"Sorry to disappoint you — controlling desires and emotions belongs to the Demoness of Pleasure. A plain Witch doesn't have that ability."
"But even so, having an extra Beyonder item would significantly improve my safety whenever I'm in control of the body."
He made a show of musing out loud, "Who could I possibly turn to? Who would be capable of crafting a Beyonder item out of a Shepherd's characteristic — something that dangerous — with minimal negative effects?"
Bernadette said flatly, "You can just say Bonova's name directly."
She was quiet for a few seconds. "You may not know this. Bonova is my biological brother — but we aren't particularly close."
She had even found herself wondering, more than once, whether the only reason Bonova maintained the surface appearance of a sibling relationship with her was because some last remnant of his humanity hadn't yet gone dark. Or whether it was simply because the god he served had instructed him to.
In Bonova's eyes, Father seemed to exist as no more than Emperor Roselle.
Vincent played innocent. "Why is that?"
"Human nature." She didn't hide it. "I've touched on this before."
"When a Beyonder advances to Sequence 4 and acquires divinity, their human nature diminishes correspondingly. Kindness, fear, regret, love, anger, hatred — all of these emotions gradually become more distant. Left unchecked, by the time they advance from Sequence 3 to Sequence 2, they fully leave behind the category of 'human' and become an entity of absolute rationality."
"Bonova is at that stage now."
Vincent asked, "And you?"
"Me?"
She thought about it. "My human nature is holding up reasonably well. I still have Element Dawn as my anchor. Even if I advance to Sequence 2, I won't become like Bonova — though the expression of divinity would certainly become more pronounced."
"Bonova's case is unusual. He was born at Sequence 5 — his human nature was already thinner than an ordinary person's to begin with. After that, certain particular circumstances made him the way he is now."
"Then I have a question."
Vincent raised his hand. "In your current state — with your soul split — if you advanced to Sequence 2, what do you think would happen?"
Bernadette paused and fell into thought. Right. The half of me that tilts toward the divine is in the other world, while the half here in this body tilts toward... no, overflows with human nature.
In this state, would advancing produce a bad outcome because of 'insufficient divinity'? Or would the abundance of human nature preserve my emotional richness?
"I... can't say for certain."
"And my second question: if you did advance to Sequence 2, and then we swapped back to me controlling the body — would that affect me in any way?"
"That's also hard to say right now."
"Fair enough."
Bernadette steered the conversation back. "In any case — what I'm trying to tell you is that every time I go to Bonova, it's essentially a transaction. If you want something, you have to give something of equal value."
"And it goes further than that. If you want him to craft a Sequence 5 Beyonder item, the price he'd demand would be well above the Sequence 5 level — because something of Sequence 5 value is simply worth nothing to Bonova."
Going to him for help truly wasn't worth it, then.
In the original story, Bonova's lack of human nature had been mentioned, but as far as Vincent recalled, the two siblings never actually had any meaningful interaction. These past weeks since the soul exchange, however, Bernadette had gone to him several times, and Vincent had assumed that some feeling still remained between them.
"So the Shepherd characteristic just goes to waste?"
She gave a quiet, dismissive sound. "What makes you think that, as the head of a Beyonder organisation, I don't have other artisans who can craft Beyonder items for me?"
"..."
Right. You could have just said that.
Securing the Prosecutor credentials and getting the Shepherd characteristic crafted into a Beyonder item were both projects that would take more than a day or two. So for the next two days, Vincent spent his time mainly getting a feel for the Prosecutor's abilities and attempting to identify and codify an Acting Code for the role.
Then the new week arrived.
Monday, three in the afternoon. The Tarot Club convened as scheduled. After this session it would be Bernadette's turn to attend next week, then back to Vincent the week after — a rotating cycle of four weeks each.
In the grey, boundless, cool, and silent ancient palace, four figures appeared in succession at their seats. "Justice" Audrey instinctively glanced around the table, rising to greet Mr. Fool — and then stopped. Across the long bronze table, a new figure had appeared.
Her heart leapt with delight. A new member!
Sure enough, Mr. Fool's ever-steady voice rang out:
"This is our new member. Their title is 'The Sun.'"
"This is Miss 'Justice.' This is Mr. 'The Hanged Man.' This is 'The Lovers' — you may address him as Mr. Lovers for now."
Two days ago, while guarding the Chanis Gate with Melissa, Klein had thought at first that Melissa's sudden vision of red light meant she had accidentally formed a connection with the grey fog. But nothing had come through from above the grey fog — and when he later ascended there himself, he found no red star corresponding to Melissa. So the question remained: what had Melissa seen?
Klein's first instinct had been the Hidden Sage. He had immediately informed the Captain, who had run a thorough check — and found nothing. But the unease lingered. If he'd been a genuine god rather than a hollow imitation of one, he could simply have pulled Melissa up above the grey fog and kept her under his protection. But since he couldn't do that himself...
What about the Lord of Chaos?
Vincent glanced at the new member — a Sun, wide-eyed and slightly lost — and inwardly noted that the Tarot Club's core membership was now essentially assembled.
As was customary, the meeting opened with Mr. Fool reading from the diary.
After consulting with Bernadette, Vincent had chosen to present two pages for this week: entries from Emperor Roselle's early days, just after arriving in this world — filled with notes about the disorientation of an alien environment, homesickness, a bit of grumbling, and one newly fabricated page:
"June 2nd. I met that mysterious being who calls himself 'the Lord of Chaos' again. As usual, I explained recent events to Him, inevitably weaving in some of my thoughts about this world — a little editorial comment of my own, I suppose.
"This time, however, after I finished speaking, He fell silent for a long while. He didn't release me, either. He simply loomed above and looked down at me, and His gaze made my skin crawl.
"My first thought was: 'It's over — the evil god has dropped the pretence.' I imagined all the things He might do to me next. But after several minutes, He abruptly severed our connection.
"Another day survived. But I'm starting to wonder whether I should take the risk of approaching the Church for help. They'd happily shelter me as their 'Child of Steam' — but what if this evil god has already planted something in me? What if even the Church can't protect me? It's not as though the God of Steam and Machinery would personally step in."
"June 3rd. Nothing today. I used the opportunity of attending mass to obliquely ask the bishop: if a believer were targeted by an evil god, what would the Church do? His answer chilled me to the bone. 'Eliminate the believer immediately. That is the only way to effectively prevent all risk.'
"Oh, get stuffed."
"June 6th. The Lord of Chaos found me again. Since only a few days had passed since our last meeting, I had nothing new to share. I was already racking my brains over what to do — when He actually initiated things for once, asking me questions. Mostly about my inventions.
"I could see He found those more interesting. He even managed to exchange a few technical insights with me, and for a moment I half-wondered if this 'Lord of Chaos' might actually be the God of Steam and Machinery in disguise, testing me.
"And then He suddenly spoke in fluent, standard Mandarin Chinese:
'Odd changes, even stays the same.'"
To be continued…
Advance 100 Chapters are up on my Patreon!
pat reon.com/AlphaSenatus