Chapter 100: Interpreting Symbols

Chapter One Hundred
Interpreting Symbols

“Clues to the Clown potion.”

…

At the head of the ancient, mottled bronze long table, Klein read the divination statement several times over. Then he leaned back and entered sleep.

His surroundings soon became quiet and peaceful. What he “saw” turned ethereal and hazy. Countless distorted, difficult-to-identify scenes flashed past at high speed, like drops of dew trembling on tender petals in the early morning.

Gradually, Klein grasped his own spirituality and recovered a certain degree of awareness.

He saw a fireplace before him. In front of the fireplace was a rocking chair, and in the rocking chair sat an old woman wearing a black-and-white dress.

Although her head was lowered and he could not see her face, Klein felt from the depths of his heart that she was an old woman. He was unusually certain of it.

Facing the old woman was a table. On the table lay a newspaper and a tin can inlaid with silver.

“This is…”

Feeling the scene to be unusually familiar, Klein quickly recognized what he was seeing.

This was the home of Ray Bieber and his mother.

It was the place where he had first seen a bloated corpse in person.

“There are clues to the Clown potion here?”

The thought had only just flashed through Klein’s mind when the scene around him changed.

It became a grayish-white warehouse hidden at the innermost end of a row of identical buildings.

Inside were scattered stark-white bones, one after another, and several lumps of bloody, rotten paste as though they had been crushed flat by boulders.

At the very center of the warehouse lay a fist-sized lump of gray-white matter. Its surface was covered in furrows, and it gave an impression of being soft yet substantial, like a brain freshly dug from a living body.

Klein had only just recognized where the place was, and what the object was, when the image before his eyes twisted and shattered like a reflection stirred upon water. It became a new, hazy vision.

A naked body lay on a long table covered with white cloth. Before the body floated a blood sphere tinged faintly blue.

Klein immediately frowned and muttered inwardly.

“Just now was Ray Bieber’s hiding place and his remnant. Now this is the thing formed from the brand on the tailcoat clown’s wrist?”

Just as he tried to infer what these images symbolized, the changes around him suddenly intensified.

A marble tea table. A leather sofa set arranged with one main seat and two side seats. A chandelier hanging high from the ceiling.

Klein Moretti, black-haired and brown-eyed, possessing a scholarly air. A plump, fair-skinned young man. A beautiful young woman wearing gauze gloves.

A middle-aged man with stiff brown hair standing upright, wearing a black robe. A plump, fair-skinned young man. A man of about fifty, with messy brows, sparse brown hair, and gray-blue eyes. And between them, placed upon a round table, a deep-black notebook giving off an ancient, distant aura.

The Antigonus family notebook!

Klein sat bolt upright, and not the slightest trace of the dream remained.

Looking at the boundless gray fog and crimson stars beyond the magnificent temple, he was both astonished and puzzled.

“I was divining clues to the Clown potion… Why did the Antigonus family notebook appear?”

“Let me think. Let me think. That plump fellow is Welch. Right, Welch, the unlucky man who bought the Antigonus family notebook and triggered the whole series of events afterward… The young woman wearing gauze gloves and possessing beautiful features is Naya…”

“I remember now. That marble tea table and leather sofa arrangement were distinctive to Welch’s residence. That was where I met the Spirit Medium Daly.”

“In other words, what I just saw was Welch’s living room. I saw the original owner and his two classmates discussing the notebook.”

Klein’s emotions settled. He recovered his calm and tapped the edge of the bronze long table rhythmically with his finger.

“Then what does the final image represent? The notebook appeared, Welch appeared… Could that be the scene where he purchased the ‘antique’?”

“One of the other two people looked very familiar. That middle-aged gentleman in the black classical robe—I feel as if I have seen him somewhere before… Hedgehog-like brown hair, heavy dark circles under his eyes… Yes, I know who he is. Hynas Vincent. Hynas Vincent from the Divination Club. Because Selena secretly learned a hidden incantation, the Captain entered his dream, and he ‘peacefully’ died!”

“Hiss. Was he the one who sold the notebook to Welch?”

“After circling all the way around, it actually connects like this. The world really is small. No—the city of Tingen really is small! Thinking about it carefully, this is entirely possible. Hynas Vincent was not an ordinary diviner. He had clearly delved deeply into the mystical domain and had drawn the attention of some ancient evil god. He had the channels, the ability, and the opportunity to obtain the notebook that had accidentally leaked from the Secret Order…”

“No wonder the Captain and the others never discovered where Welch had bought the notebook. Their direction was completely wrong. They were trying to investigate the antique market… Later, after they learned the notebook’s exact whereabouts, they simply gave up on that line of inquiry.”

“Unfortunately, Hynas Vincent died not long ago. Otherwise, I could definitely have learned some things about the notebook from him… As someone deeply involved in the mystical domain, he should have studied it… His death really was a coincidence.”

“But there was still one other person present. A man in his fifties. Perhaps he knows quite a bit as well.”

Klein’s finger, which had been tapping the edge of the table, stopped. He replayed every image he had seen in the dream divination.

“Ray Bieber’s home. Ray Bieber’s hiding place. Ray Bieber’s remnant. The thing formed from the tailcoat clown’s wrist brand. Welch’s home. Welch, Naya, and the original owner discussing the notebook. The ‘group portrait’ of Welch, Hynas Vincent, and the Antigonus family notebook… Heh. Apart from the tailcoat clown’s brand, everything is directly connected to the Antigonus family notebook!”

“But what I was divining was clues to the Clown potion… This is unscientific—no, this is unmystical!”

After becoming a Seer, Klein had once tried to divine where Welch had bought the Antigonus family notebook, but at the time, he had failed to consider the special nature of the world above the gray fog and therefore had not obtained any revelation. Now, while divining something else entirely, he had somehow brought out the truth by apparent chance.

After calming for more than ten seconds, Klein combined what he had seen with the contents of Roselle’s diary and began trying to interpret the dream.

“The first possibility: Zaratul—or rather, the Secret Order—is searching for and pursuing relics of the Antigonus family. Therefore, the symbolic meaning of this dream is that I should use matters connected to the Antigonus family to lure out the Secret Order, thereby obtaining the formula for the Clown potion.

“The second possibility: the Antigonus family notebook directly records the Clown potion formula. The Zaratul family is searching for the Antigonus family’s remaining traces, showing they have a very deep relationship. Perhaps they were friends. Perhaps enemies. Therefore, it would be normal for the Antigonus family to possess part of the other side’s Sequence. If they were friends, there is no need to explain it; if enemies, then enemies often know one another best.”

“But the second symbolic interpretation cannot be connected to the object formed from the tailcoat clown’s brand. Sigh. I actually hope it is the second. Once the Sanctuary finishes having experts decipher the notebook, I could obtain the Clown potion formula without risk.

“At present, the first interpretation seems most likely. But as a Seer, my intuition tells me there should be a deeper symbolic meaning.”

At this point, Klein rubbed his forehead and suddenly felt the Seer’s limitations with unusual depth.

Unless facing very simple and direct symbols, a Seer had to treat interpretation with extreme caution. It was like walking along the edge of an abyss, or across a lake covered in thin ice. Once an interpretation was wrong, or once the most crucial meaning could not be discerned, the tailcoat clown was a living, bloody example.

In that instant, Klein had the illusion that he had grasped the true essence of a Seer. It seemed that only one final step remained before he could completely digest the potion.

“Thank you for using your life to instruct me… Praise the Goddess.”

He whispered, drawing a crimson moon over his chest.

After that, he divined whether Azik held goodwill, and whether Azik was a powerful Beyonder. Both received affirmative answers.

By now, the continuous divinations and the expenditure of remaining above the gray fog had begun making Klein tired. He had no choice but to stop letting his thoughts spread and decide the key matters he needed to do next.

“Find the old man who appeared in the same image as Welch, Hynas Vincent, and the Antigonus family notebook as quickly as possible.”

“I can begin at the Divination Club.”

“Visit Mr. Azik more often, whether or not there is a particular reason. Mm. He might be a middle-sequence member of the Life School of Thought, but I lack certain information and cannot divine that…”

Hoo.

Klein exhaled and caused the parchment that suddenly appeared before him to show the portrait of the man with messy brows, sparse brown hair, and gray-blue eyes.

This was the third person present when Welch and Hynas Vincent had traded the Antigonus family notebook.

Looking at the portrait, Klein suddenly fell into difficulty.

“…I cannot draw. In elementary-school art class, I was always the target of the teacher’s criticism.”

“Use ritual magic, like Old Neil? But that would be praying to the Goddess… And this matter relies on the special nature of the world above the gray fog… If the deity discovers anything strange, I will have no way to live as a human anymore.”

“Wait. Perhaps I can pray to myself! Transmitting an image should be similar to transmitting sound… Although I temporarily cannot leverage the mysterious power above the gray fog, a small matter like this should not be a problem.”

With that idea, Klein immediately extended his spirituality, wrapped it around himself, and simulated the sensation of falling.

Returning to his bedroom, he casually lit the gas lamp and began “praying” in a low voice:

“The Fool that does not belong to this era;

“The mysterious ruler above the gray fog;

“The King of Yellow and Black who wields good luck.

“I pray for your revelation. I pray that you allow me to depict the image I have seen.”

After reciting those few lines of incantation, Klein did not scatter essential oil or burn herbs. He borrowed none of their power.

Praying to oneself was just that casual.

Whispers suddenly sounded beside his ear. He saw the four black dots forming a square appear on the back of his hand.

He walked four steps counterclockwise, reciting the incantation as he went. Klein once again pierced through madness and chaos, returning above the gray fog.

This time, he did not discover any crimson star contracting and expanding. Instead, he noticed that behind the high-backed chair at the very head of the bronze long table, the strange symbol formed from part pupil-less eye and part distorted lines was flickering with a faint glow, rippling with illusory prayer.

Klein listened for a moment, confirmed there was no mistake, and once again manifested the portrait of the “third person.” Using the method of responding to a prayer, he cast it toward the flowing faint light.

After completing this, he immediately left the mysterious world above the gray fog and returned to his bedroom.

The moment he stood firm, the portrait appeared before Klein’s eyes, and he felt an illusory, faint power descend upon him.

He picked up his fountain pen, found a sheet of white paper, and gave the will to express what he had seen.

To Klein’s astonishment, his right hand moved beyond his control, rapidly sketching lines.

Before long, he saw the lifelike portrait of the “third person.”

Writing down the man’s hair color, eye color, and other characteristics, Klein, whose right hand trembled slightly, breathed out a long sigh.

The “vision” before his eyes was quickly fading.