By the time Leonard reacted, towering stone pillars had appeared before his eyes. They stood above an endless expanse of grayish-white mist, supporting a magnificent palace that seemed fit for giants.
His green eyes were blank. After a second of stunned silence, Leonard realized that at some point, he had found himself seated beside an ancient, mottled Bronze Long Table, with high-backed chairs exuding solemn authority beside and across from him.
At the head of the mottled table, a figure was shrouded in dense Gray Fog, lounging leisurely against the back of the chair as though overlooking everything in the world.
The moment that figure entered Leonard's sight, he felt as if he had boarded a passenger ship and was facing a boundless, bottomless abyssal sea, or as if he had left the city for the outskirts and looked up at a towering, majestic mountain.
In an instant, countless thoughts flashed through Leonard's mind, and he formed a rough guess about his situation. As a Beyonder of the Church and a believer certain that Gods truly existed, he could not resist the feelings in his heart. Instinctively, he tried to rise from his seat and worship the being before him.
The majesty of a God was like a mountain, like the sea.
Just as Leonard began to stand, an invisible force pressed him back down. Then, a calm voice with an odd sense of balance echoed out:
"No need for such trouble. You may call me Mr. Fool."
"So it really is the Fool?" Leonard's unease eased somewhat. Though he was still worried about what might happen next, considering that the one who had told him to pray to this being was suspected to be a blessed of the Goddess, he was no longer quite so frightened.
However, the Goddess's