Mystery: Lucky One

"Alice...you?" Klein asked doubtfully. Alice turned her head and saw that he was covering the left half of his face with his right hand.

The expression on the exposed right side of his face was extremely distorted. He seemed to want to laugh, but he also seemed to have not recovered from the pain. Seeing Alice looking at him, Klein quickly put aside his smile and said:

"Let them go away for a while."

Alice turned her head to look at the Chief. Without his reminder, the Chief led the team to retreat into the distance. Alice looked back at Klein again, and Klein put down his hand and showed her what he looked like now.

The left half of his face seemed transparent, and one could see the shapes of twisted worms. The same was true for his neck, which was not covered by the collar. Alice looked at Klein's left hand and robes and found that there were bulges of worms on his clothes from time to time.

Alice held her forehead with her hand and said in a deep tone:
"You know, Klein...

"When I see you normally, you look like this."

“…?” Klein raised his left hand blankly, looked at her, then looked at himself, with a hesitant expression, “…Is the world that angels see so absurd?”

"Not necessarily all angels," Alice spread her hands, "To be honest, I don't really like this kind of insects hugging each other... You don't know, Amon also looks like this... By the way, give me a mirror."

"Do you want to see what you've become?" Klein glanced at her. "Don't worry, there are no scales on your face. As for the mirror... you may have to wait a little."

After a pause, he looked at Alice's puzzled eyes and asked her:
"Which part of me do you prefer?"

“……?” Alice’s expression became even more confused.

Klein also realized that his question was not clear, so he explained:

"I mean personality - what kind of personality do you like in me? Cautious? Reckless? Cowardly? Or ..."

After hesitating for a moment, he still asked tentatively: "...The clown?"

Alice blinked, tilted her head, and smiled, "Neither."

“That’s…?” Klein looked puzzled.

"Shy." Alice looked at him intently and gave an answer that Klein had never expected.

"......?" Klein's eyes became completely confused. He stared at Alice for a few seconds, making sure that she had no intention of changing her answer. He could only nod and said, "Okay, if you insist..."

He glanced at Alice hesitantly, reached out his hand into the air, and grabbed the historical projection of "Justice" Audrey from it.

Alice watched quietly. When she saw Audrey's historical projection begin to add a virtual personality to Klein, she realized what Klein was planning to do - he was going to use the virtual personality to restore his soul to wholeness!

Of course, this is only temporary, and he still needs to find his shadow back, but after doing this, it will not have much impact on his combat power until he finds his shadow back.

When Audrey's historical projection disappeared, Alice immediately stepped forward. As she approached, Klein took a step back, causing Alice to pause. Then, she saw Klein lower his head, raised his eyes cautiously, and asked nervously:

"You, what are you going to do!"

“…?” Alice fell into deep thought as she looked at Klein, whose eyes were filled with longing. “So it’s this shyness?!”

“Isn’t this what you wanted…?” Klein looked at her timidly and with a sense of grievance.

Alice swallowed in fear and raised her hand to stop him:

"Stop, stop, stop. I mean, give me a mirror, okay?"

“Okay, okay…” Klein took out a mirror with a historical projection and handed it over carefully.

Alice was finally able to see what she had become. She briefly ignored Klein, who had added a shyness mod, and held up a mirror to look at her own appearance.

As Klein said, there were indeed no extra scales on her face. This was as it should be, otherwise the Chief and the others would probably go crazy.

But it was a bit troublesome, because her hair turned white, but not completely white. It was probably half blonde and half silver. It looked a bit like...

Premature graying of hair.

Alice put down the mirror expressionlessly and sneered:

"Well, now I am finally sure.

"The 'Destiny' path does affect appearance - but the effect comes very late, and requires Sequence 1 or above." Note ①

Seeing her like this, Klein asked timidly, "Then why didn't you change before?"

Alice looked at him, and thought his timidity quite hurtful, so she turned her head away from him, and explained:
“…Maybe it’s because I’m stuck in an awkward position.

"No, this is too weird. I have to find a way to change back, or just turn my hair completely silver, like Ouroboros..."

She stamped her feet, rolled her eyes, and her clothes turned into the hooded robe that Klein was familiar with. Then, Klein saw her curl her hair and stuff it into the hood.

Alice put on her hood and pulled the brim down to cover her weird hair. Then she gave Klein a weird smile.

Then, before Klein could react, she turned around and waved in the direction of the Chief, shouting:

"You can come back now!!!"

The voice echoed across the deserted mountaintop. The chief soon returned with his team. He looked at Alice, then at Klein, and finally asked Klein:

"Are you ok?"

“No, it’s okay…” Klein glanced at the Chief timidly and replied, “There was an accident, but it’s been resolved… Let’s go in quickly. There have been some changes in the Kingdom of God…”

"......?" The Chief was also confused. He looked at Alice hesitantly, hoping to get an explanation from her, even if the possibility was very slim.

"As you can see, he's not in a good condition," Alice said seriously, "so his true nature can't be concealed."

The Chief recalled what Alice had said before about Merlin Hermes being shy, and he subconsciously looked over. He saw Merlin Hermes looking at them as if he wanted to say something but hesitated. In the end, he said nothing and hid behind Alice.

...maybe it's true?

Doubt flashed through the chief's mind, but this was not the point at the moment, because everyone present noticed that the frozen dusk in the "Giant King's Court" had disappeared, and was replaced by the scorching sun at noon.

Facing the dazzling sunlight, the demigods in the team turned to the left side of the stairs. After going around a section of the road, they came to a rugged path.

On one side of the road was a high cliff, and on the other side was a bottomless cloud stained with the midday sun. The ground was shaking, and a large amount of illusory, dark gas gushed out from the depths of the golden cloud. With a crash, the rugged path collapsed as a whole and fell into the dark water. Alice blinked, and the scenes disappeared again. She took a half step back and shouted to the chief who was still moving forward unconsciously:
"Stop, back off."

The chief stopped and stepped back. He didn't ask why, and Lovia and Derrick naturally didn't ask either. They stopped together, and within a few seconds, the scene that Alice had just seen appeared in reality.

The deep water surface seemed to have an invisible whirlpool. Alice always felt that there was a suction force hidden in the water surface, but when she felt it carefully, it seemed illusory. She frowned, bent down, picked up a stone from the ground and threw it over.

The stone crossed the dividing line and flew in the sea of ​​clouds for only a few seconds before falling straight down, showing an obviously abnormal parabola.

Alice frowned and turned to look at Klein. Fortunately, despite being shy, Klein's brain was still online. He spoke a little nervously:

"It seems that flying over there won't work..."

As he spoke, he bit his lower lip.

Alice gritted her teeth, unable to bear his expression. She turned her head away and stretched out her hand, saying:
"Do you have any paper?"

Klein took out a piece of white paper from his pocket and handed it to Alice. Alice folded a paper airplane smoothly, then spread her feet shoulder-width apart, leaned forward slightly, held the paper airplane in her right hand, blew into her mouth, and threw it out with force.

Then, the paper airplane crashed to prove that the accident was not caused by the stone.

Alice had no intention of trying a third time. She shook her head and looked at the others. Lovia released a translucent soul and also picked up the rubble from the ground.

In a flash, the piece of rubble disappeared from its original spot and flashed above the dark clouds. Then, it fell down uncontrollably and sank into the sea of ​​clouds.

"Even teleportation is not possible." Luo Weiya said in a slightly low voice.

Alice's eyes flickered, and a silver light flowed in her eyes. After a moment, she frowned and said:
"'Restart' won't bring back what's inside."

After a pause, she took a step back cautiously.

“Maybe…” Klein nervously pulled the hem of Alice’s robe and whispered in her ear, “Maybe we can go through the front door.”

Alice glanced at Klein. She felt powerless, wanting to scold him but not knowing what to say. In the end, she could only pat Klein on the shoulder and said in a deep voice as he looked horrified:
"I will definitely treasure this memory and bring it back for the great Mr. Fool to appreciate."

Then, she turned to the chief and relayed Klein's words: "Go through the main entrance."

Derrick immediately turned around and prepared to go back. Colin Iliad and Lovia looked at each other, nodded, and followed him.

They quickly returned to the huge, gray-white staircase and looked up ahead.

On each of the high silent stairs, the majestic city walls were covered with traces of burning and destruction, and in some places there were arrows as thick as ordinary trees.

In the middle of the city wall is a double-door gate several dozen meters high, with a gray-blue tone and golden nails inlaid on the surface.

On both sides of the gate stood four, five or six meter tall, extremely oppressive guards. They were wearing exquisite and sturdy silver full body armor. One of them held a big sword, and the other held a huge axe. There was a ball of orange light shining from behind their masks.

"What is this?" Alice looked confused.

"Silver Knight," the chief said in a low voice, "I can hold one back."

His eyes swept over Lovia and Derrick in turn, and finally fell on Alice and Klein, as if asking for their opinions.

Klein became a little nervous when being watched. He hid behind Alice again. Although Alice couldn't stop him at all, he still leaned in and whispered:

"Reinette Tinicole is still following me. After Kotal's matter was over, I was worried about accidents, so I didn't send her back."

Alice looked at Klein, and Klein realized something and took out a gold coin from his pocket.

"He can handle it." Alice turned and told the chief.

After a pause, she glanced at the gold coins in Klein's hand and his shy appearance, thought for a moment and said:

“But you’d better not look at him.

"His current condition is not suitable for meeting people..."

Understandably, the Chief and Lovia looked away, and Derrick was no exception. He was already considering the possibility that Mr. World was using a cool exterior to hide his shy nature.

Without the attention, Klein finally regained his courage. The gold coins rolled silently from his hands, and he slowly walked up the stairs to take on the responsibility of bait.

When Alice saw Renette Tinicole transform one of the "Silver Knights" into a white Angora rabbit, she licked her lips, quietly moved towards Derrick, and said to him:

"Look, it's so cute."

Derrick looked over in confusion, and just in time saw Klein snap his fingers, turning the white angora rabbit into colorful pieces of flesh and blood.

Derrick swallowed hard and turned to look at Alice. Alice blinked innocently, took two steps to the side, and looked up at the sky.

“Okay.” Klein turned around and said to them.

The chief didn't even glance at Alice and Derrick. He exchanged glances with Lovia and walked forward. As he passed Klein, he whispered, "

"Alien?"

Klein glanced at him nervously, avoided his gaze, and came over to pull the hem of Alice's robe.

Alice covered her face with one hand and advised gently, "I think you'd better not talk to him until he finds his shadow..."

The chief said nothing, but quietly looked away and continued moving forward.

Alice, who was left behind, pushed Klein and told him, "Remember to collect your Beyonder Characteristics."

Klein shook his head and said, "According to the agreement, that is..."

He looked into the air, and Alice realized that it belonged to Renette Tinicole, so she said nothing more and followed the team.

Klein followed him as well. The silver knight that had not been broken into pieces followed closely behind Klein. Alice kindly suggested:
"Why don't you hide behind it next time? It's taller and can block you."

“But it’s also a part of me…” Klein said with difficulty, “It’s no different from me being watched by others when others are watching it. I can feel the gaze just as well…”

"...Do you have the perception of a secret doll?" Alice hesitated, "I... Sorry, have you ever read... a similar book? Just now, I suddenly thought of something not so good..." (End of this chapter)