It Was All Roselle's Fault

Meanwhile, elsewhere...

"What do you think of my new poem?" Leonard, a black-haired, green-eyed man with a somewhat roguish appearance, asked his teammates.

"Hmm... it's much better than your old ones." Dunn, whose gray eyes sat beneath a receding hairline, offered his teammate some "encouragement."

"If it weren't just a mangled version of a poem from a textbook, it would be pretty decent," white-haired Seeka said succinctly.

"It can't be that bad. I put a lot of effort into it. What do you think, Rozanne?" Leonard turned to Rozanne, the youngest person at the table.

Feeling everyone's eyes on her, the brown-haired girl said hesitantly, "Well... lying is wrong, so I'm sorry, Leonard, but your poem really is..."

At Rozanne's answer, Leonard's smile gradually stiffened.

"There's really no rush to write original work. You could read more of other people's poetry first. Emperor Roselle's poems are quite good, for example," Dunn suggested with a chuckle.

"Forget about poetry. We rarely get a leisurely lunch break. We should spend it on something more meaningful."

"Like what?"

"Like figuring out how to get my novel published," Seeka replied.

"Your novel isn't exactly..." Leonard wore a strange expression.

"It's still better than your poetry," Seeka replied unconcernedly.

"Actually, you could learn from Old Neil. Find a reasonable excuse and, hmm... claim reimbursement," Leonard suggested with a grin.

"Call it publicity, for example..."

"That does sound like something Old Neil would do." After a moment's thought, Seeka continued:

"Good thing Old Neil isn't here today, or he'd definitely have something to say about you... But when will I ever get my novel published?" Seeka sighed.

"What's wrong, Captain?" As they laughed and chatted, they suddenly noticed that Dunn, the captain of the Nighthawks team, had grown serious.

"I feel like the customer at the next table has been staring at us."

"Maybe he's just curious about a bunch of police officers having lunch together?" Rozanne suggested.

The official Churches' Beyonder teams, including the Nighthawks, usually presented themselves to the public as police officers.

"Perhaps. I haven't sensed any ill intent." Dunn sounded a little uncertain himself.

"Of course, he might have been drawn in by Leonard's poetry," Seeka said half-jokingly.

"Then he has pretty good taste," Leonard replied with a chuckle, turning his head to look toward Lorne.

"Crap, he spotted me." Seeing one of the officers look his way, Lorne hastily averted his gaze.

The police shouldn't be able to tell I'm a transmigrator just by looking at me, right...? Lorne swallowed.

"Hello, sir."

"What?!" The voice behind him made Lorne jump.

"Your meal is here." A waiter approached, carrying a tray.

"O-okay." Lorne accepted the steak he had ordered.

After finishing his food as naturally as possible and paying the bill, Lorne left the restaurant without looking back.

"Those police officers aren't following me, are they?"

"My luck's rotten today. There goes my rare good mood." Lorne quickened his pace, glancing back every so often for fear that the officers might follow him.

In all fairness, there was no need for him to panic so much, but the Transmigration Guide said that this world's authorities were hostile toward transmigrators and would eliminate them as heretics.

Lorne was rather curious about that.

Could they really have a way to identify transmigrators?

Hard to say. This world even has supernatural powers. A way to identify souls or memories isn't out of the question... Lorne pondered uncertainly.

At the same time, another question popped into his mind: why were the authorities so hostile toward transmigrators?

First, he ruled out any problem with the Transmigration Guide.

Could previous transmigrators have offended too many people?

"Roselle!" The name sprang into Lorne's mind.

That fellow's diary made it clear how frivolous he was. With his womanizing ways, offending people would have been perfectly normal.

Besides, Roselle's sweeping reforms must have offended plenty of people. According to history, in his later years, he had also offended the Church of Steam and Machinery and the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun.

He had antagonized both secular and religious powers, earning himself an assassination.

Could Roselle have gone too far, making this world's natives hate transmigrators?

The more Lorne thought about it, the more excited he became. He felt he was close to the truth.

Yes, that's right. That must be it.

Roselle was too flashy, not remotely low-key. He lacked the characteristic coward- ahem, humility and patience of us Chinese transmigrators.

It must be because of him that the official Churches are hostile toward later transmigrators like us.

That's right. It's all Roselle's fault!

"Why do I suddenly feel so much better?"

After arbitrarily pinning the blame on Roselle, Lorne suddenly felt much more cheerful.

He knew perfectly well that his guess might not be right.

But as the old saying went, channeling was better than blocking. Rather than bottling up all his frustration, he might as well find an outlet for it.

Since Emperor Roselle was so famous, he would just have to put up with this little injustice.

"If I meet another transmigrator in the future, I can cheer them up this way too."

"Surely old Roselle wouldn't mind," Lorne muttered to himself.

"But isn't it a little wrong to speak ill of someone?"

"Forget it. Roselle's been dead for hundreds of years. It's not like he'll crawl out of his mausoleum to teach me a lesson." Having worked things out, Lorne felt refreshed and temporarily put his foul mood behind him.

"The writing in this book is rather unusual."

"It looks like a notebook."

After returning to the inn, Lorne took out the old book he had bought in Diagon Alley and began leafing through it.

Contrary to his expectations, the writing inside wasn't in any common script.

"It's not Loenese, Feysac, or Intisian..."

Could it be an occult script...? Lorne carefully studied the writing in the notebook.

"It doesn't seem to be Hermes Script, but it looks a little similar. Could it really be an occult script?"

This gave Lorne a headache. Although he knew Hermes Script and a little of some other occult scripts, he was no expert.

Asking him to decipher it alone was really asking too much. It was supposedly

a notebook from the Fourth Epoch, but he wasn't a history or archaeology student. He had no idea where to begin.

Lorne stood up, raising his hand and noticing the Pendulum he had just bought on his wrist.

"If this notebook really has something to do with mysticism, maybe I could try divining it."

Lorne, who had always wanted to try divination himself, suddenly had an idea.

"If the divination really works, I could also try divining why I'm being hunted."

"If it fails, at least I'll know divination doesn't work, so I won't blindly trust it in the future."

Although his thinking was somewhat along the lines of calling a good result destiny and a bad one superstition, he still intended to give it a try.

No time like the present... Lorne promptly cleared his desk, then removed the blue crystal Pendulum from his wrist.

His expression shifted from excitement to calm. Holding the chain in his left hand, he extended it so that the silver chain hung vertically over the notebook before him, with the pure blue crystal only a few centimeters above it.

"This book is an antique left over from the Fourth Epoch."

That was Lorne's first question. He wanted to establish its value. Although he trusted his intuition as a Beyonder, considering the book's price, he felt an extra piece of confirmation couldn't hurt.

After all, the book hadn't been cheap.

About ten seconds later, the blue crystal inexplicably began to sway slightly, making the silver chain turn clockwise in small circles.

"Hmm, not bad." Lorne nodded.

"I knew divination could be trusted."

The divination result matched his intuition. Unfortunately, it couldn't serve as an appraisal report. Selling the book for a high price would still require a more formal appraisal.

After resting briefly, Lorne picked up the Pendulum and posed his second question.

"The contents of this book are related to mysticism."

Unlike before, when it had responded within seconds, this time nothing happened even after Lorne's arm began to ache slightly.

"Strange?"

After roughly another twenty seconds, Lorne felt the silver chain in his hand begin to move.

"Meooow!" A sharp, frantic meow suddenly came from the washroom.

"Lucky, what's wrong?!" Lorne hurriedly put down the Pendulum and headed for the washroom.

"Rustle... rustle... rustle..."

Shortly after Lorne left, the notebook on the desk suddenly stirred without a breeze, its pages rustling as they turned on their own.