Every step towards the Lostfon throne room increased the pressure that was pressing down on Claud’s Will of Solitude, which was working wonders in making sure that the intangible powers slid past them without drawing any notice whatsoever. If Claud had any doubt that his Will of Solitude was fallible, these doubts were rapidly vanishing.

  “We don’t even need to tiptoe, huh.” Claud rubbed his nose, before grimacing again. While the pressure that two higher existences were exerting was slipping past the two of them, both Claud and Lily were still feeling the force behind those things, somehow. It wasn’t even tangible, and even if it was, Claud knew that it felt like soup, but…

  “As expected of the Thief of Time!” Lily hummed. “Still, the pressure that the Dark is giving off, just by approaching their dwelling place, is insane. It far overshadows the Goddess of Hope’s corpse.”

  “I mean, it is a corpse, after all. And divine power was leaking for millennia,” Claud replied. “I’m more surprised that the Dark’s presence isn’t obviously superior to the one on the Black God’s ascension platform. I thought it would be, since the Dark and the Moons are existences that predate the Coloured Gods.”

  “Right?”

  The two of them stopped at the throne room. The doors to the throne room had been opened, saving them the need to push it themselves and risk detection that way. However, there was a sphere of shadow inside, preventing Claud and Lily from seeing into the room itself.

  “Now what?” Lily asked.

  “Hmm. That’s troublesome.” Claud narrowed his eyes. “Is it worth the risk, or should we wait for Greater Half to leave?”

  “It’s not worth the risk,” Lily replied.

  “In that case, we’ll need to do some tests,” Claud replied. “Hold on to me, Lily.”

  Lily promptly took his arm.

  “Okay.” Claud drew the path between their current location to the palace entrance in his mind over and over again until he memorised it, and then nodded firmly. “We’ll get to the entrance at the highest speed possible, and then back. Once I get used to it, we’ll expand the range to the palace gates. My goal is to be capable of arriving here at near-instantly.”

  Lily blinked a few times, and then pondered. “…I kinda get it, but the notion is odd. We’re blatantly practicing the fastest route here in front of the divinities, you know. I can’t help but feel that this goes against our infiltration thus far.”

  “Our infiltration was odd to begin with, so what’s the problem?” Claud asked. “Don’t worry about it. They won’t notice us.”

  He paused. “Probably.”

  “How dubious…but let’s take it slow, alright?” Lil asked. “We’ll do a few practice runs on a slower speed first.”

  “Got it.” Claud grabbed the little meeplings, who were bouncing around on Lily’s hair, and then popped them in his pockets. “Stay there and don’t run out.”

  “Meep!” His pocket jiggled.

  “Excellent.” Claud narrowed his eyes, ran through the entire route mentally once more, and then nodded. “In that case, I’m going to start in three seconds. Three, two, one…”

  The world blurred around him, a phenomenon that Claud sought to remedy by channelling mana around his eyes. The mess of pillars and walls returned to normal, and time seemed to slow as he, holding on to Lily, charged right out of the palace. It wasn’t a matter of running, though; he was literally just floating out of the palace at record speed, ferried by his Will of Freedom.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  By the time he reacted to the sight of the open palace doors, Claud and Lily were at the gardens around it.

  “Done.” Claud looked at Lily, and then squished her cheeks. “You alright?”

  “…I thought I would feel dizzy or something from moving so fast,” Lily replied. “But the only thing that made me dizzy was just seeing the world turn into a blur. But it seems that even that doesn’t affect you. How did you do that?”

  While Claud explained his means of regaining his vision, which could probably be expanded to deal with other, vision-related issues, he looked around and checked the area around him. As expected, no one had noticed the few seconds in which he had brought Lily from the throne room to the Lostfon garden. It was impressive, but again, his skills were bordering on the realm of the illogical and the sublime.

  The Will skills were perfectly capable of contending with the Absolute skills for the throne of supremacy, by Claud’s estimation. If divine power was the dictation of reality in accordance with one’s desires, the Will skills were very, very close to that. They were versatile and contingent upon one’s desires.

  In contrast, from what Claud had seen, the Absolute skills were narrow and restrictive. Their functions were spelt out neatly, and were — generally, anyway — specific in their application.

  His explanation ceased as something seemed to bubble right underneath the surface of his thoughts. It was something related to the nature of the Coloured Gods, and that the other divinities, but before he could fish it out, that little realisation had vanished.

  “Claud?”

  “Sorry.” He frowned. “I just thought of something, but that thought just…vanished. Damn it. I can’t fish it back out either.”

  Before his fists could ball up, soft fingers intertwined with his, and Lily’s gentle smile appeared in his vision. The irritation in him vanished, and he let out a sigh.

  “No need to sigh,” Lily replied. “It’s alright. It’ll come back in time…I think. And if it doesn’t, it just means that you wouldn’t have been able to fish out this thought anyway, so don’t be frustrated at yourself.”

  “…Yeah.” Claud smiled. “It’ll come when it comes, right?”

  “Exactly.” Lily looked around. “Still, we got here in a heartbeat or two. It’s a bit unbelievable, if I had to be honest. Are we going to dash right back in like that?”

  “Yeap.” Claud paused. “A few times, to be honest. I want to be assured that in the moment Greater Half is forced to leave, I can break into the throne room with you, exchange some important words with her younger brother, and figure out what to do from there on.”

  He looked at his trembling hands, and then grimaced again. “I might just be insane, if I have to be honest. And I’m definitely scared. We’re literally screwing around in hostile territory, and we’re planning to try to plan our next moves when one of the world’s strongest existences has to intervene on the battlefield.”

  “Try to plan…”

  “I mean, that’s what we’re doing. We’re going to talk to Lesser Half and then figure out what to do from there,” Claud replied. “And…well, it’s going to be dangerous. I might not be able to break the prison Lesser Half is in. And…I might not want to use that to break his prison either.”

  “…Yeah.” Lily made a face. “He’s not going to like who you are, right?”

  Claud nodded. “I’ll probably keep it under wraps. From everyone else.”

  He didn’t place any particular inflection on these words, but he could see Lily understand his words. He didn’t say it outright, but Claud wasn’t going to tell the others about his identity. Dia could be open with her identity as the Salvation Star, but Claud couldn’t afford to do that. It would only invite calamity on the two of them and bring forth another disaster.

  Lily made a pained smile at him, and then lowered her head. “I feel a bit bad.”

  “Me too.” Claud shook his head. “But let’s not mope over things like this right now. We still have practice runs to do over and over again. After that, we can get some grub, I suppose?”

  “Practice runs…how many are we going to do?” Lily asked. “It’s not fun to be whizzing around at such mind-boggling speeds, and I don’t think you liked the experience either.”

  “Until I feel comfortable. It shouldn’t take too long. My reaction speed is insane, and I’m moving under the influence of Will of Freedom. It’s not that tough, to be honest. I won’t need to do this too many times,” Claud replied.

  “Alrighty, then.” Lily’s eyes twinkled. “Let’s get this over and done with first, in that case!”

  Claud held her close. “As you wish!”

  He gathered mana around his eyes again, and then decided to spread it throughout his body. It was also a good time to push the limits of his mana circuits, all things considered, and if anything bad happened, he would at least be in a good position to respond.

  “Ready?” Lily asked. “Right, I’m thinking of having some meatball soup. I spotted some in Grandia earlier.”

  “We’re really going to be travelling back and forth across territories now, huh.” Claud shrugged. “Might be a bit troublesome, but if you want to, I don’t mind. Still, meatball soup, huh.”

  “What’s wrong with meatball soup?”

  “I’m just a little hungry now, that’s all,” Claud replied. “Damn.”

  “Better get this done quick, then!”