The Righteous Player(s)

With this, the lingering doubts entangled in Annan’s mind for days were finally released.

Since Annan arrived at Cinder Barren, he vaguely felt that everything that happened was too coincidental.

At first, Annan thought it was the “gravity” of fate.

Just like the previous four mirrors, the encounters were all coincidences. However, everything could be explained if what was waiting for Annan at the end was also a mirror.

However, until the end, Annan didn’t meet Nicholas II… nor did he meet the sixth mirror. He still did not know where it was.

However, if the chain of events was attributed to Tragedy Writer, it could partly explain how it had unfolded.

However…

Is Professor Wolf avoiding me?

It is indeed possible.

If he has no enmity with me and can’t get anything from me, then there is no need for him to be my enemy.

Annan thought to himself.

Annan was fundamentally different from Dmitri, whereby Tragedy Writer paid attention to him.

“Professor Wolf” Frederick had long been terrified by the Tragedy Writer. The deity who once was his admired idol now haunted him relentlessly, regardless of the methods he employed.

Tragedy Writer became interested in Professor Wolf because of his unusual behavior. Like a child intercepting ants everywhere, he was interested in ruining his plan.

Under this pressure, no matter what plans Professor Wolf had next, he would avoid Annan. In addition to avoiding Annan’s direct participation, he even deliberately avoided Annan to prevent indirect involvement of Annan.

In this way, it was good that Professor Wolf got the characteristics of Annan’s thread of fate.

Just like those Idol Wizards who were about to murder a person, if they knew the fate of some prominent figures and famous detectives, they could avoid it. This was much simpler and more direct than the hidden evidence.

Professor Wolf’s problem could be treated as solved for the time being…

At least until his plan had to involve Annan, he would stay far away from Annan.

“I have one more question.”

So Annan raised his head and continued to ask.

“Oh?” The Tragedy Writer in the mirror smiled, “Is there only one question?”

“Let’s go one by one.”

Annan ignored Tragedy Writer’s question and said, “In terms of the Noah Kingdom… Is Prince Philip your believer?”

“This question is worth 40 engravings.”

Tragedy Writer replied leisurely.

Annan narrowed his eyes slightly.

“No matter what I ask you, it’s 40 engravings, right?”

“That’s right.”

Tragedy Writer didn’t hide it and nodded frankly, “The only things you can and must ask me are these three questions.”

“I can tell you the final answer you want, and you don’t have to go beat around the bushes. I will not support Philip to take the throne, and neither will the Cup-holding Lady.”

This answer made Annan slightly relieved.

At least, there would be no danger on Kafni’s side.

Kafni was all alone.

She was unlike Princess Royal, who had the support of the older generation of courtiers and the army. Her situation was different from the Third Prince, Philip, who had many transcenders and ritualists, as well as Tragedy Writer, Rotten Man, and Cup-holding Lady. After the Rotten Man left, he had two deities as backers.

Only the Silver Sire Church supported Kafni.

Silver Sire Church’s support for her was based on her father’s friendliness to Silver Sire Church and Annan.

However, Annan could not interfere much until Kafni gained the advantage “alone”. As the heir of Austere-Winter’s Grand Duke, Annan could not intervene blatantly.

Otherwise, it would be tantamount to handing the dagger pointing at Kafni’s heart into the hands of the other two competitors.

A king might not need to be kind or wise. However, the king would be opposed if the king were an obedient puppet controlled by a foreign country—or even an enemy country.

Without Annan intervening, could the Silver Sire Church alone help Kafni resist the attack of the other two?

Although she had left Noah, Annan was a little worried.

After hearing Tragedy Writer’s promise, Annan could finally breathe a sigh of relief. This showed that the support from the two deities to Philip was not as severe as Annan imagined… At least They couldn’t be regarded as “backers”.

Since Philip couldn’t get the support of the Tragedy Writer, it was difficult for Philip to compete against Kafni based on his capability.

This would at least prevent Kafni from being assassinated.

At least in terms of His authority of conspiracy and murder, Annan was wary of Tragedy Writer.

Tragedy Writer had established himself as a deity after obtaining and gaining complete control over a Book of Truth.

Tragedy Writer, Father Stone, and Marquis Iris should all be regarded as the pinnacle among the deities of the new generation.

They were all deities born in the Thid Age and later.

The history from the second generation onward belonged to occult knowledge. Therefore, no matter how good a mortal historian was, he could only explore from the Third Age at most. If he explored forbidden knowledge further, he would lose his mind.

The boundary of deities began in the Third Age.

To ascend into a deity, two of the factors were [the creation] and [supreme crown].

The candidate must complete the great cause that only he could achieve and reach the absolute “world’s first” in a particular realm.

This meant that all the deities were unparalleled in their history.

Therefore, traces of some deities could be more or less found in the historical records of the Third Age onward. Even though the knowledge about them had been deleted because it involves mystery, stories about them could still be vaguely seen in archives among mortals.

For example, “an elf who had won all the swordsmanship competitions” and “a building designed by an architect who even the Elegant Elder had admired”. A scholar could identify the footprints of the new deity from these scattered records.

As for the deities of the second generation and before, there was no way to find their “before becoming deities” stories.

There were even some ancient deities whose own names had lost their legacy. Just knowing their existence was considered to have acquired occult knowledge. Because of this, they had become forgotten deities…

Unlike the deities of the new generation, they would even be celebrated and known as the protagonists of some dramas and legends.

Tragedy Writer was also a fairly well-known category of deities.

Almost all murderers and conspirators worshipped the Tragedy Writer in secret. Even in some rural places, there was still the custom of “as long as someone is found worshiping the Tragedy Writer, you can determine that he is a murderer”.

Once the latter situation appeared, they would