LOTM: Paradox Pathway

"The Fool who doesn't Belong to this Era,

You are the mysterious ruler above the Gray Fog,

You are the King of Yellow and Black who wields good luck,

I thank You for Your grace,

allowing me to have a wonderful morning..."

In the early morning, Snow followed his usual routine of calling upon Mr. Fool upon waking, then rang the bell to have room service deliver breakfast.

Mr. A was currently living right next door to him, and praying to another deity while almost face-to-face with him was quite thrilling indeed.

However, in Mr. A's eyes, Snow was completely offering loyalty to the True Creator, and the more he looked at Snow, the more pleasing he found him.

Unlike Snow, who was being watched by the police, Mr. A's arrival was extremely secretive. Therefore, after praying to the True Creator in the morning, he hastily left the hotel and began searching for that lady.

Regarding information about Megose, Snow had not concealed anything at all, including her interpersonal relationships and why she came to the divination club—he had clearly explained everything. As he had said before, if an evil god's offspring were in Tingen, it would be a catastrophic disaster, but if it were in Backlund, it wouldn't even cause a ripple.

If Mr. A could take the evil god's offspring and Megose to Backlund, Snow would truly support it with both hands and feet raised. However, he believed that the greater probability was that Mr. A would return empty-handed from this trip...

...

Just as Snow finished his prayers to Mr. Fool, in the outskirts of Tingen City, in a house with a red chimney, on an open notebook, a quill pen was writing furiously without anyone holding it—

"How surprising, Mr. A, who should have stayed in Backlund, has actually come to Tingen. Without a doubt, he will take away Megose. Although this has not received the True Creator's approval, as a mad and devout believer, Mr. A obviously would not tolerate his Lord's offspring wandering outside. This is very logical."

"Oh, poor Ince Zangwill, a Sequence 5 Gatekeeper, no matter what, cannot stop a Shepherd who has shepherded seven Beyonders! His schemes seem to be inevitably sliding toward failure. This is probably because he's not very good at writing stories, isn't it? I have to admit, as a writer, he's really quite poor..."

Just as the quill pen was dancing frantically, a somewhat rough pale hand suddenly emerged from the darkness, grasped it very forcefully, and then the owner of that hand roughly made a new line and wrote new text in handwriting different from before—

"As a Divine Emissary of the Aurora Order, Mr. A's travels always attract attention from various parties. His behavior of leaving Backlund undoubtedly drew the attention of the three major churches. Three elite Beyonder squads followed the traces he left behind and arrived in Tingen, intercepting him while he was searching for Megose."

"As a Sequence 5 Beyonder, his appearance undoubtedly attracted the attention of all official Beyonders in Tingen City. To prevent this madman from causing irreparable disaster, all official Beyonders stopped their work at hand and began to fully investigate his whereabouts. This is very reasonable."

...

"Red Gloves? Damn it!" After several divinations, Mr. A finally locked onto Megose's address, but just as he was about to arrive at the target location, a team of Beyonders wearing red gloves intercepted him.

Although as a Shepherd who was nearly unbeatable in encounters, he wasn't worried about his own safety, but undoubtedly, taking away the God's child while being pursued by these hyena-like heretics was no longer very possible.

While Mr. A activated his Shadow ability to enter a hidden state, he was thinking about the reasons for this failure.

Among the Beyonders he had shepherded was a Devil, but his malice detection had not activated, which meant this was merely a "chance encounter."

But would it really be such a coincidence?

As an experienced Beyonder, Mr. A immediately connected this to the intelligence he had obtained from Snow last night, and a ferocious expression appeared on that beautiful face—

"Indeed, everything is within someone's calculations! To actually dare to use my Lord! Damn it!"

However, since the other party would choose to have the Red Gloves intercept him, there was a high probability that the opponent was not a Beyonder skilled in frontal combat, or at least not the type who could quickly defeat him.

Having figured all this out, Mr. A immediately abandoned the idea of fighting head-on with the Red Gloves, and instead released a large-area Dream Entry.

Even though he was Sequence 5, such crude Dream Entry could not endanger the Red Gloves elite, but just a moment of resistance behavior was enough for him to leave the battlefield.

"Let him escape!" the Red Gloves Beyonder said in annoyance, but an older Red Gloves member pressed his hand on the junior's shoulder:

"No, we should say we were spared by him..."

Saying this, he sighed again:

"It looks like this madman doesn't want to make things big. This undoubtedly means his coming to Tingen this time wasn't a whim. We must quickly pass the message back... Nothing good ever comes from anything involving the Aurora Order!"

...

"'Lord of the Mysteries' is just a novel..."

Layer upon layer of whispers once again echoed in Snow's ears. He knew clearly that this was 0-08 starting to search for whoever was disrupting the script again.

Regarding 0-08's frantic behavior, Snow was both troubled and happy. The trouble was naturally because of the headache, but at the same time, since 0-08 had started going mad, it also meant that it—or rather, Ince Zangwill's script—had been torn up once again.

"It seems Mr. A's actions have indeed caused Ince Zangwill a headache. Too bad, if Mr. A had gone while that guy was sleeping, he might have really been able to take away Megose."

Although Snow said this, everything that was happening now was all within his calculations.

That Ince Zangwill would interfere with Mr. A was almost inevitable, but as long as Mr. A could attract the attention of the official Beyonders, his plan would already be half successful. As for the other half...

As for the other half, it depends on our Mr. Fool...

...

"Captain, what did you want to see me about?" On the other side, Mr. Fool, who had been forced to wake up early due to the Devil's prayers, came to the Blackthorn Security Company. Just as he was having mysticism lessons with Old Neil and thinking about how to inconspicuously inform the captain about the evil god's offspring, he and Old Neil were both called to the office by the captain.

Then, he discovered that the office didn't contain just him and Old Neil. Frye, Cornley, Leonard... even Seeka Tron, who was supposed to be on vacation today, had been called over.

Although he didn't know what had happened, Klein was very clear that it must be something big!

(End of Chapter)

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Author's Note: PS1: The Tingen events should not have Adam's attention—

First, 0-08 is a backup plan of the Dragon of Imagination. Sensing Adam's gaze, it should directly try to escape rather than play games with Ince Zangwill.

Second, at this point in time, Adam's main focus should be on how to guide historical trends (including getting Duke Negan killed). From 0-08's coverage range, Adam's attention should also be limited, and compared to 0-08, which has reached consensus with the Goddess, the ritual is the most important and cannot be careless.

Third, Adam and the True Creator are in a life-or-death competitive relationship. The True Creator couldn't possibly watch Adam obtain 0-08, and the original work clearly wrote that the True Creator noticed traces of 0-08 on Lanevus but didn't care, which is sufficient proof that Adam didn't intervene at this time.

Fourth, although Ince stealing 0-08 had the Goddess's tacit approval, Adam should also have to wait until the Goddess achieved her purpose before he could touch 0-08, otherwise it would be equivalent to breaking the deal. And before becoming a god, Adam wasn't the Goddess's match, so he should not have dared to pay attention to 0-08 in Tingen (of course, it's also possible that the Goddess concealed 0-08).

PS2: The current Klein is still very naive, and his vigilance isn't too high. If it were Detective Sherlock Moriarty from the second volume, he probably wouldn't directly call Snow up to ask for details, but the current him would do so.