It Felt Like Amon Was Crawling All Over Her

Neph looked at Nim and recited the poem she had once recited before Klein.

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Moon City's High Priest possessed a profound knowledge of mysticism and knew his mythology well. His expression changed as Neph recited. When the final syllable fell and silence settled over them, Nim spoke softly:

"The Left Hand of God... is that the Left Hand of God I know?"

"Which one do you know?" Neph asked in return.

"The Left Hand of God, the Deputy Ruler of Heaven, the Dark Angel Sasrir," Nim said, looking at Neph.

Without hesitation, Neph nodded. "It's him."

"Tick."

The sound of the clock overhead made Neph flinch. She instinctively looked up, but Nim waved a hand.

"Don't worry. The clock makes that sound once every hour, on the hour, as a reminder."

"R-right..." Neph nodded, casting an uneasy glance at the clock that supposedly came from the Angel of Time.

It looked no different from when she had first seen it. None of its hands had suddenly turned into worms with twelve segments, nor had its numbers become wriggling worms. The clock itself had not turned into a clump of worms either. Neph quietly averted her gaze and looked back at Nim.

The High Priest's expression grew even more solemn. He spoke in a voice devoid of discernible emotion:

"Holy Communion...

"Your Excellency Neph, do you know what Holy Communion refers to here?"

Neph turned her head away.

From her perspective, this ought to count as a horribly dark joke, but faced with Nim's question, she could not laugh with a clear conscience. She could only press her lips together as an inexplicable irritation rose within her.

Nim seemed to have realized something. In a low voice, he asked:

"They betrayed the Lord... and then divided up his flesh and blood to consume. Is that right?"

"...Yes." Neph managed to force out the word.

"Do you know who they were?" Nim asked next.

Neph turned to glance at Nim. Overhead, the clock's hand silently advanced one mark. She shifted uneasily, feeling as though the room were a patch of grass on a riverbank in summer. There was clearly nothing there, yet she had the unsettling sensation of insects crawling all over her.

"Could we talk somewhere else?" she could not help asking.

Nim followed her gaze to the clock behind him, then said:

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"Was the Angel of Time among the betrayers too?"

"...No," Neph denied. "But he..."

She paused, then spoke with an odd expression. "He's also known as the God of Mischief... well, he has a rather nasty personality."

Neph raised a hand to her head. Information about Amon surfaced in her memory, foremost among it his official character illustration and all sorts of fan art.

Those memories came flooding up, but a piercing chill surged from Neph's arms straight to the crown of her head, startling her into a shudder.

*...?*

Neph lowered her head. The Blank Canvas rested quietly in her arms, looking perfectly normal.

Her train of thought had been interrupted, but Neph no longer dared to continue it. She glanced up at the clock again. Everything remained unchanged, yet she did not dare stay here any longer. Rising to her feet, she said:

"Let's leave."

Nim looked at her in puzzlement, but Neph turned and walked away-she was not worried about his safety. Amon would not attack the people of Moon City, who were still his father's believers.

Neph hurried out of the room, but she could not breathe a sigh of relief, because she knew it was futile. Whatever form Amon's influence over that clock took-a Worm of Time? Residual power? Something else?

That did not matter. Neph only knew that Amon's reach could not be limited to a single room. All of Moon City ought to be under his influence.

Hmm... my earlier unease, including that feeling of insects crawling over me... of Amon crawling over me, was probably my spiritual intuition? He seemed to want to tamper with my memories... and then got stopped?

While Neph was thinking, Nim followed her out and asked in a thoroughly puzzled tone:

"Your Excellency Neph, what's wrong?"

"...Nothing." Neph glanced back at him. "Probably just a thief trying to steal someone else's collection, only to get hit by a defensive trap the owner left behind."

I wonder if he'll try again... Amon is actually quite a coward, but his avatars cost him nothing... hmm, what I need to check now is whether I've been parasitized...

Patting herself down would obviously tell her nothing. Though Neph hesitated, she still felt this could not wait, so she found the excuse she knew best:

"...I'd like to use the washroom."

Thank you, Klein...

She turned and left under Nim's bewildered gaze. Though confused, he still called out, "Please follow me!"

Although they wore primitive animal-hide clothing, the people of Moon City did indeed have washrooms. There were washrooms inside the Black Tower as well. None were on the top floor, but there was one downstairs, and Nim led Neph there.

After closing the door and obtaining some privacy, Neph stirred her spirituality and entered that pure white space.

The falling snow remained frozen in place. Neph looked at the Blank Canvas in her hands. No image appeared on it. She exhaled, then returned to the real world.

She was not worried that the Pure White Space itself might lack the ability to purify. While storing and retrieving food and other items, Neph had discovered that her claim of being a clean freak at the Tarot Club might not have been a lie after all. This pure white space seemed to have a sort of obsession with cleanliness. Whenever an object entered it with her, she could see through her special Spirit Vision that white would swarm over it, devouring every other color.

Neph could confirm that corruption was also a kind of color. This, too, came from examining food with her Spirit Vision. Food freshly retrieved from Sefirah Castle was tinged with a faint grayish white in her sight. That grayish white was ethereal, like drifting smoke, and seemed to keep rising, reminding Neph of water vapor.

-It seemed that even if she simply watched it quietly, the grayish white would evaporate on its own.

Neph guessed that this was the aura of Sefirah Castle. Clearly, the aura was not firmly anchored, like rootless duckweed. Pure white could easily swallow the gray. Neph had even considered whether, if she accumulated enough of the gray fog's aura, she could add another stroke to the Blank Canvas.

That, however, was a long way off. Neph felt she might as well first try bringing a monster into the Pure White Space to see what would happen-but only once she could beat one.

Parasitization by a Worm of Time undoubtedly counted as a kind of corruption. Neph trusted the Pure White

Space's screening. She opened the door and walked out, calmly explaining under Nim's questioning gaze:

"The Angel of Time you speak of is named Amon. Like the Angel of Imagination Adam, he is a child of my Lord.

"Unlike Adam, Amon has a thoroughly nasty personality. None of us like him much, and besides..."

Neph paused before saying softly, "He does not acknowledge the present Lord as his father."