"Ugh--!"
A sleeping Klein was jolted awake by a sudden eruption of sounds in his mind. The layered, illusory shouts, accompanied by the echo of formless whispers, instantly made his spirit feel irritable and chaotic.
It felt as though he were trying to drift off to sleep only to hear the neighbors upstairs dragging furniture and slamming the floor in a heated argument...
Actually, no--he had been sleeping soundly when the shouting began.
Springing from his bed, Klein suppressed the irritation in his heart and firmly kneaded his throbbing temples. A strange expression crossed his face. This wasn't the first time this had happened. After recovering his composure slightly through semi-meditation, he cast his gaze toward his right hand. Sure enough, four black dots had surfaced on the back of his hand at some point.
"It's only six in the morning! Who on earth is praying to me at this hour?"
Klein glanced at the mechanical wall clock. Although traces of 'morning grumpiness' remained on his face, he quickly took the four steps in a counter-clockwise direction to enter the grey fog. His figure appeared within the titanic, majestic palace supported by stone pillars, and his eyes reflected the crimson star that was contracting and expanding.
Lifting his right hand and extending his spirituality, Klein touched the star representing 'The Devil', who had just joined the Tarot Club the previous day. With a boom, his vision became blurry and distorted. A man in a white shirt and black vest sat by a window, facing the morning sunlight with his forehead resting on his clasped hands--
"The Fool who does not belong to this era;"
"You are the mysterious ruler above the grey fog;"
"You are the King of Yellow and Black who wields good luck."
"Thank You for Your grace, which allows me to have a wonderful morning."
...
"allows me to have a wonderful morning."
...
"have a wonderful morning."
...
Klein listened to Mr. Devil's prayer through his state of irritability and mental clutter, his expression turning odd.
'You're having a wonderful morning, so you come to disturb my sleep?'
But what could he do?
As an ancient and great being, could he tell this believer: "Mr. Fool needs to sleep; please delay your prayer by two hours"?
Moreover, Mr. Devil needed these prayers to digest his potion.
'Being a hidden existence really isn't easy. If I'm this miserable with just one believer, how do the True Gods handle millions? Do they just never sleep?'
Klein mentally complained about the Orthodox Gods to comfort himself, then let out a soft sigh. Following the subtle connection, he transmitted his response to the crimson star:
"I am aware."
...
"I am aware."
...
"I am aware."
...
As layers of mist appeared before his eyes, a distorted and blurry figure manifested in the furthest depths of his vision. His eyes glowed deep red, and his voice echoed repeatedly in Snow's ears.
Feeling the sturdy 'shell' of the potion crack once more, Snow wore a satisfied smile. He took a deep breath before standing up to begin his day.
Though he said it was to 'begin' his day, he actually had little to do. He could only stay in his room and use the typewriter--an invention improved by Emperor Roselle--to write.
Yes, write. Though his previous self's profession was a veterinarian, since arriving in Tingen, he had been cooped up in his room. Even the assassinations had been outsourced to Trissy.
Under these circumstances, Snow--with an abundance of free time and bored to tears--naturally returned to his old craft from his previous life: passing the time by writing.
To be honest, for Trissy--a noble Sequence 7 who possessed abilities like invisibility and curses--killing two unprepared Secret Supplicants in exchange for high-level, useful mystical knowledge was an incredibly good deal.
As for why Snow chose to uphold the Aurora Order's tradition and claim responsibility for the event despite Trissy being the killer...
Naturally, it was to leave a good impression on Mr. A!
Yes, you read that right: a 'good' impression.
The Aurora Order consisted only of lunatics and very well-hidden lunatics. The more like a psychopath you behaved, the more the Aurora Order would trust you.
Especially if you could exhibit a relatively rational exterior while being insane, and serve the True Creator with total single-mindedness--then you were the most 'inner' of inner members, even if you killed your own people.
...
While mentally critiquing the 'Aurora Order Corporate Culture', Snow's fingers tap-tap-tapped away at the keyboard.
Character by character appeared on the manuscript paper as Snow quickly entered 'the zone'.
"JoJo, the ability of humans has limits."
"I have learned one thing from my brief life..."
"The more you play with schemes, the more likely you are to fail in an unexpected way..."
...
Tapping out the sentences that were nearly engraved in his DNA, Snow transcribed the images from his mind into text on the page. His typing speed grew faster and faster.
After confirming that Mr. 'Yellow-the-Demoness-Tastes-Great-Tao' [Roselle] had left the 'manga' field as a virgin territory, Snow decided to write something to pass the time--and the idea of 'porting' JoJo was born.
He wasn't worried about being noticed by Klein. Or rather, being noticed was exactly what he hoped for--because he needed a 'source' for his information.
According to his previous self's memories, the Pandrax family was indeed an ancient noble family, but not one of those major families that possessed entire sequence pathways.
To make his future 'leaks' of various secrets appear smoother, Snow was planning a rather risky move--
He intended to let Klein believe that a certain ancestor of the Pandrax family was likely a transmigrator, just like the Emperor!
Whether this transmigrator ancestor was a grandfather or a great-grandfather, he hadn't decided yet, but that was something that could be left purposefully vague.
He wouldn't explicitly tell Klein how illustrious his family was, nor would he deliberately claim his ancestor was a transmigrator. Instead, he would leave various traces in his daily life and let Klein draw his own conclusions.
This was just a 'side-quest', but it was a vital one.
From his perspective, the traces of a transmigrator are very difficult to erase. Leaving aside the flamboyant Mr. Roselle, or the scripture-copying priest and the Evernight Goddess--even Klein himself radiated an aura that didn't belong to this era.
Perhaps in the eyes of ordinary people, this aura was just personal style, but to another transmigrator, it was incredibly conspicuous.
While his sequence was low, it was manageable. But in the future, as Klein's sequence rose and his experience and vision grew, these traits in Snow would become increasingly obvious.
Snow wasn't particularly worried about being 'outed' to Klein, but to make the knowledge in his hands appear 'reasonable', he decided to maintain the cover.
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika Kagura]
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T/N: Mr. 'Yellow-the-Demoness-Tastes-Great-Tao' [Roselle]
"Yellow Tao" (Huang Tao) is a common nickname for Roselle Gustov in the Chinese Lord of the Mysteries community. "Yellow" (Huang) is Chinese slang for erotic or adult content, referencing Roselle's legendary reputation as a playboy and his "appreciation" for various women (including demonesses). "Tao" refers to his given name (Roselle/Luo-sei-er).