Awakening

Aster felt no psychological burden whatsoever about using the glove's ability on himself to become a Demoness. Back in elementary school, he had enjoyed making female characters, pinching his voice to pretend to be a little girl and scamming quite a bit of game equipment from middle-aged men in their forties. After entering university, he had repeatedly used voice changers to trick horny people online. Pretending to be a girl for online dating was merely a trivial matter among the unfathomable depths of his moral bottom line, not even enough to make him feel the slightest shame.

Just then, his spiritual intuition was suddenly stirred. Aster looked toward the floor beside him and discovered that it was his powerful messenger, Alidibus, the suspected Phoenix—Spirit Mediums could see undead spirits without activating Spirit Vision.

"You have a letter." After dropping a letter, Alidibus vanished again, taking three-quarters of Aster's spirituality with him before leaving.

A letter for me? From whom?

Aster rubbed his head, which throbbed slightly from having too much spirituality drained away, then picked up and opened the letter. He found that it had been sent by Fors.

Xio Derecha really had been thrown into prison... Was their storyline about to begin too? Aster began thinking.

Fors's side quest was one of the quest chains Aster had taken relatively seriously, so he could still remember its general progression.

In the letter, she described the difficulties she had encountered and asked Aster to provide some help in rescuing Xio. She would pay an appropriate price... Of course, he could also choose not to help.

"Still as cowardly as in the game's story... I wonder when I can raise her favorability enough to unlock the subsequent side quests..." Aster mocked her inwardly and continued reading. By the end, his brow suddenly furrowed.

In the letter, Fors mentioned that she had already made many attempts to rescue Xio. For example, she had attended a Beyonder gathering and tried to find its organizer, Mr. A, to ask for help. Unfortunately, that gentleman had already left Backlund for Tingen and no one knew when he would return.

Ignoring the desperate implication at the end of Fors's letter—"good bro, please save me, I really have no other way"—Aster rolled over and sat up from the sofa in Angelo's home. Clutching the letter, his expression shifted uncertainly.

"Mr. A went to Tingen?!" Aster bit down hard on his thumb, unease rising in his heart.

Mr. A could be said to be one of the bosses who had left the deepest impression on Aster.

As the final boss of Version 2.0, an Oracle of the Aurora Order, and a Sequence 5 Shepherd, Mr. A's strength ranked first among all the Sequence 5 NPCs to appear in the entire game!

Mr. A's performance in the story was so powerful that players jokingly called him, "Invincible below Demigod, one-for-one above Demigod." The latter half was a joke, but the first half might have been somewhat modest.

As an NPC, his class template differed from the players'. Ordinary Shepherd players could shepherd seven souls, but could only randomly obtain one skill from each soul, and even those had reduced values. Mr. A, however, had only seven shepherding slots like the players, yet he could obtain three skills from every soul!

Combined with the True Creator's blessing that he possessed as an Oracle of the Aurora Order, he was the only non-Demigod boss in the entire game who required a party to challenge!

Of course, this was also related to the level cap at the time. During Version 2.0, the player level cap had only been opened to Level 40, with everyone roughly at Sequence 6... Before Mr. A, they were no different from paper dolls.

And now, such a powerful Beyonder from the Aurora Order had come to Tingen!

This was definitely not a good thing... Why had he appeared in Tingen... Had merely saving Old Neil triggered such a chain reaction... Why exactly had he come... Aster racked his brains, when suddenly, a bolt of lightning flashed through his mind:

"Megose!"

"That woman carrying the True Creator's child! He must have come to take Megose away... No, I have to consider the worst possibility. He may very well have come to protect Megose. Mr. A's arrival is meant to ensure that the evil god's child can be born smoothly!"

"How could I forget to confirm whether Megose was pregnant... Was I too careless? Or was there some manipulation on the mental level?" Aster broke out in a cold sweat. "Mental manipulation... How could I let down my guard in that regard? After realizing that, as a player, I might possess Anti-Divination and anti-mind-control traits, did I become too reckless?"

"Forget it, put that aside for now. In any case, I need to warn Swain and the others first..." Aster quickly ran up the stairs and entered the study of the house, where he found pen, ink, and paper and rapidly wrote a warning letter.

"I! In my name, summon:"

"A traveler who proclaims death,"

"An undead spirit without malice toward humanity,"

"The messenger belonging solely to Aster Crowley."

Spirit Mediums had a more convenient side when it came to summoning spirit bodies. They did not need to set up a complicated ritual altar; simple symbols and offerings were enough to summon the undead corresponding to the incantation.

In game terms, it was a useful passive.

[Spell Thrift—Undead]: Material consumption is reduced when using certain necromancy spells and ritual magic.

Watching Alidibus emerge from the candle flame once more, pale blue fire already burning in his bronze-colored eyes, Aster handed him the letter. "Please deliver this to Mr. Swain. He lives at the Evil Dragon Bar in Tingen City. You know where it is, right?"

"I can see his location." Alidibus opened his sharp beak and clamped it around the letter, but he did not vanish immediately. Instead, he continued staring at Aster for a while.

"Uh, Your Excellency, sorry, I'm temporarily unable to provide enough spirituality." Numbed by the powerful being's gaze, Aster wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and hurriedly explained, "Could I wait until tomorrow to pay you the spirituality you require?"

"Yes." Alidibus did not seem particularly concerned about the spirituality Aster offered as payment. He shook his head, his body dissolving into overlapping phantoms, leaving behind only a single sentence.

"Your current condition is not quite right. You had best examine yourself."

"This... My condition isn't right? This powerful being can warn me about certain hidden dangers too? How did he see it?" Startled and uncertain, Aster thought for two seconds before swiftly opening his character panel.

Aster did not have the peculiar habit of staring at his personal panel all day, but he feared he would have to consider cultivating that habit.

Because a new black buff icon had conspicuously appeared in his personal status bar!

[Corruption - Lv. 1]

[Level]: ?

[Effect]: Unknown

[Note]: A lingering effect caused by being watched by Sequence 0 of the Hanged Man Pathway. It may have some special effect.

Sequence 0 of the Hanged Man Pathway was precisely the True Creator!

"Ah?" This truly frightened Aster. "I've been corrupted? When? Why didn't I feel anything was wrong... No, how could I possibly notice corruption from a Sequence 0... When exactly did it happen..."

He instinctively wanted to use Self-Spirit Channeling to ask himself when and where he had been corrupted, but he quickly realized that the reason he had been corrupted was likely because he had used Self-Spirit Channeling!

"Lanevus's room! There was something wrong with that room!" Aster suddenly came to his senses. "He may have left some kind of corruptive trap there, and Mirror Spirit Channeling triggered that corruption... No, I need to use that Spirit Channeling ability less in the future!"

Aster was not terribly afraid of this so-called corruption, because he remembered that the Fool of the Tarot Club had the ability to dispel corruption from other Pathways. He only needed to make a request to the Fool at Monday's Tarot Club gathering. At that time, he could use a forged Roselle's Diary as payment and ask this Sequence 0 true god to help remove his corruption.

It was only Wednesday today, though, and there were still more than three days until the Tarot Club... Aster twisted his neck. Outside the window, night had already fallen, and crimson moonlight spilled into the room.

Lanevus would leave me three days at most. I just hope this corruption doesn't cause any trouble during that time... With a worried sigh, Aster had no intention whatsoever of letting Lanevus off despite facing unknown corruption.

Lanevus must have left that kind of trap to slow down the investigators pursuing him. If I gave him a chance to catch his breath because of this corruption, wouldn't I be playing right into his hands?

Looks like I can't rest either. Tonight, I'll go out and complete the Game Panel's tasks, then investigate the Beyonder gatherings nearby... Aster rummaged through the suitcase downstairs for some cosmetics and began applying them to his face. Before long, his face had become that of an ordinary-looking middle-aged man.

Silver Eyes can be concealed by narrowing my eyes. If that doesn't work, I can temporarily activate Eye of the Dead as a disguise... Aster touched his short brown hair, narrowed his eyes, and swiftly began setting up defensive measures throughout the house.

As for Fors's plea for help? Aster had already had quite a bit of spirituality drained away. He had even put the warning letter to Swain on credit, so he had absolutely no energy left to write another reply. He could only set it aside for now. Tomorrow during the day, Aster would go to the post office and send Fors a letter, suggesting that she find an opportunity to approach the nobility and use the connections of a great noble to clear Xio Derecha's name—this was what Fors had done in the game's original storyline.

"It seems you've adapted quite well to your new identity, Tris." An abrupt voice sounded from behind. The sweet-faced girl with long black hair spun around sharply, a dagger already appearing in her hand.

But the other person was clearly faster. The girl's left hand holding the dagger had already been bound by invisible threads.

"...Madam Sharon." After clearly seeing the newcomer's appearance, she visibly relaxed and slowly lowered her hand.

The other woman was a petite, gorgeous beauty dressed in a fitted white gown. Madam Sharon examined the furnishings of this safe house and teased, "Ah, sorry, I forgot. Perhaps I should call you Trissy now?"