Chapter Text
Deep in the underground ruins, Klein closed the last of the six doors on the sides, once again hiding the unsettling humanoid statues of the six deities from view. Together with Miss Bodyguard, he turned to look at the doors barring the only path that remained unexplored.
When he had agreed to Millet Carter’s request to explore the underground space, Klein hadn’t expected to find hidden structures dating all the way back to the Tudor family in the fourth epoch. Let alone discover such blasphemous statues within its depths.
With the strangeness of all that they had discovered so far, he couldn’t help but be a little apprehensive of what might lie beyond. At the same time, erasing the fog that lay confusingly thick across the chronology of the fourth epoch had been the dream of Klein Moretti. Now stepping into the shoes of those memories and life, Klein naturally held the same wish.
With the creak of rusty hinges, he slowly pushed the heavy iron doors open, revealing the dark corridor that stretched ahead.
Though the corridor was wide enough for four people to walk comfortably side by side, the darkness that clung heavily to the stone walls almost seemed to hang oppressively over his body. Heavily shrouded, it left the corridor feeling unnaturally confining. A tunnel through an uncharted cave.
Klein pushed the feeling aside and pressed forwards, the figure of Miss Bodyguard trailing silently behind him. The glow of the lantern flickered weakly as it fought a losing struggle against the surrounding darkness. One set of footsteps echoing past marked their journey forward.
The air gradually grew slightly mustier. Wherever they were heading towards was not as ventilated as the large chamber behind them. Coupled with the silence, the deep shadows, and the heavy atmosphere, it almost felt like the entrance down a tomb.
Eventually, the dim light illuminated a pile of rock and stone ahead. The path forward had collapsed completely. On either side of the corridor were heavy iron doors in a similar style to the one they just entered. The one to the right was hanging ajar, and through the entrance Klein could see more mud and rock barricading the doorway.
The door to the left was mostly shut. Though it was hard to tell from his distance away, Klein thought the door might have been cracked open the slightest bit.
Without a word of warning, Miss Bodyguard’s figure turned translucent, and she stepped straight through the crumpled mass of stone and dirt. A few minutes later she could be seen walking out through the fallen mess on the side of the right door.
“It’s completely collapsed,” she concluded flatly.
Klein, who had been left outside without a word, could only smile speechlessly. Miss Bodyguard truly had an efficient style.
The two of them simultaneously cast their gazes to the left.
Well, Miss Bodyguard did say that the danger was subdued… Klein approached the door with caution. Up close, he could tell that the solid doors were indeed opened by a sliver, just barely enough for him to peek in.
Activating his Spirit Vision, a narrow ‘scene’ appeared within his mind. At the far of the room beyond was another set of closed iron doors, though these seemed to be covered in dripping blood. On the ground were at least four lights glowing with spirituality: two in dark gold, and two in a dark blue.
Beyonder characteristics and mystical items? Klein looked upon this with rising enthusiasm. Even in the worse case scenario, weak mystical items and Sequence 9 characteristics could still sell for several hundred pounds. If things went well, he could recoup a decent amount of the funds he had spent to protect himself from Rosago.
Of course, even with a fortune in sight, Klein still kept his wariness up. Miss Bodyguard had warned him not to touch anything, and subdued danger was different from no danger at all.
With his left hand grasping Azik’s copper whistle, Klein carefully nudged the door open using the cane held in his other hand. The metal creaked with disuse, the sound echoing distinctly in the confined halls. More of the chamber ahead was revealed, and his sight was drawn to the tattered remains of clothing covering what looked like abandoned bodies left on the ground.
Suddenly, he realised that the surface of the copper whistle was now icy to the touch, bringing with it a chill like death.
Klein quickly backed away from the door. From the corner of his eye, he could see that his right forearm was bulging abnormally, and yet his muscles were completely numb. The anomaly had snuck up on him subtly and insidiously. If not for the whistle, he might not have noticed it at all.
Reacting immediately, Klein grabbed a tarot card in his pocket and sliced open the skin. Some dark worms squirmed thickly as they fell from the wound onto the ground, where they writhed in final throes before dissolving.
As the worms poured out, soon his arm shrank back to normal, and only blood dripped from the long cut. Using the Clown’s minute control over his muscles, Klein tensed them to minimise blood loss.
Finally, when several seconds passed without any strange changes to his body, he let out a breath.
“Did anything happen to you?” Klein asked Miss Bodyguard. A cursory glance showed nothing out of the ordinary.
She shook her head in a very slight motion, the corners of her lips dipped into a small but rare frown. “You almost lost control,” she said, her voice as impassive as always.
He almost lost control just by looking at the room with Spirit Vision? No, Miss Bodyguard existed in a state halfway between the spirit world and the physical world. If there was something in the room that was too dangerous to lay eyes upon, it would have affected her as well. Unless it was because his Sequence was still too low?
Klein crumpled the stained tarot card and dropped it back into his pocket. As he released it, his fingers brushed against the edge of Azik’s copper whistle.
The metal remained just as cold to the touch as it had been before.
He swung his eyes around their surroundings. Over the past moment, the shadows around them must have thickened gradually. Now the corridor was cloaked in darkness, and the lantern could barely give off a feeble glow. It was like a dying lure in an ocean. A shadow stretched behind Miss Bodyguard.
A chill shot through Klein’s veins. Miss Bodyguard never had a shadow to begin with!
“Run!” Klein shouted, before sprinting immediately towards the entrance of the corridor. He didn’t have the capacity to see if Miss Bodyguard was following him; all his strength was directed towards reaching the exit.
The opened iron doors at the end could hardly be seen through the darkness. The shadows felt almost tangible, and they dragged against his legs like currents in a river. Though they had only walked about thirty steps in, it was like the distance back had been tripled.
Every second spent in the dark felt like there was some hungering beast chasing right behind, its claws reaching around and ahead of them.
Suddenly, something cold yet not quite solid wrapped around his ankles and pulled. If he didn’t have supernatural balance, Klein would certainly have toppled over. As it was, he quickly recentered himself and leaped the last handful of metres to the exit—
The candle flame in the lantern flickered before going out. At the same time, the heavy iron doors swung as if controlled by an invisible force and slammed shut. Klein tried to shift his body into a tackle, but instead of crashing the doors open, he fell into what felt like a cold fog or a soft gauze. His surroundings were now shrouded entirely in darkness.
He clicked his molars to activate Spirit Vision, but everything was a confusing blur of shadows. Something soft but cold swarmed over him and pulled him irrevocably back into the corridor. It was like fighting against solid air.
These things had no spirituality? No, there was a better explanation. Everything here should be glowing with the black aura of death. With the absence of any other light, spiritual or otherwise, a black aura would be difficult to discern in darkness.
Klein did his best to dig his feet into the ground while contorting his body out of the shadows’ grip. At the same time, he reached his left hand into his pocket and pulled out Azik’s copper whistle.
His only frame of reference was Maynard’s body rising after being around the copper whistle. It would be ideal if he had a better idea on how other undead beings or phenomena might react to its presence. Even without further data though, he could only use it and hope for the best.
It would be a shame to lose the whistle that Mr. Azik gave him, but this time he had no choice.
He felt the darkness shift around him slightly, and the copper whistle grew even colder. Klein immediately tossed the whistle down the corridor while springing backwards in the opposite direction. He would take the moment that the shadows loosened their grip to run straight towards the doors.
A quiet laugh seemed to ring out beside his ears. ‘Interesting,’ the shadows seemed to whisper, and a cold, imperceptible touch brushed against his cheek.
‘Unfortunately for you…’ Klein felt the shadows that he thought had shifted away actually loop back, surrounding him in a tight cocoon, as if teasing him for his naivety. ‘…I’m not one of those mindless wraiths.’ He could almost hear the invisible smirk at the end of those words that felt like an illusion.
Then a sharp pain tore through his chest, as if a long blade stabbed him through the heart. Klein looked down, but endless darkness was still the only thing that he could see. He could only feel his consciousness rapidly fade into nothing.
Not again!
That was Klein’s first thought when his eyes snapped open once more.
He had barely settled down in Backlund, and already he had died another time. His resurrections weren’t unlimited! Casting a glance down, through his torn clothes Klein could see his flesh slowly wriggle as it made gradual progress in fusing back together. At this point in time the wound was still gaping badly, though at least the pain was beginning to fade.
From his speed of recovery, Klein estimated that he had only one more chance of resurrection.
Wasn’t two deaths in twenty days too much? Before transmigrating, Klein had managed to make it through a good twenty years and more with no fatal incidents. This felt like getting hit by lightning twice in the same storm.
Not to mention that he had just faced a powerful threat two days ago and barely escaped with his life after significant planning… Klein could only complain within his heart and let out a sigh. Even with divination and Miss Bodyguard’s spiritual intuition, it was still possible to be misled. This was the same lesson that Rosago learnt too late.
On top of the loss of a resurrection attempt, the worth of which could not be measured in currency, some of his clothes were too badly damaged and too soaked in blood to be repaired. That was a loss of at least three pounds! And to add insult to injury, he had once again died from being stabbed through the heart. The frustration of having ill fate repeated left him with a sourness in his chest.
Klein lifted a hand to rub his temple. His head was ringing slightly, as if there were multiple overlapping voices in the distance. They seemed to call out to him through the space of eons. Before he could try and make out the muffled words though, the voices quickly disappeared, leaving behind only a slight headache.
Was this a side effect of his resurrection? With the voices gone, he could only push the matter aside.
After the shock of a sudden death passed, Klein quickly took a look around his surroundings. With or without Spirit Vision, it didn’t look like there was anyone in the vicinity. His spiritual intuition also hadn’t given him any warnings since he awoke.
However, someone had moved his body from the corridor to another location.
The new room was fairly large, though most of it was empty. Inlaid in the walls were inverted candlesticks that had been lit with a small flame. Covered across the ground were unidentifiable red marks that looked like they could have been made by anything from paint to blood. They formed concentric circles filled with esoteric symbols that were so faded by age that they could no longer be discerned.
The only furniture within were three high back chairs made of a twisted black metal that seemed to shine a deep and fresh red. The chairs were placed on an elevated platform, facing each other in a triangular formation. Under the orange light of the flickering candles, shadows danced among the chairs and seeped into the marks on the ground.
The whole place gave Klein the impression of a sacrificial altar. An ominous pressure filled the area, as if Klein had intruded on some profane secret hidden from the light of day. Completing the image were three male corpses slumped in each of the chairs.
The corpse in the centre facing Klein had long straight hair all the way to his waist in a vibrant red. To the left of that chair was a corpse with shoulder-length hair in a warmer red tone, and the corpse on the right had short hair that seemed a deeper red. They were all donning full body armour, but patches of decay could clearly be seen marring their otherwise youthful faces. It was hard to tell how long ago the bodies had died. The decomposition of their flesh was in irregular spots, and for the large part their bodies seemed unnaturally well preserved.
Hair this red was a bit unusual… were these three brothers? Having looked around the room, Klein turned around to see if he could find an exit. Behind him was another set of heavy iron doors that were similar to the others in the underground structure.
The biggest difference was that these ones were covered from top to bottom in fresh blood. More liquid continuously flowed down the doors like a grotesque waterfall, somehow never pooling against the ground. It was as if the iron was constantly absorbing the blood, giving it a shiny, sinister look.
Klein’s eyes widened in shock. With no one watching, he didn’t bother to conceal his expression.
This was the door he had seen in his Spirit Vision! The one at the far end of the room scattered with Beyonder characteristics and mystical items. Even without the remains of the previous explorers to serve as warning signs, it was obvious to a transmigrator who had once watched horror movies that a door like this should never be opened. Let alone entered.
At least whatever attacked him seemed to have left. Klein consoled himself. It couldn’t have expected that he would later come back to life, after all. He just wondered why the undead being would drag him into this room instead of leaving his body outside with the rest of the deceased explorers.
“You seem well for a dead body.” A voice suddenly rang out from behind him.
Klein spun around, fingers reaching down to grab a Slumber Charm. The three high back chairs and the bodies on them remained undisturbed. Only this time the centre chair had a translucent figure of a man leaning over the back with his arms crossed. His long red hair flowed over the pauldrons of his armour, and several illusory strands fell onto the decaying face of the body sagged on the chair beneath him. The eyes that were trained on Klein’s face had the coldness of a supreme hunter.
The man’s appearance was identical to the body he was currently leaning over. Only his unmarred face was different. Without the patches of rotting flesh, he had a set of handsome and strong features. There was a small red mark in the centre of his forehead that was shaped like a miniature flag.
A cold sweat began to break out on Klein’s back. This wasn’t just out of mere emotional fear. Now that he chose to reveal himself, the man was giving off an almost suffocating aura of oppression, a kind that could only be backed by mysticism and true power. Klein didn’t need his spiritual intuition to know that he was completely outclassed, like a worm against a giant.
An evil spirit! The man was definitely an evil spirit at the level of a High-Sequence Beyonder!
A cruel smile unfurled on the man’s lips. “You’re only a Low-Sequence weakling, and yet when I dumped your body together with the other fools outside and planned to slowly drain your remnant spirituality, to my surprise I found a living soul. No Beyonder characteristic ever formed from your corpse.
“So tell me. How does an ant like you have the power of resurrection?”
Klein obviously wasn’t going to answer his question. That involved his biggest trump card, the space above the grey fog! Thankfully the evil spirit never thought to strip him of his charms and other items.
Even though Azik’s copper whistle was lost, he intended to take the chance when the man was talking to throw out a Slumber Charm and flee. A Requiem Charm would likely have little effect on an evil spirit of this level. Klein could try the All-Black Eye, but that was more likely to give himself debilitating mental pain in return for little gains.
He didn’t even bother considering his tarot cards on his gun. Only the dumbest of horror movie protagonists would shoot ordinary bullets at a ghost.
To buy some time, Klein manipulated his face into an expression of confusion and fear. “I… have no idea. I really didn’t expect to wake up.”
“What a shame.” Contrary to his words, the man didn’t show the slightest bother. “Fortunately for you, I’m feeling rather benevolent today. Let me give you some help experimenting with your strange, mysterious powers.”
Helping me experiment with resurrection… aren’t you just saying you’ll kill me a few more times if I don’t give you an answer? Klein complained silently.
“…No need. I’ve learnt that some mysteries are safer left untouched.”
“Not a word of gratitude for the hand I extended?”
Klein gave him a tight smile. “Free things cost the most.” Just a bit more, and he would use the Slumber Charm when the man seemed the most distracted!
The evil spirit let out a mocking laugh. “You’re like a noble lady on guard against propositions from men looking to win her hand in marriage.
“For a man to have these kinds of progressive expectations… are you a follower of Evernight?” As he spoke, the man deliberately cast his gaze down to Klein’s pocket.
This…! Klein’s left hand froze in the midst of pulling out one of his Slumber Charms. The man had checked his pockets, he had just left the items and charms untouched in order to lure Klein into letting down his guard? He had also known that those charms all came from the domain of the Evernight Goddess…
With such a disparity of strength between them, such tricks were unnecessary. This was just bullying people who were weaker than him!
Also, could he not phrase things like that?
The man seemed to have read his thoughts from his face. “What kind of idiot wouldn’t go through your items?” he said with amusement. “Any of them could be the key to your resurrection. They were all useless except one though.
“That’s an interesting eye you’ve got; if you give it to me, I’ll let you leave here alive.”
The All-Black Eye? Was this a trap? But nothing had stopped the man from taking the All-Black Eye from his body while he was still unconscious. Klein thought of the absurd image of an evil spirit conscientiously waiting for the victim they killed to revive before making a polite request to take their belongings.
Just as Klein was considering his options, the man’s right cheek suddenly split open into a bloody maw. The gaping hole was so deep that squirming flesh, dangling tendons and white bone were all visible.
Klein didn’t even have a chance to react to the grisly scene before a male voice came out from the gash. The voice was stern and aristocratic; a different sound from the smoother and more provocative tone of the evil spirit. “Don’t even think about taking that eye. Do you really think we wouldn’t stop you again? Only a dog would still try the same thing after failing twice.”
“Give him some grace, Einhorn.” The left side of the man’s cheek promptly split into another bloody gash, from which sarcastic words poured out. This man’s voice was more spirited and suave than the other two. “His brain has been scrambled by the True Creator; he only knows how to crawl at the feet of evil gods! Poor Medici, a dog abandoned by his master.”
Seeing as three different voices just came from the same face, Klein could only stare speechlessly.
Medici? Einhorn? Were these both the names of the evil spirit? But it didn’t quite seem to fit. The second voice was quite clearly referring to two different people.
Three different voices in one body… It almost reminded Klein of the spirit of Hayley Walker. Though she was the dominant personality, the spirit that had haunted Sir Deweyville was made up of the remnant spirits of many different young girls fused into one.
Perhaps this was a more advanced example of that fusion? Three different spirits fused into one, but each still powerful enough to retain their self-awareness and to speak as different individuals. As expected of the souls of High-Sequence Beyonders. This strength of will was unmatched by ordinary people…
What Klein took note of was that ‘Medici’, very likely the main personality who had asked for the All-Black Eye, was a follower of the True Creator. In that case, he definitely couldn’t hand the All-Black Eye over unless he truly had no other options. Who knew what the evil spirit could do with a mystical item linked to his god?
“The two of you should just shut up,” the personality who should be Medici said as he frowned and rubbed his cheeks. Muffled sounds emanated from beneath his palms, and the wounds on his cheeks disappeared under the rough treatment. “Defeated pawns don’t have the right to negotiate.”
“We were clearly all defeated together?” the cut on the left cheek said as it valiantly struggled against the squeezing fingers. “You have a lot of pride for a potion ingredient.”
“As the one with the Uniqueness and thousands of years of war experience, I was clearly the focus and key target of the conspiracy. Side dishes who were captured in passing and who lost again in the fight for this spiritual body should just accept defeat.”
“Thousands of years of war experience, and you fell to someone a quarter of your age?”
“I might have lost to Alista when He had the backing of those insufferable brothers, but the two of you lost in a fair and direct struggle with me!”
At this point, Klein was almost considering simply turning around and making his way to the door. Maybe the evil spirit arguing among themselves wouldn’t even notice until he was long gone.
After the cuts subsided, Medici finally cut his gaze over to Klein. “You didn’t run,” he said. “Not bad, you still have some self-preservation instincts. If you had touched the door, I would have killed you instantly. I wouldn’t even have to stop talking to these two.”
He suddenly let out a laugh, and leaned over the back of the chair in a lazy slouch. “Though I would actually prefer not to have to cause you any harm. You see, I brought you here to make a deal; I hope you can help me escape from these ruins.”
Help an evil spirit escape? Especially an evil spirit that believed in the True Creator? Even if the spirit had some internal dissent, letting the spirit out would be tantamount to harming countless innocents. Klein couldn’t in good conscience agree. Not even if his life was in danger.
It was as if Medici could guess Klein’s thoughts, for he continued in a relaxed voice. “It wouldn’t cost you anything at all: all that I require is a ‘connection’ to that entity that allows you to resurrect. Because I’ll need a constant connection, you don’t have to worry about me hurting innocent people after I leave.” His lips curled up. “I’ll make sure to keep on good terms with you in order to maintain my existence.
“And of course, I’ll reward you greatly for this.” The evil spirit spread his hands slightly. “I was alive during the second epoch, and I’ve seen the Blasphemy Slates. Be it knowledge of mysticism or history, or even the occasional favours, I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”
Klein almost couldn’t believe his ears. Miss Bodyguard and he were clearly just exploring an unknown structure beneath somebody’s house, how did this end up with him being killed and pressured by a big-shot from the second epoch? This was like encountering the final boss after the tutorial mission.
The Blasphemy Slates were also something he barely knew. He only knew that the first Blasphemy Slate appeared in the second epoch, and the second Blasphemy Slate appeared at the end of the third epoch. The ancient potion names came from the Blasphemy Slate, and that during Emperor Roselle’s time the second Blasphemy Slate was in the hands of that ancient organisation.
To suddenly meet someone who had seen both felt like he had just begun a mystery story, only for a stranger passing by to blurt out the name of the murderer. Even Emperor Roselle had only seen the second Blasphemy Slate.
Klein used every bit of his Clown’s abilities to ensure that his inner thoughts couldn’t be read through his expression. He kept his silence for a couple of moments before saying, “Answer a few of my questions first.”
“Of course,” Medici said with a nonchalant smile.
“…What is the source that’s allowing me to resurrect?” Klein asked carefully. “And how did you find out about it?”
Regardless of whether or not he intended to make a deal with the evil spirit, it couldn’t hurt to first get some mysticism knowledge for free! If he was to be believed, this was an ancient being from the second epoch who likely lived to the fourth epoch. He might never get a chance like this again.
And as for forging that connection, Klein was reluctant to come to any agreement with a follower of the True Creator. He was also well aware though that his cards were somewhat limited.
Trapped in these underground ruins, if he simply refused the spirit’s offer, what were the odds of the other allowing him to leave with his head? Those indiscriminate with violence and with the strength to back it held all the bargaining power. These were true mafia tactics.
“That entity is a ‘sefirot’,” the ancient spirit explained, “one that’s tied intrinsically to the spirit world. As an evil spirit, I could feel its presence distinctly the moment your body began to recover.”
‘Sefirot’? So the space above the grey fog was something called a ’sefirot’… The way the spirit phrased it, it sounded like the grey fog was not the only ‘sefirot’ of its kind. Could the others also be related to the secret of his resurrection?
Klein was unsurprised that the grey fog had a connection to the spirit world. When he thought about it, every time he summoned himself, he would pass by scenes that seemed like they stemmed from the spirit world. A riot of colour and ephemeral sights; an ascend through a galaxy, or a fall through an oil painting, before that endless expense of grey would materialise.
After thinking for a moment, Klein then chose to ask, “The reason why you need a connection to that ’sefirot’, is it because you require a link to the spirit world?”
“Good, you have some mysticism knowledge.” Medici seemed pleasantly surprised. “That would make cooperation easier.
“Most spirits aren’t capable of leaving the territory that they’re anchored to, otherwise they’ll lose their connection with the spirit world. Without the energy from the spirit world to sustain their existences, unless they possess a living person capable of withstanding their status or consume enough souls or Beyonder characteristics, they’ll eventually completely dissipate.”
Medici straightened his body and walked out from behind the chair. He lifted something small and thin from the ground before placing it in his body. From his distance away, Klein couldn’t make out any details, just that it looked a bit like a card. After placing it in his body, Medici’s image seemed to solidify a bit more.
“With a stable connection to your sefirot,” the evil spirit continued, “a territory becomes unnecessary. That sefirot you have can serve as both anchor and nourishment to spirits. On top of that, its authority exceeds the limits of pretty much any seal, and its concealment effect can even hide the fact that I’ve escaped from these ruins.”
If that was truly the case, then Klein had a surprising amount of bargaining power within his hands. It didn’t seem like the grey fog could be easily substituted for in Medici’s escape plan.
They were at a bit of an impasse. Medici needed him, but if he refused, the other could likely kill him at any time. And then continued killing him every time Klein revived.
This reminded him of a concept that forum users frequently complained about in gaming communities; who knew he would one day find himself spawn-camped in real life?
Klein pulled his lips into an apologetic smile. “You’re mistaken. That ’sefirot’ you talk about isn’t mine. It belongs to a secret existence who blessed me with the gift of resurrection. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
The spirit returned the smile, but his was shaded in obvious mockery. “You shouldn’t try to lie to someone who knows more than you. It makes for a poor conspiracy. Though if you insist, I can deliver you to your ‘god’.”
As expected, an excuse like ‘being a secret existence’s Blessed’ didn’t work. Even if it had, Klein suspected it would just result in his death. After all, no secret existence on the level of a god would lower themselves to bargain for the sake of a Blessed’s life — they would simply smite the offender. In that case, Medici would have no reason to keep Klein alive.
The evil spirit might have seemed honest and open to sharing a lot of vulnerable details, but Klein was aware that this was also Medici’s gamble. Showing some weakness was a calculated attempt to make him feel that the deal was less unequal. Those given some leverage might feel more reassured in their safety, giving the other rope to hang the overconfident with.
Offering a carrot, while never letting those he dealt with forget that he wielded a stick.
Klein reached into his pocket to pull out a coin. Without caring to hide from Medici’s eyes, he flipped it for a quick divination. When he opened his palm, the profile of George Augustus III could be seen facing up.
The divination stated that Medici wasn’t lying… Of course, Klein was also aware that the divination could have been tampered with. Making a divination regarding the evil spirit himself would rarely provide an accurate answer.
He could only let out a sigh. If he wanted a chance at an accurate divination, he would probably have to go above the grey fog.
Wait a minute. Klein felt a sudden revelation dawn. There was no point in keeping the grey fog a secret anymore. The evil spirit was already aware! Going above the grey fog would leave his body defenceless, but as long as he didn’t escape, he didn’t think Medici would immediately take action to kill him.
There was the risk that going up might end up revealing a bit more of his secrets, but Medici already seemed aware that he could forge a connection at will. He had already tried and failed to pass off the grey fog as being linked to anyone else but him.
In that case, he could pretend to comply with Medici’s demands. When the spirit allowed him to enter the grey fog, he would take the chance to sort out his thoughts before determining his actual course of action.
“One more thing before I’ll consider it,” Klein said, coming to a decision. “I can try to form a connection between you and the ‘sefirot’, but it’ll require my spiritual body to go to the sefirot to do it, and I might not have the spirituality to form a bond with an evil spirit of your level. In addition, you’ll have to speak an honorific name.”
“The first is no issue,” Medici said with ease. “I’ll wait with your physical body for as long as you need to create a connection. Another few days or weeks is nothing… ah, but that might not be the case for your human body. Do try to return before you die.
“As long as you open the connection on your end, I can use my own spirituality to stabilise the bond. It wouldn’t cost you anything at all. As for the honorific name,” Medici let out a laugh. “Interesting! A nobody like you used a sefirot to pretend to be a god? Haha, you have quite the guts.”
This was what they called social death… Klein mourned. Thank the Goddess that Medici doesn’t know anything about the Tarot Club. Otherwise I can never show my face to Justice, The Hanged Man, and The Sun again!
He acted as if he hadn’t heard that last line. “Then the honorific name is:
“The Fool that doesn’t belong to this era;
“The Mysterious Ruler above the grey fog;
“The King of Yellow and Black who wields good luck.”
Klein gave the evil spirit the same smile he had always seen on the faces of customer service back on Earth. “I’ll go to the sefirot first to prepare. Wait a few minutes before you call the honorific name.”
“’The Fool’…” Medici murmured. His eyes were alight, as if he had received an entertaining revelation. “Before I recite your honorific name, what should I call you?”
“You can call me Sherlock Moriarty,” Klein said, before he took four steps counter-clockwise and arrived above the grey fog.