Since she had already read the notes, Ciel only recounted the most important parts.
Uris listened silently. When Ciel finished, Uris let out a soft sigh.
“If I hadn’t been transferred, he wouldn’t have gone so far down the wrong path…” Uris’s voice was slightly hoarse. She placed her right hand over her chest and lowered her head slightly, as though in prayer.
Ciel didn’t interrupt her and simply waited quietly for her to speak.
After a long pause, Uris lifted her face in Ciel’s direction and asked:
“Is that the end of the notebook?”
“Did he start a new journal?” Uris asked, recalling the second notebook in Ciel’s possession. “What about the other one? What does it say?”
“No, he didn’t continue recording his own thoughts. The other notebook belongs to someone else,” Ciel replied.
“A man named Thomas…”
Ciel briefly summarized the contents of Thomas’s diary. Midway through, Uris’s brows furrowed deeply and stayed that way as she listened.
When Ciel finished explaining, Uris finally spoke. “Duven was murdered, yet the things he left behind are still causing suffering to others… How did you acquire these two notebooks?”
At first, Uris seemed to be speaking to herself, but her tone shifted at the end, directing her suspicion toward Ciel.
“A mystical notebook is one of the most important possessions of a transcendent. Even though Thomas was only a half-baked transcendent, he certainly wouldn’t have handed over evidence of his crimes to you willingly.” Uris paused for a moment before continuing, “And earlier, as we walked to the side chapel, I sensed murderous intent directed at me from you.”
Ciel remained silent. She wasn’t surprised that Uris questioned her; after all, the notebooks, replicated by the system, were impossible to explain without sounding suspicious.
Since clumsy lies would likely fail to deceive someone like Uris, Ciel had already decided to tell the truth—or, at least, a version of it.
A half-truth would suffice. After all, once the simulation ended, no one would remember anything she said.
“I saw the future,” Ciel looked at Uris and said seriously, “In the future, High Priestess Uris, you told my corpse about these things. When I woke up, I found these two notebooks by my bedside.”
She slowly extended a hand and touched Ciel’s forehead.
A girl with no apparent transcendent abilities claiming to have seen the future?
And yet, Uris didn’t sense any dishonesty from her.
Either this girl was insane, or she was telling the truth.
“How can you prove it? That you can see the future?” Uris withdrew her hand.
Ciel: “At 4:45 AM today, Thomas will meet with the Blackwater Gang leader at the Hammer Tavern. There, Thomas will attempt the final stage of the ‘Instigator’ Reconstitution Ritual. And I will die there as well.”
Uris: “You’re the sacrifice?”
Uris: “How did I find out about this? I just arrived in Berren City, and my investigation isn’t even set to officially begin until tomorrow. And if you’re dead, how did I speak to you?”
Ciel: “I wasn’t fully dead yet. You arrived at the very end of the ritual, killed them, and discovered their notebooks. You felt extremely guilty for dragging me into all of this and decided to leave my sister ten thousand su pounds as compensation.”
Uris grew more and more startled as she listened to Ciel. She couldn’t sense any deception in the girl’s words.
It was as if everything the girl, Ciel, recounted had actually happened to her. If not for the final sentence—about compensating her sister—giving off a faint whiff of a lie, Uris might have started doubting her own sensory abilities.
This girl… Could she really see the future?
The implications of such a claim far exceeded the scope of Uris’s current investigation.
An ordinary person, with no powers, capable of glimpsing the future?
There were only two possibilities.
A divine revelation—or an artifact.
But Uris didn’t sense any aura of an artifact on her.
“Which church do you follow?” Uris asked quickly, her tone urgent.
If this girl were truly a follower of a particular church, she might have received divine revelation and could even become a saintess.
“I don’t follow any church,” Ciel shook her head. “If I had to say, my sister believes in the Church of the Savior Goddess.”
Uris’s mind was momentarily in turmoil.
“Then how did you know I’d come to the church in the Clock Tower District today? I didn’t tell anyone about this. Did you see it in the future too?” Uris pressed, as though grasping at a potential inconsistency.
“I just took a chance. I prayed twice at the entrance, said ‘Goddess bless me’ twice, and then you showed up,” Ciel answered honestly.
Uris shot to her feet, staring toward Ciel in disbelief.
The Goddess guided her here? Could she be the new saintess?!
But then… What would that make the current saintess? Two saintesses in a single church? Unheard of!
Uris felt like her brain was on the verge of short-circuiting.
“Wait… Just give me a moment to think.” Uris began pacing back and forth. When she couldn’t make sense of it, she turned back to Ciel.
“Can you recreate everything you saw in the future—how you ended up at the Hammer Tavern?” Uris asked. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure to keep you safe.”
If they retraced the future as Ciel described and everything matched, including finding identical notebooks on Thomas, then it would prove her account was true.
And if it turned out to be true…
Uris would immediately escort the girl, Ciel, to the Savior Goddess Church in Ansu City and report everything to the Pope and the saintess, leaving the final decision to them.
“Alright.” Ciel nodded, quietly exhaling in relief.
At this point in the simulation, Ciel’s safety was virtually guaranteed. Even if she followed this path in reality, she could survive.
But at the same time, a gnawing worry lingered in her heart.
Would following this path truly benefit her?
Taking this route meant exposing her hand completely to the church.
For now, her enemies were only half-trained transcendent beings and ordinary gang members. But once she entered the church’s upper echelons, the crises she would face would no longer be solvable through simple simulations.
For example, the seemingly amicable Uris in front of her—what if, in reality, Uris decided to kill her after learning of her abilities? With her identity exposed, Ciel couldn’t imagine how she could simulate an escape from Uris.
If possible, the optimal path would be one that required no reliance on others and kept her identity hidden.
Since she still had enough points for another simulation, she decided to follow Uris for now and see if this simulation could reveal a way to grow stronger or uncover a better assassination method.
After finalizing their plans, Uris tucked the two notebooks away, returned the revolver to Ciel, and donned her hood and mask once more, ready to observe Ciel from the shadows.
Ciel, on the other hand, acted as though nothing had happened. With her two stalkers still in tow, she returned home.