Chapter 38: Brazen

Chapter 38: Brazen

Summon a messenger… As Judgment of the Tarot Club and a member of MI9, Xio understood what a messenger referred to and knew that messengers were widely used by mid-ranking members of the Numinous Episcopate.

Before she could ask more about the details, she saw Forsi stagger toward the guest room on the first floor with a hollow gaze and weak legs, her voice floating somewhat as she said, “Let me sleep for a while first. We’ll talk about everything else later.”

She slept all the way until the next morning, awakened from deep dreams by the spreading aroma of meat.

“Disi pie?” Forsi rubbed her eyes and walked out of the room, seeing that food had already been arranged on the table.

“Yes.” Xio came out of the washroom. “From the shop on the corner. It’s pretty good.”

Forsi made a few vague sounds of agreement and had already sat at the dining table, swiftly picking up a Disi pie and stuffing it into her mouth.

After finishing one and taking a sip of sweet iced tea, she sighed in satisfaction.

“This is life.

“Oh no. I forgot to brush my teeth…”

Once she busied herself with washing up and finished, she finally recovered her ability to think. She looked at Xio in confusion and asked, “MI9 didn’t suspect anything after you quietly became a Judge?”

“They think it was the payment given by the force that instructed me back then,” Xio said, repeating the information she had gathered.

Forsi smoothed her hair back and revealed a smile.

“That works too. Let them go ask the Church of Evernight.”

She then covered her mouth and yawned.

“I’m going to summon that one’s messenger.”

After this period of Recording, her verbal address for a certain person had evolved from Gehrman Sparrow and Mr. World into “that one.”

On one hand, it expressed respect. On the other, she feared eavesdroppers.

Hearing her friend’s words, Xio looked around and asked in slight confusion, “Aren’t you arranging a ritual?”

She remembered that summoning a messenger required a ritual.

“That is only one method. That one told me to use another,” Forsi said, glancing at her clothes and discovering that she had fallen asleep last night without changing. They were now wrinkled.

Thinking that she was about to meet a messenger, she decided to pay some attention to her appearance. She hurried back to the second-floor bedroom and changed into a beige, ruffled, high-collared dress.

After preparing herself, she raised her right hand in front of Xio and grabbed forward, as though trying to pluck something from the air.

In her eyes, an illusory book instantly condensed into form, flipping rapidly until it stopped at one page.

The next second, her arm sank, and she dragged a figure out from the void.

It was Gehrman Sparrow, wearing a half top hat of silk and a black wool coat, his features cold and rigid, his bearing tough, and his expression slightly dull.

It succeeded? This is only my second attempt… I only tried once yesterday, and I failed then… Forsi’s eyes abruptly widened, as though trying to hold more light and see everything more clearly.

She knew the one she had summoned was an image from the gaps of history, so at this moment, she was not too nervous. Xio, by contrast, instinctively held her breath and looked warily at Gehrman Sparrow’s projection, unable to tell whether he was real or false.

She had a deep memory of this crazy adventurer’s achievements.

Forsi actually summoned Gehrman Sparrow? Wasn’t she supposed to summon his messenger? Gehrman Sparrow can descend as a summoned object? One question after another surfaced in Xio’s mind.

Just as Forsi did not know what the next step should be, that Gehrman Sparrow’s eyes shifted slightly, and his gaze instantly became lively. Gone was the earlier dull, rigid sluggishness, giving the sense that he had come alive.

Immediately afterward, he took out an exquisite silver-white harmonica, brought it to his lips, and blew.

No sound spread, but the surroundings instantly turned rather cold, and waves of bone-chilling wind began to blow.

Then a lady wearing a gloomy, complicated long dress and carrying four blond-haired, red-eyed heads walked out from the void. Eight eyes looked toward Gehrman Sparrow at the same time.

Gehrman Sparrow nodded slightly, pointed at Forsi, and said, “This lady needs to go to the depths of the spirit world and arrange four special coordinates. Please help her.”

“All right…” one of Reinette Tinekerr’s heads said, bobbing up and down.

Gehrman Sparrow said nothing more. As he approached the window, he made the glove on his left palm turn transparent.

His figure vanished rapidly, “Teleporting” out of the house.

He left… He left… The historical projection I summoned just walked off on its own? Forsi looked on with her mouth slightly open, as if she were experiencing some absurd comedy.

According to her understanding, summoned things should be driven by the summoner. How could it leave after giving one instruction by itself?

Could images in the gaps of history have personalities just like the original person… No, this is practically as though Gehrman Sparrow himself descended… Forsi glanced at Xio and discovered that she was equally bewildered.

Just then, Forsi suddenly shivered, as though some supremely terrifying creature had fixed its gaze upon her.

She subconsciously turned her head and discovered that Gehrman Sparrow’s messenger was carefully examining her with eight red eyes.

As frightening as Gehrman Sparrow himself… Forsi piled on a smile.

“…Sorry to trouble you.”

At that moment, the four blond-haired, red-eyed heads of Reinette Tinekerr spoke one after another:

“You…” “need…” “to pay…” “eight hundred…”

“gold…” “coins…”

It—it costs money? Forsi’s mouth opened slightly again, and she did not know how to respond.

After several seconds, her thoughts suddenly became active as she calculated her savings:

After lending 2,400 pounds to Xio, I originally had 780 pounds left… Expenses have been rather high recently, but royalties from my previous novels have continued arriving one after another. Together with other income and the 300 pounds Xio repaid, I have 1,258 pounds… enough…

Forsi was just about to agree when she immediately discovered a problem.

“All of it in gold coins?”

Reinette Tinekerr’s four heads swayed gently.

“Yes…” “You…” “can…” “owe…”

So it really has to be gold coins… I remember Mr. World spent a period of time trying to collect and exchange for gold coins… Was that also to pay this messenger? The relationship between him and his messenger is so complicated… Uh, Mr. World should still have plenty of gold coins there. I can just exchange 800 from him later… Forsi secretly breathed a sigh of relief and said, “All right.”

After she agreed, she saw one of the heads carried by the headless messenger lift up and bite the clothing near her shoulder.

The colors around them immediately became rich and vivid—reds redder, blacks blacker, whites whiter.

In this way, unable to distinguish east from west, north from south, up from down, or left from right, Forsi was carried by Reinette Tinekerr through similar scenes. Before long, they arrived at a place that seemed filled with faint mist.

In the depths of the mist, one eye after another seemed to look over, but quickly shrank back again.

…

After Magician Forsi summoned Gehrman Sparrow’s projection from the gaps of history to Backlund, Klein’s main body immediately entered the fog of history and sprinted all the way back to before the First Epoch.

His consciousness then awakened inside that projection, reducing Forsi’s consumption.

In this way, Klein had indirectly returned to Backlund. This was also precisely why he had asked Miss Magician to summon his messenger by such a complicated method.

As for the messenger summoned with the adventurer’s harmonica, she was an objective existence and did not increase Forsi’s spiritual burden. Even if Klein’s historical projection disappeared, Reinette Tinekerr could remain in the real world if she herself wished to.

After one Teleport, Klein’s figure appeared in a secluded alley near Saint Samuel Cathedral, and he used Faceless abilities to alter his appearance and build.

Although there were still a few pedestrians inside the alley during this process, they were affected by illusions and failed to notice that an extra “companion” had suddenly appeared among them.

Immediately afterward, Klein straightened his clothes, pressed down his hat, and quickly walked into Saint Samuel Cathedral. Inside the grand prayer hall, he found a seat near the side and sat down.

He removed his top hat and, after reciting the honorific name, piously drew a crimson moon over his chest. Then he clasped his hands, closed his eyes, and prayed softly to the Evernight Goddess:

“…I am searching for the past traces of the Dark Demonic Wolf, hoping to grasp Its specific situation…”

At this point, Klein remembered that the Dark Demonic Wolf might have been a former “colleague” of the Evernight Goddess, and that They should understand each other well enough. He hurriedly added:

“…I wonder if You might grant me some revelation…”

He did not wait for a response. Maintaining a peaceful state of mind, he continued:

“…After completing this matter, I intend to keep heading east to see whether I can reach the Western Continent, to see exactly what state it is in, and also use this opportunity to slip out of Amon’s pursuit and search for other possibilities…”

Once he finished the prayer, Klein again tapped his chest clockwise four times and said softly, “Praise the Goddess.”

No sooner had his voice fallen than a deep-black night sky dotted with countless stars abruptly appeared before his eyes, while a piece of information unknowingly appeared in his mind.

It was information concerning the Dark Demonic Wolf Kotar.

…Klein froze for a moment. Only after the starry sky before him had completely vanished did he recover. Then he sincerely praised the Goddess once more.

After leaving Saint Samuel Cathedral, he used Creeping Hunger and another Teleport to arrive near Saint Wind Cathedral in Chorwood Borough.

He wanted to pray to the Lord of Storms as well.

Looking up at the towering spire, Klein hesitated for a moment, unsure whether he truly should enter the headquarters of the Church of Storms’ Backlund diocese.

“I am only a projection from the gaps of history. I have nothing to fear… Praying once won’t cost me anything. What if the Lord of Storms hears about Amon’s situation and decides to bestow 0-32 upon me? Then I wouldn’t need to risk so much danger hunting the Dark Demonic Wolf… A person must always hold on to a little hope!” After thinking for a while, Klein finally made his decision.

Cautiously, he raised his hand and summoned from the gaps of history the Winner Enyuni from before he had been parasitized by Amon. He made this marionette transform into his current appearance and walk into Saint Wind Cathedral.

Only a minute or two later, a cloud suddenly drifted over Backlund’s sky, while inside Saint Wind Cathedral, silver-white electric light seemed to flash briefly. Yet no one noticed it.