They all call me an Outer God.

Chapter 40 Beware of Rain
"Essentially, this is not a stop in time; you can think of it as a patchwork of spaces."

James reached out and struck the fly with all his might, but the fly didn't budge.

“We can’t influence anything in this space, and I can’t stay here for long, but it’s enough for the conversation.”

As he spoke, he reached into the layers of fat on his belly and pulled out a set of rectangular playing cards. The back of these cards was printed with a top hat made of gears, and Ria remembered that the symbol of the Order Society was a combination of two gears.

There may be some connection between the two organizations, or it's possible that the Keepers of the Secrets deliberately started "plagiarizing" the Order Association to annoy it.

Ria told James her idea, and James mysteriously put his finger up in front of his mask.

"It's the latter."

"Then it's not surprising that they hate us."

"You can't say that. We're fed up with them too. A bunch of idiots trying to spy on the extraordinary every day. They'll probably die without even knowing how they died."

And wouldn't you like to hear a hellish joke about an investigator?

"what?"

"That means if an investigator is hired in the morning and still alive in the afternoon, they are considered a senior investigator."

Hahahahahaha—

While the joke may be an exaggeration, it does demonstrate their terrifyingly high mortality rate; I consider it a miracle that this organization has survived this long.

Lia made no comment on this. From the perspective of their factions, they were enemies, but in some ways, he quite admired the people from the Order Association.

"Enough with the small talk, let's get to the point."

"Look, you're getting impatient again. Although you are my superior in a sense, I always adhere to the principle of equality between people."

James handed all the cards in his hand to Ria and told him not to try to keep them all for himself, because before memes existed, these were just ordinary playing cards.

“Every patient will encounter various ways to access their own memes and obtain their own identity card before death. We don’t know how these cards appear; perhaps they are very extraordinary and mysterious items.”

Interestingly, if we pre-print identities on ordinary playing cards and let those of you who don't yet have memes draw them, those ordinary playing cards will become new mystery items, and the identity drawn will become your first meme.

Compared to patients outside, your advantage is that your playing cards are prettier.

Ria: "..."

"Hehe, Kelcha, you can turn over the front of these ordinary cards to see other memes, and then pay attention to the characteristics of the patients you encounter in the future to guess their identities."

You need to find a way to increase your memes.

Each upgrade in coding adds another identity the patient can portray. Only by portraying all these identities simultaneously can a perfect, risk-free upgrade be guaranteed.

As he spoke, he reached out and helped Ria spread out all the cards in her hand, forming a fan shape, and Ria's pupils contracted slightly.

"These identities..."

Does it look familiar?

"No, I just find these mysterious objects really peculiar. I would believe them without hesitation even if you said they possessed intelligence."

“How do you know they don’t?” James retorted.

"No one knows where they come from or how they appeared. Since they are called 'mysterious,' there's no need to force us to consider their origins, otherwise we'd likely end up getting ourselves killed."

"Those investigators have done this before. A group of people go to the discovery site with mysterious items to explore their origins, and the result is that a team of twenty people is almost completely wiped out. Only the captain comes back as a madman with a crazy grin, and he dies a few days later." James shrugged mockingly, and was about to take back his identity card, but Ria stopped him by holding up her cane.

There are fifteen of these memes.

"What happened to Fifteen?"

"The bishop of the Church of the Rising Sun also said that fifteen is a special number, a whole number favored by God. Do you think this is a coincidence?"

"Don't ask, just shut up. This isn't something we can be thinking about right now."

James tried to suppress Ria's curiosity. He always thought that Ria's behavior of wanting to understand everything she saw and poking at anything she didn't understand with her cane would eventually get her into trouble.

Of course, that was just a metaphor; Ria wouldn't actually do those things.

"In short, don't worry. For the sake of my performance, I will make sure you are discharged perfectly. Contact me again when you find other disorderly individuals or patients. Do not disturb me at other times."

"Do you have anything else to do?"

"Of course, don't let my appearance fool you. I own a bookstore, I love knowledge, and I dream of becoming a professional football player. Everyone has their own things to do, and doctors can't just revolve around patients all day long."

As he spoke, ignoring Ria's disdainful expression, he canceled the time-stopping space, snatched back the identity card, and urged Ria to leave before nightfall, seemingly more anxious than Ria herself.

"When it rains outside, remember to find a place to shelter from the rain. When you miss me, you can write a letter and put it in your little pet's mouth, and while you're at it, put a lit match in. I will write back to you."

"I will pay attention."

Lia found it very funny and turned around to take the reins of the gray mule.

"If you really love football, I look forward to the day you win an international title representing Enderl. Of course, not being treated like a ball is already the greatest victory."

“That joke isn’t funny, Kelcha.”

"I find it funny."

"Just laugh it off. Now let's go. Remember my advice: seek shelter when it starts to rain."

"clear."

After saying this, Ria led the livestock she had bought out of the north gate of Winstown. Before her eyes lay a desolate plain and a mountain range that could be faintly seen at the end.

"That's the Gekkoso Mountains..."

He looked back and saw that the plaque with the word "Wind" on the gate of Wind was old and worn, and the words were blurred by wind and sun.

Closest to the door, Dr. Birdbeak was waving goodbye to him; from this distance, his size truly resembled a giant soccer ball.

I don't know where he came up with that lie that he dared to say he wanted to become a football player.

"Things won't be peaceful from now on."

Feeling the moisture in the air, Ria bid farewell to Winstown and officially set off north with the mules.

The journey was incredibly boring, and little Swarth couldn't resist crawling out of his body, lazily lying on the mule's back, looking for an opportunity to bite it to death.

With nothing else to do, Ria placed her hat on its head and demanded that it stay in that position and not let the hat fall off.

(End of this chapter)