Fish or Cut Bait

On the other side, Aleister reappeared.

She had returned to the top of the Clock Tower, just as when she had first entered the painting.

The Clock Tower was still completely intact, but the surrounding buildings had taken on the appearance of having been bombed. Compared with the scenery that remained in her memory, it was even easier to see what the city had gone through.

Except...

"...It doesn't look like the bombing was all that severe."

Aleister gave her blunt assessment.

Although many buildings had collapsed, it was still possible to make out the outlines of the original city blocks. More than seventy percent of the buildings still had intact frameworks, with only most of the high-rises having vanished. The relatively low residential buildings and shops were almost all still complete. Even the streets had not been blown apart.

Looking around, the Clock Tower had already become the tallest building in the city.

—Rather than being detonated from the ground by missiles or something similar, it looked more like some kind of meteor shower had fallen diagonally from above. That was why the taller structures had been damaged first.

"...How unexpected."

Aleister looked up at the purplish-red sky, her expression satisfied and excited.

A pale violet glow instantly appeared in the depths of her eyes, causing her scarlet pupils to reflect a color extremely close to that of the sky.

Aleister murmured, "I thought they would choose Fallen Angel or Shadow Angel..."

...But that wasn't necessarily the case.

There was another possibility—that they did not know the Endless Knot.

They had descended on August 8, and "eight" was the Sacred Number of the Serpent Father and the Endless Knot. As long as they noticed today's date, it would be easy for them to learn the intelligence that "the Serpent