Huh? When was I saved?
The Tarot Club's new member, The Moon Emlyn, felt confused.
In order to remove the psychological suggestion placed on him and due to internal pressure within the Sanguine, this vampire... no, this Beyonder who called himself "Sanguine" had also invoked the Fool's honorific name and joined the Tarot Club.
Connecting it with last week's events, he quickly associated the young lady's words with the "Great Smog" incident.
But the information circulating within the Sanguine was that it had been done by a certain "Demoness of Despair" seeking to digest her potion.
The Church of Storms had also responded quickly and blown away the smog...
The intelligence from his people conflicted with the information he'd received here.
Emlyn couldn't help feeling puzzled.
But since this was his first time attending the meeting, he wisely chose not to speak, deciding to listen for a while first.
The Hanged Man Alger, The Magician Fors, and others had similar thoughts but didn't speak either, waiting for Justice Audrey to finish.
Justice Audrey, after solemnly bowing to the Fool, shifted her gaze to the end of the long table.
"Mr. World, thank you as well for your timely warning. If not for you, many more would have died in this Great Smog."
"I was also trying to save myself."
That gloomy figure answered hoarsely.
So Klein didn't just send me a warning, he also alerted Justice?
No wonder the authorities responded so quickly... But even so, tens of thousands still died. King George III truly deserves death!
Silas looked deeply at The World.
Then he noticed Justice Audrey's gaze turn toward him.
"Mr. Temperance, is there a deeper truth behind the smog incident?"
she asked.
A Blood Reverend storming the palace, denouncing the king, and throwing his life away to stir up such chaos…
Unless one accepted the nearly impossible idea that he had simply lost his mind, there was only one explanation:
the royal family must have played a crucial role in driving that tragedy forward.
She saw that Temperance, who had committed this shocking crime, only smiled faintly.
"According to our usual process, shouldn't this be Mr. Fool's reading time?"
"Ah, my apologies!"
Justice Audrey suddenly remembered and quickly apologized to the profound figure above. "Mr. Fool, I was presumptuous..."
Actually, I also want to know the inside story sooner...
Klein grumbled internally, but to maintain his "divine persona," he could only chuckle lowly and say, "It's fine."
"Mr. Fool, Backlund has been in utter chaos lately. The military and the three major churches have been running investigations nonstop, so I haven't been able to gather any of Roselle's diary pages."
Audrey apologized again.
"I understand,"
Klein replied.
At that moment, The Magician Fors seized the chance to offer three pages of Roselle's diary.
…Wait.
Watching the way they presented the pages, Silas suddenly recalled something.
If Klein was The World, then all the Roselle diary pages he'd collected would've been offered to Mr. Fool, right?
Which meant the ones he shared with me…
A lot of them were probably pages he had already handed over to the Fool.
Which means I gave Mr. Fool duplicate Roselle diaries!
And Mr. Fool said nothing...
Thinking of this possibility, Silas felt a headache coming on, and his gaze toward The World took on some peculiar implications.
Silas's looking at me like that.
He's most likely already guessed that The World is Klein... Klein thought, feeling inexplicably guilty for some reason.
He quickly lowered his head under the pretext of reading the diary to hide his abnormality.
Mr. Temperance is looking at Mr. World again. He never did that before. Has he discovered something about Mr. World?
Justice Audrey thought to herself.
Above the gray fog, the strange atmosphere persisted for a while until Mr. Fool finished reading the diary.
"By the way, this is our new member, Mr. Moon."
Klein set down the diary, only then remembering he hadn't introduced Emlyn to everyone yet. He said with a light laugh, "You should all get to know each other."
So under the hosting of Justice Audrey, who had a strong sense of ownership, everyone greeted the new member and confirmed each other's code names.
The trading segment naturally began.
"Seeking to purchase Grigori's Shadow Trace and Dark Knight's Black Liquid."
Silas was the first to speak.
These two were auxiliary materials for the "Dark Knight" potion.
Besides these two materials, there was one more that was difficult to obtain: one drop of blood from each person corrupted during the advancement ritual.
Silas's corruption targets were the residual souls of the East Borough dead, who hadn't left behind blood.
However, he had a second-tier solution: use his own blood as a substitute.
Because those corrupted ones had ultimately merged into his body and become part of him. In a sense, the corrupted ones' blood was his blood.
He was preparing to advance to Sequence 4!
Among those present, except for the newly joined Moon, everyone else guessed that the materials Silas mentioned involved the "Dark Knight" formula.
But they really hadn't heard of these things.
"I'll help you inquire."
Justice Audrey said.
"I'll write to my teacher."
The Magician Fors also quickly added.
As expected, at the Sequence 4 level, obtaining materials wasn't so easy.
Silas sighed inwardly.
Just then, The Moon Emlyn suddenly spoke up.
"Grigori, isn't that a type of Beyonder creature, also called the Scarlet Giant?"
He asked Silas.
"That's right."
Silas looked at him in surprise and nodded. "You know of its whereabouts?"
Although the gray fog blocked their view of each other, the other party didn't give him the feeling of a powerhouse, yet unexpectedly knew about things at this level.
"Within our Sanguine, there's a Count who has a collection..."
"Sanguine?"
The Magician Fors said in surprise.
Oops, I unconsciously revealed my identity...
Emlyn froze, a surge of regret welling up in his heart. But this regret was quickly replaced by pride.
He straightened his chest and tilted his head back slightly. "That's right, I am a noble member of the Sanguine!"
Too impetuous, but his vampire identity should be real. Might be able to use him in the future... The Hanged Man thought to himself but kept silent.
Pride mixed with a bit of anxiety. Justice Audrey read his state, finding it slightly amusing.
Silas didn't care about all that and continued pressing. "So does that Count have Grigori's Shadow Trace?"
"That's right."
Emlyn surveyed everyone. "That Count once hunted a Scarlet Giant on the Feysac plains hundreds of years ago.
Although he won't sell the main body, if it's just the Shadow Trace, it should be obtainable at a certain price."