"Waaah—!"
Klein was jolted awake by a voice that suddenly appeared in his mind. Layered, overlapping illusory cries echoed alongside invisible whispers, leaving his mind agitated and chaotic.
It was like he had just been about to fall asleep when he heard someone upstairs blowing up tables and smashing the floor in an argument...
Uh, well, he was actually hearing an argument while sleeping soundly.
Klein sprang up from the bed, suppressing the irritation in his heart as he forcefully kneaded his throbbing temples. A strange expression appeared on his face. This was not the first time it had happened. After using half-meditation to calm himself a little, he lowered his gaze to his right hand. Sure enough, four black dots had somehow surfaced once again on the back of it.
"It's only six o'clock! Who on earth is praying to me at this hour?"
Klein glanced at the mechanical wall clock. Though traces of his morning grumpiness remained on his face, he swiftly took four steps backward and arrived Above the Gray Fog. His figure abruptly appeared within the majestic palace that resembled a giant's dwelling, and the Crimson Star that constantly contracted and expanded was reflected in his eyes.
Klein raised his right hand, extending his spirituality to touch the star representing "Devil," who had only joined The Tarot Club yesterday. With a boom, his vision immediately became blurry and distorted. A man in a white shirt and black vest sat before a window, facing the morning light, his clasped hands pressed against his lowered forehead—
"O Fool who does not belong to this era;"
"You are the mysterious ruler Above the Gray Fog;"
"You are the King of Yellow and Black who governs good fortune."
"Thank you for Your grace, allowing me to have a wonderful morning."
"Allowing me to have a wonderful morning."
"Have a wonderful morning."
Klein listened to Mr. Devil's prayer amid his frenzied and disordered mental state, his expression growing strange.
"You had a wonderful morning, yet you came to disturb my sleep?"
But what could he do?
As an ancient and great existence, could he tell this believer, "Mr. Fool needs to sleep. Please postpone your prayer for two hours?"
Besides, Mr. Devil still needed to rely on prayer to digest his potion.
"Being a hidden existence really isn't easy. But I only have one believer and I'm already this miserable. When those true gods face millions of believers, do they not need to sleep?"
Klein privately mocked the orthodox gods to comfort himself, then sighed softly and followed the subtle connection to send his response to the Crimson Star.
"I understand."
"I understand."
"I understand."
"I understand."
As layers upon layers of mist appeared before his eyes, a distorted, blurry figure emerged in the deepest part of his vision. Deep crimson swirled in his eyes, while his voice continuously echoed beside Sno's ears.
Feeling the solid shell around his potion crack open layer by layer once more, Sno wore a satisfied smile. He took a deep breath before rising to greet the day.
Though that was what he said, he actually had nothing to do. He could only remain in his room and use the typewriter improved by Emperor Roselle to write books and such.
Yes, write books. Although his predecessor had been a veterinarian by trade, after arriving in Tingen, he had stayed cooped up in his room. Even when it came to killing people, he had Trissy do it for him.
Under such circumstances, with plenty of spare time and bored out of his mind, Sno could only return to his old profession from his previous life and pass the time by writing.
But honestly, for Trissy—a noble Sequence Seven with abilities such as invisibility and curses—killing two unprepared Secrets Suppliants in exchange for that rather high-end and useful mystical knowledge was an extremely worthwhile deal.
As for why Trissy had clearly done the killing, yet Sno had to uphold the Aurora Society's tradition and claim responsibility for the incident...
Of course, it was to leave a good impression on Mr. A!
Yes, you read that right—a good impression!
The Aurora Society only had lunatics and lunatics who hid it very deeply. The more you acted like a psychopath, the more at ease the Aurora Society would be.
Especially if, while being crazy, you could also display a relatively rational exterior and wholeheartedly serve the True Creator, then you were one of their own through and through—even if you killed one of their own.
While silently criticizing the Aurora Society's corporate culture, he tapped away at the keyboard.
Characters appeared one after another on the manuscript paper, and Sno quickly got into the groove.
"JoJo, human abilities have limits."
"I learned one thing from my brief life..."
"The more you rely on schemes, the more likely you are to make mistakes in unexpected places..."
As he typed the sentences that had practically been engraved into his DNA, the scenes that seemed to float before his eyes were transcribed into words upon the page. Sno's fingers moved faster and faster.
After confirming that Mr. Huang Taste of Witchcraft is Quite Good had claimed the territory of comics and deciding to write something to pass the time, he had thought of adapting JoJo.
He was not worried about Klein noticing it. Or rather, it would suit his wishes if Klein did notice—because he needed a source of intelligence.
According to his predecessor's memories, Perrdax truly was an ancient noble family, but not the sort of great family that possessed a Sequence pathway.
To make it more natural for him to bring out all sorts of secrets, Sno was planning a rather risky scheme—
He intended to make Klein believe that one of the Perrdax family's ancestors might very well have been a transmigrator like The Great Emperor!
Although he had not yet decided whether this transmigrator ancestor would be a grandfather or great-grandfather, that was something he could leave vague.
He would not explicitly tell Klein how illustrious his family was, nor would he deliberately claim that his ancestor was a transmigrator. But he would leave various traces throughout his life and let Klein reach the relevant conclusion himself.
It was merely an idle move, but an extremely important one.
After all, in his view, the traces of a transmigrator on a person were very difficult to erase. Not to mention that flamboyant Mr. Huang, or the Russian Priest who copied scriptures and the Goddess's older sister. Even Klein radiated an air that did not belong to this era from every corner of his being.
Perhaps in the eyes of ordinary people, that air was merely personal style. But to fellow transmigrators, such an air could easily draw attention.
It was fine while their Sequences were low, but once Klein's Sequence rose, his experiences accumulated, and his discernment sharpened, these traits of Sno's would become increasingly obvious.
Sno was not actually too worried about being exposed before Klein, but to make the knowledge in his hands seem "reasonable," he still decided to conceal this identity.
Before you continue