Mystery: Lucky One

After sharing their experiences and some knowledge of mysticism, Klein estimated the time and remaining spiritual power and announced:
"That's it."

"Your will is at my command." Audrey, the "Justice", took the lead and stood up to salute. Alice, who was hiding behind several people, was about to take the opportunity to run away, but was stopped by a light cough.

She glanced at the "world" where the sound came from, but did not stand up. Instead, she sat down on the chair with peace of mind.

After she was able to leave Sefirah Castle on her own, Alice never participated in the final ceremony. She usually left when Justice Audrey stood up, or sat there until the others disappeared from the gray fog.

——Why should I be the one to salute?!
When only she and Klein were left above the gray fog, Alice turned to Klein and spoke before he could speak:

"I can explain!"

Almost at the same time, Klein's doubtful voice also sounded:
"You are impersonating Ouroboros under the watchful eyes of the 'True Creator'?"

...I really can't explain this.

Alice was speechless. After a brief pause, she raised her head and asked seriously:
"If I say this is actually my plan, will you believe it?"

“No,” Klein answered affirmatively, “When did you ever have a plan?”

Alice began to think about this problem seriously.

Alice, who was thinking with her head down, gave an answer from another perspective. Klein looked at her helplessly, but did not argue with her. Instead, he asked:

"Are you sure you're okay over there?"

“I think,” Alice propped her chin up with both hands and looked Klein up and down, “Instead of worrying about me, you should worry about yourself… I may, perhaps, know what the opportunity is for me to become a god.”

"?" Klein looked at her in confusion. "What does this have to do with me? What does opportunity mean?"

Alice half leaned back in her chair and sighed:
"Well... because the godhood ritual of the 'Destiny' path is to find the right opportunity in the torrent of destiny and take the potion..."

“…?” Klein looked at Alice blankly, remembering her ridiculous Sequence 5 promotion ceremony.

——He remembered Alice jokingly saying that if he drank it in one gulp and was promoted, the ritual would be completed, but if he lost control, the ritual would have failed.

"You can sense what the right opportunity is, right?" Klein tried to confirm.

“Hmm… but there is a problem.” Alice stretched out her hand and pinched her brow. “I have a guess… I am not sure yet. After all, Sequence 0 is still very far away from me. I may need to be reborn once more, when I become a god.”

"Hmm?" Klein frowned and looked at her.

"Death, or to completely escape from one's original fate and be reborn... I think that's what the dream meant," Alice continued, "which means... I need a 'mother'."

She took a deep breath and looked up at Klein. Before she could say anything, she heard Mr. Fool's sharp explosion:
"I can't possibly do such a thing! Don't even think about it!"

“…There’s no need to be so anxious,” Alice advised him tactfully, “It’s still early for this. If that dream is to be believed, I must at least complete the process from Sequence 4 to Sequence 2…strictly follow the procedure.”

She paused, frowned, and said with a slightly strange expression:
"It sounds like a different kind of 'restart', walking the whole path again from the beginning... No, I didn't actually start from the beginning, I missed two sequences.

“And actually a lot of things are not done by me, or at least not by me right now…

"But anyway, there's no need to rush. First, there's still early. Second, although 'Restart' doesn't require you to be pregnant, you must at least have a uterus... By the way, what is the ability of the 'Master of Secret Puppetry'?"

Alice suddenly remembered the question she had forgotten to ask.

The topic changed quickly. Klein, who often chatted with Alice, had already adapted to this change. He recalled their previous conversation and made sure that he had not missed anything before continuing Alice's topic:

"The 'Puppet Master' can..."

He focused on describing the ability of the "Master of Secret Dolls" to transform others into secret dolls by manipulating the spiritual branches, which earned Alice's admiration:

“Oh my god, it’s actually a puppet show!

"But if you put it this way, as long as you have a few animal puppets, you can solve the animal performance problem too...

“Your Sequence 4 is really not called…”

The feeling of falling came, and when Alice regained consciousness, she found herself still in the camp next to Afternoon Town.

She stamped on the ground angrily and muttered, "Stingy guy... You must have been stepped on a sore spot for such a big reaction!"

Not far away, the chief looked at her getting up from the ground and his expression suddenly turned angry and he fell into deep thought.

…He had a quarrel with the Fool?

No, we cannot use common sense to infer this lady of destiny...

After sending Alice away, Klein did not rush to leave. He shook his head slightly, looked at the place where Alice disappeared, and murmured with a little worry:
"Isn't he really called the Circus Director or something like that?"

Thinking of this, Klein suddenly became worried. He materialized parchment and a round fountain pen, and after pondering for a moment, he wrote a sentence:

"My hope of advancing to Sequence 4."

Putting the pen away, Klein took the parchment and leaned back in his chair. He closed his eyes, entered a meditative state, and silently recited these words.

After seven times, he fell into a deep sleep quickly and arrived in the dream world.

The gray sky and earth split open, and he saw a majestic mountain towering into the clouds.

At the top of the mountain, there is a collapsed and dilapidated palace. The walls are covered with weeds and moss, and there are obvious holes.

In the hall of the palace, at the very top there is a huge chair carved out of stone, inlaid with dull gold and gems, much of which is mottled and damaged.

This didn't look like a seat prepared for humans. Countless transparent maggots huddled together, densely entangled, slowly wriggling, and growing continuously.

Around the seats, there are sounds of eating and talking that penetrate through the long time and history, illusory, ethereal, and echoing endlessly:
"Honakis...Flegera...Honakis...Flegera...Honakis...Flegera..."

Klein woke up suddenly after hearing the mumbling, and frowned - this was exactly the mumbling he had heard every time he was promoted in the past.

It's like it's a fate that has been arranged long ago, as if everything has been destined from the very beginning... Ha, it really makes people not want to go at all... It makes people rebellious.

Wait a little longer, wait for Mr. Azik's letter... I don't even know the name of the potion yet, there's no need to be too anxious.

...It shouldn't really be called something like Circus Director, right?

With strange concerns, Klein tried to divine the information of the five "Original Moon" believers commissioned by "Moon" Emlyn. As soon as he wrote down the divination sentence, a crimson star began to flutter violently. Klein was stunned for a moment, and extended his spiritual power towards the star. A picture emerged before his eyes.

——It was Bernadette who recited the holy name devoutly.

...How to solve this situation?

Klein almost pulled Alice back after she left the gray fog and asked her to come and see for herself the trouble she had caused. Bernadette, who couldn't find any way out with Miss Fate, actually came to try to persuade the Fool!

Fortunately, Klein, who had been pretending to be a god for so long and was already a Sequence 5, at least had some experience.

He did not panic, but first carefully observed the scene and listened to Bernadette's prayers.

The complete ceremony and honorific name, the process that was completed according to the regulations, and the final content... Klein looked at the familiar card and frowned slightly.

He had seen that card in his dream before. At that time, Bernadette was going to use it as a bargaining chip to trade with Alice, but now...

And now, she is asking that this card be sacrificed to herself, to the Fool.

She had obviously learned her lesson in front of Alice and didn't mention her request at all.

After a brief thought, Klein decided not to respond to this matter. If nothing else happened before the next Tarot meeting, he would hint to Cattleya at the meeting.

After all, no matter how he responded, the outcome would not be very optimistic after Alice knew about this...

——The last person who thought that there was no difference between giving things to Mr. Fool and Miss Fate was the "Magician" Fors. Even though Alice's temper was much better than it is now, she was very concerned about it.

Klein shook his head and returned to the real world.

Thinking of the promise he had made to "Sun" Derrick to provide the "Notary" potion formula within three days, he put on his coat and hat, ready to go out and look for his target.

After opening the door and walking to the stairs, Klein saw Anderson Hood walking up step by step, twirling his deerstalker hat in his hands and humming a country ballad.

This guy has a strong ability to recover mentally... He was taught a lesson by the demigod this morning, forced to apologize and agree to his demands, but now he doesn't show any signs of trauma at all. His mental quality is as good as Alice's... No, forget it, saying this sounds like an insult.

Klein gave up the evaluation system based on Alice and nodded slightly to Anderson as a greeting.
"Good afternoon, Herman." Anderson smiled and waved his hand. "I have received the bounty and the special fee. I will give you the balance right away."

As he spoke, he took out bills of varying thickness from different pockets.

“It went very smoothly.” Klein commented without any emotion.

Anderson immediately laughed and said:
"Yeah, it went much smoother than I expected!
"Those guys whose heads should be full of granite are surprisingly kind, efficient and polite. I even wonder if I'm blessed by the goddess of luck!"

Klein glanced at Anderson, remembering the bad luck Alice had befallen him, and mercilessly exposed him:

"It's hard to say what goddess of luck is, but there is a goddess of misfortune."

Anderson stretched out his hand to push the monocle on his left eye with some uneasiness, and smiled again:

"Don't take life so seriously, just relax a little, relax a little."

Anderson handed over the balance of 1200 pounds and continued:

"In fact, I know exactly what happened. It must be that gentleman who didn't want me to waste my time, so he secretly 'instructed' those people."

Klein glanced at the banknotes, squeezed them with his hands, and asked casually:
"Have you confirmed which pirates are causing the problem?"

He was asking which prey had attracted the "manipulator" last night.

"I can't confirm it." Anderson said with a wry smile, "Do you think I didn't check it beforehand? Although I acted nonchalant in front of you, I actually investigated the background and situation of my prey in advance to avoid offending the wrong people. Who knew... Well, I can only attribute it to bad luck."

This guy is much more cautious than I thought... Also, his previous sequence was called "The Conspirator", not "The Lucky One"...

"The Land Forsaken by God", Alice, who is a negative example, is now staring at the Chief.

She was trying to convince the Chief to send a team directly to find what she needed instead of asking her to go with him.

After all, there isn't much she can do, just add anti-divination, add luck, add bad luck... In short, these are things that can be done even if she is not there.

——You can’t really transform into a mythical creature and pounce on it and bite it!

Although this last resort is not impossible, if she needs to do this, there is a high possibility that everyone who goes with her will die.

Faced with this situation, Alice thought...why not just run away?

——How can fate do it itself?

Could it be that when she and Will Auceptin fought at the end, she turned into a mythical creature and bit him... No, this is a bit... isn't this a bit too weird? !

Alice shook her head and raised her head to try to convince the Chief again, but suddenly she had a strange feeling.

It was as if something suddenly broke and her spirituality was suddenly touched. Alice realized that she was actually very familiar with this feeling - this was the feedback from the digestion of the potion.

Most likely it was not completely digested, only partially, but...

Alice looked at the chief in front of her in confusion and asked hesitantly:
"Potion, is it possible that it could be digested prematurely?"

The chief shook his head and gave a frank answer: "I don't know."

But even so, Alice had the answer in her heart. After all, the potion she drank had been digested.

This can only be digested in advance.

Doom Mage, Chaos Walker, Prophet, Mercury Serpent, Wheel of Fortune... Which sequence is this?

Alice blinked and suddenly remembered what Klein told her about what happened to Anderson—he choked to death from drinking.

"Mage of doom..." Alice muttered thoughtfully, "Hmm...bringing doom can digest potions?"

This is a question, and at this moment, it is actually very simple to verify.

Alice glanced at the chief who suddenly became alert, then turned her head slightly and looked at the well-organized afternoon camp. (End of this chapter)