The next morning.
Bernadette sat in the bedroom, the few pages of notes she'd written pressed in her hand, watching the clock on the wall tick toward eight.
When it did, her mind went briefly dark.
The next moment, their souls crossed back — each returning to its own body.
Vincent found himself looking at the familiar room. The familiar weakness settled back in.
"Back again," he murmured.
He glanced around. No sign of the mess that had greeted him last time. Some of the tension left his shoulders. Whatever Bernadette got up to this time around, at least she didn't wreck the place.
He looked down at the two pages in his hand, covered in English words, and was mildly puzzled — why hadn't she used the video camera? Then he read the first line on the page, written in enormous letters:
"You forgot to tell me how to charge the video camera!"
Vincent blinked.
He realised, in fact, that he really had forgotten to mention it.
The video cameras of this era couldn't be charged directly — they ran on replaceable batteries. And when he'd been going through the appliances and teaching Bernadette how to use them, it simply hadn't occurred to him to bring up the batteries.
"Although — she already knows the word 'charge.' That's a remarkable rate of progress."
Sequence 3 is Sequence 3, all right.
He set the camera aside, found the tape inside it, took it to the sitting room, slotted it into the player, and switched on the television.
After a moment of black screen, the image lurched to life — a shaky view of the television itself. Then the camera began to swing and turn, moving through the flat, taking in the rest of the sitting room, and then beyond.
This first section appeared to be Bernadette familiarising herself with the camera. She filmed every room — including the bathroom — and then took it to the window and pointed it at the street outside.
Then the screen cut to black. When it came back, the lens was pointed directly at Vincent's own face — or rather, Bernadette's face. She stared into the camera for a few seconds and said: "I'm going to have a look outside."
She turned the camera to face the door, opened it, filmed the hallway briefly, then went out. She walked around the building, filming as she went, and eventually crossed to the other side of the road, pointed the lens back at the flat, and said: "A Muggle-Repelling Charm prevents ordinary people from perceiving the protected building. But if an ordinary person records it on camera and plays the footage back afterwards — can they see the building then?"
Vincent paused. He genuinely hadn't thought of that.
Bernadette continued: "And if the Muggle-Repelling Charm compels ordinary people to unconsciously avoid pointing a camera at the building — what happens if a wizard films it, and then shows the footage to an ordinary person?"
She'd taken it one step further than he had.
Snap. The screen went dark again.
When it came back on for the third time, the camera was pointing at the bedroom — at the bed. Bernadette stepped into frame and sat down. Her expression was flat and composed. "Good evening, Vincent Moriarty. I hope that in the other world these past three days, you stayed in the castle, observed those 'unreasonable' rules of mine…"
Watching a woman controlling what was technically his own face, speaking directly to him, Vincent felt something quietly surreal about it: the face was his — but the eyes, the gestures, the whole manner of moving and speaking were clearly someone else entirely.
Speaking of which — this is only a week in, and her English is this fluent already?
Her learning ability is really…
Well. He'd already thought that.
Staying in the castle — yes, I managed that. Surrounded on all sides by open sea, it's not as though I could have gone very far. The "unreasonable" rules — yes, I kept to those too. No bathing, no changing, remembered to dry off after using the toilet…
But Cattleya showing up without warning was entirely beyond my control.
The interlocking puzzle spontaneously coming apart was not my fault.
Accidentally touching the compass and getting pulled into the faded room and then the Sefirot — that's not on me either.
As for having joined a certain deity-organisation under the banner of the Fate Pact… Ahem. You're welcome.
On screen, Bernadette was still talking:
"During these seven days, I never once… well. I'll be honest. I did go out for a brief walk. Just the once. The rest of the time was spent studying your language…"
What followed was a meticulous, hour-by-hour account of the past seven days — delivered with the exact energy of an employee forced to file a daily report for every shift. Wake, wash, eat, study, rest, walk, eat, wash, sleep…
Vincent watched for a while, then muttered: "You didn't need to go into quite this much detail."
"…The above constitutes my experience over the past seven days. Based on which, I would like to request—"
The screen went blank. It did not come back.
She'd run out of battery right at that moment.
Vincent turned back to the notes. The enormous opening line was still there: "You forgot to tell me how to charge the video camera!"
The force of the handwriting practically went through the paper. He could picture exactly how irritated she'd been — she had talked through all that careful preamble specifically to lead up to what came next, and the camera had died at the critical moment.
"Can't blame me for that. Who told you to use up half the battery filming things that didn't matter?"
He muttered and kept reading.
"As you can probably tell, my command of English is now sufficient for ordinary conversation. Continuing to stay inside the flat for the next exchange would serve no real purpose.
I would like to go out — to see more of your world, and understand it better. I can promise that nothing like what happened during the first exchange will occur again, and I won't stray too far.
Second: I want to learn about the extraordinary abilities of your world in greater depth and detail. In plain terms — I want to start studying magic from the beginning. This is for the safety of both of us. I trust your world is not entirely without danger.
Third: I hope that as we go forward, I can gradually begin meeting and engaging with people here — even making friends, if the opportunity arises. It will help me integrate more naturally.
Finally: for the next exchange, please prepare more variety in the food you leave for me. Seven straight days of roast meat and roast chicken was excessive. And — I would appreciate being left some money. I believe I am capable of feeding myself."
That was the end of Bernadette's message.
Aside from the food, all of it was within Vincent's expectations — though he'd assumed these requests would come in the next exchange, or the one after. Her progress with English had far outstripped what he'd anticipated.
He considered his own situation by comparison. Considerably slower — though to be fair, he had spent half these days working through the Hermit's abilities and studying the faded room.
"You had three days on your side, I had seven on mine. You're a clairvoyant of Sequence 3. I was a small-town student who spent his past life buried in practice papers. And somehow, you've managed to grind me completely into the dirt on the one thing I was supposed to be good at. That's a little uncomfortable, if I'm honest."
Vincent clicked his tongue with mild indignation, and felt an unexpected flicker of competitive spirit. At everything else — fair enough. But when it comes to grinding? Just wait.
"Hm?"
He sniffed. A faint, clean scent was drifting toward him. From himself, as it turned out.
"She's marinated this body in shower gel."
And here's the thing: she left me a rule saying I couldn't use her body to bathe. Yet she's been freely doing exactly that with mine. A slight inconsistency, wouldn't you say?
Your Mysterious Majesty.
Lord of the Mysteries world — Emerald City.
The moment Bernadette swapped back, she ran a quick check — clothes, body. The outfit was the same one she'd been wearing before the exchange, trouser legs and sleeves darkened with grime. Almost certainly unwashed.
She lifted the collar and sniffed. A faint sourness reached her. Her mind relaxed somewhat — but her brow drew together slightly. "Is this how it has to be every time?"
Being alone in Emerald City was one thing. But in future, when she was among others — the Queen of Mystics, carrying a vague smell of sweat at all times — that might be… somewhat undignified.
Though then again, when she imagined a man operating her body in the bath, fingers moving across her own skin…
To be continued…