Prelude

"...What?" Klein tried to understand what those words meant, but it was futile. Reading a poem full of metaphors without knowing the story or any of the relevant information beforehand was simply beyond him.

He looked blankly at Neph, who answered with a smile:

"I think this should count as a 'dirge'? Though I actually feel it's more of a narrative poem. There isn't that much mourning in it..."

Neph's voice gradually faded. She had remembered a certain "Midnight Poet" who couldn't write poetry.

After a brief silence, Klein said, "Now I finally know what it feels like to talk to a mystic."

Neph blinked and replied:

"If you want an explanation, I can give you one, actually. But I can't tell you the whole truth all at once. That means I might end up contradicting myself over and over...

"And I'm not particularly willing to do that."

"Forget it, then." Klein shook his head. "You could give me all the potion formulas from Sequence 7 to Sequence 5 at once, yet you have to tell me about this in such a roundabout way... There must be something you can't freely discuss, right? Besides, just hearing you say that makes me realize there's something seriously wrong here..."

He paused, his gaze settling on Neph, and lowered his voice. "That 'communion' you mentioned at the end... you meant the True Creator's flesh and blood, didn't you?"

"...It isn't His." Neph shook her head. "But it is His, too."

Klein met her eyes. A few breaths later, he spoke first. "Once Miss Justice has collected the first batch of food, I'll contact you again."

Neph was still sitting in Moon City's library. She stood and stretched. The Tarot Club had given her a few new ideas about the future, and she clearly couldn't put them into practice by spending all her time in the library.

But practicing combat...

Neph frowned. After all, neither "Dirge Poet" nor "Winter Envoy" sounded like the name of a Sequence with combat abilities.

For now, though, Neph had something more important to do. She left the library and began leafing through the textbook Narani had brought her.

Moon City's general knowledge lessons were certainly unusual. Neph found quite a few rituals in the book, and the later sections seemed to introduce all sorts of creatures, including monsters from the Forsaken Land of the Gods and creatures from beyond it.

Neph mostly skimmed through it. She found a ritual directed at the Ancient Sun God in the textbook-fortunately, Moon City taught this.

Neph breathed a sigh of relief. With her photographic memory, she quickly memorized the ritual's procedure and materials, then obtained those materials through Narani.

Mr. Fool obviously wouldn't refuse such a prayer. As long as the ritual successfully pointed to him, Neph had no concerns about its chances of success. As for the key to directing it, she already knew his honorific name, and she had memorized his symbol during the Tarot Club gathering-it was actually identical to the symbolic design the artists had created.

The first batch of food arrived quickly. Ultimately, Neph's request was something that could be fulfilled with money alone. The young lady had even sent over a batch of Mummy Powder. Neph wasn't sure how she had obtained it, but considering that nobles believed the stuff enhanced virility, she doubted the young lady had acquired it openly.

Otherwise, it would have looked rather strange.

For the staple food, Audrey had chosen bread. Neph found no rye bread, only fine white bread and soft butter bread. Besides those, the young lady had prepared steaks, lamb chops, pies, and other foods.

Neph couldn't name most of them. Miss Justice had thoughtfully wrapped each portion separately before arranging everything in a large crate. All Neph had to do was bring the crate into the Pure White Space and enjoy it to her heart's content.

The warm white bread brought memories of wheat. As Neph chewed, she saw wheat being ground into flour, as well as what the bread had looked like when it came out of the oven. For a moment, she felt as though she could smell its steaming fragrance.

Suddenly, Neph no longer found this ability quite so unpleasant-as long as the subject wasn't a human corpse, it felt more like watching a movie while eating.

Ordinary meals, however, really didn't seem to affect her digestion progress. Or perhaps the effect was too slight for her to notice. In any case, at her next meal, Neph tried sprinkling on a little Mummy Powder.

The potion gave a faint response. Neph carefully examined the sensation and felt that, as long as she kept eating Mummy Powder with all three meals and spent her spare time reading history and mythology, she could more or less finish digesting the potion within the next month.

This probably also has to do with my gaining a proper understanding of "Ghoul"... Simply burying myself in eating corpses would digest the potion, but the response would probably be slower...

Neph munched away, enjoying the life story of the person the Mummy Powder had come from, along with a calf's dying wails.

Now that the food had arrived, it was naturally time to put combat lessons on her agenda. After spending a few days considering possible explanations, Neph decided not to offer one at all. She went straight to Narani and explained what she needed:

"I noticed that Moon City has combat classes... Could I join them?"

"Of course." Narani nodded gently, an unshakable worry still lingering in her expression. Neph knew this was because of the Artisan named Arula. "When would you like to start attending?"

"Tomorrow, then," Neph said after some thought. "After all, I don't have anything else..."

Knock, knock, knock!

A rapid knocking rang out. Neph and Narani both looked over. The visitor was very young. He lowered what was better described as a ball of flesh than a hand, acting as though he hadn't seen Neph-perhaps he really hadn't.

"Teacher, the High Priest sent me to fetch you," he told Narani.

Neph hadn't seen him in the classroom. Judging by his age, she thought he might have only recently "graduated." She looked at Narani, who stood and nodded.

"I'll be right there.

"Is the High Priest in his usual place?"

"No." The boy shook his head. "You need to go underground. The High Priest is waiting for you there."

Narani's expression turned grim in an instant. Without asking a single question, she immediately headed outside. After a moment of surprise, Neph decided to follow.

The young man closed the door behind them. Narani went from a brisk walk to a jog, and Neph hurried after her. The difference in their heights made things rather awkward: keeping up at a walk was too strenuous, but running so slowly was tiring too.

They hurried into the Black Tower and headed toward the stairs leading underground. Nim was standing by the stairwell on the first basement level

nearby. Davy wasn't at his side. He stood alone, his deep, inscrutable gaze settling on Neph with a hint of surprise:

"Your Excellency Neph?"