A second time?
The Fool's abrupt remark left [Justice] Audrey stunned for a moment.
As a Beyonder who walked the Spectator pathway, she quickly reined in her emotions and began observing everyone's reactions, working out the implications.
Well, Mr. Fool had clearly said this while looking at Ms. Hermit, and Ms. Hermit was behaving strangely.
Ever since they had ascended into the Grey Fog, she had seemed to be afraid of something. Wait, could she have offended Mr. Fool again?
Audrey suddenly recalled that the first time [Hermit] had attended a Tarot Gathering, she had been caught by [Temperance] using her peculiar eyes to spy on them, and had received some manner of punishment for it.
If that counted as the first time, then what Mr. Fool meant to say now was that [Hermit] had once again overstepped her bounds?
With this guess in mind, she looked over at that purple-eyed figure.
She saw the [Hermit]'s form go rigid, stiffening for several seconds before slowly relaxing. It was not the relaxation of relief, but the release of someone who had already braced for the worst and now found their fears confirmed.
"Mr. Fool has found out. He really has found out..."
After the initial shock, [Hermit] Cattelya, who had already been harboring worry, suddenly calmed herself.
She had guessed she would be found out for leaking the Fool's information, only she hadn't expected it to happen so quickly.
"I wonder how Mr. Fool will punish me. Will it be death? Or something worse than death..."
For an instant, the melancholy, careworn face of "Queen Mystic" Bernadette seemed to flash before her eyes.
That woman, whom she regarded in her heart as a mother, had been trapped her whole life by the matter of Roselle.
Now that she had a chance to help the Queen resolve this, she had quietly revealed it despite knowing the danger was immense.
"So be it."
Cattelya sighed inwardly. She raised me, so consider this life repaid to her.
This, this is...
[Justice] Audrey's heart stirred with surprise as she read [Hermit]'s expression.
The woman looked afraid, yet she had already made peace with whatever was to come. Who could it be, that made [Hermit] willing to provoke the wrath of a god without regret?
The drama playing out in their two hearts, complex as it was, had taken only a few seconds. The other members of the Tarot Gathering had all heard the Fool's words as well.
[Hanged Man] and [Temperance] both had their suspicions, while [Magician], [Moon], and the others clearly hadn't caught on.
"Mr. Fool, what were you saying to Ms. Hermit?"
[Sun] Derrick spoke up in confusion. He was probably the one least able to make sense of the situation.
Klein glanced discreetly at Audrey. She was still caught up in her surprise and showed no sign of wanting to explain.
So he spoke up himself, giving a low chuckle. "[Hermit] has once again done something inappropriate. She leaked information related to the Tarot Gathering to Bernadette, the owner of the Dawn."
A brief silence fell over the Grey Fog, and then the others reacted, each in their own way.
The owner of the Dawn... the Queen Mystic! Heh, so you really are the "Admiral of Stars."
It seems the rumors going around outside, about you and the "Queen Mystic" being at odds, were nothing but a disguise the two of you put on together.
[Hanged Man] Alger thought this with half the satisfaction of having solved a puzzle and half the pleasure of watching someone else's misfortune.
He leaned back against his chair, intending to sit back and watch how the other woman would struggle out of this.
[Moon] Emlyn felt something similar, thinking that [Hermit] had truly overestimated herself.
The Fool was an existence on equal footing with the progenitor of their bloodline, and yet she had dared try to deceive him.
"To think [Hermit] would do such a thing... that's going too far! But then, to take on such a risk for the sake of the Queen Mystic, was it really worth it..."
Audrey thought to herself, feeling both angry and somewhat at a loss to understand.
And among this group, if anyone was the most astonished, it had to be [Temperance] Silas.
Only now did he understand why the Queen, before leaving, had told him to help the "Admiral of Stars."
"Queen Mystic" Bernadette knew of my connection to [The Fool] because [Hermit] had leaked the information.
Her true identity was the "Admiral of Stars," Cattelya!
The Queen asked me to help her, to spare her life, not because she feared I might attack her if we met at sea, but because she feared Mr. Fool would bring down his wrath upon her!
Once he'd worked this out, Silas fell utterly speechless.
Bernadette thought far too highly of me, didn't she, asking me to plead on her behalf before a true god?
Do I really carry that much weight?!
While the crowd's emotions churned in complicated waves, Klein maintained his air of inscrutable calm, turned his gaze toward Cattelya, and spoke slowly. "Anything else you'd like to explain?"
Cattelya drew a deep breath.
"I'm truly sorry, Mr. Fool."
She said this with an almost self-abandoning composure. "I only asked her for the Sequence 3 potion formula of the Secrets Suppliant pathway.
But if I'm honest with myself, I knew this might let her guess at certain things, and I brought it up anyway."
"I admit this was my mistake. Whatever punishment you see fit to give me, I will not utter a word of complaint."
[Hermit] Cattelya offered no defense for her actions, only a simple account of what she had done and why, before bowing her head toward the lofty presence at the head of the long table, adopting a posture that left herself entirely at his mercy.
For a moment, the atmosphere over the Grey Fog seemed to freeze solid.
Behind the long table, Klein considered for a moment, then extended a finger toward Cattelya.
"Boom!"
The Grey Fog, calm and gentle a moment before, suddenly turned violent in an instant, surging up from beneath everyone's feet to envelop Cattelya's body, pressing down on her with crushing weight.
"Bang!"
Cattelya heard the sound of her own eardrums bursting.
Countless voices, chaotic murmurs, poured out from within the Grey Fog: mad, overlapping, hysterical, flooding endlessly into her mind and inflicting agonizing torment on her spirit.
In this moment, her suffering was beyond measure.
This sensation was a hundred times more terrible than the knowledge infusion of the Hidden Sage!
"...!"
"...!"
[Hermit] Cattelya couldn't even make a sound. She could only lie sprawled across the long table, convulsing violently, her anguish taking on an almost tangible form that pressed itself into the eyes of everyone present through her blurred, shuddering figure.
Klein had already advanced successfully in the waters of the Ruins of the Battle of Gods, becoming a Sequence 5 Marionettist.
His mastery over the Grey Fog had grown stronger still, and inflicting corruption in this manner was well within his power now.
Around the long table, the other members all witnessed Cattelya's condition in that moment. No one made a sound.
All that could be heard was the faint, continuous rustle of fabric against fabric as she thrashed, echoing softly across the Grey Fog.