Next, Bernadette sensed the presence of spirituality within herself — but it wasn't her own Sequence 3 spirituality. It was something that barely registered at Sequence 9 level.
"So... this spirituality is coming from that man?"
Was he the special one?
No — what was truly special was perhaps not him, but this "Broker" pathway itself. That mysterious room!
It was a shame she couldn't enter it. Otherwise she might be able to...
Just as that thought took shape, her vision plunged without warning into a murk of near-black, near-white, near-grey — and then a shaft of light gradually cut through the haze, and she found herself standing inside what appeared to be a sitting room.
She had seen this place before — glimpsed through a crack in Fate, it was the very same room she had briefly peered into. The very "mysterious room" the man had written about.
"I... actually got in?"
And it was her own soul that had entered.
The room looked exactly as he had described — with one difference. It wasn't grey and colourless at all. It was a perfectly ordinary sitting room.
Red carpets. Dark walnut furniture. Silver candelabras. Gold-trimmed fittings. Everything breathed opulence and refinement — a textbook aristocratic chamber.
But the Scale — the Scale was nowhere to be seen.
She swept the room with her gaze and checked again. No Scale.
Was this even the same room Vincent had described?
After a moment's deliberation, Bernadette crossed to the door and pressed down the handle. A creak — and the door didn't budge.
She tried several more times. Nothing.
"Well, this door at least matches what the man described — it won't open."
Bernadette had barely released the handle when the handle gave another creak and was pressed down — from the other side.
The next second, the door was slowly pushed open.
· ·
At that same moment — the Lord of the Mysteries world.
The instant Vincent opened his eyes, his spiritual instincts delivered excellent news: the Broker potion had been completely digested!
He was genuinely stunned. Over the past few days at Hogwarts, he had made a few attempts at playing the role, but the results had been painfully thin. Could it have been... the last swap? That act of "facilitating" a collaboration among the three major Churches — had that been enough?
He reached for Bernadette's note and read quickly. The very first line answered his question:
"Good news — I have also gained access to the Broker pathway and its associated abilities, and I am able to digest potions through playing the role."
"Your potion was fully digested the moment I returned to my world."
Hmm. There was definitely just a hint of pride tucked into that sentence, wasn't there?
Though of course, the Mystic Queen herself — a Saint at Sequence 3, two centuries of age — would never allow herself to feel proud over something so trivial.
"Unfortunately, I still cannot enter the mysterious room, nor can I add weight to your Scale on your behalf. This has only reinforced my belief that the room and the Scale are bound deeply to your soul alone. My ability to access the Broker pathway's abilities is merely a consequence of your connection to it."
"As for this new pathway that exists outside the 22 standard pathways — I currently know nothing about it. But since it originated from that compass, perhaps tracing that thread will yield answers."
"Speaking of which — the compass has been fully repaired. However, the friend who fixed it tells me it can only be wielded by a demigod Attorney or Arbitrator of Gustav's bloodline. That complicates things somewhat..."
"Beyond this lead, I will also try to gather some occult materials and search for any traces connected to this room."
"Also — do you think the Fool might know something? After all, being brought into the mysterious room and being drawn into His divine realm happened almost simultaneously. Could that possibly be His doing?"
Vincent shook his head with a quiet laugh. Impossible. Absolutely impossible.
The great pauper of a God was probably just as baffled as anyone right now. That whole affair had nothing whatsoever to do with Him.
"This afternoon at 3 o'clock, don't forget to attend the Tarot Club meeting. Beside you are three pages of Roselle's diary that I've prepared. Present them to the Fool at the meeting."
"The question to raise about these diary pages is: when Roselle wrote them, was he in high spirits or in sorrow? Does the diary explain why he felt the way he did, and what he intended to do?"
Bernadette's handwriting changed noticeably here — the gap between this line and the next was clearly much longer, the strokes distinctly different in character.
"I told you in our last swap that I have been searching for Emperor Roselle for a long time, wanting to know whether he is still alive... The reason is that he is my father."
"And yet — absurdly — even I cannot read the Roselle script my own father invented. But this 'Fool' who appeared from nowhere can. I believe there must be some connection between Him and my father. My original plan was to use the Fool's reading of my father's diary to find some sign that Father might still be alive."
"But before this swap, I suddenly discovered that Roselle's script also exists in your world. I don't know whether the two worlds' versions of it are connected, or whether my father has any tie to your world. What I do know is that I must, by whatever means, learn to read that script — because it may be the very key that leads me to him."
"...Can you read it? Can you understand the diary pages I've left behind?"
The note ended there. Vincent let out a slow breath. Roselle and the world of Harry Potter had no connection whatsoever — but Bernadette would never believe that. In her eyes, there were simply too many impossible coincidences.
Especially once she learned Chinese — and read in the Emperor's own hand that he had come from another world entirely. Wouldn't that only make it all seem even more implausibly coincidental?
Beyond that, Bernadette would read about the Emperor's youthful antics, come to understand what had changed him so utterly in his later years, learn that he was still alive — and might even find the location of Roselle's final resting place before anyone else.
If he recalled correctly... wasn't that island supposed to be dangerous?
Would Bernadette be able to manage it alone?
He picked up the diary pages Bernadette had left him, and recognised at once the ungainly, lopsided Chinese characters that could only belong to the Emperor himself:
"November 28th — Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Tomorrow! It is destined to be a magnificent day, for the great Roselle is about to set foot upon the Moon! In my previous life, mankind spent a thousand years taking this step one painstaking inch at a time — yet for me, Emperor of Knowledge, it is practically as effortless as drinking a glass of water. Though I must note — Zaratul once warned me that dangers lurk hidden among the stars. I must prepare thoroughly!"
"One small step for Roselle — one giant leap for all of humanity! Moon — I'm coming!"
To be continued…