As expected of a "Magician"… Alice silently sighed in admiration, only to be faced with the next issue.
Hey, this kind of epiphany doesn't just appear out of nowhere, right?… Alice had to get serious. She earnestly asked Klein a question:
"Tell me, can a ritual be stored?"
The topic shift was too sudden. Klein froze for a moment, staring at Alice who stirred his emotions with a few lines and then abruptly jumped to a new subject. An even stronger sense of helplessness welled up inside him.
Forget it… At least her next question wasn't what's for dinner tonight… Klein weakly consoled himself, then gently reminded her, "Do you remember what Sequence I am?"
Oh, he hasn't had any experience with ritual advancement yet.
Alice fell silent for a few seconds, then tried hard to salvage her dignity:
"Can't you prepare in advance! You have absolutely no ambition! Can't you learn from me for once?!"
"?" Klein stared at Alice, dumbfounded.
Alice lifted her chin with no trace of guilt. "I'm already an angel, and I'm not even of age yet! And you? You're over twenty and still not even a demigod!"
After a ten-second stare-down, Klein showed a gentle, refined smile and softly asked, "I've graduated university. How about you? Want to try applying?"
Alice shut her mouth.
As expected of you, Mr. "World."
Not wanting to talk to Klein now that he was fully immersed in his "World" persona—Gehrman Sparrow—Alice glared at him with fake ferocity, yanked out her network cable, and bolted.
"Hah…" Back in the real world, Alice let out a breath of relief, patted her chest, and wore the expression of someone who had just escaped a calamity.
Another day without being dragged to class!
Otherwise, if word got out that an angel had skipped class and got caught—how embarrassing would that be…
Alice covered her face with her hand and flopped onto her bed. A few minutes later, her breathing steadied.
—One of the perks of being an angel: you won't freeze even without a blanket.
…
What… is that?
Silent. Dark. Deep. Flickering. Undulating shadows.
They looked like people. And trees. And something else entirely.
Alice couldn't see clearly. She remembered she came looking for Klein—but why did she end up here?
Instinctively, she tried to move forward to get a better look, but her feet were nailed to the ground.
Danger!
The warning came from outside and from deep within her soul. Alice didn't dare move. She realized that this was the limit—if she got even a sliver closer to that shadowy region, she'd be discovered.
Then… what should she do?
If she couldn't move forward, how could she see clearly?
A soft, faint light began to appear—dots of starlight flickered gently, drifting in front of her.
Let the lights go forward… illuminate that area… maybe that'll be enough?
Just a glance. If she didn't approach, would it still be dangerous?
No one answered her. But a few scattered light specks broke off from the rest, slowly rising—then darted across the darkness and were extinguished.
Tree shadows. Human shadows. Or perhaps something else entirely—it didn't matter.
What mattered were the fleshy tumors, the blooming flowers, the beautiful bodies, the primal lust for life—reproduction.
Just before the lights went out, Alice saw that those not-yet-fully-bloomed flowers silently turned toward her. And then—
They bloomed.
The instant she realized the buds were rapidly opening, a tremendous sense of crisis overwhelmed her. Alice suddenly became lucid. She realized she was in a very particular dream.
A prophetic dream.
One that foretold something capable of genuinely threatening her—after she had regained her Uniqueness. It was the first time she had felt such severe danger since then.
Without hesitation, she severed the connection, woke up from the dream, hid her presence without a second thought, and decisively… fled into the Church of the Lord of Storms.
Praise the Lord of Storms.
No believer noticed the new figure in the corner. With Alice's deliberate concealment, even the bishop couldn't sense any spiritual fluctuations.
Only then did she finally calm down, lifting her head to glance at the sky outside the window—good, time for dinner.
What a productive day.
After thinking seriously for a dozen seconds, following the principle of "might as well since I'm here," Alice casually strolled to the entrance of the church. She adjusted the subsequent probabilities using her authority and then… lifted her own concealment.
It was nothing. Truly. Just that the bishop happened to glance this way—and saw Alice suddenly appear while adjusting her monocle.
She gave the newly appointed bishop a smile—then vanished from where she stood.
"Bishop? Bishop, are you alright?" a concerned believer noticed the bishop's sudden change in expression and asked with worry.
…
Alice didn't go home. She decided to grab something to eat first.
That bizarre dream had temporarily killed her appetite for proper meals. After thinking seriously for a moment, she bought a sweet iced tea.
Savoring the tart sweetness, Alice suddenly sighed softly and murmured to herself, "I kinda miss milk tea… and cola… and soda…"
After a few seconds of silence, she glanced around hesitantly, bit the straw, and muttered, "Hmm… angels don't really go with the word 'gluttonous,' do they?"
Lowering her head, she fell into deep thought. Ten seconds later, she resumed sipping the iced tea.
Delicious.
Licking her lips, Alice decided to dump the problem on Klein—after all, at the start of the dream, she remembered she was supposed to be looking for him.
"O Fool who does not belong to this era,
"Mysterious ruler above the gray fog,
"Yellow and black king who wields good luck,
"I pray for your gaze,
"I pray for your attention—
"Listen, some unknown being has set its sights on you. Its rank is at least that of a true god—one capable of genuinely threatening me. Its authority relates to birth and reproduction, but likely isn't complete. [Note ①]
"Don't attempt a divination—not even at the top of the Sefirah Castle. Best-case scenario? You're detected. Worst-case? …I don't know. I think I almost died.
"Not the kind of death you can casually resurrect from. I think It could actually affect me—maybe not fatal, but definitely troublesome. Very troublesome.
"Be careful. I don't want to wake up one day and hear that you've given birth to 108 children for Amon…
"After all, Amon giving birth to 108 in one go is no big deal—but you? You'd definitely have problems."