"I don't remember."
Lynn finally shook his head.
"But I'm sure I must have encountered something, because Sir Awen told me afterward that I was still clutching this flower when I arrived in Dark Night City..."
He took the little white flower out of his System Space.
As he brought it out, it bloomed softly, like tranquil moonlight, too beautiful to seem like something that belonged in Hell.
[Moon Orchid.]
"You know it too?"
Feather Pen gazed at the little flower blooming before her for a long time, her eyes trembling.
[It reminds me of some legends from when I was still the Fate God. That legend is very old, but it was widely told in our world. In that legend, the Moon Orchid never withers. It keeps blooming, because if it withered, the person it was waiting for wouldn't be able to find it when they returned...]
Lynn stared blankly.
"Does that symbolize something?"
But, in a rare gesture, Feather Pen shook herself.
[No, it isn't symbolism. Legends don't exist in our world, because all those so-called legends are true. Time simply wears them down until even gods of later ages like us can no longer see the story they were meant to tell. But at least several generations ago, this story must have been exceptionally clear.]
By generations, she meant...
An epoch of the universe, spanning the countless years from its birth to the end of the Great Purge.
Lynn frowned and said:
"So you think this Moon Orchid might be the one from your legend?"
[I don't know.]
Or rather...
No one would know. Its appearance in Hell was simply far too much of a coincidence.
Because there were no Moon Orchids in Hell.
[But regardless, now that we can confirm that it's that Calamity searching for