Nairn's voice was as calm as ever, as simple as if he were answering "how's the weather today."
Klein opened his mouth, but found he couldn't ask anything more.
Because he felt that he had already received the answer.
Although he couldn't fully understand that answer, he knew it was one he could trust.
He gave Nairn a deep look, turned around, pulled open the door, and stepped into the slightly cool night of Tingen City.
The door closed softly behind him.
Klein stood on the deserted street. The night breeze blew past, clearing much of his muddled mind.
He looked up at the crimson Moon in the night sky, his mind still filled with Nairn's final silhouette where light and shadow intertwined.
Everything that happened tonight felt like a bizarre dream.
But he knew that from tonight onward, something had changed completely.
The next day.
Klein sat on the familiar sofa, pinching a coin in his hand, yet unable to calm his mind no matter what.
Nairn sat opposite him, leisurely sipping black tea, as if the man who declared he would change the world last night was merely a dream of Klein's.
"Hainas Vansant, a member of the Aurora Order." Hearing the intelligence Nairn spoke, the coin in Klein's hand fell to the ground with a 'clack.'
He jerked his head up, his eyes full of astonishment.
Hainas Vansant? That man in the Divination Club who was always polite, even a bit dull?
A terrorist?
The impact of this word was far more direct and violent than terms like Beyonder or cultist.
That was the Aurora Order! A group of Lunatics who worshipped the True Creator, a pack of fanatics who wouldn't hesitate to create bloodbaths and chaos everywhere to welcome the descent of their 'Lord'!
"You—" Klein opened his mouth, for a moment not knowing what to say.
Report him to the Nighthawks? But where was the evidence? A single sentence from Nairn clearly couldn't serve as proof. Moreover, Hanas had never shown any abnormalities at the club.
"I'll give you another task."
"What task?"
Klein understood Nairn's meaning—Nairn wanted to deal with this Aurora Order believer himself.
Then he would leave it to Nairn.
After all, besides Triss and Audrey, Klein was likely the person who trusted Nairn most in this world.
"Go directly and find that notebook from the The Faceless."
Nairn actually had little interest in capturing an Aurora Order member; if he wanted to wipe out the organization, he could just report them.
He was just curious about one thing.
The Aurora Order, an organization known for madness and chaos, was mostly comprised of fanatics with broken sanity.
Why could Hainas Vansant maintain relative sanity and normal social interactions in a den of Lunatics like the Aurora Order?
However, the moment Nairn saw that man through the window, he suddenly felt that there was a certain self-evident logic to it.
He looked too ordinary.
That face, if thrown into a crowd, would be completely forgotten in three seconds, with no memorable features whatsoever.
Nairn touched his own face.
If he joined the Aurora Order with this face, he would probably need to truly worry about whether he'd be specifically 'cared for' by the True Creator in the next second, being gifted a 'Divine Grace Package' on the spot and having his Sanity value drop to zero.
From this perspective, looking ordinary was indeed a powerful form of protection.
But ultimately, Hainas Vansant was indeed a rare specimen.
An Aurora Order member who could blend into normal society.
Still, he had to investigate what needed investigating.
After all, even if just as 'executive personnel.'
The [Rebirth] group was still too short-handed right now.
And recruiting people wasn't as simple as picking someone up off the street. Loyalty, combat power, and execution capability—none could be lacking.
Where could he find such talent?
Nairn's gaze involuntarily drifted toward those terrorists whose brains were generally not quite right, but who were as fanatical as holy Warriors.
The Aurora Order.
These people, though currently crazed, would recover quite a bit of their wits later on after Adam ascended to the throne of the Creator.
Did that mean—they could be put to good use?
Though the sins they carried could not be washed away, did Nairn care?
When had he ever said he was a good person?
Heh.
At most, he could be considered a peerless great villain with style and aesthetic pursuits.
Even if the True Creator was still in the Forsaken Land of the Gods and he couldn't penetrate that far,
and couldn't 'use the big Lunatic to command the little Lunatics,'
it was still a good time to lay out the board in advance.
His mind made up, Nairn set off and walked straight toward Hanas.
[Deception]!
The core ability obtained after promoting to "thousand faces" quietly activated. Nairn didn't directly distort reality; instead, through this Authority, he simulated a hint of the charm of the sequence 7 [Lie] from the "Magician."
This wasn't a true [Lie], but a downgraded version of [Disguise].
It couldn't fabricate facts out of thin air, but it could distort and splice existing information, making a complete piece of nonsense sound like a long-lost truth.
Nairn walked up to Hanas, his face wearing the surprise and familiarity of a reunion, and spoke warmly in a moderate voice: "Long live the Aurora Order!"
Hanas's body jerked stiffly, and the commercial smile on his face froze instantly.
He turned his head warily, looking at this suddenly appearing handsome young man, his eyes full of shock, doubt, and scrutiny.
However, before he could open his mouth to question, Nairn had already grabbed his hand, shaking it vigorously, the "sincerity" in his eyes almost overflowing.
"Don't you recognize me?"
Hanas furrowed his brows, trying hard to search his memory for this excessively outstanding face.
Nothing, absolutely no impression.
Just as he was about to pull his hand away and scold him, Nairn's next words were like a bolt of lightning, striking directly into his mind.
"When we were little, you were at your house, I was at my house, I played mine, and you played yours!"
"See. Isn't our relationship very close?"
"..."
"..."
Hanas was completely stunned.
What the hell?
You at your house, me at mine? You play yours? I play mine?
What kind of relationship is that?
If any normal person heard this logically nonsensical sentence, their first reaction would be "what the hell" or "I've met a scammer."
But at this moment, under the suppression of Nairn's demigod-level aura and bolstered by the charm of the [Lie] simulated by [Deception], this absurd sentence seemed to possess an unquestionable magic.
In Hanas's mind, a blurry childhood memory actually seemed to emerge.
On a sunny afternoon, he stood by his window, and in the window of another house in the distance, there seemed to be a blurry figure—
The memory was forged, but the emotion was real.
An inexplicable sense of closeness and trust instantly broke through all his psychological defenses.
The handsome young man before him wasn't a scammer, not an enemy—
He was a long-lost dear friend! A high-ranking comrade!
"It's actually you!" Hanas gripped Nairn's hand back, his voice trembling with excitement, "All these years, you—"
"It's a long story, a long story." Nairn took the opportunity to pat his shoulder, pulling him to a secluded spot nearby, and asked familiarly, "Never mind me, but you, old brother, I've always been curious, why did you choose to join us back then?"
This word "us" completely made Hanas drop his last shred of wariness.
He gave a bitter smile, his eyes revealing a sense of vicissitude and loneliness completely different from his respectable appearance.
"Sigh, don't look at me all glamorous like this, it's hard to imagine, right?"
Hanas's voice lowered, as if falling into a distant memory.
"Before I encountered the radiance of the 'Lord,' I was actually... just a drifter."
"It was a night with freezing rain, right here in Tingen. I was lying in a corner of Iron Cross Lower Street, cold and hungry, with a high fever, feeling like I was about to die."