This line of thinking had occurred to both of them long ago. They simply hadn't discussed it openly before — because there was nothing particularly useful to say. Their understanding of the Realm was limited.
"Right. We've both thought it likely the Realm has some connection to your father. After all, I only gained access to it after coming into contact with that compass of his."
"But then I noticed that even after returning to my own world, I could still enter the Realm. Which made the situation significantly stranger."
"At that point I started to wonder — what if the Realm of Chaos existed first, independently? What if it caused the two worlds to overlap, which produced our soul exchanges — and the compass merely served as the key that activated it?"
Bernadette said: "So you think the compass is the crux of the matter?"
"Only I've had it examined, and nothing unusual was found. And to use it, you'd need a lawyer or arbitrator with Gustav bloodline who has also advanced to demigod. That is — practically speaking — impossible."
She immediately said: "The Broker Pathway."
Vincent: "Exactly. We don't know the full nature of this Broker Pathway outside the 22 standard ones, but since it originated from the Realm, we have good reason to think it may share some connection with the concepts of 'lawyer' and 'arbitrator' — possibly as neighbouring pathways."
"Which means once you advance to demigod standing, the compass becomes usable. And through it, Father's hidden secret might finally be within reach."
"So after going around in circles, the conclusion is still: advance in Sequence."
"Not necessarily. There's someone you may have forgotten about — the person who originally gave you the compass. Perhaps they know something about all this."
"Nast?"
Bernadette immediately summoned the Invisible Servant and rapidly wrote a short letter. "Deliver this to Nast."
"Ji."
It chirped once and vanished.
"Nast has always been restless — spends most of his life roaming the Five Seas, searching for the legendary Ghost Empire, hoping to use its treasure to restore the Solomon Empire's glory and advance further. I've tried to reach him a number of times in the exchanges before this one. Never found him."
As predicted, the Invisible Servant returned within minutes, shaking its head and chirping: "Can't find him."
"Mm. Check every half day from now on."
"Ji ji!"
After it disappeared back into the Spirit World, Bernadette said: "Any other thoughts?"
"Nothing specific. More of an instinct — I'd like to explore the Realm further."
Vincent said: "You remember what I told you — once you push through the door of the sitting room, you reach a vast stone platform. Beyond that, the Thirty-Third Heaven with its various structures."
Bernadette was surprised. "You want to go there?"
"Just a passing thought. I don't know if it's even possible to get there, or what we'd encounter. And honestly—" he said carefully, "—there's a concern that if I went, I might end up just as distorted and disoriented as those structures."
"But given where we are, it seems worth trying."
There was more he hadn't said. It was possible the Realm, like Klein's grey fog, required a certain Sequence level to unlock specific areas. If so, the 'exploration' might lead nowhere at all.
But the grey fog had been deliberately configured by its previous owner as a series of progressively unlocked features. A deliberate design.
If the Realm of Chaos also had a previous owner, that entity might have set things up very differently. And if it had no previous owner and was simply an inanimate structure, the likelihood of such conditional access was even lower.
"There's something else."
Vincent felt this was a good moment to slip in a carefully chosen piece of information. "Have you ever wondered why your father's compass requires a Gustav-bloodline lawyer or arbitrator who has reached demigod standing to use?"
Bernadette didn't answer directly. "You've thought of something?"
"Just a theory." He kept his tone carefully uncertain. "Is it possible — Father eventually switched to one of those two pathways?"
"That might also explain a connection he could have had with the Realm of Chaos. And explain why he went to the Tudor family tomb—"
Bernadette paused: "But the Mystery Pryer Pathway and the lawyer or arbitrator pathways aren't neighbouring ones."
"Does that mean pathway switching is impossible between non-neighbouring ones?"
"Not impossible. But the cost is usually severe — madness, loss of control, even death."
"Are there any exceptions?"
"Of course. But Father was a Sequence 1 Knowledge Emperor by that point. The higher the Sequence, the more dangerous a non-neighbouring switch becomes..."
Hmm.
A sudden flash of memory: the evil spirit in the Tudor tomb had said that Emperor Tudor himself had made a forced non-neighbouring switch — from the lawyer pathway to the Red Priest pathway.
And Father had gone to that very tomb.
Everything seemed to line up.
"!!!"
Bernadette's eyes narrowed sharply as the implication fully landed: if Father had genuinely attempted a pathway switch to the Black Emperor, and succeeded — then he would have advanced to Sequence 0 as a god.
In that case... who could have assassinated him at the Maple Palace? And if another god had been involved, why was there absolutely no sign of it? A battle between divine beings wouldn't simply vanish without a trace.
What had actually happened?
An image surfaced in her mind: Perhaps he would know something.
(Author's note: In the original novel, Bernadette already knows Roselle switched to the Black Emperor Pathway. In this fanfic, she does not — and there will be an explanation for this further on.)
Intis. Trier.
The person Bernadette thought of — the one who might know — was her younger brother, Bornova: angel and Blessed of God, guardian of Trier.
She stepped into the cathedral as sunlight bathed it in gold, and found him exactly where she'd expected: seated beneath the great holy light, hands clasped, head bowed. A flawless statue.
She walked toward him, her gaze moving briefly over the radiant disc above him. Once, her father had been the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery's own Blessed — the "Son of Steam," deeply favoured by the divine. But later their relationship had deteriorated rapidly, until the Church had him assassinated at the Maple Palace, and the Intisian Empire fell with him. She, as Crown Princess, became a wanted fugitive.
Over a century, the Church had never actually sent anyone to apprehend her — perhaps out of some consideration for Bornova's existence — and she had been equally careful to keep her distance from the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery.
Until this visit, made for the sake of the compass.
"You've come."
Bornova turned. No shift in his tone whatsoever. "More intelligence on the Hidden Sage?"
"No."
Bernadette sat in the pew across the aisle, one row away. "I have some questions about Father."
"..."
He watched her for a quiet moment. "Everything I knew, I told you a hundred years ago."
"Did you know Father was planning to switch to a non-neighbouring pathway at the end?"
"...Yes."
Bernadette said coolly: "You told me everything, you said."
Bornova said nothing.
"Was it the lawyer pathway he was trying to switch to?"
"Yes."
"And afterward?" Bernadette's voice became urgent. "Did he succeed?"
Bornova shook his head. "I don't know. That question has haunted the Church as well for over a century."
"Why?"
"Weren't they the ones who successfully assassinated him at the Maple Palace? Why would they still want to know—" She stopped. "Unless Father did succeed. In which case — how did they manage the assassination? How, if he had advanced to godhood?"
"I don't know."
He shook his head again. His blue eyes were calm and still as water. "When it happened, I wasn't in Intis. Everything I know came second-hand from others."
"Then—"
Bernadette fixed him with a steady look. "Tell me, honestly: is Father still alive?"
"..."
Bornova looked away, turning his gaze to the holy light that stood for the divine.
"After Emperor Roselle died at the Maple Palace," he said, as if from a great distance, "the two Churches secretly joined forces and located eight of the nine pyramid-shaped mausoleums. Each was destroyed. But the ninth was never found. No one has ever known where it is."
A pause.
"But the ninth was never found. No one has ever known where it is."
Bernadette's furrowed brow slowly transformed into wonder — and then something else entirely.
The Black Emperor's apotheosis required building nine mausoleums in the style of pyramids. And once apotheosis was achieved, so long as all nine mausoleums were not completely destroyed, the Black Emperor could not truly die — he could awaken and return from one of them.
Even if all nine were destroyed — so long as enough of the order he had established still persisted in the world, the possibility of resurrection remained.
For years, Bernadette had quietly suspected her father was not gone. But it was only now, hearing this, that she had something real to anchor that instinct to.
However—
"Why didn't I know any of this?"
"Perhaps he chose to hide it from you deliberately."
Bernadette closed her eyes and strained to recall the memories of that time... She and her father had been arguing repeatedly in those final months... and in the end, in fury, she had chosen to leave Intis... and it was from that departure that she had laid the first foundations of the Dawn...
So the reason she had never known was simply because she'd been at sea during that period — and she had no idea if that was by her father's design.
And how, in the middle of everything, had not a single whisper of it ever reached her?
"And why have you never told me any of this?"
Bornova said softly: "It was the last thing he asked me to promise."
Brother and sister looked at each other across the aisle. A long, deep silence filled the space between them.
In the end, Bernadette did not ask whether Bornova knew their father had come from another world.
Crack.
She brought her palm down on the top of his head — and held it there, looking at this younger brother she had raised herself. After a moment she ruffled his hair gently, as she had done when they were children.
She turned and walked away, disappearing into a curtain of trailing green vines.
Bornova only watched the place where she had gone. Then he lowered his head again and returned to silent prayer.
Only once she was back in Backlund did Vincent dare speak again.
"Walking straight into the God of Steam and Machinery's church while the two of us are sharing this body — are you sure that was safe?"
"I'm sorry." Her voice was quiet. "I wasn't thinking clearly."
A pause. Then: "Why do you think Father hid those things from me? What difference would it have made if I'd known?"
Vincent said, slowly: "Perhaps he simply didn't want you to end up the way you are today."
"Even without knowing anything, you spent decades searching for signs that he was alive — following every lead you could find, building your entire life around the possibility. You devoted everything to it." He paused. "That's perhaps not what a father would wish to see."
She was quiet for a few seconds. "It wasn't hope. After I advanced to the Sage of Prophecy, it was a premonition."
And now, at last, that premonition had found its foundation in something real.
She finally had genuine reason to believe her father might still be alive.
After a moment, Bernadette reached into the hidden compartment and took out the diary she had been carrying with her all along — the one Roselle had left behind.
No more waiting.
"Vincent."
She spoke softly. "Help me translate Father's diary."
That soon?
"Alright."
She looked at the cover for a long, still moment. Then she turned to the page she had previously asked Vincent to memorise for the Tarot Club offering. "Start here."
"November 28th. Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Destined to be a magnificent day. Because the magnificent Roselle is about to step foot upon the moon..."
Vincent used both his attention at once — reading the Chinese characters on the page and translating them into Loenish aloud.
Father is going to the moon?!
She hadn't known this at all. Could this journey be connected to the changes that came afterward? She listened with urgent attention.
It didn't take long. Vincent summarised the three pages of diary entries that followed Roselle's lunar visit. "...That's broadly the shape of it."
This time, Bernadette's silence lasted a long while.
Even with so few pages, they had effectively resolved the mystery that had haunted her for a century: her estrangement from her father in those final years had not been his true wish. He had been acting under some kind of influence — something that happened during or after his visit to the moon.
What is on the moon?
"Why would Father say he had never left? Why would he say he couldn't return to the twenty-first century?"
She turned the questions over. "Given everything else we know — does he mean he never transmigrated? That this was always his world?"
"But then how did Father arrive at those conclusions? If he never transmigrated, even more things become impossible to explain. He also mentioned the 'twenty-first century' — your world is only in the twentieth. How does that fit?"
Bernadette fixed her gaze on the red moon hanging over the distant horizon. What was hidden up there?
Vincent knew the answers to everything she was asking, but could only keep his silence. After a while, he raised the question that had nagged at him as a reader: "The Wishing Lamp that Father mentioned in the diary — it seemed extraordinarily powerful. If it can truly grant wishes, couldn't you ask it for the precise location of that primitive island?"
Bernadette's lips pressed together, brow faintly creased. "The thing is... Father didn't leave the Wishing Lamp to me."
To be continued…
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