Mystery: Lucky One

...?
what……

It was unlikely to expect Alice to keep the secret, as all the Tarot Club members already knew that Frank was the "druid" who developed those mushrooms. His full name was Frank Lee, also known as the "toxin expert". He was the first mate of the "Future" and his bounty... After being promoted to "druid", Frank raised his price... No, wait, that's not the point.

Alice took a deep breath, as if it was hard for her to imagine such a scene. She asked nervously:
"What the hell is Frank doing these days???"

"He is preparing to advance to Sequence 4," Cattleya said with a serious expression. "He believes that his current strength is no longer enough to support his research... He longs to give his creations souls and truly create life."

“…?” Alice opened her mouth in surprise. “I don’t think this is right…”

She frowned instinctively, imagining a group of mushrooms begging for mercy.

...Destroy it, really.

"Mr. Sun," Alice turned to Derrick in a serious tone, "It looks like your idea is about to come true. You will soon have a batch of mushrooms that can automatically identify and actively hunt monsters."

“Really?” Derrick showed a happy expression.

"...Fake." Alice turned her head away. "Don't let him ascend to Sequence 4 yet. I'm a little scared... Wait a minute, is there someone beside him..."

After a pause, Alice asked with a strange expression, "Is that believer of 'Original Moon' still working as his experimental assistant?"

Cattleya nodded.

Alice frowned slightly and said hesitantly: "...Are you sure Frank is okay?"

"...In my opinion, not," Cattleya answered hesitantly, "but the condition of the 'Original Moon' believer is not good. I thought Frank could alleviate his condition, but recently, his condition has tended to worsen..."

Alice rubbed her head and sighed:

"The moon... Tsk, it has to be the Cultivator pathway, and it has to be so... Just from the description, I can't even tell if it's polluted... I think it's more like an evil god than I am."

After hearing her self-proclaimed evil god, most of the Tarot Club members turned their eyes away from her. Only Cattleya asked:

"Do I need to separate the two of them?"

"If I were..." Alice raised her head slightly, with the corners of her lips curled up, "If I had seen Frank through that person before, I would definitely think that he was a gift from God to me - but maybe 'Primal Moon' and I have different ideas."

Then Cattleya knew what was going on. She said in a deep voice, "I will keep Frank away from him as soon as possible."

As for the so-called "original moon" believer, that is, Charles, the descendant of Bernadette's younger brother Charles, Cattleya's original plan was to observe for a while, and if the situation was still not good, she would ask the queen for help.

Now, she was ready to go to the Queen ahead of time.

There is also the issue of spells...

She stopped talking, and Alice had nothing new to say. The Tarot Club fell into silence for a short time. Then, perhaps because the topic of war had been discussed almost completely, no one brought it up again. Instead, they began to teach Derrick to speak the language of the outside world.

Alice, who had been staying with Derrick these days, blinked slightly and realized that there was actually something she could do in the real world.

The Tarot Club ended with her malicious gaze. Returning to the real world, Alice looked at Derrick who opened his eyes and sat up from the ground, and waved:

"Let's go? Um... which one should we go to first? You pick it?"

While waiting for the Tarot Club to begin, Alice divined the current status of each city. Apart from Moon City and Silver City, there were quite a few cities that still existed.

——Yes, several. Even if all the human cities in the "God-Forsaken Land" were added together, there would be no more than ten...

And in the complete list given by the "True Creator", there are hundreds of cities!

Such a high loss rate... No, perhaps it should be called a retention rate - such a low retention rate, even Alice was stunned for a moment when she first got the result.

The numbers on paper might seem unreal, but after seeing Moon City and Silver City, they were no longer just numbers to Alice. She had a genuine desire to save them.

Derrick took the paper Alice handed over. He looked at the circled city names and after a moment of silence, he pointed to one of the cities:
"That's it."

"Dawn..." Alice glanced at the name of the city and tilted her head, "Okay."

……

After the Tarot meeting, Klein took a short rest to restore his spirituality. Then, relying on the "Star Staff", he came to the vicinity of Noth City.

He still had an impression of this city; after all, it was one of the sources of materials for his demigod potion.

After taking a look at the dark, shadowy, silent, and misty city, Klein did not rush to get closer. Instead, he first found a secluded place and whispered the name of Mr. Fool.

He did not enter the historical pore because it was contrary to his original intention - he needed to rely on the "Source Castle" to observe the real vision near the prayer sound, but after entering the historical pore, he could not see the city of Noth.

With the help of the prayer light, Klein checked the situation of the Norse ruins from a distance and found that the thin mist there was slowly but uncontrollably dissipating. At a glance, there was not a single "spiritual line" on the surface of the city. People wearing linen robes and animal skins were lying in different places on the street. It was completely different from the lively and busy scene that the Silver City exploration team saw when they arrived here.

...?
After a moment of stunned silence, Klein realized that this place might have once become a secret doll city-state, but the owner of the secret doll was now gone.

"After Kotal realized that his whereabouts had been exposed, he chose to migrate?" Klein made a guess based on the situation in front of him, while retracting his gaze and looking at the gray-white mist supporting the "Source Castle".

This was to check if there was anyone hiding in the cracks of history, ambushing the extraordinary people who were exploring the ancient city of Norse - he didn't want to "leap" into the mist of history and directly encounter a huge vortex formed by a group of transparent worms twisting and embracing, or slippery tentacles.

After confirming that the historical pore was safe, Klein returned to the real world. Looking at the city shrouded in fog, Klein did not choose to approach or enter. He went around a hill opposite the dry riverbed and immediately entered the historical pore. In the historical pore, Klein ran all the way to a location before the First Epoch. This was a very clever place, because other "ancient scholars" could not trace back to this broken history, so naturally they could not find him.

After his real body hid, Klein had the secret puppet Quinas transform into his real body.

Then, the new entity pulled out a brand new self from the historical gap, and the historical projection reached out again and pulled out another self from the historical gap.

After doing this, Klein felt much more relieved. He asked the last historical projection to take out a lantern from the historical gap.

This kind of exploration gave Klein a lot of security. Of course, this actually had its drawbacks. For example, it consumed a lot of spiritual energy. Klein could only maintain this state for a quarter of an hour at most, provided that his secret puppet did not encounter anything or make any extremely exhausting attempts.

In the dim light of the lantern, the multiple historical projections of nesting dolls confused the distance and appeared outside the city of North in just a few steps.

He then took the lantern and walked step by step through the decayed and collapsed buildings, through the thin mist, and entered the ruins.

Compared to using "real vision" to see above the gray fog, the real contact allowed Klein to discover more details.

Most of the humans and monsters that fell in different places showed signs of decay, as if they had been abandoned for a long time.

Some of them sat on chairs under the eaves, some slumped by the fire, some held moldy bread, some held hands, and some leaned against the wall or sat on the ground with their lips against the bone flute.

This allowed Klein to almost imagine what the situation was like in this city-state when they were still alive.

Some people are taking a lazy rest, some are baking food, some are shopping along the street, some are concentrating on music, some are walking back and forth with constant laughter, and some are fighting monsters in the arena...

What a lively and vibrant picture, but in fact, everyone has already died and no longer has their own soul. They are just repeating the same behavior in a predetermined way.

And at a certain moment one day, this strange scene froze and ended in an instant, and everyone fell down without any warning.

Klein briefly recalled the cycle of fate that the Silver City exploration team had experienced, but the cycle of fate was obviously different from that of this puppet-like city. The child named Jack was clearly still alive. Perhaps the reason Ouroboros left the cycle of fate was to save the child named Jack.

Therefore, the only weird thing left is the "fortune teller" path, while the cycle of fate in the "fate" path reveals a sense of gentleness and kindness.

Of course, this was limited to the cycle of fate. Klein definitely didn't want to associate words like "gentle and kind" with Alice - he hoped that Alice would learn better, but he wouldn't daydream.

Shaking his head, Klein turned his attention back to the present.

A city-state of secret puppets, the most realistic theater... There was a similar situation in the foggy town... Is it related to the "secret servant"? Will I have to do something similar in the future? Is it acting? No, the traces here should be left by Kotar, this is probably a promotion ceremony...

Klein held a lantern and walked through the streets littered with corpses, following his spiritual intuition as he headed toward the center of the ancient city of Noth.

After the Silver City exploration team broke the "peace" and "tranquility" here, Kotal did not choose to kill people and destroy the clues. Instead, he abandoned everything and moved to another place without hesitation... He was indeed cautious enough, but why didn't he kill them?

Well, it’s easy to understand. It could be the “real creator” or Amon… The “real creator” is more likely. He also didn’t do anything to the people of Moon City…

Klein's thoughts wandered randomly, and he soon arrived at a relatively intact church.

Inside the church stands a statue of a demon wolf with eight legs and covered with dark short hair.

The statue had a tuft of gray hair on its head, and a dark pupil that took up at least three-quarters of its eye.

“It’s Kotal indeed…” Klein’s eyes lit up.

His guess was confirmed, he let out a breath, and a happy arc appeared at the corners of the historical projection's lips.

As if infected by his emotions, the statue in front of him also opened its bloody mouth, revealing a happy arc. Klein felt his head buzzing, and then he saw the statue turn its head and look at the historical projection of his secret doll. It raised a claw and placed it on the right eye frame.

...?
Klein did not hesitate and dissolved the two historical projections on the spot. His real body also left the historical gap and captured the two marionettes.

Then, he took the "Star Staff" and ran away without hesitation.

In a blink of an eye, Klein was back near the gray-white barrier. He covered his chest, gasped violently, and then frowned.

Klein was certain that the Amon who had turned into a statue was definitely not his real self—mainly judging by the difficulty of escaping.

Of course, the level is not low either. This should be one of Amon’s few angel-level clones. If it was a demigod, Klein would not run away so directly. He would even consider killing it - provided that the original body is not nearby.

But the reason for his frown had nothing to do with this, but with Amon's actions - Amon looked as if he had set his sights on him.

This is very troublesome, because Klein is looking for traces left by Kotal in order to find Kotal, and Amon...

He and Alice had previously speculated that Amon might intentionally destroy these traces to slow down his search for Kotal, but now it seems... Amon, is he planning to hunt Kotal in a place where he left traces? ? ?
This possible idea made Klein shudder. He immediately decided not to go out and explore until he got the corresponding talisman.

After hesitating for a moment, Klein still chose to tell Alice about this. He was not asking for help, but he did not forget that Amon was also a time bomb for Alice - if things went wrong, Amon would force the deity potion into her mouth.

……

Alice is discussing how to make an appearance with Derrick.

Taking into account the mood of the main actor Derrick, the issue of "Pure White Angel" came to an end. Without the "Pure White Angel", Alice naturally no longer had to play the role of the Angel of Destiny.

Without pretending to be the King of Angels, Alice had no interest in being a follower of the "real Creator". She was discussing with Derrick how to link the Fool with the original Creator. (End of this chapter)