Pure White

Klein froze for a moment, a hint of puzzlement in his eyes. He genuinely found that way of thinking hard to understand. Seeing this, Neph shook her head and asked:

"Have you ever had a friend you fell out with? Someone you used to be close to, but never saw again because of something that happened? Or perhaps nothing happened at all, and you simply drifted out of touch."

"Yes." Klein nodded.

Neph propped her chin on her hand and said with a smile:

"I feel that the moment we stop being friends, they're already dead-or rather, they're no longer the person I knew. The one who lives on is always that wonderful person in my memories.

"To me, even if I leave my hometown and my family, I'll keep living with my memories of them. That way, it's as though they're living in this world too."

Looking at it that way, this pathway choosing me wasn't entirely without reason...

An inexplicable wistfulness rose in Neph's heart. She glanced at Klein and suddenly asked:

"Do you have much spirituality left?"

"...Enough for us to talk a little longer," Klein answered after a pause. "You...how should I get the food to you? Also, I might..."

A slightly embarrassed look crossed his face, and Neph reassured him understandingly:

"Just get me whatever you can so I can scrape by for two days. The next Tarot Club meeting is in two days anyway. I'll ask Miss Justice to sell me some food."

Klein breathed a sigh of relief, then asked again, "But how do I get the food to you?"

Neph gave him a startled look and answered, "I thought you would already have an answer by now."

Klein faltered slightly, then asked tentatively, "A sacrificial ritual?"

"Yes." Neph nodded.

"But..." Klein looked a little troubled. "Performing a sacrificial ritual requires materials containing spirituality, doesn't it...?"

Neph abruptly stopped. She looked at Klein, recalled his current financial situation, and fell silent herself. Hesitantly, she said:

"...Maybe I should just eat grass for another two days. It's not as though I'll starve to death.

"Oh, right, while you still have spirituality-the Tarot Club!"

Klein remembered that as well. He tapped twice on the Bronze Long Table, and eighteen tarot cards appeared before Neph.

"These are the cards that haven't been claimed yet," Klein said. "You can draw one of them."

Neph looked down. Klein had left the cards face down for her, and all eighteen backs showed Gray-White Fog. She blinked, then smiled and said:

"Aren't these all blank cards?"

"...Those are the backs," Klein reminded her.

"I know." Neph raised her head to look at him. "But there's a Miss Spectator in your Tarot Club...Mr. Fool, I'm not confident I can fool that Spectator."

Klein paused, then frowned slightly. "What do you want to do?"

"Pure White," Neph said. "Call me Pure White-at the end of this long table, opposite you, please prepare another chair for me. The twenty-third chair."

And Pathway 23...

Neph and Klein looked at each other. After considering it for a few seconds, Klein nodded and agreed to her proposal. Then he asked with some curiosity:

"May I ask what Pure White means?"

"Oh," Neph said, beginning to lie through her teeth. "It means 'White Angel.'"

"...?" Klein was bewildered.

He had heard the name White Angel before. He had learned it after boldly performing divination on the Eternal Blazing Sun. Now, looking at Neph, who seemed to have nothing whatsoever to do with the Eternal Blazing Sun, he said hesitantly:

"Actually, you strike me as more of a Beyonder from the Corpse Collector pathway..."

"No." Neph gave him a polite smile. "My pathway takes things a step further."

"What do you mean?" Klein's eyes were puzzled.

Still smiling, Neph answered:

"My Sequence 9 is called...

"Ghoul."

"...?" Klein's eyes filled with horror. "Do you know...about the Acting Method?"

Neph continued to look at him with a smile, and Klein had his answer. He did not pursue the subject. Glancing at Neph, he instead told her about his divination:

"By the way, after receiving your prayer, I performed a divination..."

"That makes sense." Neph nodded. "You divined my origins?"

"Yes," Klein admitted. "And then..."

He truthfully recounted what had happened afterward. Neph listened carefully, then answered:

"I have something similar to Sefirah Castle on me...I think that must have been its self-defense mechanism."

Understanding dawned on Klein. Keeping the taboo concerning angels and above firmly in mind, he did not ask any further questions about it, only ventured:

"By the way, my subsequent potion formulas..."

Neph considered it briefly.

She did intend to trade information, but not all information was suitable for trading. For instance, when it came to the truth behind their transmigration, Neph had no intention of keeping it from Klein.

The same went for the potion formulas Klein had asked about. If they were for demigod levels or above, Neph would have to consider the current situation. But below demigod? The Marionettist Rosago would practically hand them over for free anyway, so she might as well give them to Klein and earn some goodwill.

"I'll write them down for you," she answered. "I'll give you Sequences 7 through 5 first. I'll give you the demigod formulas and above when the time comes."

Her generosity astonished Klein. In that instant, all his distrust and wariness melted away. He looked at Neph with such gratitude that she shivered.

"You don't have to look at me like that," she admitted frankly. "Even if I didn't give them to you, you'd obtain these potion formulas through a remarkably convenient coincidence-so convenient that you'd wonder whether someone had arranged it."

"But you chose to give them to me." Klein shook his head, his expression earnest. "The sooner I get them, the sooner I can start preparing."

Neph shrugged and did not argue. She simply asked for paper and a pen and wrote down the potion formulas.

She still used Chinese. Klein accepted the paper, but rather than reading it immediately, he said to Neph:

"After you leave this place, first offer a prayer to me. When the Tarot Club meeting is about to begin, I'll notify you. Find somewhere deserted as quickly as possible."

Neph nodded and answered, "Actually, I already know the procedure."

"I can't help feeling this goes beyond

"what a prophecy ought to tell you." Klein glanced at her and frowned, speaking as though offering a warning.

Because this wasn't a prophecy in the first place...In a sense, it should count as a memory... Neph had no way to explain, so she could only change the subject:

"...I just remembered something.

"Do you already know who was really behind the Megose incident?"