As day broke, Claud was woken up by Lily shaking the bed. This adorable phenomenon was caused by her tapping away on the Trading Board; she was talking to someone on the other side of the artefact or whatever somehow. Rubbing his eyes, he sat up slowly and hugged her.

“Morning.”

Lily rubbed her face against his own. “Did I wake you up?”

“Yeah, you were tapping rather hard on the Trading Board.” Claud stretched his body. “What are you up to?”

“Just exchanging more information,” Lily replied. “Still, this artefact is quite revolutionary. It can link two distant individuals and allow them to exchange messages…I see why the Profiteers charged so much money to join them. This artefact alone is worth it.”

“Too bad there’s a limited usage every season, though,” Claud replied. “Only thirty messages of a hundred and forty characters long every season. We’ll need to be very judicious in our use of it.”

“And apparently, some of the Profiteers are real nasty pieces of work too.” Lily fiddled with her Trading Board, before setting it aside. “Anyway, I was exchanging intelligence regarding the Dark and the Moons; there was a megathread asking for some information.”

“We can’t trust everything on it either, so be careful,” Claud replied. “And…well, I don’t think there’s really any information we don’t know about the current huge events going on.”

He fell silent for a moment. “When you become a tri-folder, I’ll try telling you what I know. I don’t know how much I can tell you, since authority and the value information has is a bit nebulous, but I’ll try.”

“I’ll know you will. I’m working hard too, okay? Right, I went around asking people about this tribulation a tri-folder faces when they become a tetra-folder. While no one has news on it yet, I’m sure someone will contact us eventually,” Lily replied.

“Oh? Why?”

“I collated all the information we have on the Moons and the Dark,” Lily replied, pulling out a piece of paper. “Thought people would be interested to learn about it.”

“Let me take a look,” Claud replied.

He glanced at the paper once and intuitively understood that the words written here could only be properly deciphered by someone who had sufficient authority. Words and information apparently carried their own weight, to put it as a metaphor, and one’s authority corresponded to their ability to process such an informational load.

This paper could be used as a weapon, if left lying around randomly. Still, the information it contained was simply an inference Lily made from her own observations, so why did it carry such a load? Or was it the knowledge’s affiliation that really mattered? Did anything related to the Moons, the Dark and the Coloured Gods innately require authority to listen to, accuracy be damned?

Making a mental note about this aspect, Claud read through her paper. Lily’s summary of the current events went like this: the Moons, the great Dark and the Coloured Gods had Bearers of Destiny. The Bearers of the Moons and the Dark mutually suppressed each other; when one of them died, the opposing entity would be allowed to descend, or have its time to descent lowered. As for why and how that worked, Lily didn’t know. As for the Coloured Gods, it seemed that the Trial of Aeons — again, she had made a note that she didn’t know either — was being suppressed by their own Bearers of Destiny.

“I wonder if I can add something to this,” Claud said, thinking about the introductions to the faction missions lying around in his interface.

“As an experiment?” Lily asked.

“Yeah. It might hurt if you look at them, but if you can control your rate of reading…”

Lily nodded eagerly. “Try it out, try it out!”

“S-sure.” Claud added the faction mission descriptions, which roughly talked about how a great age of change had come, and the Moons and Darks struggling to gain influence over what presumably was fate.

Unfortunately for him, his authority was still too low to know what they were trying to gain influence over, so he left that blank. He added a bit about the five grand skies, and how the Coloured Gods wouldn’t let the Moons or the Dark take their position, but…

No matter how he looked at it, shouldn’t the two ancient entities have an advantage over the Coloured Gods?

“Something wrong?” Lily asked.

“I’ll tell you about it if you can read the information on this paper safely,” Claud replied.

“Okay. Bring it on!” Lily pumped a fist…and then asked for the paper with her two hands obediently. The juxtaposition between her excitement and her politeness brought a smile to his face, and he handed the paper over to her.

A groan leaked out of her mouth as she looked at it, but before Claud could snatch the paper away, she raised a hand to stop him. “I’m fine. Just hurts.”

“Where?”

Lily pointed at her own head, and Claud got her to lie down immediately. Placing her head on his lap, he massaged her temples slowly, and before long, the agonised look on her face faded away.

“Feels like being beaten by a hammer or something,” Lily muttered.

“Sorry.” Claud continued to rub her head, wiping off some beads of cold sweat that had popped up on her face.

Lily sat up slowly and shook her head. “It’s something I need to go through if we are to live in the same world. You have secrets that you want to share, but if I can’t accept them, you can’t tell me everything. It’s just a price I have to pay.”

Claud felt his heart twist up, but he didn’t want to deny her efforts. “I’ll probably feel the same if the roles were reversed.”

“Right?” Lily beamed. “Right, how do you have such knowledge? Did…”

“Well, we have a Status, right?” Claud began, choosing his words carefully. “And do you still remember that time I asked you about a quest and a mission? Both quests and missions have introductions.”

“I know what a quest is,” Lily replied. “But a mission…”

“Yeah, that’s my source.” Claud paused, ready to massage her temples once more if any signs of pain appeared, but nothing happened. “Phew. Well, at least this seems to be okay.”

“How does this authority work anyway?” Lily rolled around on his lap. “It’s so painful. Can I get it out of my head? I don’t want to be controlled by it!”

She whined for a little while more, pouring out complaints that Claud agreed with, and for a time, he rocked her back and forth slowly. It was refreshing to see her let her inner child out — Claud had a feeling that this was an incredibly therapeutic state that could only be achieved through sheer coincidence — so he simply played along and hugged her for all he was worth.

He could spot a silvery sphere and its velvety box buddy peeking out to look at them, prompting Claud to turn his back on them and hog Lily to himself.

After a while, she returned to normal, her face the shade of a bright tomato.

“Feeling better?” Claud asked.

She made a little noise in her throat.

“It’s fine to let out your inner child, so don’t feel embarrassed.” Claud poked her cheeks. “And I got to see an extremely cute side of you, so I think it’s a win-win. So adorable…”

Lily glared at him, before burying her face into his chest.

“Don’t be a bully.”

Claud cleared his throat as those faint words leaked out, and he patted her head. The bed, which had been messed up when Lily had started complaining, had a faintly inviting feeling, but there were many factors working against that.

Praising himself for his self-control, Claud said, “C’mon, let’s wash up. The great Dark is coming soon, after all. We should observe with the Second Shadow after that, while eating from the safety of our room.”

Lily rubbed her cheeks, which were still a pale pink, before rolling off his lap with an air of reluctance. Despite her words, Claud could tell that she too found the experience rather liberating.

It didn’t take long for them to wash up, and after a while, the two of them went down for breakfast. The inn was deserted, save for the two of them, and the old innkeeper manning the counter waved at them as they descended the stairs.

“Morning, younglings.” The old man looked around. “Fancy any food?”

“A hearty breakfast for two, please,” Lily replied. “Still, you’re still hiring chefs?”

“Well, the boy needs his pay, and I can chat with him while waiting around here,” the old man replied. “Jarvis, two breakfast specials!”

“Okay!”

“It’s so deserted here,” Claud muttered. “Makes me feel a little sad.”

“Yeah, like an empty nest,” the old man replied. “I never expected to have this feeling ever since I abandoned the hobby of birdwatching, but here we are. Oh well. You two take a seat. I’ll head to the back for a while.”

Claud and Lily moved over to a window seat, their eyes gazing out at the empty streets in silence. Before long, the forces of the great Dark would occupy the town, and Count Lostfon would hand his Terra Jewel over. Once that happened…

“Let’s hope we made the right choice,” Claud murmured, holding Lily’s hand tightly.

She nodded in reply.