He soon left the pagoda, disheartened. He was upset he didn’t get to tell her details about it, not that he thought it would have mattered anyways. Mathias didn’t believe that an Ascetic could do anything against an Alchemist.

If an Alchemist did arrive here, the only thing Mathias thought could stop them is another Evangelist or God, this way the festival worked out in favor of the town.

Mathias suddenly stopped this train of thought, after all he didn’t even know if there was an Alchemist in this realm. Walking in the street of the city he put his head against a wooden wall and began to close his eyes.

He thought back to that time in the lunar world, it was darker there, so much darker than here. Julien Watson was an inhuman monster in the form of a person, he had medium length blonde hair and grey eyes.

His face supported perfectly symmetrical facial features. Yet they weren’t the kind you notice immediately, they were the type you realize with time. Kind of like you were playing spot the difference.

Mathias remembered it clearly, it was cold, colder and darker than it usually was. Julien was the only one there, no actually his father was there too, somewhere. 

“My name is Julien Watson-Julien Watson my name is-Name is Julien, Julien Watson-Watson, Julien-They call me Julien-I am known by Watson-Mathias Calypses? Do you know my name?”

It went on repeat like some fractured, broken record. It was the single most horrifying thing I had ever experienced.

His name, I didn’t want to say it. 

Mathias then recalled something breaking, something breaking that should never be broken. Something that couldn’t be broken.

Something around Julien, or maybe even on Julien but as much as he tried, he couldn’t exactly remember what it was.

“What are you doing, are you okay?” A voice broke Mathias out of his recollection.

He opened his eyes to find that it was a little girl in a small red robe looking concerned at him. Observing this situation Mathias decided to put on a smile.

“Yes, I’m okay. If you don’t mind me asking, what are you doing?” He asked her.

“I’m setting up for the festival! It’s only in a week and I have so much to do!” She responded cheerfully.

In that moment her disposition made Mathias extremely happy for some reason, perhaps because it was necessary.

"Are you setting up by yourself?" Mathias asked.

"Of course not sir, I'm just one of the volunteers."

At this Mathias thought that this girl was from a well-off family because of her robe and the fact that she could volunteer for something instead of working.

It reminded him of the time he spent volunteering at the nursing home. 

In a way, this association gave him a foreboding feeling.

A feeling of his time back there, in his home dimension.

"Are you feeling okay, Mrs. Crocus?" Mathias asked.

"Ugh, I don't know young man. My bones are aching more than they normally do, I think I need to spend more time under the moon." She said to him.

Mathias was smiling gently in her presence.

To exprience the miracle... Mathias thought.

"A lot of people dislike me for being from a rich family, that's why I like talking to outsiders." The velvet-dressed girl said.

"Certainly it's just the children." Mathias said.

"Well, I guess that's technically true, but I can tell the mothers hold dark grudges in their hearts." the girl said.

"They always do." Mathias said.

"hmm?" The girl questioned.

Mathias then closed his eyes and laughed softly, "I shouldn't say that. There will be some parents who won't be envious of others. It's best to remember that for if you ever encounter them." Mathias explained.

"Have you ever ecountered one?" 

"Yes." Mathias responded.

"What are they like?"

"They already have, everything."

Mathias Calypses walked into the black-stone cathedral illuminated by the moonlight at the head of the sermon lead his father. 

"The great moon leads us all to her gradient gates." He spoke.

"The great moon leads us all to her gradient gates." The voices echoed after him, clutching their hands.

Mathias then looked through the glass design behind his father and up at the moon, the great Luna.

Looking up he felt a strange pang in his heart.

"What do you wish to become in the future?" Mathias asked the little girl

At this the girl stopped walking and pondered, "I don't know."

"That's fine." Mathias said, "I didn't know that either your age but I did know one thing."

"Know what?" Asked the girl.

"That I felt sick."

In the black-bricked church Mathias Calypses felt disgusted with everything.

The atomsphere, the suffocating moonlight.

The people, the suffocating moonlight.

Their stupidity, the suffocating moonlight.

And their lack of wonder, the suffocating moonlight.

Until the day that he felt free, like he removed the chains he'd been wearing all this time.

"Today we mourn the loss of Alphius Crocus, let her soul be welcomed into her gradient gates."

"Let her soul be welcomed into her gradient gates." A group of voices echoed behind the preacher.

"What do you mean by sick, were you unwell as a child?" The girl asked him.

Mathias laughed, "No, no, no. Nothing like that, I just felt tired with people is all. Seemingly stuck in the same infuriating cycle, time passed yet the scene never changed."

"I didn't know Mrs. Crocus that well but for me, being her caretaker in her last days I can say one thing: That she was my miracle." Mathias spoke aloud.

Mathias Calypses wanted change, he lived for it.

"Do you wish for your life to be more exciting." He asked the girl.

She put her finger to her chin, "Maybe. Yeah, I do. I am pretty bored sometimes." 

Mathias smiled, "I wished to impart words of wisdom upon you but then I realized that I can't. There's no good answer to the inevitable question."

"What's the inevitable question?" she asked Mathias.

"You'll come to it eventually. Inevitable things are like that. If I told you what it was would say that I was wrong and spent an ungodly amount of time trying to prove me wrong and then eventually come to realize that I both right and that I had no idea what I was talking about." Mathias prophezied 

"Sir, you confuses me." The girl said while squinting.

"That's fine if you don't understand. What more do you need help with?" He asked.

"Father says that after we set up all this placers for the stands, I should report back to him and he'll organize and figure out what to do next."

"Alright, let's go to him then." Mathias said

"Okay!" 

She led Mathias to a giant complex and knocked on the plant-based door.