"So, was my guess from earlier today correct? About this so-called 'fate deviation'?"
Almost the moment he pushed open the doors to the Velvet Room Bar, Tangze threw out his question.
Lavenza, standing behind the counter polishing a glass, looked over at him and gave a slightly helpless smile. "Why ask when you already know the answer? You've reached your conclusion. You don't need me to give it to you."
"No, I just think you're somewhat failing at your job as a Velvet Room assistant." Tangze folded his arms and accused him without ceremony. "I know there are many things you can't tell me directly, because Velvet Room assistants are merely witnesses to rebirth and cannot interfere with the course of events according to their own preferences. But you yourself are an exception, a special case, and I don't see any strange long-nosed old man around here... What exactly is the point of you speaking in riddles?"
Based on Tangze's understanding of the Persona series, the Velvet Room's residents were beings created by the gaze of something from another plane. Though they possessed self-awareness and their own joys and sorrows, they differed from humans who truly lived in the world.
Since their whole thing was companionship, the result was that they seemed to understand a little, yet said nothing—a state of perpetual riddles.
People like him, who had no long-nosed old man to wave a hand and throw him out, and thus spent all day hounding his assistant for answers about the world's fundamental settings, were probably exceptionally rare cases. Yet precisely because he was such a special case, Tangze was dissatisfied with Lavenza's concealment.
"You're not even a proper assistant, are you?" Tangze let out a long sigh. "I'm not blind. No matter how I look at it, your