As usual, Miss Justice led the greetings, after which it was time to submit Emperor Roselle's Diary.
During her brief trip to Masik, Angel had bought two pages of Roselle's diary from a local occult enthusiast's shop. They had clearly been copied so many times that even the Chinese characters were muddled. She couldn't tell whether they duplicated pages submitted before, so she could only play dumb and hand them over.
Apart from her, only Cattleya the Hermit offered a page. Angel noticed that Mr. Fool spent much longer reading Cattleya's page. He merely glanced over her two, plainly having read their contents already.
He won't think I'm just going through the motions, will he? Remembering the Hermit's screams and the terrifying changes to her body when she was punished, Angel felt a twinge of fear. She carefully looked away, toward the three Cards of Blasphemy laid out before Mr. Fool, and felt a little calmer.
Considering the Demoness and Red Priest cards, I should be fine...
Meanwhile, Cattleya had obtained Mr. Fool's permission to conjure a pair of thick glasses so she wouldn't be punished for "looking directly at a god." She, too, stole a glance at the figure at the head of the long table and noticed his different reactions to the diaries they had submitted.
He spent noticeably longer reading the diary I submitted. It isn't just because hers is an original with denser writing. He's already read the other two pages... The others don't seem surprised. This must have happened before, and Mr. Fool doesn't punish it? That makes sense. If accidents like this were punished, no one would be eager to collect diaries...
As she speculated, her gaze drifted downward. She, too, noticed the three cards spread across the bronze table.
*There used to be