Elliot slowly placed Elsa's Card back on the table.
Cards were constantly swallowed and spat out by the slots before rushing off in all directions. Countless people's fates intertwined on the Difference Engine, while Elliot above pushed them forward or held them back.
Elsa had made her decision and chosen her own fate, but the others had not yet.
Elliot had been about to return for a look at the meeting in the Library, but he paused.
Out of the corner of his eye, he happened to catch a line of tiny text.
"What's this?"
Only now did he notice a countdown at the very top of the Difference Engine.
[Stealing the Third Era: 9940] [Stealing the Third Era: 9939] [Stealing the Third Era: 9938]
This countdown was at the very top, separate from the other countdown entries, and consisted of a single, utterly inconspicuous line of tiny text.
It had no Page Turner attached; instead, its number wheels slowly turned on their own.
Had Elliot not happened to glance that way, he would never have noticed this countdown.
"The Third Era? Shouldn't that be incredibly important?! Why is it just this one line of tiny text?"
Elliot's eyes widened at once.
The Difference Engine used many different fonts. Generally, countdowns were the most conspicuous, followed by alerts for sudden tasks, various descriptions, and so on.
Yet this line used the least conspicuous font, normally reserved for dialogue generated during unimportant Believers' automatic tasks. Even then, it was only used in records, often filling an entire page in a single column, leaving him with absolutely no desire to open them.
Using it for such important information was rather strange.
It was as though...
"As though it were afraid of being discovered," Elliot said, frowning.
"So what exactly