A Newcomer of Unknown Origin

Klein looked at Morien, hesitating to speak.

He was a little curious about Morien's situation, but it involved Morien's personal privacy, so Klein did not feel it was appropriate to ask.

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Morien, who had been continuously examining the space, noticed Klein's hesitation. He spread his hands.

"What are you hesitating over?" he said. "If there's something you want to ask, just ask."

"Anyway, if I don't want to say something, I won't answer."

Klein, hidden behind the Gray Fog, blinked.

Huh?

Why did that somehow make a lot of sense?

Since the other party had said so, Klein asked directly.

"Those butterflies at your home..." Klein carefully considered his wording.

"They're my offspring," Morien said matter-of-factly.

"The one on my leg is my biological daughter. The rest are probably my grandchildren."

"Mm, they're biological too."

"I see..." Klein did not quite know what to say.

They were actually biological?

When Morien had said before that he was a giant bug, Klein had thought he was being self-deprecating.

Turns out it had been literal.

Three generations of the family were all insects, except for Morien, the "Royal Insect," who maintained a human form.

This really was the original family's fault.

Morien stopped looking around and smiled at Klein. The look made Klein suddenly feel a little awkward.

"You're the Fool, right?" Morien suddenly asked.

"How much did you learn from Mr. Hanged Man's mind..." Klein complained.

"Mm... probably..." Morien pinched his chin and thought for a moment. "Everything."

Every...

Klein pressed his lips together.

"Looks like there's no need for me to introduce everything again."

He manifested a deck of tarot cards before Morien.

"You know the rules. Pick one yourself."

He meant that Morien should choose his own codename.

Morien picked up the tarot cards before him, flipped through them casually, and selected the Tower card.

He held the tarot card upright in its reversed position, facing Klein.

"I'll choose this one." Morien smiled. "From today onward, I am Mr. Tower of the Tarot Club."

"Yes, yes, congratulations." Klein said in the perfunctory tone of casual small talk, without the slightest bit of majesty. "Every Zhou Monday at three in the afternoon. Make sure no one is around."

"That was so perfunctory." Morien was dissatisfied. "I wanted to see that. That thing. I wanted to see Mo."

"Which thing?" Klein asked in confusion.

"That thing!" Morien sat up straight, leaned back against the chair, tapped the armrest with his finger, and spoke in as deep a voice as he could manage.

"You may call me... the Fool."

After saying that, Morien's voice became cheerful again.

"That's it. I want to see that. Can you perform it again?"

Klein looked at him without saying a word.

"What's wrong?" Morien was just about to urge him on when he suddenly felt his body rapidly falling downward.

When he opened his eyes again, he was already back home.

"Oh, you're embarrassed."

A few minutes later, inside the Synchronization Space.

There were only two people in the Synchronization Space today, one standing and one sitting: Mysteries Morien and Star Rail Morien.

The other two had time flows that did not quite match theirs. Jujutsu Morien in particular would probably not make it unless he entered the space again immediately after leaving it.

"Oh-ho, you got in touch with Klein." Star Rail Morien sat on the ground with both hands braced behind him, sounding quite pleased. "The anime I've been following finally got into the main plot."

He completely treated the experiences of his other selves as Zhou-updated anime.

"Mm-hm." Mysteries Morien snapped his fingers. "Now we just wait for the time."

"Zhou Monday afternoon. It's Thursday for me now, so there's still a while."

"Yeah, still a while." Star Rail Morien closed his eyes. "I haven't done much these past two days."

"But since you managed to obtain the Reverse Cursed Technique, I feel like I can start doing some experiments."

"Really?" Mysteries Morien neither agreed nor disagreed. "Then be careful."

"Mm-hm."

At that moment, ripples spread through the space again.

"Oh, someone else is here." The two Moriens turned to look.

A new Morien appeared in the space. Just as Mysteries Morien raised his hand and was about to greet him, the form of address that should have slipped from his mouth caught in his throat.

In this space, they could easily distinguish one another. Yet now, Mysteries Morien could not tell which version of himself stood before him.

That left only one possibility.

"Wow! A newcomer!" Star Rail Morien happily raised both hands. "Great, there's another new anime to watch!"

"What world did you transmigrate into?"

The newly arrived Morien took less than ten seconds to accept his new situation. He let out a relieved sigh, went limp, and collapsed to the ground in a duck-sitting position.

"Ah... my cheat finally arrived," he sighed weakly.

Mysteries Morien walked over and lightly tapped the newcomer's raised hand with his own, completing the synchronization with a high-five.

"What world is he from?" Star Rail Morien, who had deliberately not stepped forward immediately to preserve the sense of novelty, asked from behind them.

After completing the synchronization, Mysteries Morien frowned slightly.

He looked at his palm and shook his head.

"I don't know," he answered.

"Huh?" Star Rail Morien asked in confusion. "You don't know?"

"Mm, I don't know." Mysteries Morien walked toward Star Rail Morien and held out his hand. "I can't tell."

"You didn't plant something like strawberry-flavored mapo tofu to trick me, did you?" Star Rail Morien suspiciously clasped his hand.

At the same time, the newcomer Morien's memories synchronized over.

It seemed to be a forest on a lake, with Zhou all around it and pale mist everywhere.

The mist was not especially thick. He could barely see within a range of several dozen meters, but anything farther away was completely obscured by Zhou.

The newcomer Morien had spawned there.

The water beneath his feet was not deep, only reaching his ankles.

Zhou was somewhat withered and decayed woodland. Beneath the pale fog, anything even a little farther away could not be seen at all.

Besides that, there were collapsed ruins, stone walls and arched bridges, as well as some nameless blue crystals.

There were no other living people.

Over the following days, the newcomer Morien lived in constant oppression.

There was no food here, though there was water. He only had to lie down to drink it.

Things occasionally moved slowly through the hazy mist. They looked bloated and sluggish, sometimes letting out low sounds. The newcomer Morien, who had still been an ordinary person at the time, did not dare approach them at all.

What was more, the newcomer Morien discovered many corpses.

These corpses were dry and shriveled, little more than skin and bones.

If that had been all, it would not have been a problem. No one bothered anyone else, and everyone could have remained at peace.

But clearly, those corpses did not think so.

They were not completely dead.

Corpses that moved slowly, had fragile bodies, yet could not be killed occasionally crawled out from the mud beneath his feet, always trying to ambush Morien.

Even an ordinary Morien could easily kick them back into the water, but they could not be killed and loved to attack while Morien was resting or sleeping.

Dim, oppressive, dangerous.

He endured in that environment for three days.

In the end, he entered this space on the fourth day.

"So what world are you actually from?" Star Rail Morien pondered in confusion.

His memory was exceptionally good now, good enough that he could easily recall any work he had ever encountered.

Yet he still could not determine what world the newcomer came from.

It was not because he had never seen similar settings.

On the contrary, it was because that setting was too common.

It felt like a scene that could appear in any fantasy story.

The newcomer Morien shook his head.

"I don't know either."

"But now that I have some ability to protect myself, maybe I can explore deeper."

"The next time I come here, perhaps I'll already have an answer."

"Mm... at least..."

Mysteries Morien spread his hands and made a joke.

"Now that you have the Lonely Monster ability, you probably won't be attacked anymore."

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