Dia glanced at the two lovebirds as they retreated back into their room, and then followed in pursuit. Fortunately, the others didn’t notice her movements, and before long, she was right outside their door.

For a moment, she wanted to just open the door, but Lily and Claud were a couple. It would be…awkward, if she came across them kissing each other or something. Therefore, the most prudent course of action was to just knock twice, which she did carefully.

The door opened a moment later, revealing a small gap. Lily’s head popped out first, followed by Claud, and then three little shapes hopped onto his head. The line of heads reminded Dia of a fishball skewer or something, and she had to stifle a smile.

“Something wrong?” Lily asked, peering at her.

“Actually, it’s regarding those little guys,” Dia replied.

The five of them moved slightly, and Claud asked, “What about them?”

“Well, I can understand what they’re saying…kinda.” Dia paused. “It’s like…their little meeps carry a lot of information, and — whoa!”

Two hands pulled her into the room at that moment, and the door closed behind them. At the same time, a blue light illuminated the room, and two faces stared back at her.

“You can understand those meeps?” Claud asked.

Lily’s face squeezed into her field of vision. “How can you understand those meeps?”

“Hold up, hold up!” Dia pushed them away. “Sit down on the bed! Don’t be this agitated. Anyway, I learned a new skill while talking to the Blue Moon, who was making sounds that were making everyone else bleed. But those sounds actually contained lots of information, which I could actually differentiate piece by piece.”

“Oh.” Claud paused. “So…why was everyone else bleeding?”

“They couldn’t analyse the information separately, probably.” Dia paused. “Think of it as someone saying thirteen sentences all at once into your mind. That’s what it felt like for me, anyway. But for some reason, I could actually separate those sentences in smaller pieces, and then after a while, I realised that the Blue Moon was including lots and lots of weird data like the environment, the exact time and whatnot into those sounds.”

The duo looked at each other, and then nodded. Did they really understand what she just said? Or were they just trying to keep up appearances? It was a fascinating question, but there were more things she wanted to ask about these little guys.

“Anyway,” said Dia, “I actually want to talk to these guys.”

“Talk to them?” Claud asked. “…Well, I was thinking of getting them used to the Moon— Seekers of Life. Maybe you can talk to them and ask them things like where they came from. The two of us can only roughly interpret their answers.”

A silver sphere rolled over. “Meep!”

Dia paused for a moment, and then nodded. “Hi, Throne. I’m…Dia! I’m their friend, see? Nice to meet you.”

Throne paused for a moment, and with another meep, expressed its little desire for a nest.

“A nest?” Dia asked, before looking at Claud and Lily. “What does Throne mean by nest?”

“Just place him on your head. The three little fellows love to roost in people’s hair,” Claud explained. “Like Crown right now, for instance.”

He gestured at his head, where a small velvety box was making itself comfortable. For some reason, however, Dia couldn’t quite understand the meeps that Crown was making, and she frowned.

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“…Is Crown a bit different from the others?” Dia asked. “I…can’t quite understand his meeps, compared to Throne and…”

“Meep!”

“And Sceptre,” Dia replied, picking up the little star that had landed on her thigh. The star and the sphere cuddled up in a manner that reminded her of Claud and Lily, and she couldn’t help but feel a bit sour at the couple. At any rate, however, Crown seemed a little special, and she couldn’t place a finger on the reason why.

“Different. Yes, I suppose. Crown is quite different from the others,” Claud replied. “But how did you tell?”

“Hmm.” Dia thought about Crown’s little meeps. “Crown’s meeps are a bit…odd. They carry a lot more information that doesn’t make sense to me. Uh…it’s like receiving a document with lots of missing information or garbled words that make no sense. In contrast, Throne and Sceptre are more…straightforward. In terms of information, it’s like an essay compared to a small note.”

“That huge?” Lily asked.

“Yeah.” Dia nodded. “Anyway, it’s nice to meet everyone. I didn’t expect my new skill to be this helpful so quickly.”

The two little fellows on her thigh hopped up and down merrily, expressing their joy at meeting a new friend. Dia smiled and rubbed their tip, before moving to the next agenda. “Right, I wanted to give you this, Claud. Some of the defensive artefacts were used up while you were gone, and since you contributed to most of the pool to begin with, I wanted to make up for it.”

She took out a small ring.

“Used up?” Claud asked. “What do you mean, used up?”

“We used up some of your one-use defensive artefacts, that’s all,” Dia replied.

A look of confusion popped up on his face. “One-use defensive artefacts? Odd. I don’t recall leaving them behind…but okay. I probably didn’t check my inventory well enough. What does this ring do?”

“It turns the user untouchable or something,” Dia answered, before sliding the small card that came with it over. “Attacks pass through the user.”

“Okay.” Claud looked at the card. “Anyway, since you happen to be here…”

The couple exchanged glances once more, and with a small twitch, Dia noted that their hands were still interlinked. They were squeezing each other’s hand affectionately while talking to her too, and she couldn’t help but wonder if these two needed some alone time after all.

“Do you need something from me?” Dia asked, tearing her gaze away from her hands.

Lily nodded. “I’m dead certain that you were involved in just about everything that happened while we were off on our journey. Can you tell us what happened? From start to end.”

“Me?” Dia paused.

“That is, of course, if you aren’t busy,” Lily hastily added. “But you can think of this as trying to let Sceptre and Throne get used to you. They seem to like your lap a lot.”

“Meep!”

“No, no hair for you,” Dia replied severely. “Make do with my lap, guys.”

“Meep…” The star tilted to its side sadly, and Dia extended a finger to turn it back up. Sceptre nuzzled her finger a moment later, before retreating from her lap with Throne. Before long, the two shapes landed on the small house Claud had been bearing earlier.

“Heh. Cute, aren’t they?” Claud let out a sigh. “Anyway, what dark matters have you been up to? I mean…the matter about the Red God’s Holy Son…you and the others were prowling around the site of his madness and eventual death, right?”

“What makes you say that?” Dia asked, narrowing her eyes. She hadn’t said anything much, but from the way Claud put it, it seemed like they knew something about the Holy Son’s passing and the circumstances surrounding it.

“Well, anything linked to the Thief of Time isn’t definitive,” Lily replied. “All those rumours about Tot have always been mired in uncertainty. I…we don’t quite believe that the Thief of Time was involved in the Holy Son’s death because that’s too definite.”

Dia froze. She hadn’t considered it from that angle, but now that they mentioned it…it did sound right. It was too obvious, too…concrete.

“Like a feint, huh? Our slashes and the openings they reveal are too obvious, too…deliberate.” Dia frowned.

“Yeah.” Claud nodded. “No one knows what the Thief of Time did. Therefore, it is natural to pin anything odd on Tot. However, that is different from claiming that Tot did something explicitly, especially if you provided proof.”

“No,” Dia replied. “We didn’t provide proof of that.”

“Good. So…” Claud made a face. “You were involved in that, after all.”

“Yes and no.” Dia sighed. She hadn’t expected that the two would be this astute in ferreting out the truth. If they had shown such an incisive talent in their swordplay, the two of them would have been masters in an instant. It was a pity that these two were more interested in playing dirty than anything else.

“Well?” Lily prompted. “Hurry and tell us. That familiar spirit must have interrogated you guys harshly, right? Don’t you want justice and vengeance?”

“That familiar spirit?” Dia echoed.

“Yeah, we met him too, while on the way here. He was swatted out of the sky by the Moons,” Lily replied.

Dia shivered. The God of Precision…did the familiar spirit’s appearance in front of Claud and Lily have anything to do with the truth? She calculated for a while, and then let out a sigh. “Fine. I’ll tell you two everything. You two would eventually know, anyway, and it’s best if I, who was doing lots of things, told you guys myself.”

She thought for a moment. “We’ll have to start with Count Daybreak…”