One day ago.
In an underground basement without any windows, the burly Alger Wilson sat by a long table with various apparatuses and goatskin parchments on it.
In front of him was a half-consumed candle. The dim, yellowish flame flickered, making the shadows of the objects and table move like a mirage.
Alger's hair was disheveled like seaweed, a deep blue that resembled black. He wore a robe embroidered with lightning patterns. Kneeling in front of the altar, he clasped his hands. At the center of the altar lay a piece of goatskin parchment with the Spectator potion formula written on it. Suddenly, the altar glowed crimson, and the projection of a majestic door appeared above it. The next moment, the parchment disappeared, replaced by a bottle containing the ghost shark blood he had asked for.
A deep sigh left his mouth. Summoning all of his courage, he recited the honorific name of Mr. Fool,
The Fool that doesn't belong to this era;
The Mysterious Ruler above the Gray Fog;
The King of Yellow and Black who wields good luck.
The projection of the door appeared once again, and in a flash of crimson light, Alger vanished into thin air… When he opened his eyes, he was standing beneath the majestic dome above the large bronze table. In the high-backed chair, Mr. Fool sat casually. Alger bowed deeply toward him. Mr. Fool gave a small nod in return.
Alger felt nervous as he stood there. The feeling was akin to when he met the elder of his village as a child. Collecting his courage, he finally spoke. "Mr. Fool… I would like to know something. You can give me any task, and I would perform it by any means necessary."
"Ask…" The majestic voice of Mr. Fool reverberated around the area.
Alger gulped. "The ship I was on… Is it really the Ghost Ship from the Tudor era?"
Mr. Fool let out a low chuckle. "It is…"
Before Alger could celebrate in his thoughts, Mr. Fool continued, "At the end of the Four Emperor's War, he created this ship for his descendants to escape…"
Alger felt his scalp tingle at this information. 'Emperor Tudor personally created the ship?'
"But for unknown reasons… everyone along with the ship vanished. Until now…"
Mr. Fool paused. "Only a descendant of Tudor can open the secret treasure room left behind by Alista Tudor… but be warned, countless traps remain. I wouldn't suggest you explore the treasures unless you are at least a demigod…"
"Thank you for your wisdom, my lord…" Alger bowed once again.
"Think nothing of it. As for your task…" Mr. Fool paused.
Alger let out an audible gulp. Hearing this, Mr. Fool chuckled, but that did not stop him from theorizing what kind of task he would be given for such information.
"Find me the location of Queen Mystic Bernadette Gustav…"
"And don't think too much about it… it wasn't very valuable information. More importantly, the safer you are, the better it is for me, no?" The shrouded Mr. Fool tilted his head slightly, as if to say Alger was foolish for worrying so much.
Alger let out a sigh and then nodded as his vision turned into a sea of crimson light.
When it ended, he found himself back in the basement, standing before the altar with the ghost shark blood upon it… He remained there in deep thought. 'Mr. Fool has a deep connection to Emperor Roselle… Could it be that before he went into slumber, they were friends… or at least colleagues? And Roselle Gustav left behind the diary for Mr. Fool… as it seems he is the only person who can read them.'
After a while, Alger cleaned up the place and headed to the captain's cabin. Not long after he arrived, one of his crewmates came in. Alger turned to him and said, "Prepare to dock at the nearby island."
The crewmate blinked in confusion but then nodded and went to notify the others.
...
Above the gray fog, Klein watched Alger vanish in a flash of crimson light. A chuckle left his mouth as he shook his head.
He stood up and walked to the back of the high-backed chair he had been sitting on. Step by step, he moved forward, and a moment later he found himself standing before the Door of Light.
In the midst of the bluish-black fog within the door, a silhouette was curled up in a ball. It was his main body, dreaming. That body was carrying out a plan he had set in motion to gain the cooperation of both Roselle and Amanises.
"Well, it's time for me to follow the path of YISUN and become a consummate liar," Klein muttered to himself as he let out a small laugh.
This body turned around and started to go down the stairs...
His appearance changed in a blink of an eye. Instead of looking like Klein with black hair, brown eyes, and an average face with sharp outlines, he now appeared as a young man with dark brown eyes and short black hair.
His features were unremarkable. He looked refined, though his obvious eye bags and the faint trace of a double chin gave him a weary air.
His outfit was casual yet neat. On top, he had a brown plaid flannel shirt layered over a plain white T-shirt. His black pants were slim but not too tight, and his clean white high-top sneakers gave him a modern touch.
Accessories included a pair of rectangular glasses and a lanyard with an ID card hanging from his neck. He picked up the card and looked at it with nostalgia.
His body vanished from the Sefirah Castle and reappeared in the calm waters of the fog sea. He looked around. The fog carried the same familiar feeling as the space above the gray fog. With a wave of his hand, the fog scattered as if it had never existed around him. He took a step, vanished from atop the waters, and reappeared on an island.
The island was covered in towering dark green trees that bordered on black, blanketing both the ground and the mountain. There were no birds, no beasts, not even the faint buzz of insects. The silence was so absolute it felt as if time itself had frozen.
After walking for a while, he entered the forest. The branches above blotted out the sky, and the world around him suddenly dimmed.
In that dimness, he began to see them. Pale white corpses hung between the trees. Skulls and decaying bodies dangled from the branches: dragons, avian beasts, creatures with eight legs, even colossal trees twisted into unnatural shapes. He ignored them and kept walking until he reached the mountain peak. Just before the summit, the towering trees vanished the moment he crossed an invisible line.
Half of the mountain had been hollowed out. In the center stood a pitch black mausoleum, majestic and oppressive. Most of it was carved directly from the mountain, with only a small portion bearing the polish of human hands. It truly embodied the name "mountain mausoleum."
He walked closer and entered without incident.
The interior was empty. The pitch black walls rose around him, and at the center stood a high platform. On it rested a massive chair sized for a giant. Forged of iron, it was covered in twisted intricate engravings, and at the top of the seat rested a crown shaped object.
For now, the throne was empty, waiting for its emperor to return.
Klein walked slowly up the stairs to the platform where the throne stood. With each step, the space around him began to twist and distort. By the time he reached the platform, it looked as if the surroundings had collapsed into a singularity.
Even so, Klein kept moving without trouble. He was using the Key of Stars boon from the Sefirah Castle and its authority over space to shift himself out of alignment with the area, which let him bypass the distortions of the Black Emperor's mausoleum as if he did not fully exist there.
When Klein reached the platform, the warping of space around him vanished as he stepped into a concealed area. The throne wasn't empty as it had looked from outside.
A black shadow sat there. Cracks spread across its body, and from them seeped a crimson glow, like moonlight bleeding through a broken surface. The fissures closed slowly, only to split open again.
Klein adjusted his glasses and leaned forward. "Wake the fuck up, Samurai. We have a world to save."
Two cracks split open across the shadow's face, forming a pair of uneven eyes filled with nothing but blood-red light. Another fissure tore open beneath them, shaping into a mouth that gleamed the same crimson.
The figure finally spoke. "That wasn't the correct quote."
Roselle looked him over. With one hand on the armrest, Having completely confirmed the origins of the fellow in front of him, chuckling as he said, "I originally planned on asking where you're from to see there's any need for regional discrimination, but after some thought, there's no need for that. We're all anachronistic miserable wretches without a home."
Without waiting for Klein's reply, the Emperor's voice sank as he asked, "You know the truth about the apocalypse?"
"Yes. But no need to be so melancholic." Klein extended his hand and the shroud materialized. It morphed into a baseball bat, and he gave Roselle a light tap on the head. The hit made a comical "bonk" sound straight out of a meme.
A fragment of the shroud broke off and sank into Shadow Roselle. Crimson cracks that had spread across his body slowly receded inward. A groan escaped him, and he staggered to the side before vomiting a heap of reproductive organs onto the ground.
Roselle's eyes widened as he straightened with a little difficulty. "What! What the fuck was that..."
Klein smirked. "This, my friend, is the legendary 'No Horny Bat.' It has sent millions of horny people to jail."
Roselle coughed and grimaced. "I know that meme... but I meant how did you get rid of my corruption..."
"You've watched One Piece, right?" Klein said as he tilted his head.
"Uhh... yeah, but how does it connect to this..." Roselle asked as he was still confused.
"Well, my friend, this is what I call a Shroud," Klein explained. "It's a semi-manifestation of Will. Basically, it works like Armament Haki but in liquid form. I sent it inside of you and flushed out the majority of the corruption."
Roselle blinked in disbelief. "Now wait, you're saying you can use your Will like Haki...?"
"Exactly," Klein said. "But it only removed most of the corruption. There are small amounts I couldn't notice. What you have to do is infuse your will and take control of the shroud inside you to flush out the rest. And as a side effect, you can generate your own Shroud from now on."
"That's... that's insane," Roselle muttered. "How did you come across this?"
Klein let out a faint laugh. "Well, it's a long story. I'll tell you when our last transmigrator friend arrives..."
"In the meantime..." Klein walked closer and patted Roselle on the shoulder. He looked at the penises and uteruses on the ground, then pointed at a large one. "I didn't know you could deep-throat that well. I respect your fetishes," Klein said with a shit eating grin.
"Shut up! Never mention that again," Roselle said, mortified.
The reproductive organs writhed on the ground and merged together, soon molding themselves into a perfect clone of Roselle.
The clone opened its mouth to speak but forgot the next moment, its face going blank. The corrupted figure was Fooled the instant it showed even a trace of sentience.
Klein raised his hand in a mock-dramatic flourish and gestured toward the abomination. "Go ahead. Vent it out."
Roselle stared at the clone, his face twisted with disgust and fury. He let out a long sigh, then marched forward and began hammering his fists into the clone's face and torso, pouring out all his frustration.
Minutes passed before his pace finally slowed. He pulled back his hand and looked at the grotesque monster on the floor, which now barely held its shape.
Seeing that Roselle had let out some of the storm inside, Klein reached into the historical void and pulled out a flamethrower. With a grin, he offered it to Roselle.
Roselle blinked in surprise, then grabbed the weapon with both hands. His eyes widened, sparkling with childlike excitement as he realized exactly what it was. "Oh... oh, this is perfect," he said, a grin spreading across his face.
He gripped the flamethrower tighter, and a torrent of fire erupted forward, washing over the monster.
Roselle let out a raw unrestrained laugh that bordered on manic. Klein stood a few steps away with his hands in his pockets as he watched calmly with a faint smirk.
Klein tilted his head slightly. "Cathartic, wasn't it?"
Roselle let out a contented sigh. "Yeah, that… that felt fucking amazing."
Roselle was holding the flamethrower like it was the most precious thing he had ever touched.
***
In the Astral World, where all the authorities and symbolism in the universe were included inside every object, a kingdom was covered in an endless, silent darkness filled with moonflowers and night vanillas.
An extremely beautiful lady was sitting amidst endless flowers. She had her eyes closed and looked as if she was in slumber.
She wore a layered black dress with countless sparkling specks of radiance like the stars. Her ribs and waist each stretched out two arms. Among the six hands, two of them held a black scythe, two of them held a crimson moon, and the other two hands were empty.
Suddenly, her wolf-like eyes fixated on the depths of the Fog Sea. Her eyebrows furrowed as she felt a connection there. A body akin to an avatar appeared in the depths of the Fog Sea.
Her face darkened as she recognized the situation. The body was on the Primitive Island, where Roselle's Last Mausoleum stood.
As someone from the past, she had watched him and his exploits ever since she discovered he came from the Pre-Epoch. But when she realized he was not born with the curtain left behind by the previous Lord of Mysteries, and when his personality grated on her, she lost interest. Later, when she learned he went to the moon and was corrupted by the Mother Goddess of Depravity, she felt bad for him, along with a touch of guilt. If she had met him and at least told him the do's and don'ts of the Beyonder world, things might have been different. She shook her head. There was no need to dwell on the past. What had happened was already done.
She turned her attention to the Fog Sea. Her thoughts circled around why a copy of her had appeared there. The only plausible reason was that the Mother Goddess of Depravity had interfered, and now she had to handle it.
She did not connect to the thing on Roselle's island. Instead, she placed her consciousness into 0-17 and hid it under powerful concealment, along with two other personal Grade 0 artifacts. And she teleported near the location of the connection.
She appeared near a mausoleum.
The god-level concealment effect kept her safe from the distortion of the rules around the mausoleum.
She cautiously walked inside and reached the concealed space in the platform.
The first thing she did was assess the situation. The connection she felt came from a body she noticed sitting on a single sofa beside two people, its eyes closed. It was a Historical Void projection of her from the Second Epoch, before she became Sequence 0 Darkness. Her brows furrowed as she puzzled over how her historical void had appeared here. She had made sure to conceal everything about herself in the historical void. It should have been impossible unless…
Her attention turned toward the other two people on the platform with her.
What dumbfounded her was what they were doing. Both of them were sitting on a sofa playing games on a TV. In front of the table was a variety of fast food.
One of them was wearing modern clothes along with glasses. He was biting his tongue, fully focused on the game.
The other was half shadow and half human. She recognized it as the effect of the Black Emperor Resurrection. She used her senses to scan Roselle, and her eyes widened when she realized the corruption of the Outer God had been cleansed from his body.
Her shock was broken when the man in modern clothes lost the match and both of them began bickering.
She took the opportunity to scan the historical void projection for any traps. She positioned 0-17 strategically and began transferring her consciousness into the projection.
…
"You… you're not using any power, are you?" Klein pointed at Roselle in accusation.
"I don't need powers to beat your sorry ass… hahahaha," Roselle boasted.
He then took a sip of the soda in his hand. "Ahh… I regret so much not choosing the Fool pathway, damn it. I could have brought historical projections of all of my favorite games here and played all I wanted."
Their bickering stopped when they noticed her historical void opening its eyes.
"Oh hey, she's here…" Klein exclamated.
"Hello, Miss… it's nice to finally meet you…" He looked at her with strange familiarity.
She said nothing, only looked at him with impassive eyes, still deciding what she should do.
"Who are you?" Her melodic voice carried a hint of threat. If she found any clues of deception, she would attack without hesitation.
"Oh wait, I forgot to introduce myself…" Klein said sheepishly.
"Huh… yeah… I don't even know your name," Roselle said with his mouth full as he took a bite of a chicken nugget.
"Uh… my bad. Anyways, my name was Zhou Mingrui before the apocalypse. And at the moment, it's Klein Moretti," he said, a little embarrassed.
"Huh… wait, you're Chinese as well?!" Roselle was stunned, stopping mid-bite.
"Huh… I thought that was obvious…" Klein tilted his head slightly.
"Well, introduce yourselves too," he added.
"As you know, I'm Roselle Gustav. My previous name was Huang Tao," Roselle introduced himself.
Both of them looked at the new arrival with anticipation. She opened her mouth and simply said her name. "Amanises."
"Uh… nothing else? Alright." Klein shook his head and gave a light cough. "Cough… anyway, I'm guessing both of you have some questions."
"Uh huh…" Roselle nodded and extended his arm. A black liquid came out of it. "How did you get a hold of this?"
"Oh yeah… it's better to show you." Klein waved his hand, and the scenery shifted. In an instant, they were sitting in a roadside café. People walked quickly along the sidewalk, wearing modern clothes as they headed to work.
"Where is this?" Roselle asked, his eyes wide with awe as he looked around. Amanises tried to stay calm, but a hint of surprise still showed on her face.
"This, my friend, is a place I created for my Attendant of Mysteries advancement ritual. I call it Utopia. It is the only place that remains with me from the dream world." Klein said as he looked at the city with sad and lonely eyes.
"So, a little backstory if you don't know… At least this is what I figured out is happening regarding my situation."
"In the First Epoch, during the battle between God Almighty and the Lord of Mysteries, God Almighty ripped the Error Uniqueness from "Him". Using that, "He" created an error in the resurrection system that Mysteries had made with the spirit bodies stuck in the cocoon in the Sefirah Castle."
""He" also did another thing. "He" put everyone in the cocoon into a dream world of their own, where they would perform all the acting and rituals required to become the Lord of Mysteries, and suppress the will of Mysteries that would awaken inside them after they were released into the real world."
"That was at least my guess until I got control of the Historical Void. But judging from your reactions, I can confirm it was not the case.
"It seems… It was only me then. So… "His" future vision was precise enough to pinpoint which one of us would get the curtain, huh," He said out loud to himself.
"In the dream world, I woke up in the Second Epoch. Under a tree, I was already a Sequence 1 Attendant of Mysteries. But the strangest thing was that the Will of the Mysteries inside me was sealed by something I couldn't comprehend at that time…"
"And about this technique… it's something I created from the seal in the dream to suppress the will of the original creator along with the will of the Mysteries inside the dream world."
With only that information, Amanises understood. God Almighty had seen the future and realized that "His" attempt to prevent the resurrection of the Lord of Mysteries was not enough. So "He" had placed Klein into a dream. When Klein woke up, he already had the knowledge and experience to suppress the will of the Lord of Mysteries within himself. What a terrifying being "He" was.
AN: All the allegations of Klein being an agent of the Extra-Dimensional Slavery Company are false. Klein did nothing wrong, everything is God Almighty's fault.