"...Student?"
Iver narrowed his eyes slightly and looked toward Cardinal Loki with his right hand behind his back.
Viennes, perched on his shoulder, narrowed her scarlet pupils in unison.
Cardinal Loki glanced at Viennes. The corners of his mouth, still marked by the traces of needle-and-thread stitches, curled slightly upward. "You're not an honest person either... As expected of Moriarty, I suppose? That sinful surname..."
"What do you know?"
"A lot."
Cardinal Loki replied, "I know the vast majority of this world's secrets— even more than you could imagine.
"Iver... let me reiterate: I don't want to become your enemy. I know that if I fought you, I might be completely destroyed, so why don't we simply skip that step... Whatever you want to know, just ask. I'll answer every question.
"For example... the fact that you are a fragment of Ring Angel, recreated by your 'grandfather,' Jacob."
Unlike the way everyone else addressed Iver...
It was not the vague "Sacred Entity," but the much clearer designation, "a fragment of Ring Angel."
Iver's heart sank slightly.
When he had nearly been possessed by Ring Angel during the Promotion Ritual, Iver had more or less become certain that he had an extremely close connection to Ring Angel. Now, this was merely a confirmation of that conjecture from a third-party perspective.
"...You still haven't answered my question."
Iver was silent for a moment before looking at Cardinal Loki again. "What did he... learn from you?"
At that, Cardinal Loki's smile gradually faded.
His gradient-colored hair, which reminded Iver of the flames on a gas stove, suddenly began to move without any wind. The solidified, frozen flame-like pattern began to burn once more.
Loki said slowly, "He inherited my most important mystical art from me—my Observation Secret Rite."
"...Observation?"
Iver murmured, "Astrology from