Bang!
The door flew open. Hugh walked in, looking grim.
Fors looked up. "Hugh, what happened?"
"...Nothing."
Hugh shook her head and drifted toward the washroom, closing the door. She turned on the tap and splashed handful after handful of cold water on her face, trying to wash away the anxiety.
It had been a full day since she recited that existence's honorific. Initially the feeling had been mostly terror. But as the hours passed, it transformed into anxiety — and kept building.
The thing she was anxious about wasn't being noticed by a mysterious existence. It wasn't the prospect of meeting one. It was—
Why haven't you come yet.
It was like a condemned prisoner waiting for execution. Once you'd accepted the inevitability of death, the dying itself wasn't the frightening part. The waiting was.
Splash!
Another handful of water across her face. In the corner of her vision, the washroom mirror — and in it, a figure she hadn't seen a moment before: long, loosely waved brown hair.
Every hair on Hugh's body stood up.
She pushed off the sink, both hands, launching backward, half-turning, leading with an elbow.
Crack.
She connected solidly with a warm, living body. Connected with her impact, it cried out in a very familiar voice and crumpled to the floor. Hugh stopped herself, looked down — Fors was curled on the ground, hugging her abdomen, leaking tears, still holding her pen.
"I came in to check on you and this is what you do!"
"You should have used the door."
"You know perfectly well I hate going around — walking in a straight line is more efficient. I always do this."
Fors folded her arms around herself, pen still in hand. "Your reactions today are completely off. What happened? Did the Zmange Gang fire you?"
"I am the Zmange Gang's current boss. I fire people."
Hugh lifted her chin with as much dignity as the situation allowed. "I got played!"
"Who?"
"Natasha."
"Oh."
Hugh stared at her. "Just... oh? That's it?"
Fors snorted. "When has any meeting with her not gone sideways for you? First she took your money, then you ended up in debt to her, and then you sold yourself to her."
"..."
"I, on the other hand—" Fors looked proud of herself — "no matter what she says, I simply act as though I can't hear. Which means she will never get anything out of me."
A beat. "So what did she do this time?"
Hugh pressed her fingers together and explained: Bernadette tricking her into reciting the honorific of a mysterious existence using a slip of Ancient Hermes.
Fors went pale immediately. "You... you just read it because she told you to?"
"I didn't think — who expects someone to just have you casually read a mysterious existence's honorific out loud?"
Fors thought about it. She had to admit that was fair. Just as she still couldn't explain why Hugh had become a gang boss.
"The ritual wasn't complete, though. It should be fine... probably."
"But she said I'll see it..."
After a long thoughtful pause, Fors pressed her lips together. "You know — even if Natasha always seems to be getting something out of you, she's never once seemed to actually mean you harm. There's no reason for her to hurt you. Maybe she really did mean it for your benefit."
"And if she didn't?"
Fors grabbed Hugh's hand, completely earnest. "Then I will avenge you!"
"..."
Fors twitched an eyebrow and let out a small laugh. "All right, genuinely though — there's no need to worry. Think: I hear strange whispering every full moon. And yet I haven't lost control. Not once. So."
She ruffled Hugh's tangled hair as though soothing a child. "Go wash your face and get to bed. Sleep through it and there's nothing left to worry about."
Just as she said this, Fors noticed something — Hugh had gone completely still, staring forward at nothing.
Her heart seized. "Hugh — Hugh—"
At that moment, Hugh's vision flooded with a wash of pale golden mist. Within the mist, a blurred figure sat high above her — radiating an authority, a gravity, that made her want to lower herself and kneel.
I really have encountered the existence with that honorific.
Is it an evil god? A demon? Or what Natasha called an ancient deity?
A deity.
The word landed in Hugh's chest like a weight. I'm looking at a deity.
"Good evening, mighty existence."
Vincent looked down at her from above, then raised a hand. A slip of parchment slid through an opening portal of light and drifted into Hugh's grasp. "Sign your name."
With that, the golden mist and the mysterious existence both vanished. Hugh returned to herself and found Fors shaking her shoulder and calling her name in a panic — and in her hand, a yellowed piece of parchment that had absolutely not been there before.
"I — I'm fine, Fors."
Fors let out a shaky breath. "You just froze entirely for a moment—"
"I just met... it." Hugh opened and closed her mouth. "The existence that the honorific pointed to."
"Who?"
"The same one I just recited for." She looked at the parchment, voice barely above a whisper: "It gave me this. And told me to sign."
"What? Your hands are empty."
"..."
Hugh understood immediately: this parchment was only visible to her. She read through it quickly. The terms were simple — she was to find ways to facilitate transactions and partnerships between others, and in return the existence would bestow certain special abilities. As her contributions grew, so would the powers granted.
In plain terms: a deal, struck with a deity.
Meanwhile, in the Realm of Chaos.
After establishing a connection with Hugh, Vincent had wasted no further time. He turned his attention toward the Thirty-Third Heaven in the far distance.
He walked to the edge of the stone platform, hesitated for a moment, and stepped out over the void. Then planted his back foot and launched himself forward.
A few seconds later, his body lost control — and began "falling" upward. Straight toward the sky.
"What—"
He immediately returned to reality, pulled himself clear of the "fall," and reappeared in Bernadette's body. Then he re-entered the Realm at once — choosing the sitting room, to avoid materialising at his previous exit point.
Good. Still works.
If returning to the sitting room had been blocked, that would have been a real problem.
He pushed the door open and stepped back onto the platform. He picked up a fragment of rubble and threw it outward — it fell straight down.
Vincent let out a frustrated sound. He had launched himself out because he'd run a test first. He had thrown the stone twice, and both times it drifted away as though weightless. But when he'd crossed himself, he'd gone upward.
And now, throwing the stone again, it was falling downward.
The zone between the platform and the Thirty-Third Heaven is governed by chaos. Rules may be completely different from one moment to the next.
This was going to be difficult.
He threw several more stones. Down, down, up, up, down — one sailed away horizontally into the distance.
Vincent acted immediately, sprinting out after it. His body matched the stone — like floating in a vacuum, he was launched away from the platform at speed.
This lasted about twenty seconds. Then gravity reasserted itself and he plunged downward, into a bottomless drop.
He didn't pull back. He let himself fall. Ten-odd seconds down — then a force yanked him back upward, and he went "falling" upward again.
Ten-odd more seconds, and then both forces cancelled each other out. He hung suspended, and could only "swim" forward using a graceless crawling motion.
It didn't last long before a new bout of falling began.
After about ten minutes, he gave up and returned to reality — re-entering the Realm on the platform rather than wherever he'd been when he left.
Which means the "inch-by-inch" approach is impossible. Every time he had to leave to recover his spirituality, he'd reset to the platform. And he couldn't stay in the Realm indefinitely.
Is the Realm also like the grey fog above Klein — locked by Sequence level, requiring a certain advancement before specific regions unlock?
His gaze fell on the ancient Scale.
He walked to it. "Everything I've received from the Realm has come through the Scale as its medium. Even if the Scale isn't the Realm's core, it plays an extremely important role."
He pressed a fingertip to the Scale and infused spirituality into it, letting questions about the Realm rise through his mind, hoping to draw some response from the artifact.
Nothing happened.
Unsurprising. It wasn't his first attempt at this.
What else could possibly help me explore this place?
At that moment, a ding chimed — the sound of weight being added to the Scale. Since Vivian had joined as a Gift recipient, this had become a periodic background occurrence. He'd grown accustomed to it.
What drew his attention this time was the size of the addition. One moment the Scale was hovering just past halfway balanced. The next, it had lurched almost to equilibrium — in a single stroke.
Vincent stared. "What just happened?"
Is Vivian that effective?
He channelled spirituality and examined the cause. His eyes went wide.
"Hold on — this is possible?!"
To be continued…
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