Klein shot to his feet and spun toward the source of the sound, eyes sweeping the compartment for whoever had spoken — because obviously it couldn't possibly have been Melissa.
It was just a girl around Melissa's age. She'd bumped into the passenger beside her while stowing her luggage and was stumbling over apologies.
With her was a woman in a long black dress. When Klein looked over, the woman met his gaze, gave a faint smile, and nodded slightly.
Then she pulled the girl down into their seats and turned to look out the window.
Melissa is dead.
What the hell was he thinking?
Klein laughed at himself and sat back down — then noticed, to his surprise, that Leonard had his head bowed and was gripping the edge of his seat with both hands, knuckles white, face drained of colour.
"Leonard? What's wrong?"
"..."
He managed a thin smile. "Nothing… just a bit carsick."
Leonard wasn't carsick, of course. The moment his eyes had met the woman in black's, the old man inside him had made him look away immediately, and told him in a voice that was heavy — almost frightened:
That woman is dangerous!
...
Backlund.
The three major Churches' investigation into human trafficking had been running for nearly a week.
What exactly they'd uncovered — nobody knew.
Whether they'd found evidence of George III's scheme to advance to Sequence 0 — equally unknown.
Whether they intended to act against George III — also completely in the dark.
All Vincent and Bernadette could see was that Loen was still Loen, the Emperor was still the Emperor, as if something had happened and yet nothing had changed at all.
After all that running around, the final result was that Military Intelligence Nine threw out a few scapegoats, and the whole affair seemed to quietly die.
That outcome was exactly what Vincent had expected. The gods at the very top of the Churches had already tacitly approved of George III. How could the Churches possibly act without authorisation?
Meanwhile, the death of Duke Negan — the conservative faction's figurehead — had also set off a political storm within Loen. Lacking a powerful leader, the two-party struggle was increasingly tilting in favour of the New Party. They'd gain more seats in the Upper House, push through policies more aligned with their interests — which conveniently served both Adam's vision for the age and George III's ritual requirements for advancing to the Black Emperor.
Xio and Fors were holed up in the Hall family's lavish villa, spending their days scouring every newspaper they could get their hands on for news about the outside world. In just a few days, they both felt like they'd been living in a different era.
"Xio."
Fors sat cross-legged on the garden lawn, a pen stuck in her mouth and a copy of The Noble History of the Loen Kingdom — borrowed earlier from Viscount Grayling's — propped on her knees. She was flipping through it distractedly. "How much longer d'you think we have to stay here? Don't tell me we're going to be stuck at Audrey's place for the foreseeable future. I definitely missed my writers' get-together this week."
"What exactly do you do at those writers' get-togethers? Share tips on how to slack off?"
"..."
Xio frowned at her newspaper. "I asked Miss Natasha. She gave me a method. I'm still deciding."
"What method?"
"Tell you once I've tried it."
The method Natasha had given was actually quite simple: borrow the Faceless sealed artifact to change her appearance — once the artifact altered your face and body, the change would be locked in even after returning it. The downside was that using it carried a real risk of hearing some truly disturbing whispers.
Vincent and Bernadette had already confirmed that the whispers barely affected them — they had the True Creator's protection now, so the minor side effects of a sealed artifact's negative influence were nothing, practically a light drizzle.
But Xio was different. Who knew whether she'd lose control entirely.
So Bernadette had offered Xio an alternative: wait a few more days. She should be able to get her hands on a Faceless sealed artifact with a less dangerous side effect — the three Faceless Beyonders they'd captured last time had one absorbed by the blood-drinking bracer, leaving two as Beyonder characteristics that had just been sitting untouched.
"Pfft, you're so mysterious about everything."
Fors rolled her eyes, flopped onto her back on the grass, and stared at the sky. "You know, honestly, it's not so bad being here. Nothing to do, nothing to think about, food and drink provided, just hang out with Audrey every day, chat, sleep, keep her in a good mood."
"Heh."
Xio gave a cold laugh. "Don't you think what you just described sounds a lot like a certain profession you used to look down on?"
"What?"
"Being a kept woman."
"???"
Fors looked blank, then quickly turned it over in her head — and found that, yeah, actually, it kind of did check out. She muttered with some uncertainty: "So… are we Audrey's kept women?"
"Oh~"
She had an epiphany. "No wonder so many women can't resist the temptation! Being a kept woman is this nice? And Audrey's so pretty too — that's gotta be better than serving some smelly bloke, right?"
"You..."
Xio clicked her tongue. "Fors, you've fallen."
"Depravity brings happiness."
She spread the book open and draped it over her face, intending to catch a nap in the warm morning sun — but the moment she started to close her eyes, a yellowed scrap of paper slid out from the book's cover and landed on her face.
"Hm?"
Fors pushed the book aside and picked up the paper. "Oh, is this like a buried treasure map hidden in an old book or something?"
One side of the paper was covered in the special symbols Emperor Roselle had invented. The other was written in Ancient Hermes. Fors sat bolt upright in excitement. "Don't tell me this is a treasure map related to Emperor Roselle?!"
Because even a hundred-odd years later, legends about the Emperor's hidden treasure still circulated everywhere. If she was the one to find it, she could spend the rest of her life lying flat.
Fors flipped to the other side and squinted, laboriously sounding out the Ancient Hermes characters, murmuring to herself:
"The Fool, who does not belong to this era;"
"The mystical ruler above the grey fog;"
"The Yellow-and-Black King who commands good fortune."
Before Fors could even register what she'd just read, Xio suddenly went wide-eyed and screamed: "FORS, WHAT ARE YOU READING?!"
Fors nearly jumped out of her skin. "What's your problem, scaring me like that?"
"That's not — "
Xio snatched the paper out of her hand and scanned it, face going slightly pale. "Are you stupid?! You'll just read anything out loud?! Can't you see?! This is — this is very likely someone's three-part Honorific Name!"
"???"
Fors immediately sobered up.
She'd been mocking Xio just recently for being a naive idiot, getting tricked by Miss Natasha into reciting the Lord of Chaos's Honorific Name and getting herself on His radar. And now, barely any time later, she'd gone and done the exact same moronic thing herself.
"We're done, we're done, we're done."
As someone who got absolutely wrecked by the moonlit whispers on a monthly basis and nearly lost control once, Fors had more authority than most to speak on how terrifying these mysterious entities could be.
One full moon of whispers was nearly enough to kill her. Now there was potentially another unknown entity on top of that.
Fors suddenly saw her future in a very dark light.
"Xio..."
She looked at Xio with the face of someone at a funeral.
Xio bit her lip and made a quick decision: "Fight fire with fire?"
"What — what?"
"Recite the Lord of Chaos's Honorific Name and ask for His protection!"
Fors felt like crying: Xio, you absolute fucking genius.
To be continued…
Guys, do check out my friend's new fic titled as I, A Vitrumite, Have The World's Strongest Chatgroup...? It is really enjoyable!
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