Tracy's past

Who was praying to me-

Neph was a little puzzled when she heard the prayer.

She had left her honorific name with the people of Moon City, but she had told them that they did not need to recite it in full for their daily prayers. Nim, Moon City's High Priest, probably also knew exactly what level she was at and had never truly prayed to her for help-which saved her the effort of pretending.

As for the outside world, it was even less likely that anyone would pray to her. If she had to name anyone who might, it would probably be Cattleya or Bernadette, but this voice belonged to a man!

Surely it couldn't be Klein?

Only when Neph entered that pure white space and saw the familiar human-shaped bear did she realize-it was Frank Lee.

Relieved, Neph listened to the contents of his prayer.

Frank sounded very happy, though not without his troubles. In his prayer, he described his results and difficulties, mentioned his outlook for the future, and enthusiastically asked for her address so that he could send her some samples.

That last request was the most troublesome, because Neph had no address to which Frank could send his samples-she could hardly tell him she was aboard the Black Death.

Of course, that problem was easy enough to solve. Having Klein pass them along or having Frank sacrifice them directly to her would both work. Considering that she might have to teach him the Sacrificial Ritual from scratch, Neph decided to have him give the items to Cattleya and let Cattleya choose.

She recalled Frank's ideas and, after considering her words, gave her response:

"Those are excellent ideas. But at your current level, won't you still need some time to put certain ideas into practice? Have