Her name

He'll agree, won't he? Hmm, if he doesn't, how am I going to persuade him...

Neph watched Nim intently. After a few seconds of silence, Nim asked in puzzlement, "What is a funeral?"

It was an unexpected yet perfectly reasonable answer. Neph was briefly taken aback, but she quickly realized this was only natural, so she brought out the explanation she had given Narani.

Nim listened attentively, then nodded thoughtfully and said, "I don't know how a funeral is conducted."

That meant he had agreed. In a slightly excited voice, Neph said, "I'll write it down for you later!"

"All right." Nim nodded gently, and the matter was settled.

Then he asked, "What about an honorific name? Do you have one?"

Neph froze where she stood. This was something that had been in her plans all along, but she had never gotten around to it. She put a hand to her head and answered rather tactfully:

"I'm still familiarizing myself with my authorities."

I haven't had time to make one up yet...

She met Nim's eyes. He nodded naturally, then reminded her:

"If possible, it would be best to have your own honorific name before the ritual begins.

"Do you have any suggestions about when to hold the ritual?"

Neph grew hesitant again. She gave an "uh," then shook her head and said:

"I, I'm not sure...

"How long would you need to prepare?"

"Not very long," Nim replied. "Moon City has plenty of established practices for preparing all sorts of rituals and ceremonies. Preparing an entirely new ritual would take a little longer, but a week or two at most."

He paused, seemingly feeling that this did not sound quite right, and explained, "There aren't many major events that warrant preparations by the entire city, so..."

So you can put all your energy into this, instead of dragging things out with a whole mess of procedures...

Neph nodded in understanding. As she walked, she asked, "What if I haven't come up with an honorific name by the time the ritual begins?"

The hard part isn't actually coming up with an honorific name. It's that I have no idea whether I can even receive prayers right now... After all, in the original novel, Klein's honorific name pointed to the master of Sefirah Castle, not him... And I probably don't qualify as the master of the Blank Canvas at all...

She watched Nim, who answered without hesitation, "Then I hope you can leave us your honorific name before you depart."

Neph's lips moved slightly. In theory, a Sefirah ought to be capable of receiving prayers across regions, and she could more or less count as an Oracle of the True Creator, so getting a little backdoor access should not be difficult, but-

Until she had tried it, Neph still dared not make any guarantees. Instinctively, she wanted to avoid Nim's gaze, but she forcibly restrained herself and promised:

"All right."

...If all else fails, I'll leave you the Fool's.

Her fingers tapped against the table with a steady clicking sound. Neph stared at "God of Winter" on the paper, unable to bring herself to put her pen down.

She had already written out several versions of funerals as she remembered them and handed them to Nim. He had said he might come back with more questions after reading them, and she had agreed. Then she had sat down here to try to invent an honorific name for herself.

-and she had been sitting here ever since.

The Blank Canvas's record of Sequence 0 was actually completely blank-or, more precisely, from Sequence 2 onward, the Blank Canvas no longer recorded any abilities. Or perhaps it did, but she could not see them.

Neph felt the latter was more likely. The problem now, however, was that aside from learning that the Uniqueness was named the Ashen Ledger, she had gained no information at all. As for the Ashen Ledger... it had a searchable entry and was definitely somewhere in that pure-white space, but Neph could not bring it out.

So Neph could only sit here and start making something up based on the other information she had. The first thing she wrote was "God of Winter," but she did not feel that qualified as one line of a three-line honorific name. Like "Fool" or "Evernight Goddess," it could only count as a title, not an honorific name.

If it's supposed to be an honorific name, it should at least be the Empress of Winter's End...

Neph sighed, raised her pen, and wrote the first line: "The witness to all, the one who remembers all."

This described the authority of "memory," which was also the only authority Neph could currently be certain of. Why? Come on, Sequence 5 of this Pathway was literally called Memory Collector.

Of course, there was actually a second authority Neph could confirm. Without pausing, she raised her pen and wrote the second line:

"The sovereign of ice and snow."

Judging by what she had actually experienced, Neph suspected the name of this authority should go a step further, encompassing more advanced concepts such as "cold" or "freezing." But for an honorific name, she felt words like "ice and snow" or "frost" were more approachable.

What truly troubled Neph was the third line.

Earlier, she had hoped Nim could think of something based on "God of Winter" and find suitable herbs and essential oils himself. Now, however, Neph really wanted to copy someone else's answer and ask Nim just what authorities he thought the God of Winter ought to have.

Forgetting was one aspect of memory, and fading seemed to be a manifestation of memory as well. Yet Neph believed that the phenomenon of forgetting might also encompass another authority.

Take Ghoul and Dirge Poet, for example. The authority of memory manifested in many ways, but these two Sequences were clearly far too closely connected to death. Yet death could not possibly be an authority of this Pathway-otherwise, Death really would have something to cry about.

And it's not about what comes after death... Does decay count as something after death? But neither Ghouls nor Dirge Poets care about the world after death. They care more about what happened during life... They seem to be working backward from death.

Hmm, Faded Painters seem to do the opposite, moving from life toward death...

-These were the ideas Neph had gleaned from the abilities of those Sequences.

Ghouls traced the memories of the deceased during their lives by eating their corpses, while Dirge Poets went a step further, sensing the weakening of life and observing scenes of death.

Winter Envoys were clearly closer to cold, while Faded Painters had an ability that Neph found rather subtle.

-According to the Blank Canvas, when a life began moving toward death, a Faded Painter could accelerate the process.

So, should it actually be the threshold... Everything... uh, that state where something is about to fade away but hasn't yet? The ending? The endpoint? Let's go with the endpoint...

Neph moved the tip of her pen. The term "fading away" came from the description of a Sequence 4 Eternal Winter Priest's ability. She had no inclination to ponder that abil-

ity's essence, and simply dashed off the third line:

"The endpoint of all that fades."