Eldritch Horror Theatre

"Lotte doesn't know any better, and she's caused you trouble."

It had to be said that being an older sister like Veil was certainly no easy task.

She had led the way the entire time, and the moment she stopped, her very first words were a solemn apology to Fu Qian.

The conversation spot she chose also proved once again that an older sister was always an older sister—it was neither her own bedroom nor his guest room.

Though equally clean and tidy, the room they were currently in was clearly unoccupied.

Choosing a meeting place like this made them far less likely to be discovered than if they had run off to his own room at the furthest opposite corner.

"It's fine. I've caused her some trouble, too."

Seeing her so courteous and polite, Fu Qian gave a slight nod and replied in a gentle tone.

Naturally, the content of his words wasn't quite as gentle.

"That's also part of what I find a bit hard to understand... Why would you say those things to Lotte?"

Biting her lip in hesitation for a few seconds, she finally couldn't suppress her concern for her sister and cut straight to the core issue.

Even so, her understanding of the mysterious expert before her made her tone carry far more puzzlement than severity.

It seemed she found it extremely difficult to connect the man in front of her with a worshipper of evil deities.

"Spreading an evil faith—doesn't it look like it?"

Faced with this reaction, Fu Qian felt somewhat slighted. He frowned, expressing his dissatisfaction.

"It doesn't."

Unfortunately for him, Veil shook her head firmly.

"The Emblem and the honorific name are indeed the most crucial faith symbols of ancient Divine Entities. As for the King of the Abandoned Prison Who Governs Calamity, I've never heard of that moniker, but I can't verify its authenticity either."

"The only problem is... I find it hard to imagine Your Excellency worshipping any form of existence."

Well... she might as well have just come out and said he looked like a professional rebel.

Fu Qian happily misinterpreted Veil's words in his own way and frowned even more deeply.

"It sounds like you arrived quite early just now."

However, the grand Dayun Mingwang was naturally above sinking to petty, reverse personal attacks.

In the next moment, Fu Qian merely gave a slight nod and spoke casually.

Yet that simple sentence possessed an unimaginably devastating lethality.

The moment she heard it clearly, Veil, sitting opposite him, turned bright red to the roots of her hair.

"I... vaguely heard some movement in Lotte's room..."

Still, she was a swordsman who had traveled far and wide and even dabbled slightly in the arts of seduction; amidst her shifting gaze, she managed to steady her emotions and offer a whispered explanation.

It was just a pity that her subconscious gesture of straightening her bathrobe, as if afraid of a wardrobe malfunction, ultimately betrayed her.

Fu Qian didn't rush to speak, his gaze dropping down to those hands.

...

The reason that single sentence could provoke such a strong reaction was simple enough.

Fu Qian roughly had a measure of Veil's skill level. If she had been fully awake and listening with rapt attention, discovering movement in her sister's room might have been somewhat plausible.

To retain such hearing while fast asleep was, at best, a rather exaggerated rhetorical claim.

And knowing the details of the conversation so thoroughly proved that she had noticed early on and arrived very quickly.

Putting it all together, the most reasonable explanation was that she had sensed something as early as their first conversation spot and had followed them the moment he and Lotte left.

One could only praise the female swordsman's iron self-discipline.

Still, under those circumstances, pretending to sleep really had been a rather decent choice.

"The reason I told Lotte those things is simple. I need her help to test something."

However, the Dayun Mingwang was always a man who settled his debts clearly. Having casually exacted revenge for the slight against his pious heart, he didn't hold an excessive grudge and directly answered Veil's initial question—why he had pitched the path of faith to Lotte.

Moreover, his answer was utterly sincere, completely lacking any hooligan logic like "helping you raise her" or "tough-love education"; instead, he stated outright that he owed them a favor.

...

It was clear that even though she had firmly believed earlier that Fu Qian had zero interest in proselytizing, hearing him confirm it with his own mouth still caused Veil to let out half a sigh of relief.

As for the other half—

"That thing is almost a hundred percent guaranteed to have no effect."

Before she could voice her thoughts, Fu Qian added another sentence, completely dissolving the anxiety in her eyes.

"Additionally, I will compensate you for the mental distress."

Before Veil even had time to respond, Fu Qian looked toward the top of her head, blinked, and added one more thing.

"Please don't be so formal. Your Excellency has already helped us a great deal!"

Faced with his remark, Veil's immediate reaction was to refuse, explaining with utter earnestness.

"As long as I can confirm Lotte is fine, that's enough. Actually, she isn't all that obsessed with Transcendent power anymore; even if it fails, it won't be something she can't handle."

"Her emotional state right now has much more to do with her hand. Because the limb grafting was done quite a while ago, it has never quite recovered properly—"

"This is my compensation. I know some professionals, and they might have a way."

Fu Qian directly interrupted Veil's polite refusals.

Uh... Ah?

Once she processed what Fu Qian had just said, Veil's face filled completely with a mixture of surprise and joy.

"I can't guarantee it will definitely work, but when you have a moment, you can try taking her to the Academy. Find a small shop there, and wait for a woman who loves to drink."

Fu Qian casually described Naya's appearance.

"Explain your purpose to her and say you were invited by me. If I'm there, she'll definitely bring you to find me; if I'm not, she'll definitely lead you to the right person."

Lotte's condition was more or less a lingering symptom of the limb grafting.

The probability of those freaks at the Apocalypse Branch taking an interest in it was actually quite high.

Of course, even if they weren't interested, as a Pillar of Apocalypse, arranging for someone to help him repay a favor was simple in the extreme.

Naturally, looking at this process, there was still a technical issue.

The Veil before him was merely a specially invited guest in her sister's dream; the moment the dreamer woke up, she would dissipate, meaning his words just now wouldn't actually reach the real her—that was indeed how it had been at first, but not anymore.

Right at this moment, an Illusory Eye was faintly flickering into manifestation above Veil's head.

Just a moment ago, this specially invited guest seemed to have truly responded to the invitation, just like he had.

Though it was surely not Lotte who had invited her.

To make a dream entity who was not a dreamwalker correspond to their real-world self—currently, the only ones seen possessing such authority were the higher entities within the Nightmare Corridor.

Once Araligil stopped concealing himself, he was clearly seeking out every available opportunity within this dream to squeeze out its very last shred of value.

And compared to her sister, Veil, who had successfully joined, was undoubtedly a far superior target for violent corruption.

"Did you memorize it?"

Watching the flush gradually recede from Veil's face, Fu Qian asked with full academic sternness.

"I memorized it."

She nodded very earnestly.

"Good then."

Fu Qian snapped his fingers and, without any wasted motion, triggered the Decree of Return once more.

In that instant, the flush rushed back onto Veil's face.

Only this time, it was a sickly flush.

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