Oripathy. He only asks that this one fact be kept secret for the time being.

And then Severin produces the item — the core of L-44 'the Phonograph,' the city's Arts-based defense device. If overloaded, it's a weapon capable of vaporizing a person in an instant.

Severin also lets slip a passing remark. "A thirst for revenge — isn't that a feeling everyone carries?" At the time it sounded like idle talk, but looking back, it was a loaded line.

Folinic finally hardens her resolve. Suzuran quietly tries to stop her, but Folinic doesn't stop.

I will find the culprit. And after that... they'll pay the price.

— Folinic

6. The Last of the Winterwish

In truth, Folinic carried a story of her own. As a child, her mother had left alone for the Ursus wilderness, vowing to avenge her father — and never came back.

What am I supposed to take revenge on?

— Folinic

Right in front of that same Folinic, an unfamiliar song rings out through the streets — a lullaby-like tune laced with Arts, sung in some ancient language no one recognizes.

An elderly man who's come in for treatment confesses to Suzuran. He is the very last of the 'Winterwish,' he says — once he killed countless people out of a thirst for revenge, but in the end changed nothing.

The old man goes on. That revenge never once bent Leithanien's laws, nor the nomadic city's roaring engines, and one by one his fellow elders were put down by Severin. He alone had built a hideout beneath the village and lived there in hiding ever since.

And yet, on the very day of the fire, he confesses he felt neither rage nor relief. All he can recall, standing dazed before the raging flames, is that he was crying — nothing else.

And then, the decisive line: "I saw Biedermann, the Catastrophe Messenger I thought was dead, leading the rioters as they brought down the power plant." The list of suspects Folinic had been chasing for the fire had just gained one more, all of a sudden.

Biedermann had originally taken the blame for the Grand Rift accident, and had been assaulted by villagers more than once as a result. Severin himself admits that the one who'd first reached out to offer him work was none other than Atro.

7. The Burning Street

The riot on Zwölfton Street spirals out of control. Amid streets packed with wooden buildings, an unidentified giant stone-statue Arts construct even appears.

As Tatiana tries to protect the wounded, she watches, right before her eyes, the last scream of a resident engulfed in flames. Over that voice crying for help, the final moments of her dead fiancé Thorvald overlap.

At the scene, Suzuran also has to hear plenty shouted at her. To a rioter pressing her — why aren't you on our side, you're Infected too? — Suzuran finally snaps back.

Don't go deciding other people's fates for them!

— Suzuran

Folinic and Suzuran both throw themselves into the fight. But no matter how many rioters they subdue, the flames consuming the street and the hatred everyone holds for one another refuse to die down.

8. The True Culprit, Already Dead

GreyThroat finally finds Biedermann. But he's already a cold corpse, struck down by frost Arts.

The riot doesn't stop even after Biedermann's death. Faced with the fact that the person she'd believed to be the true culprit was already dead, Folinic's rage has nowhere left to go.

Traces of the 'Crisis Accord' are also found in Biedermann's home. Ayerscarpe knows that organization's true nature well. Under the banner of standing against Catastrophes, some Catastrophe Messengers take things to an extreme, weighing human lives on a scale.

But even Ayerscarpe can't quite make sense of why 'the emotions of a Rhodes Island operator' specifically were factored into the calculation. It meant this fire might have been, from the very start, someone's calculated scheme to 'draw more attention.'

9. The Final Battle, and a Single Matchstick

As a last resort, Mudrock burns away his own life to raise a massive earthen giant. Rioters, villagers, and Rhodes Island alike all freeze before it.

Severin steps forward as bait, ready to die, and confronts Mudrock. "If you die, I'll leave this place," Mudrock had said — and in the end, he spares Severin and withdraws his squad.

The Sarkaz warrior mutters bitterly. "This village has never once come together with one heart, it seems." Even she, in the end, eases her hand rather than cut down the innocent.

Just before leaving, the Sarkaz warrior hands Severin a single matchstick. And with that, the riot that nearly swallowed Wallmond whole finally dies down.

Epilogue. So, Who Was the Culprit?

Even after the riot ends, the true culprit is never revealed. Biedermann had been the prime suspect, but all that's confirmed is that someone who'd only just arrived half a year earlier couldn't possibly have handled the latest defense equipment with such skill.

But the truth, in fact, had been far closer than anyone realized. Severin's dead son Thorvald had teamed up with the Crisis Accord to blackmail Biedermann into engineering this very riot — and had thrown himself into the fire as his own act of atonement. Neither Severin nor Folinic ever learns this truth, and the story closes without it.

Severin also shares an old story of his own — from the days he hunted down the Winterwish elders, the expression he saw on the last one's face right before they both went under the lake. Whether it was regret or release, he says that face still hasn't left him.

Tatiana's wounds run deeper in her heart than on her skin, and Severin decides to keep hiding that he's Infected while remaining governor. Rhodes Island, in the end, decides to lend a hand to Wallmond, with famine now looming.

Before leaving, GreyThroat crosses paths once more with Mudrock, who'd come alone to the ruins. To her, who'd grown afraid of the Infected ever since a past Reunion incident, Mudrock bids farewell, calling her 'Swallow.'

We'll probably meet again... since you're someone who fights for the Infected.

— Mudrock

That night, an exhausted Severin falls asleep and dreams — of his dead son turned into a giant, sweeping away the clouds of Catastrophe, sealing the cracks in the earth, and carrying his homeland onward. In the dream he was smiling, but at the same time, for the first time since losing his son, he was crying.

In the end, Folinic never finds anyone left to take revenge on. The true culprit had already paid his own price, and all that remained was the village Atro had wanted to protect, and the people who would go on living in it.