As the two of them raced southwards, mana swirling around their bodies, Claud couldn’t help but think about that encounter. The familiar spirit of the Red God had been surprisingly amicable, but only because he hadn’t realised that the person he was looking for was right in front of them.

Still, what was with that accusation?

He turned a disgruntled expression to Lily, who made a face back.

“You’re still thinking about that?” Lily asked. “About how Tot supposedly killed the Holy Son of the Red God?”

Claud’s eyes glittered. “You’d think that I’ll know about something like that, right? It’s clear that there’s some powers manipulating information here and there.”

Lily’s fingers flickered, touching his left palm in a specific pattern. “We should be careful, then. Things are shifting faster than we’ve expected.”

Claud narrowed his eyes at the pattern she had tapped out on his palm, and then nodded. His fingers moving slowly, Claud pondered if using Presence Nullification was the best way to go about things, but disappearing now could very well be a problem.

He reached into his backpack and took out a pyramid, one whose pointy ends weren’t as sharp as that of Sceptre’s. Twisting its top, he tucked it into his clothes and said, “Okay. We should have a few minutes to talk freely before any eyes spying on us come up with a countermeasure…anyway, what the heck was up with that Tot bullcrap?”

“Tot 4, Bearers of Destiny 0, I suppose.” Lily winked.

“Yeah, I’m getting a feeling that I’ll soon become a boogeyman or something. What the heck? Why is my name bandied around every-freaking-where? And the others. Really? I’m not even sure why they said that Tot killed the freaking Holy Son of the Red God. I wonder what they’re doing…”

The two of them sighed.

“It seems like a huge mess broke out in Istrel, huh?” Claud noted. “And none of this had anything to do with me this time. Glad to know that.”

“Trouble doesn’t follow you after all,” Lily agreed. “Most of the time, anyway.”

“You’re going to break my heart at this rate,” Claud replied, before looking at the book that was still tucked in Lily’s left arm. “Right, what do you think? Would you have any issue using that lifeforce manipulation thing?”

“It works, but I don’t know why it works,” Lily replied.

“So the same as me, then.” Claud pondered for a moment. “Still, it doesn’t quite make sense to me, though. I mean, it’s actually quite simple in terms of application, right? So why isn’t this technique spread out more? It’s just literally controlling lifeforce with mana and then holding it up against affected areas. It’s not complicated, and at most one would use up more mana.”

“Well, healing skillstrips are definitely cheaper, right?” Lily asked. “I’m sure they’ll be cheaper than lifestones.”

“Hmm.” Claud looked at the book. “Well, we can treat it like a skill of sorts, that’s for sure. Each lifestone is now no different from a skillstick with Low Heal or something. And we can use it without restraint.”

“The familiar spirit did warn us about impurities, though. It’ll be best if we treat this as a last resort or something, and—oh. We reached the border, it seems.”

Claud nodded. A faint, rippling membrane covered the world in front of them, arcing skywards into the infinite expanse above. This was probably some countermeasure the Moons had employed against the possibility of the Dark trying something sneaky.

“If the two of us…”

“It shouldn’t react to us, I think.” Claud frowned. “I’m not sure. We’ll just enter anyway, and see what happens. The Moons are making strong requests for conscription; they aren’t forcing anyone yet. At worst, we can just turn around and leave; who’s going to stop us?”

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“You’re oddly confident…”

“Penta-folder, you know.” Claud narrowed his eyes. “In the era before all this madness began, I would have been the trump card of a sovereignty or a dukedom. Even Ruler Istrel was forced to eat his words because of a penta-folder.”

“But you’re just a mid-ranked folder…”

“Yeah.” Claud shook his head. “But the Fourth Godsfall just began. There shouldn’t be that many people that can threaten us. And with my growth rate…”

“The exchange rate is indeed favourable towards you,” Lily muttered, shooting a glance at his backpack. “But you’ll need to keep it in moderation to prevent people from guessing.”

“I have to be careful, yes, but I’ve always been careful.” Claud breathed in slowly, somewhat frustrated. He could see the vestiges of his Second Tutorial here, but there were so many changes that he didn’t know what was constant and what wasn’t. What was the Frozen Emperor — the him he’d seen in his Second Tutorial — doing at this moment? Where was the Claud and Lily of another timeline? Did they go back? Or did they stay on in Lostfon?

Claud frowned. Lesser Half was correct; the moment he experienced that Second Tutorial, the future had changed.

But what Second Tutorial did the Frozen Emperor encounter, and why did it lead him to that future? Or did he not have…

Claud shook his head, and then took a step forward. The barrier parted smoothly in front of him, and he led the way forward.

If Cava County was nominal Moon territory, one could say that the Liquet Dukedom was truly under the control of the Moons. Here, he could sense three immense presences, emanating from the far south, from what seemed to be the border between Nihila and Istrel.

“We’re here.” Claud touched the pyramid tucked in his cloths once. It was something that he had been using for a very long time, something that prevented people from hearing their conversations from outside a certain area. However, the fact that the twisted area was being pushed back was rather telling.

After all, throughout their entire time in Lostfon, the pyramid had never moved. The moment they stepped into Moon territory, however, the pyramid had finally made a move, signifying that someone was attempting to pry into their conversation

Claud checked the top of the pyramid once, and then smiled at the sight of Lily looking at the pyramid. “We can assume that most of our conversations will be…followed, unless measures were taken to prevent otherwise.”

“It’s…moving.”

“That’s what happens when they are prying. There’s only so many configurations. I estimate that we’ll only have twenty hours of talk time before all the configurations are cracked. After that, we’ll need to use prearranged signals and Presence Nullification.” Claud looked at the pyramid, which was steadily arriving at a more correct set up.

“Where did you even get this?”

“Long ago. Don’t worry about it too much.” Claud paused. “I’ll also have to think up of new combinations or other, similar artefacts. This is not the best in its class, after all. And if we change our appearance…”

“Can’t you empower it with mana?” Lily asked, her words taking on some anxiety.

“Yes, but that will place me in direct conflict against the force attempting to eavesdrop.” Claud paused. “Of course, that might also work…it’ll dissuade overt ways of doing so, at least.”

His eyes flickered. If the eavesdroppers wanted to remain hidden, they would avoid clashing with his mana. It was possible that Lily’s suggestion would work, but this would in turn tell the Moons that they were the cautious kind.

Would this help them? Or harm them?

He immediately gauged that it would be the former. After all, he had already activated the artefact to begin with; anyone with half a mind could tell that its user was cautious and secretive. If he didn’t empower it with mana…

“Yeah. I guess that’s going to work.” Claud touched the pyramid and poured mana into it. The misaligned pyramid, which was attempting to return to its original state, immediately stopped. The force that the eavesdropper was exerting on it immediately retreated, and with a click, the pyramid returned to its fully encrypted state.

“…This is really marvellous,” Lily observed. “What’s this thing called?”

“You finally asked.” Claud chuckled. “It’s the Looped Encryptor, and—”

The grass rustled, cutting off his words, and the two of them looked at the source of the disturbance, which was a familiar silhouette pushing past the tall grass. A sword blazing with light pointed at them a moment later, illuminating the familiar face of the Lustre princess, and everyone froze.

“Dia?” Lily called out.

“…Lily? Claud?” Black hair rippled once. “Is that…you guys? What are you guys doing here?”

The three of them stared at each other for a moment, and then Lily asked, “What are you doing here?”

“I, along with the others, have been conscripted,” Dia replied. “…Well, damn. Schwarz was right. You two are indeed outside of Istrel…now what? Are you two intruders or what?”

“We were going back to look for you guys,” Claud replied. “But…”

“Huh.” Dia made a face. “Come on, let’s follow me back first. This place isn’t a good one for discussing random things. And there’s hot food too…you guys must have been traveling for days and days.”

What would she say if she found out that the two of them had left Lostfon barely a day ago?

Or that he was a penta-folder?

For some reason — actually, he just wanted to show off — he wanted to meet the others a bit faster. Unfortunately, it would be for the best if he only showed his mana circuits at the very end…