Extra Compensation

"Good afternoon, Mr. Fool, and everyone else~"

Following Miss Justice's energetic greeting, everyone rose to salute The Fool before today's Tarot Club meeting began.

First came the customary time for presenting diaries. This time, only Cattleya the Hermit, who was backed by the Queen Mystic, had brought two pages. The other members had come up empty-handed.

Angel felt immense pressure under the faint gaze Mr. Fool cast her way. She believed everyone else felt the same.

Fortunately, The Fool said nothing. He merely finished reading the two pages of diary in silence before asking the Hermit in a low voice:

"What do you wish to know? Roselle's condition?"

Having had her thoughts exposed, the Hermit replied steadily, as if she had prepared her answer long ago:

"Yes, honored Mr. Fool. I wish to know whether that Emperor still has any possibility of being alive."

Emperor Roselle—the Emperor Caesar who had been assassinated in his own palace during his later years—might still be alive? Sure enough, even if Bernadette, the Queen Mystic, had not gained the ability to decipher Chinese, she had still done her utmost to use the Hermit to decode the Roselle's Diaries in her possession, trying to uncover the secrets of her father's later years. As that Emperor's daughter, she naturally could select the most appropriate pages to offer Mr. Fool... Angel looked at the Hermit with a complicated expression.

The other members also exchanged looks before turning their gazes toward the figure seated at the head of the long table, awaiting His answer.

Roselle, that great man who had died nearly two hundred years ago, had no direct connection to them now. Yet everyone was curious, especially when satisfying that curiosity required no price.

"Perhaps, but I fear it will not be in the form she hopes