Noir pushed the door to Alder's room shut, the soft click echoing in the sudden quiet. He stood for a moment, the ordinary sound a stark contrast to the day's bewildering events. The fortune teller, her sharp gaze, and the unsettling cards still rattled him. He'd brushed her off, dismissing her pronouncements as theatrical nonsense, but the feeling of being truly seen by a stranger, of having his deepest anxieties laid bare, was profoundly unsettling. It clung to him like a phantom chill, a premonition he couldn't shake.
He walked to the desk, its dark wood a silent promise of answers. This was Alder's space, the inner sanctum of the man whose life Noir had unwillingly usurped. It was a room brimming with a lifetime of study and accumulated knowledge. Noir sat down, the chair's familiar creak a small comfort in the vast strangeness that had become his existence. His eyes fell on the scattered papers, the tall stacks of books, and the old, carved parchment about a "luck increasing ritual." This, he knew, was his starting point. To survive and play the part of Alder Wilson, to even begin to navigate this alien world, he had to understand it. Alder's fragmented memories were his only, unreliable map, and this room, his only library.
He began to read, picking up documents and scanning book indexes with a frantic, almost desperate energy. He absorbed maps, histories, and surveys, trying to make Alder's broken memories fit with the printed words. His mind, trained in his past life to sort through complex information, worked intensely despite his inner chaos, processing details with an efficiency that was both a blessing and a curse. Every fact he uncovered deepened the sense of unreality.
"So, the Era of Machinery," he mumbled to himself, tracing a diagram of a crude steam engine with a disbelieving finger. "Not so different from my time, the early industrial age, but clearly a new path, a different branch on the tree of progress." He learned this world had four main powers: the Croele Kingdom, the Sylvan Kingdom, the Habsburg Kingdom, and the Aural Kingdom. He was, by some twist of fate, in Croele, a detail that matched Alder's vague memories of his home city, its grimy, smoke-stained architecture, and its ceaseless hum of industry.
His eyes narrowed as he read about the calendar. "Years, months, days… all the same. But the days of the week…" He paused, a strange pattern catching his attention. "They're named after… gods?" He scanned the list: "The God of Knowledge and Wisdom, Eternal Blazing Sun, Mother Earth, Lord of Storms, God of Advancements, God of Combat, and the Goddess of Fortune." A full pantheon. A religious system so deeply ingrained it dictated the very rhythm of their week. The last god, Fortune, brought back an unsettling echo of his recent encounter with the old woman, a chill he couldn't quite dissipate. Was it merely a coincidence, or a cosmic jest playing out on his personal stage?
He turned another page, digging into world politics, trying to grasp the intricate web of alliances and rivalries. The Croele Kingdom, his unwilling current residence, was clearly the industrial heart of this world. "Controls technology, huh?" he muttered, a faint, cynical curl to his lips. "The rise of machines, indeed." He noted the ruler, King Louis VIII, a name that stirred another vague memory from Alder's past, perhaps from a forgotten history lesson or a royal decree about some minor civil engineering project.
Then he moved to the Sylvan Kingdom. "Ah, the Sylvan Kingdom," he read, "home to the Church of Earth Mother." He pictured lush, ancient forests, untamed wilderness. Yet, Alder's memory added a surprising detail: cherishes nature, but still quite advanced. This world, he realized, didn't seem to reject progress; it simply found different, perhaps more harmonious, ways to incorporate it. The image formed in his mind: steam power humming alongside reverence for old natural forces, a strange, beautiful, and utterly contradictory mix. It was a world of steam engines tended by priests, of airships carved from ancient trees.
Noir also pieced together details about schooling. Most major institutes, he discovered, were run by churches. Alder himself was a student at the University of the Church of God of Knowledge, which, fittingly, taught history. This made sense with Alder's love for old books and dusty parchments. Grace, two years older than Alder, was a final-year student at the university run by the Church of Advancements. That church, logically, taught about machinery and the underlying science of this world's burgeoning technology. Both churches and their schools, he noted, were conveniently located within the Croele Kingdom.
He recalled the date: November 5th, Year 825 of the Era of Machinery, the very day he had unwillingly arrived. A fresh wave of confusion and dread hit him as he looked at the calendar on the desk. University classes were only two days a week: Wednesday and Saturday. Today was Friday, the day of the Goddess of Fortune – the very day he'd transmigrated. His mind raced, a cold dread pooling in his stomach. That meant tomorrow.
A knot formed in his stomach, tightening with each passing second. Tomorrow, Saturday, he would have to go to Alder Wilson's classes. He, Noir Kagenou, with only broken memories and a stolen identity, a man of a completely different era, would have to walk into a university lecture hall. How could he fake knowledge he didn't have? How long could he keep up this absurd, impossible act without being exposed as a fraud? The thought was terrifying.
Hours passed. The dim, flickering light of the gas lamp on the desk cast long, dancing shadows across the room. Outside, the cacophony of the city sounds gradually faded into the quiet hum of the night, replaced by the distant whistle of a train or the hoot of an owl. Noir didn't notice, lost in the complex, overwhelming details of this new world. He felt its vastness, the endless mysteries that stretched far beyond Alder's familiar room, a terrifying depth that dwarfed anything from his old life. As he read, a chilling understanding grew, solidifying in his core: this was a world not just of steam and cities, of political maneuvering and industrial might, but of something deeper, something touched by the very gods whose names marked the days of the week. And he, the Fool, had just stepped onto its grand, bewildering stage, with a university class waiting for him in the morning.
Suddenly, while his mind wrestled with the implications of these gods and churches, his eye was drawn back to the ancient parchment containing the luck increasing ritual. He picked it up, feeling the fragile, almost papery thinness of it between his fingers. The inscriptions, intricate and oddly familiar, seemed to pulse under his gaze, as if resonating with some unseen energy. He began to read them aloud, the words a low, involuntary whisper in the quiet room:
"With the whispers of destiny, I humbly call:
The Fool who doesn't belong to this era.
The Seer of Fortunes, who guides the unseen currents.
The Weaver of Chances, above the veils of uncertainty.
The Lord of Emerald and Gold, who wields prosperity.
Hear my plea, from this mortal coil, for a thread of favorable fortune.
Grant me passage, if but a glimpse, into the realm of absurdness.
May my path be blessed with serendipity, and my endeavors alight with grace.
May the Castle's mists part, and its true form be revealed unto me."
The words hung in the air, cold and heavy, each phrase a hammer blow to his fragile sense of reality. The Fool that doesn't belong to this era.The realm of absurdness.The Castle's mists. It wasn't just a quaint, old ritual. It was a connection. A chilling, impossible connection to the very events that had brought him here. Was this Alder's doing? Had Alder, in his relentless pursuit of esoteric knowledge, somehow stumbled upon a way to call to that 'Host', to that 'Castle of Fabrications' that Lena, his supposed sister, had so vaguely but vividly described? Had Alder Wilson, the unassuming historian, been the true, unwitting catalyst for Noir Kagenou's absurd new beginning? The thought sent a fresh, profound wave of ice through his veins, making his skin prickle with a mixture of fear and a strange, morbid fascination. His transmigration was no accident; it was an invitation.