"Haunted?"

That... was something coming out of the mouth of a Level 9 class-holder?

If an ordinary person talked about ghosts and spirits, Kanzaki Rei would have found it normal enough.

But Ansu was a master of death.

He had already comprehended reincarnation.

Before someone like him, the very concept of ghosts shouldn’t even exist.

And yet—

At the same time Ansu gave that answer, Kanzaki Rei also sensed the thought in his heart.

An unseen phantom... could there really be a ghost?

...What the hell.

He actually meant there might be a ghost?

Kanzaki Rei had not expected Ansu to genuinely believe something like that.

He turned back toward the spiral entrance.

Yet vaguely—

This really did feel supernatural.

No warning.

No awareness whatsoever.

A figure had simply passed by his side.

If the other party harbored hostility, that would have been one thing.

Perhaps it would have triggered instinctive danger warnings.

Even if instinct failed—

Terminal Perception should have reacted.

But no.

The figure had passed him as casually as a stranger brushing by on the street.

...Better divine it.

Kanzaki Rei frowned slightly and gazed into the destiny of the future.

Within a riot of bizarre and shifting lights—

He saw an image.

He saw himself falling into a massive rift.

Around him, distorted clocks drifted upward endlessly.

The sensation—

Was strangely like riding the Time Machine from Doraemon.

And as for the phantom that had brushed past him—

Kanzaki Rei turned his divination toward it.

But...

The result was blank.

Empty.

The hooded black shadow—

Seen by both him and Ansu—

Was something nonexistent?

So it really was haunted.

He had seen it enter the spiral passage with his own eyes...

What was it trying to do?

Would it interfere with what he planned afterward?

There were too many unknown variables.

Kanzaki Rei gradually hesitated.

For the first time—

He began considering abandoning this Primordial Forbidden Magic outright.

Unknown dangers.

Unknown phantoms.

A place he had to enter in person.

Too many uncertainties.

Even [Future Simulation], the ability he relied on to escape danger—

Was useless here.

From every perspective,

The safety margin had fallen to its absolute lowest.

"...Forget it."

Kanzaki Rei shook his head lightly.

Ansu paused.

"Forget it?"

Kanzaki Rei nodded faintly.

"I’m not going in."

Ansu chuckled.

"Heh. That does sound like something you’d do."

Boom—

Kanzaki Rei moved slightly.

The ground beneath his feet exploded.

And in the next instant—

His figure vanished.

...

When he returned to the city—

Without realizing it, funeral music had already begun playing.

White drifting flakes filled the sky.

A bleak and mournful atmosphere spread through the streets.

"How grand..."

The death of a Level 8 class-holder had earned the highest funeral rites the White Tower could bestow.

As a scholar who had devoted his life to researching the Abyss—

He might have been among those who understood the Abyss best in the entire world.

Back in the city.

Back in the inn with privacy raised to the absolute maximum.

Only then did Kanzaki Rei take out The Book of Answers from his storage pouch.

Truthfully—

At the ruins’ entrance, he had already considered using it.

But... 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

That black shadow had appeared so suddenly.

It made the outside feel too unsafe.

Better to return to the city before handling this.

"The Book of Answers."

"It’s been some years since I last saw one."

"Yog loved using things like this to reward scholars it favored."

"You’d best be careful with that book."

"It isn’t as easy to use as you imagine."

"It can indeed give you the path to an answer..."

"But the process of finding that answer may lure you into a place of eternal ruin."

"Some answers give you a method..."

"But you may not possess the strength to carry out that method."

Listening to Ansu’s warning,

Kanzaki Rei remained calm.

"Yes. I know."

[Question 1: Empty][Path of Search:][Final Answer:]

...

There were three such prompt fields in total.

From Question 1 to Question 3.

Meaning—

Three questions could be asked simultaneously.

Once a question was posed,

The method of finding the answer would be revealed.

And once the answer was obtained—

The final answer itself would appear.

Very much like his own

[God-Tier · My Wish]

There was a quota.

A completed wish was required before freeing a slot.

Questions were limited.

Though—

Through simulation, he could theoretically inspect the search paths of multiple questions at once...

Kanzaki Rei’s thoughts stirred slightly.

And he wrote the question he cared about most into The Book of Answers.

[Question 1: What was the black shadow that brushed past me ten minutes ago?]

He had experimented with this divine artifact before in simulations.

Its main test had been:

How precise did a question need to be?

Did it require exact wording?

Perfect definitions?

Or was a mere thought enough—

As long as he held the intended concept in mind?

After testing,

Kanzaki Rei had concluded:

This divine artifact resembled his talent.

Conceptual intent alone was sufficient.

And after he posed the question—

Dark, abyssal words gradually surfaced across the page.

[Path of Search: Personally enter the Ancient Ruins of Lost Time]

Bzzz—

Not just words.

An image appeared as well.

And the instant he saw it—

Kanzaki Rei recognized it.

It was the very ruins he had just reached.

Meaning—

To uncover the truth of that entity’s existence—

He still had to enter.

Could that have been another version of himself?

His future self, perhaps?

No...

The more he thought about it,

The more absurd it seemed.

Leaving aside whether time could reverse.

Or whether humans could return to the past.

That shadow had merely brushed past him in an instant.

That alone was strange.

If it were truly himself—

He would at least have spoken to himself.

At minimum,

He wouldn’t have passed by like a stranger.

The second question.

At first, Kanzaki Rei wanted to confirm the ruins’ danger.

But thinking it over—

Wouldn’t the answer simply tell him to enter the ruins anyway?

The search path would probably be nothing more than:

Go inside.

Then—

Better ask about that instead.

He wrote the second question.

[Question 2: The method to return the human transformed into the monster Loma back to their original state.]

[Path of Search: Tower of All Sages]

There actually was an answer.

And the final destination—

Was the Tower of All Sages.

The Tower of All Sages...

was the White Tower’s central headquarters.

The same place Yuna was meant to go—

To be trained as a Sage successor.

As for the final question—

Kanzaki Rei did not ask it.

Better to keep one question flexible.

He closed the book and stored it away.

Then looked in the direction where Luluvi and the others had gone.