“It’s safe inside.” Lesser Half bobbed back. “Just a wide space with a path and many other doors.”

  “Hmm.” Claud pondered for a moment. “Those doors, are they open? Do you think we’ll need to have a password or something?”

  “It is unlikely. There were no similar pads beside the doors,” Lesser Half replied. “The place seems like a storehouse, however. There are also faint, remnant signs of life there too. It would appear that this place is occasionally checked by guards.”

  “Guards, huh.” Claud frowned for a moment. “Well, we’ll just need to act innocent if they actually spot us.”

  Lily eyed him. “What a nice qualifier.”

  The black cube tilted to the side in confusion, but Claud wasn’t going to clear up his doubts just yet. Without much of a preamble, the two of them made their way through the open door.

  As described by Lesser Half, the small passage behind the door soon gave way to a huge one, which made Claud wonder about Lesser Half’s sense of scale…how was this ‘wide’? This wasn’t just wide already; it was an entire set of palace grounds or something, by his estimation. Of course, Claud was aware that Lesser Half’s sense of scale was definitely skewed; as the counterpart to the horribly oversized Moons, he had to have a weird sense of scale.

  Apologising in his heart for this skewed view, Claud and Lily approached the first door on their right. The door itself, thankfully, was normal-sized, and opened on its own as the three of them neared it to reveal a bunch of sacks.

  “These…aren’t lifestones, I suppose.” Claud poked a sack, and then nodded. “Not valuable, but again, these things aren’t well-protected to begin with.”

  He brushed this topic off without leaving any opening for further elaboration or exploration. Claud had no choice; Lesser Half was still half of the great Dark, and Claud had realised what this place was.

  It was a storage facility for food and other materials. Thankfully, divinities as a whole didn’t seem to care too much about these things, and Lesser Half was certainly friendly to humanity as a whole, but it was basic respect to at least show caution to this fact.

  “This place doesn’t look like it would hold any treasure at all. Shame.”

  “Yeah…” Claud glanced at Lily once. “I’m a bit tired from all this. Maybe we should go back or something, I suppose.”

  “Alright.” Lesser Half hummed. “This place is indeed a bit disappointing.”

  Claud assessed himself mentally as they returned to the surface, and even used a Cleanse skillstick on him and Lily. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking, when he brought Lesser Half along for their shenanigans. The divinity had been friendly, just enough to not be too obtrusive, and he had taken him as one of the meeplings as a result.

  Of course, the fact that they were his default chaperones definitely helped too.

  After a little detour to nab some snacks — Lesser Half was very insistent on a particular long loaf of seasoned bread — the three of them returned to the inn. The sun was rising, and the customers were increasing in number rapidly, but before Claud could head up, a familiar face popped up.

  “Oh, hey, you guys are here.” Farah waved at them. “And the cube too. We got a private room, so let’s go there instead.”

  “Sure,” Lily replied. “Let’s go!”

  Lesser Half bobbed along after them, drawing a few curious eyes from the uninitiated. That said, even the “initiated” only knew about a black cube that could speak and eat, so it wasn’t that much of a problem. A uproar would occur if someone found out that this innocuous black cube was Lesser Half of the great Dark, but everyone in the Seekers of Life had the rationality to maintain discretion, so this news was unlikely to leak out.

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  “Excellent. A feast fit for a divinity.” Lesser Half looked at the table laden with dishes, and then nodded at everyone. “Blessings upon you all.”

  Nero looked around, and then said, “I don’t see any light, though…”

  “I’ll bless you people with my main body once it’s no longer imprisoned,” Lesser Half replied. “For now, it’s just me making some promises.”

  “Thank you kindly, then,” Nero replied.

  “You don’t seem nervous at all,” Schwarz noted. “I had to imbibe some alcohol just to come for this breakfast, you know. So, how was your morning jaunt?”

  “Mine?” Claud asked. “We went to explore some random parts of the city and made our way underground to some crappy storage room. Got nothing out of it, though.”

  Lily nodded. “It’s a shame, really.”

  “I see.” Schwarz nodded.

  While this seemed like an innocuous exchange, Claud knew that only Lily and the bartender was aware of his second…and perhaps former occupation as a mover of illegally procured, high-value goods. Time-sensitive, high efficiency trading was always something he believed in, although recent events had prevented him from manifesting these particular…inclinations.

  As such, this was a probe. Schwarz was literally asking him if he had anything to fence, but regretfully enough, Claud didn’t dare to venture in too deeply with Lesser Half at his side. That said, once night fell…

  Heh.

  He continued to banter back and forth with Schwarz for a while, before Lesser Half got bored and started to suck up food from the plate with a spatial rift.

  “This is, as always, an amazing sight.” Dia, who looked like she had a nightmare for some reason, shook her head.

  “Are you alright?” Lily asked. “Your eyes look really red.”

  “Bad night,” Dia replied. “Anyway, you two skipped practice today, do you know that?”

  The others made audible groans at those words, but Claud wasn’t going to let this slide. Shaking his head, he said, “I can’t do practice now. My lifeforce has been hollowed out. I’m still waiting a second Third Tutorial, as a result. And Lily doesn’t want to let me do anything while I’m still vulnerable.”

  “Right. I forgot.” Dia eyed him with some weird emotion — well, it wasn’t hostility, although there were a few elements of dislike here and there — and then shook her head. “Get better soon, though. I need to drag Lily back to the proper path.”

  Lily rolled her eyes. “Just give up, Dia.”

  “You heard her.” Claud chuckled, before glancing at the others. Kemata, Risti and Nero had shifted to discussing something quietly, and the air that emanated from them felt like they were dealing with secrets. It was only right and proper to not be inquisitive, so he returned his attention to Farah, Dia and the bartender, who were now arguing with each other over the viability of morning practice while they were in an inn.

  The arguments were obvious, at least. Public nuisances, fatigue from battle…good reasons rolled out of Farah and Schwarz, putting Dia at a rapid disadvantage.

  Claud, who was about to deal a finishing blow, abruptly paused as a familiar presence bloomed somewhere in Grandia.

  “This presence!” Lesser Half froze, and the spatial rip that had been sucking up food vanished. “This is…the Red Moon of Strife! It seems that Percuti has sent an incarnation here to Grandia.”

  Claud glanced at Dia, who showed some signs of trauma, and then frowned. Making a mental note to ask Lily for help, he said, “What should we do?”

  “My presence is known to Emperor Grandis, but my sister will almost certainly send an incarnation too.” Lesser Half stilled. “It is hard to tell what the best course of action should be right now, but we should all be in agreement that locating and obliterating Tot is our priority.”

  Claud felt a bit sad to hear these words from Lesser Half, but…he couldn’t quite blame him either. After all, in every single future he had seen or heard about so far, the Omen — him — had destroyed the world and slain the divinities and gods alike. They had a handle on his so-called nature to a t.

  After all, now that he knew he had a chance to set things right and bring Lily back if anything happened to her…

  Why wouldn’t he do such a thing?

  As long as this was her fate, Claud knew that he would forever be at odds with the gods and the divinities. Furthermore, these beings were almost certainly the reason behind her passing, and—

  Fingers intertwined with his own, and Lily smiled at him.

  As always, she could tell when he was wondering about the future. Claud smiled at her once, and then turned to Lesser Half. “So, this is in line with your goals, right?”

  Lesser Half bobbed up and down. “It is wise if I show up.”

  “Wise, you say…” Schwarz made a noise in his throat. “You snuck out of Lostfon, right? Wouldn’t your sister throw a fit or something if your little self pops up in front of her? She might end up destroying the whole city.”

  “Very unlikely,” Lesser Half replied. “The me right now is but an incarnation, after all.”

  Claud glanced at Nero and the others. “We’ll hear their opinion first, I suppose.”