Chapter Summaries

Franca learned the Black Witch’s explanation of witches’ Persons in the Mirror and reported what she knew about Louis of the Emperor Party. Madam Magician then located and restrained Lumian’s Person in the Mirror, and Lumian entered the Mirror World to confront him.

• Madam Magician told Lumian to perform the ritual within two days, and Lumian agreed he was ready.
• Franca visited the Black Witch and revealed that she had become a Witch of Despair, astonishing Bruns.
• The Black Witch explained that Persons in the Mirror were projections shaped by potion power and the Mirror World, and warned that they avoided stronger witches.
• Franca reported that Louis of the Emperor Party had recently returned to normal after being unable to contact an important figure.
• Madam Magician used Lumian’s Mirror Substitute and her starlit magic to locate and temporarily restrain his Person in the Mirror.
• Lumian stepped through the Full-Length Mirror and followed the starlight into the Mirror World.

Lumian reconciled with his Person in the Mirror and drank the Witch of Unaging potion. After enduring petrification and a mysterious gaze from the darkness, he completed his advancement with his past and present selves united.

• Lumian met his Person in the Mirror, who explained how becoming a Witch had divided Lumian into a past self and a present self.
• Lumian and his Person in the Mirror reconciled, sharing their pain and agreeing that Lumian must resurrect Aurora.
• Lumian prepared and drank the Witch of Unaging potion, then used his Person in the Mirror to keep his consciousness from being petrified.
• Lumian's mirrored self became female, and versions of Lumian from different points in his life appeared in the Mirror World.
• An indistinct figure in the darkness looked down at Lumian, who later emerged from grayish-white webs and recovered.
• Lumian found that his past and present selves had become one, completing his advancement to Witch of Unaging.

After becoming a Witch of Unaging, Lumian discovered that his reconciliation with his Person in the Mirror had unified their consciousness, granted him powerful resurrection abilities, and fully digested his potion, which he believed was connected to Aurora’s revival. He explained the advancement and its dangers to Franca and Jenna, then Franca decided to attempt her own ritual.

• Lumian examined his new abilities, including resurrection through hidden Persons in the Mirror, expanded Mirror World powers, and stronger Witch abilities.
• Lumian realized his Unaging potion had been fully digested and suspected Aurora’s further revival had fulfilled the acting requirements.
• Lumian returned to his bedroom, where Jenna explained that Madam Magician had left to adjust the magic robe; Franca asked whether the ritual had succeeded.
• Lumian confirmed he had become a Witch of Unaging and told Franca that the potion was fully digested, prompting them to discuss how an unaging mindset might satisfy the acting principle.
• Lumian explained that reconciliation unified his mirror self with his main body and warned Jenna that a male Person in the Mirror replacing her could be exposed by the ritual, while a female one might not be.
• Franca decided to attempt the ritual that day, believing she might persuade her Person in the Mirror if he shared her pre-transmigration memories.

Franca reconciled with her Person in the Mirror, accepting him as part of herself, and completed digesting her Unaging potion. After Madam Magician advised Franca and Lumian to build anchors of faith through the Church of The Fool, Lumian found a mysterious note in Aurora’s handwriting telling him to summon White Paper.

• Franca met her Person in the Mirror and discussed his resentment, lost hopes, and fantasies of replacing her.
• Franca recognized the Person in the Mirror as part of herself, offered to reconcile, and pulled him to his feet, bringing their mystical connection closer.
• Franca confirmed that she had finished digesting her Unaging potion, and Madam Magician warned her and Lumian that advancing further would require anchors of faith.
• Madam Magician offered to make Franca and Lumian patron saints of areas in Trier under the Church of The Fool, and they agreed to consider the preparations.
• Lumian dreamed of returning to Cordou Village, then woke and found a note in Aurora’s handwriting that read, “Summon White Paper!”

Lumian summoned Aurora’s contract creature, White Paper, after realizing her message suggested that Cordou Village’s story still held an important secret. White Paper’s vanished liquid and enticing smell led Franca to conclude that it symbolized the beginning of everything, leaving them to investigate what that meant for the village’s disaster.

• Lumian reconsidered the events of Cordou Village after finding Aurora’s message to summon White Paper, wondering whether Madame Pualis’s arrangements and the infant Ombella held an unresolved secret.
• Franca suggested Aurora’s reminder might be the useful change tied to Lumian becoming a Witch of Unaging, and Lumian agreed that Aurora’s revived soul fragments could have delivered it.
• Lumian summoned White Paper in Aurora’s name, and the group noticed that it looked unfamiliar to him because his earlier memories of it came from Aurora’s soul fragments.
• Ludwig recalled that White Paper used to have an enticing smell, while Franca and Jenna reasoned that its former state might have been deliberately hidden or altered.
• Lumian asked what White Paper symbolized in the Cordou Village story, and Franca concluded that it represented the state before a story was written and the beginning of everything.

Lumian and the others reconsidered how White Paper’s summoning, the Hidden Sage, and the Great Mother may have shaped the Cordou Village disaster. Franca then devised her honorific name, while Lumian prepared to investigate why Aurora had been chosen for the Hidden Sage’s knowledge infusion.

• Lumian concluded that Aurora’s summoning of White Paper may have brought Ombella’s amniotic fluid into Cordou Village, drawing Madame Pualis there through a revelation from the Great Mother.
• Lumian and Franca suspected the Hidden Sage deliberately influenced Aurora and that April Fool’s Day’s account of events could not be trusted; Lumian reported their findings to Mr. Fool.
• Lumian said he would share his suspicions with Madam Hermit, while Franca planned to consult Madam Hella about revealing transmigration to the Curly-Haired Baboon Research Society.
• Lumian asked Franca to find out when the Society would next gather so he could investigate why the Hidden Sage chose Aurora.
• Franca drafted her honorific name as the one who never ages, the keeper of disease and plague, the witch accompanied by strife and disaster, the cup that bears joy and pain, and the great Franca Roland.

Lumian and his companions finalized Honorific Names and sought a chance to visit Banishment City, while Lumian resolved to enjoy life despite the uncertain fate ahead. After receiving word that an answer might come within two days, Jenna invited Lumian and Franca to the opera, and the group shared a cheerful evening.

• Lumian wrote his Honorific Name, including descriptions meant to reflect his bond with Aurora and his Witch and Hunter abilities, with Franca suggesting that he cradle destruction.
• Franca and Lumian sent their Honorific Names to Madam Judgement and Madam Hermit and asked Madam Judgement to contact the Church of Knowledge about visiting Banishment City.
• Madam Judgement replied through Ongla that the Church of Knowledge might provide an answer the next day or the day after.
• Lumian said he wanted to treat himself better and accepted Jenna's invitation to the opera; Franca joined them, while Anthony declined and Jenna brought Ludwig along.
• Franca proposed making hot pot the next day, and Lumian, Anthony, and Jenna jointly rejected adding mushrooms.
• After returning from the opera, Franca planned to summon Madam Hella's Messenger and ask to meet in reality.

Franca learned that Angoulême had advanced to Sequence 4 and that churches were rapidly preparing more demigods for a looming crisis. She told her telegram group about the apocalypse and her own advancement, then met Hella, who revealed she already knew Franca had visited the Dream City.

• Franca discovered that Angoulême had become a Sunless and that the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun was advancing qualified candidates in preparation for a possible crisis.
• Franca warned her telegram group that the apocalypse was approaching but said there was still hope, and Angoulême's agreement convinced the members to believe her.
• Franca revealed that she had become a half-god while remaining on the Witch pathway, and she explained that transmigrators could make rapid progress when their special qualities emerged.
• Angoulême told Franca that several newly advanced saints had stayed in Trier, making her suspect that trouble might erupt beneath the city.
• Franca met Hella at the Little Calf Café and mentioned visiting a dream world with skyscrapers and cell phones, but Hella said she already knew about the visit.

Franca learned that Hella had long known the truth about transmigration, and the two discussed what to tell the other members and what they hoped to do after the apocalypse. Later, Franca, Lumian, and Jenna visited the Fool’s church in Lavigny Docks, where Franca heard illusory voices and saw points of light during prayers to her as the church’s patron saint.

• Hella told Franca that she had realized they were still in their original world after seeing Mystical Reappearance spells based on fairy tales.
• Hella and Franca agreed to preserve hope among the Society’s members, share limited information about the apocalypse, and hold another gathering that week.
• Hella described her hopes of surviving the apocalypse, seeing the world develop, and exploring the cosmos; Franca toasted with her to their homeland and distant horizons.
• Franca told Lumian that Hella planned a gathering, and Lumian said their trip to Banishment City was scheduled for the following Monday.
• Lumian, Franca, and Jenna visited the Fool’s church, where a bishop praised Saint Franca as its patron saint.
• As the congregation prayed to Saint Franca, Franca heard illusory voices and saw points of light.

Franca and Lumian answered prayers from their new believers, using their powers to cure an illness and briefly restore an elderly woman's youth. Lumian then considered how Witches could gain anchors of faith and began thinking about taking over the Disease Church.

• Lumian and Franca recognized that believers' prayers had reached them as anchors of faith, and Franca used a Healing Potion to cure a believer's illness.
• Franca decided she wanted to create a mysticism pathogen that could consume other pathogens, then left with Jenna for the Market District to check on people she had once helped.
• Lumian visited Saint Lumian Church and briefly restored an elderly believer's youthful appearance so she could have her photograph taken.
• Lumian considered how Witches might gain believers and thought about taking over the Disease Church, removing its corrupted members, and redirecting its faith.

Lumian visited Langbu and used a painful prank against a man who insulted Aurora to encourage fear and spread faith in The Fool. Franca imposed protections for dancers and streetwalkers on local gang bosses, then left Jenna to protect actresses; back at the villa, Lumian asked Anthony to investigate the Disease Church.

• Lumian arrived in Langbu, visited Saint Lumian Church, and entered a crowded bar to seek intelligence about the Disease Church.
• After a drunkard made a crude insult, Lumian used his reflected gaze to inflict a temporary burning pain on the man, alarming the bar patrons and demonstrating the new Patron Saint's power.
• Franca forced three gang bosses to accept rules protecting dancers and streetwalkers, killing one who resisted and turning his corpse into a stone statue.
• Jenna added a rule limiting interest on usurious loans, and Franca left the two surviving bosses under threat of her curse puppets.
• Franca and Jenna watched the Old Dovecage Theater, and Franca asked Jenna to become the protector of actresses.
• Lumian asked Anthony to gather intelligence on the Disease Church, and Franca offered to have her own channels search for information.

Franca revealed to the telegram group that she had advanced to Sequence 3 and become the Witch of Unaging, a Saint with an Honorific Name. After learning that the Disease Church's cultists in Trier had gone quiet, she took Angoulême's advice to investigate the outlying towns.

• Franca announced her arrival in the telegram group, and Angoulême asked whether she had advanced to Sequence 3.
• Franca confirmed she was Sequence 3, explained that her Transmigrator nature had enabled rapid advancement, and shared her title as the Witch of Unaging.
• Franca gave the group her Honorific Name and offered to answer prayers from people in the Trier region.
• Angoulême reported that the known Disease Church Gifted had been eliminated, but their superiors remained undiscovered and cultists in Trier had gone quiet.
• Angoulême suggested that Franca search the outlying towns where official forces had less influence, and Franca praised the idea.

Lumian posed as a witch seeking cooperation with Dalbero, a believer in the God of Disease, and used his prayer to trace the believer’s superior. Dalbero died after contacting the superior, while Franca’s divination revealed a dark, coffin-like chamber as the source of the traces.

• Lumian used his investigation into Niel’s death to locate Dalbero and confronted him through a projection in a mirror.
• Lumian claimed the Primordial Witch wanted the God of Disease’s protection and told Dalbero to report the offer to his superior.
• Dalbero secretly prayed to his superior while Lumian watched the connection through a silver mirror.
• Dalbero’s superior cursed him, and Dalbero rapidly rotted to death.
• Lumian followed the superior’s thought into the Mirror World, and Franca’s divination showed a coffin-like chamber containing a partly rotted corpse.

Lumian and Franca confronted Mocosidos, whose grotesque left hand carried the power of a Deity and killed Lumian’s body. Lumian returned through the Mirror World and, with Franca’s help, destroyed Mocosidos, then prepared to seek Mr. Fool’s aid before the Gift Power could return.

• Lumian teleported to Mocosidos’s tomb, where the Disease Church leader attacked with a Deity-like left hand and killed Lumian’s body despite his Mirror Substitutes.
• Lumian resurrected through his self in a mirror and cursed Mocosidos with black flames while grayish-white petrification magic also struck him.
• Mocosidos turned into pathogens to escape, but Lumian’s black flames and the petrification effect destroyed him and his remaining pathogens.
• Lumian drew the tomb area and Mocosidos’s spirit into the Mirror World with Franca, preventing the Gift Power from returning.
• Lumian assessed the left hand’s power and took out the Chariot card and the Holy Emblem of The Fool to seek Mr. Fool’s help with the next step.

Lumian and Franca used Mr. Fool’s power to sever the Disease Church’s faith from its god and redirect its Gifted followers toward twin deities they had invented. The chapter ended as Lumian questioned Mocosidos about the event that gave him his divine left hand, and Mocosidos began to answer, “After the Whirlpool Incident...”

• Lumian and Franca prayed to Mr. Fool, who restored Mocosidos’s spirit and sealed off its connection to the God of Disease.
• Lumian discovered that the Disease Church in the Trier District had only one Sequence 4 Gifted besides Mocosidos, who had been Sequence 3.
• Lumian ordered the Gifted to preach that the God of Disease would descend as twin deities, the God of Plague and the God of Illness.
• Lumian and Franca assigned themselves new Honorific Names and grafted the Gifted followers’ faith anchors onto themselves temporarily.
• Lumian used Magic Mirror Spiritism to question Mocosidos about how he received his gifted left hand, and Mocosidos began, “After the Whirlpool Incident...”

Lumian and Franca learned that Mocosidos had received a powerful gift from the one worshipped by the Disease Church, and Franca’s Certain-Hit Gun gained a new effect. At the Curly-Haired Baboon Research Society gathering, Franca and Hella warned that an apocalypse was approaching and urged members to leave Trier, while Lumian cautioned the Academy group about dangerous knowledge implanted by the Hidden Sage.

• Mocosidos told Lumian and Franca that God had gifted him after the Whirlpool incident and ordered him to stay in Trier, then his remnant soul disappeared.
• Franca replenished the Certain-Hit Gun with the remnant gift’s power, gaining a once-only effect she named "God's Gaze."
• Franca announced to the Curly-Haired Baboon Research Society that she had become a Half-God and warned that cults would trigger a major disaster within the next year or two.
• Hella urged members in Trier to leave within six months, and Gandalf advised them to shelter in major cities but avoid national capitals.
• Lumian warned the Academy group about dangerous knowledge the Hidden Sage had instilled in him and asked whether they had received knowledge about a fragile orb linked to their minds.

Lumian investigated whether the Hidden Sage’s knowledge of summoning White Paper had harmed Condensed Matter and discovered that Condensed Matter had an older sister who raised his body. This led Lumian to suspect Madame Pualis had given birth to twins, with one child missing rather than dead, while he and Jenna reached the Ancient Tomb Chamber to seek Krismona’s shadow.

• Lumian questioned Condensed Matter privately with Hella present and determined that his summoned White Paper appeared harmless, though he continued investigating possible connections to Aurora.
• Lumian learned that Condensed Matter had traveled with his wife and the older sister who raised his body, and recognized siblings as a possible link to Aurora and the Warlocks targeted by the Hidden Sage.
• Lumian wondered whether Madame Pualis had given birth to twins, with one child killed and the other mysteriously missing, and suspected his own connection to the Abscessed Severed Hand and Ombella was guided by fate.
• Lumian brought Jenna through the Catacombs toward the Ancient Tombs so she could encounter Krismona’s shadow before advancing to Witch of Despair.
• Lumian warned Jenna that divinity made the Catacombs more dangerous for Franca, briefly extinguished his candle to demonstrate his comfort in the darkness, then relit it after Jenna objected.
• Lumian and Jenna reached the Ancient Tomb Chamber without encountering Krismona’s shadow, and Lumian said the shadow was more evil inside the chamber.

Lumian and Jenna tested Krismona’s reaction to a pure female Witch, then brought Ombella’s remains to Banishment City so Jenna could perform her advancement ritual. Jenna began advancing under cover of the gray fog, while Lumian planted Earth’s Gift near 0-01 and triggered the Abscessed Severed Hand’s reaction.

• Lumian and Jenna approached Krismona at the Samaritan Woman Spring, where her attack froze the area until Lumian activated the Blood Emperor’s residual aura and Underworld Daoist pulled her shadow into the spring.
• Jenna sensed that Krismona feared a pure female Witch reaching Sequence 3, and Lumian concluded that the main danger lay in reconciling with the Person in the Mirror.
• Lumian uprooted Ombella’s remains, Earth’s Gift, from New Silver City and carried it through the Mirror World to Morola with Jenna, Franca, and Madam Magician.
• Lumian assembled the required criminals in Banishment City while Jenna spread a plague among them, then Jenna drank her potion and began advancing in a gray-fog-covered region of the Mirror World.
• Lumian planted Earth’s Gift near Corpse Mountain Peak, prompting the Abscessed Severed Hand to curse Ombella and wish her death at the hands of her immediate family.

Lumian confirmed that the Abscessed Severed Hand was Giddas, Ombella’s brother, and learned that Giddas’s soul fragments had fused with him. The Fool said Giddas would not affect Aurora’s resurrection, but would eventually replace Lumian, leaving the danger as a possible opportunity.

• The Abscessed Severed Hand reacted to Ombella’s remains with hatred and called out her name, but 0-01 suppressed it and Earth’s Gift before Lumian could observe further.
• Lumian returned to Franca and Jenna after Jenna completed her advancement, then went with them to New Silver City and reported his findings to Mr. Sun.
• Lumian theorized that Ombella killed Giddas with help from Olmuir, that Giddas cursed Ombella before his death, and that both siblings’ identities were later stolen.
• The Fool confirmed that Madame Pualis hid the infant Giddas in Cordou Village to use the believers of Fate’s final ritual, which caused Giddas to disappear.
• The Fool confirmed that Giddas’s soul fragments had fused with Lumian when he obtained Ombella’s Bloodline, and said Giddas would eventually replace him without affecting Aurora’s resurrection.
• The Fool described Giddas’s presence in Lumian as a hidden threat and danger, but also as a variable and an opportunity.

Lumian received Mr. Fool’s warning to stay away from the mother and had the seal on his chest lifted. After visiting the ruins of Cordou Village, he returned to Trier and appointed Lugano to lead the God of Disease’s believers as he and Franca established their new identities as the Gods of Plague and Illness.

• Mr. Fool warned Lumian that calamity must stay away from the mother and agreed to lift the seal on his chest.
• Lumian returned to Cordou Village, where Aurora’s and Giddas’s Soul Fragments emerged and the villagers’ fading figures briefly brought the ruins to life.
• Lumian returned to Trier and told Lugano to contact the listed believers as a pastor of the God of Disease and provide medical care.
• Lumian revealed that he was the God of Plague and Franca was the God of Illness, and gave Lugano documents with their doctrines and honorific names.
• Lumian ordered Lugano to recover the dead Gifted’s stolen wealth and return it to struggling believers, then promised to help him obtain his next Potion Formula and ingredients.