After the Thirteenth Bearer of Destiny settled down next to Nero, Dia found herself looking around. While the battles were still raging on, the Thirteenth Bearer of Destiny had pulled out an artefact that somehow weakened the oppressive presences that had been making it hard to breath previously.

The four of them clustered around a small, quaint table that Clarissa had pulled out. The table had plates of snacks and desserts on it, a fact that Dia found odd, but the Holy Daughter didn’t seem to find it weird to bring things like these to the Trial of Aeons.

“Fancy some chocolate cookies?” Clarissa asked, offering a star-shaped biscuit to Nero.

“Much appreciated.” Nero made a noise in his throat, before reaching into his backpack. A cake — for some reason — joined the biscuits a moment later, and the Holy Son proceeded to take out a teapot and four small cups.

“What in the name of the Moons did you put inside that backpack?” Dia asked, eyeing the weird Holy Son.

“Normal stuff and some defensive artefacts,” Nero replied. “What’s wrong? Is there an issue?”

“N-no, never mind.”

She thought about it, and then felt that maybe the weird one was her. Was that really true? Was she really the weird one for not bringing desserts and then questioning someone who did just that? She looked at the clueless Holy Son and Holy Daughter, before moving her gaze to the Thirteenth Bearer of Destiny, who was examining the cake with interest.

Indeed, if she considered this matter from Nero’s point of view, this was actually very reasonable, right? Nero was intending to interact with the Thirteenth Bearer of Destiny to begin with, so bringing desserts for a seven-day trip in which he would probably have nothing to do wasn’t that odd. It would work as a bridge to close the gap between him and Lady Kemata…

Dia found the way she was convincing herself rather impressive, but she knew that this was definitely that fellow’s thought process while he was packing. After all, there was no way the three of them would be able to hold on to the damn egg anyway. More importantly, if the five grand skies wanted her to contend with the Omen, they should at least increase her strength a few times over first.

If that Omen really was the cause of that divine might, there was no flipping way she was going to win against that monster.

She picked up one of Clarissa’s cookies and nibbled on it.

“Is it good?” Clarissa asked, her expression slightly nervous. “I made it myself.”

“You made it yourself?” Dia asked, before nodding. “It’s great, by the way. But since you knew you were going to join the Trial of Aeons, while did you use some time to bake cookies? There were definitely more important things to take care of, right?”

“No, not really. I just grabbed a bunch of defensive equipment. The priests told me that I don’t need to do anything,” Clarissa replied.

“But don’t you have a mission or something?”

“To keep the peace, yes.” Clarissa laughed, but her laughter was hollow. “Stop them from fighting here…you must be dreaming. They can fight all they want. My Lord will under my circumstances.”

Dia patted her shoulder. “In other words, you’re just spending seven days in a dangerous place for no reason at all.”

“Yeah.” Clarissa shrugged. “What about you?”

“Me? Yeah, around the same thing too. The powers-that-be want me to foil the plans of this entity called the…Omen, but I don’t know who the Omen is, what its plans are and what its strength is like,” Dia replied. “I assume that the Omen is the Fourth Bearer of Destiny, but it can be anyone. Maybe someone else was the one who took the Cosmic Egg and the Omen’s just watching the whole world collapse.”

“Hmm.” The Holy Daughter of the White God looked around the venue. “Well, if you want to investigate, I think the best place to begin would be those people who aren’t doing anything in particular. Still, is the Omen a Bearer of Destiny? Or are you just assuming it?”

Dia paused. She couldn’t quite remember why she had made that assumption, but it felt reliable to her. “I think there was something that guided me to think that way, and I trust that something.”

“Alright.” The Holy Daughter looked at Nero and Kemata. “You guys were paying attention to us, right?”

“Affirmative.” The scythe floating behind the Thirteenth Bearer of Destiny bobbed once.

“Yeah, we were listening,” Nero replied. “So, you want us to identify the person, huh? Yes, indeed. There is a high chance that someone who’s not fighting and a Bearer of Destiny is that Omen. So…”

He glanced at Kemata once, and then looked at the young man that had been watching them a middling distance earlier. Dia remembered that particular young man, since he was standing next to the very scary Fourth Bearer of Destiny. To be honest, Dia was fairly certain that the Fourth was the Omen, especially since he disappeared with the Cosmic Egg after that, but…

It didn’t hurt to be more careful, right?

“Seven,” Kemata’s voice was calm. “Four…calm. Nice.”

Dia had no idea why she said the very scary person was nice, but she wasn’t going to dispute that yet.

“But the Fourth Bearer of Destiny vanished, though,” Dia replied. “With the Cosmic Egg. I am half-certain that person is my target…well, I’m not going near that target, though.”

“Good choice.” The Thirteenth Bearer of Destiny shifted slightly. “Dangerous. But nice.”

“Dangerous, but nice…well, it’s not really about the Fourth Bearer of Destiny being nice or not, though.”

“He is kind.” Kemata picked up a small cookie and nibbled at it. “This is good.”

The factual way she said both things carried a weird force that Dia couldn’t bring herself to disobey, so she satisfied herself by biting into her own cookie instead. There was nothing they could do here, other than watching as people fought against each other madly.

The contrast between their peaceful little teatime and the madness that was the raging battles outside made the whole thing simply weirder. In fact, Emperor Grandis and Supreme Saran looked like they were going all out — both parties were locked in close combat, with their auxiliary artefacts battling against each other in a bid to support their owner. Their attacks were so swift that the two of them, as well as the surrounding area, were just blurs and shimmering afterimages of indistinct things.

Both of them had risen to the sky, in what seemed like an imitation of how two Chromatic Lords had engaged in fierce conflict. It was a good thing too — their constant clashes were releasing vast swaths of light that stopped battles every so often.

“…The Fourth Bearer of Destiny isn’t the only missing person,” Nero muttered. “Where’s First Lady Cecily?”

The four of them looked around the place, but the woman that seemed to have ice at her command was completely gone, like the Fourth. At some point of time, she had simply vanished from Dia’s awareness.

Suspicious.

Was it possible she was actually the Omen? After all, there was no explicit warning stating that the Omen was a Bearer of Destiny…right? Sure, the mission introduction had hinted at that development, stating that an usurper laid in the ranks of the Absolute.

However, were Absolute skills the sole purview of Bearers of Destiny?

“The more I think about it, the more questions I have,” Dia muttered. “Anyway, even if she is the Omen, she’s at least a hexa-folder. I’m going to sit here quietly, nibble on my cookies and let these seven days pass by. None of my business, see?”

“I suppose I’ll just read a book or something, then.” Clarissa rummaged through her backpack. “I bought some new books. Do you like reading?”

“Me?” Dia asked. “Absolutely. Thanks for offering.”

“My pleasure.” Clarissa paused. “Still, we should reinforce our defences more or something. And I think the fighting will die down in three days or so. They’ll probably start investigating the Cosmic Egg seriously after that.”

“They aren’t serious now?”

“They’re serious about killing each other, but that’s it,” Clarissa replied. “Once they remember their purpose here, it’ll be back to pleasant, hypocritical smiles and hidden daggers. And…I think some of them have bottled up long, ancient grudges millennia old.”

“Lots of time to let old wounds fester,” Dia murmured. “Time can both hurt and heal, right?”

“You get what I mean.” Clarissa sighed. “I expect to see a bunch of dead people once everyone returns to their senses. But again, this is none of my business. I’m going to sit here, enjoy my cake and then sleep for three days straight. Being a Holy Daughter means Holy Daughter duties, and I haven’t had a day to myself for a long time.”

She let out a laugh. “Now, pardon me. I’m going to sleep, and you should too.”