Tarot Club 16th Meeting

Oct 15th, 1349 of the Fifth Epoch

On Monday afternoon, Klein returned to 15 Minsk Street from the Quelaag Club.

As Stuart had yet to provide any results from his preliminary investigation, and since he was temporarily unable to find a suitable candidate to become an Apothecary, Klein had nothing to do yesterday and today.

Therefore, he simply went to the Quelaag Club to practice his shooting, read, and get some free food. In the process, he got to know many other members of the club.

'This is the lifeblood for future business opportunities,' Klein sighed with emotion, took four steps counterclockwise and went above the grey fog.

He went about his preparations, step by step, first conjuring the fake World, familiarizing himself with the control of the All-Black Eye, and then sending a message to The Sun that the Tarot gathering was about to begin.

After all of this was done, Klein waited for three o'clock to arrive. Then, he reached out to touch the corresponding crimson stars and established a firm connection. The Magician had her own illusory star as well.

Under the pretext of concentrating on her writing, Fors Wall sent Xio away, and for a moment she was dazzled by the sudden rush of grey fog. In the blink of an eye, she found herself above the mysterious and serene grey fog. She was inside a majestic palace, and in front of her was an ancient, mottled bronze table. Surrounding the table was one blurry figure after another.

'One figure after another? One figure after another! Are these the gathering members Mr. Fool spoke of?' Fors felt that the members of this secret gathering were all very, very powerful Beyonders.

'Except for me,' she thought, without confidence and full of fear. 'However, looking at it from another perspective, since I can join this gathering as a Sequence 9, the other members might not necessarily be very strong. The requirement for this gathering is obviously not about strength, but for some other reason, a member must manage to establish a connection with Mr. Fool,' Fors quickly rejected her first judgment and relaxed a little.

At the same time, Audrey also discovered that there was a new person at today's gathering.

'It's a woman. Is it Xio or Fors? Has she passed the examination? Or is it someone else?' Audrey nearly forgot to greet Mr. Fool in her bid to take a closer look at the features of the new member. No matter how blurry the figure was, she could still see her hair colour, silhouette, her accent, and verbal tics!

'Hmm... I must also take note. At the very beginning, Mr. Hanged Man had managed to identify me as a noble from my special pronunciation of certain words, and from my habit of using certain special words,' Audrey stood up, lifted her skirt, and said to Klein at the end of the long bronze table, "Good afternoon, Mr. Fool."

After the greeting, she didn't conceal her curiosity. She looked at the new member who was seated in the same row as her and asked with a smile, "This is?"

Klein sat in the seat belonging to The Fool and looked around, "This is Miss Magician, our new member."

"Someone haunted by the mad ravings of an Angel… caused by an existence who best remain unknown," Max muttered, soft enough not to sound like he was interrupting Mr. Fool, but loud enough for basically everyone to hear his words.

"Anyways, Ms. Magician, I am Death from the world of the living, this is Sun from the land of no suns, that is the Hanged Man who hates solid ground and prefers the tangled ropes on chips, this is Justice who naively tried to find justice in a cruel world, and that would be Mr. Fool… the one who likes reading other people's personal diaries. Hmm, I have an apt description for you as well. You are Ms. Magician, the apprentice who is driven mad by her Predecessor!"

With that, Max sat down and the entire room fell deathly silent.

Klein quickly thought for a moment and then waved his hand. A thick tentacle of grey fog wrapped itself around Max's mouth. Klein leaned onto his other hand casually and stated as though handing out a verdict.

"Equivalent exchange. You are now not permitted to speak for the entire meeting."

Max sported a hysterical grin as he pointed two middle fingers at Klein and began hurling insults that only Klein could hear, and only he would understand a few of them, before laughing even more hysterically and calming down with a final sentence.

"Kekeke, you should see the look on your face. You should see their faces too! Oh yeah, Mr. Fool, I would like to learn Mandarin. It is really important! I will accept after-school lessons in exchange for information you might want, something of equal exchange thought. We can discuss it in detail later on."

The random switching between topics reminded Klein of those insane people he saw back on Earth. Lampooning about Max's sudden shift in attitude after he had met him just a few days before in the real world, Klein shifted his attention.

At that moment, since there were no new Roselle's diary entries, Klein controlled The World and said, "I want to know about the Devil and Guardian Sequences."

Seeing that the World, who was Mr. Fool's Adorer in the real world, shifted topics, everyone else also did the same, ignoring the mad fool… who irritated the Fool.

"If it's just the Devil Sequence, I know a little about it." Alger, who had some standing in the Church of the Lord of Storms, interjected.

Derrick Berg glanced at him and without a thought, straightened his back and said, "I'm very knowledgeable about these two Sequences. The payment I want is information related to the Fallen Creator. The equivalence of the two pieces of information will be determined by Mr. Fool."

Having said that, he realized that he had not received Mr. Fool's agreement as he hurriedly turned his head to Mr. Fool to make the request reverently.

'Sun, don't blame me. You were the one who made the request,' the corners of Klein's mouth twitched slightly as he said with a chuckle, "Sure."

'Furthermore, when it comes to the understanding of the True Creator, none of the ladies and gentlemen present can compare to me,' he added boldly in his heart.

While they were discussing this matter, The Magician Fors was stunned upon hearing the conversation. 'The Devil Sequence is the Devil pathway? Which Sequence number is it? What is the Guardian pathway? Which Sequence number is it? I've never heard of it... Fallen Creator? The True Creator? God, they are actually exchanging information regarding the True Creator! That deity is known as the most ancient and powerful existence among the deities. What kind of organization did I join?'

After receiving a positive reply from The Fool, The World said without any hesitation, "Deal! I request a private exchange."

While Audrey was having her own control issues regarding her curiosity, Max thought inwardly if he could use some of his authority over the Sefirah Castle to allow him to hear the conversation without Klein knowing it. But after a thought, he decided it was best not to test things so openly.

The World quickly lowered his head and 'wrote' on a conjured sheet of paper his own understanding of the True Creator, including standard likeness such as 'The Hanged Giant' and the 'Eye behind the Shadow Curtains,' including the information that members of the Aurora Order believed that this evil god was the original creator of everything.

At the end, Klein had included his impression of the evil god through his interaction with the evil god's spawn, the sensation of the deity's aura, and the sensation when listening to the True Creator's voice. 'Fallen, twisted, bloody, crazy, evil.'

Then, as Mr. Fool, he gave a comment, "This piece of information is slightly more valuable than the information regarding the Devil and Guardian Sequences, but the difference isn't that huge."

"Thank you, Mr. Fool," Derrick earnestly received the piece of goatskin and read through it carefully a few times. The thing he was most concerned about was that the True Creator was known as the creator of everything!

'Twisted, fallen, crazy,' Derrick repeated the words, vaguely able to see the dark tragedy that had engulfed everyone in the City of Silver for more than two thousand years.

'Did the Lord not abandon us? It's just that 'He' had gone mad,' Derrick found himself able to resist using blasphemous thoughts to examine the Lord that created everything, the omnipotent and omniscient God who was worshipped by the City of Silver.

The rest of the deal went normally, but Max was not privy to it and just lazed around while taking short glances at Audrey and winking at her every now and then. He was still not allowed to speak, but he could still gesture, which caused Audrey to simply turn away from him, hiding the slight blush that had crossed her face.

This interaction was not missed by either Klein or Alger, so both came to the conclusion that the two members of the Tarot Club knew each other from before joining the Tarot Club, or had somehow got to know each other sometime after.

[AN: We finally hit 1M views. From now on, I can only see 10k view increments, which means that is now the minimum I will wait. Every 1 increase in that figure I will release a new chapter.]