Faced with Dorian's questioning, Fors hesitated.
Should she tell her teacher the truth?
But the situation right now was far too complicated.
There was no way to explain it in a sentence or two, and doing so might risk exposing the World's intentions prematurely... And yet not explaining at all wasn't an option either.
Dorian had come here at some risk, out of concern for her. Deceiving him now would be crossing a line.
After turning it over in her mind, Fors finally decided to tell Dorian only part of the truth for now.
"Teacher, it's like this."
She chose her words carefully.
"Ever since you told me last time that Lewis Wien had once betrayed the organization and caused you all great harm, I've been wanting to track him down and get revenge on your behalf. Through my investigation, I found out he's been organizing an underground gathering in Backlund..."
"Give up that idea right now!"
Dorian cut her off the moment he heard this. "I'm touched that you'd think of us, but this is far too dangerous!"
"That man is a Sequence 5!"
No wonder he'd sensed danger closing in on Fors. Lewis was now a Voyager, his Sequence far above hers. This was nothing to trifle with.
"Teacher, I'm not the one who's going to do it."
Fors hurried to explain. "I've already handled this properly, taken care of it."
After all, the one she'd entrusted with the task was none other than Mr. Temperance.
However afraid Fors was of Temperance's terrifying power, she trusted his strength in equal measure.
"You're thinking about this far too simply..." Dorian frowned. "I'd like to know exactly what you mean by 'handled it properly.'"
"Well, that's..."
Fors thought it over. She couldn't very well tell Dorian about the Blood Reverend, but a thought struck her, and she offered an explanation that sounded reasonable enough. "I've already reported Mr. X to the Church of the Evernight Goddess!"
Dorian froze.
"What did you say?"
"That's right, teacher. I reported him to the Church of the Evernight Goddess."
Fors answered. "A friend of mine (meaning Xio) is an informant for the Evernight Church. I asked her to pass the relevant information along to them.
According to my friend, the Evernight Goddess Church took the matter very seriously once they received word. Lewis will be killed before long."
None of what she'd said was a lie. What she left out was that the reason she'd reported it to the Church in the first place was because Temperance had asked her to.
"..."
Dorian's expression turned rather strange. As an underground Beyonder himself, he'd never once considered leveraging official power in this way.
For a moment, Fors's words started to sound rather convincing after all. If the Evernight Church truly acted on it, then even a Sequence 5 like Lewis would find it hard to escape.
But the relief on his face lasted only a moment before tension crept back in.
"No, that's not right."
He shook his head gravely at Fors, who looked somewhat puzzled. "If everything went the way you're describing, and it all went smoothly, then Lewis wouldn't pose any danger to you, and I wouldn't have been able to divine that something was wrong with your situation either."
Which meant something had definitely gone wrong somewhere. The danger looming over Fors's head hadn't dispersed yet!
"Teacher, that..."
Fors was gradually starting to grasp what Dorian was getting at, and a chill spread through her entire body.
What was going on?
Could it be that something had happened to Mr. Temperance...
Fors's mind was in complete disarray, her thoughts impossible to untangle.
"Ugh!"
Just then, she heard her teacher let out a sudden, low gasp of alarm.
She looked up to find Dorian, as though he'd just been scalded by something, pulling a pendant out from inside his collar. The pendant was hideous and malevolent, like a shriveled black skull with curved ram's horns.
At this moment, the two eyes of the grotesque pendant were glowing, burning as fiercely as red-hot coals, some thick, undisguised malice spreading out from within them.
Fors noticed that the moment Dorian caught sight of the pendant's state, his expression changed drastically.
Shhk!
In the next instant, Dorian moved swiftly, drawing an elegantly crafted brass key from his coat pocket.
"Come here, quickly!"
He called out to Fors urgently, extending a hand toward her at the same time, as though the situation had grown too dire to allow for any explanation.
"Okay!"
Fors could clearly see the urgency written across Dorian's face. She hurried forward a step and grabbed hold of the crook of his arm.
The instant her fingertips brushed against Dorian's clothing, the environment around them transformed abruptly, turning into something rich with color, illusory and strange.
Countless blurred, intense blocks of color streaked past them at tremendous speed. They were traveling toward some place impossibly deep and distant.
Are we moving through the spirit realm?
Fors sensed the change in her surroundings and quickly grasped what was happening.
So fast!
Far more powerful than the effect produced by those stones I use!
No wonder, with a family of such deep foundations, her teacher could escape a crisis in an instant even when danger struck... She glanced instinctively at Dorian, who was carrying her through the air, only to find, to her surprise, that his expression showed not the slightest hint of relaxation.
If anything, it had grown even graver.
The situation hadn't improved.
Just then, off to their side, deep within the dense blocks of color, a strange light was rapidly closing in.
The light shone as brilliantly as starlight, tracing an ethereal band of radiance through the mist and color.
"Is that... a door?"
As the light drew nearer, Fors gradually made out its true nature.
It was door after door, illusory and layered one atop another, and behind each door seemed to lie connection to some distant, obscure world.
The light was about to catch up to them.
Whoosh!
Fors felt the world around her shift abruptly. The blocks of color and the gray mist dispersed together, and the scenery of reality descended once more.
A cool, damp breeze blew past, and the sound of flowing water rose up alongside it.
Fors found herself standing on a riverbank, her feet, which had been floating in midair, now settling onto smooth pebbles.
From the look of things, they seemed to have arrived on the outskirts of Backlund, at the edge of the Tassock River's course.
"Teacher, this..."
Fors was about to ask what had happened when she saw Dorian abruptly throw out an arm, shielding her behind him.
And across from the two of them, on the far side of the surging river, someone was smiling in their direction.
It was a man in a black robe, not yet forty, his brown hair curling as stiff as steel wire, his eyes dark and deep, as though holding countless strange and unfathomable things within them.
The moment Fors got a clear look at the man's face, she froze in horror.
She knew this man!
Back then, Dorian had specially shown her portraits of his enemies, to help her stay vigilant. And among those portraits had been this very face!
A Saint of the Aurora Order, Sequence 4 of the Apprentice Pathway, the Saint of Secrets: Botis!
And Dorian, standing in front of Fors, looked even more shaken and furious than she was, his body trembling faintly.
Botis wore a smile as he looked upon an old acquaintance from years past.
"Long time no see."
He said.