My happy thoughts abruptly ended when Auntie and Uncle came back.
"Revelon… Gem…"
Uncle pulled the two of us in his arms. His strong frame that I had grown used to relying on was shaking.
Auntie went around and hugged us from behind. The way they acted made me uneasy.
At this distance, I could practically see the stubby hair on Uncle's chin and moustache. He was a middle-aged man with a strict yet kind look on his face. One could say he was handsome and others could say he was average, and they would both be correct.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Yeah. Why are you two hugging us all of a sudden?" Gem chirped.
"Should we tell them?" Uncle asked Auntie.
"Kids, let's sit down on the table. Make sure you prepare yourself. What we are about to say are real and gory, okay?" Auntie tried her best to sound authoritative, but I could sense the unease she felt.
The four of us hurriedly sat on our chairs on the rectangular wooden dining table.
I gulped a mouthful and eagerly waited for Auntie to continue her words. Uncle watched beside her with silence. The heavy atmosphere made me forget about the weird things that had been happening to me.
"The mayor is dead."
Gem and I glanced at each other. The both of us could see the confusion in the other. There was nothing scary about that. No one in the town liked the mayor anyway.
Despite so, the way she told us about it made me uneasy.
"I know what the two of you are thinking, but he died a horrible death. According to a single witness, a group of people barged into his mansion and killed everyone."
Auntie paused, staring at us. She gave us time to breathe as we processed the gruesome image in our minds.
"They kidnapped five people who are missing. We don't know what they are going to do to those people…"
Auntie's eyes turned distant as she stared out the window.
"The current situation is terrifying. We don't know if they're here to terrorize the town." Uncle continued in Auntie's stead.
Perhaps because we couldn't see the gruesome deaths of those people, I felt nothing but a little unease.
"Uncle, what does this mean for us?" I asked.
"Hopefully the capital can send someone."
Auntie and Uncle refused to elaborate any further.
The Capital was where the King of the Kingdom lives. According to sayings, people from the Capital could soar the skies and wield supernatural magic.
- - -
That day, they kept the both of us inside the house at all times. Gem and I could only watch them work the farm from the window.
Mimi walked onto my lap as I sat on the brick windowsill.
"Do you think they're going to send a flying person from the capital?" Gem asked.
"I hope so."
The both of us had a fascination for flight. We could already imagine how beautiful the sunset would be high above the clouds.
"Oh, look. Father is feeding Moomoo!" Gem pointed in front of our barn in the distance. Uncle held a handful of hay in his hand and fed one of our cows, Moomoo.
"Aren't you supposed to be the one feeding her today?"
"Geez. I will feed her tomorrow, okay?" Gem retorted, playfully sticking out her tongue.
At that time, I thought we would return to our normal life tomorrow. I was so wrong.
When night fell, I felt an odd feeling of uneasiness. The moon hung right outside my window and cast a shadow on my bed. I was about to sleep but I couldn't.
I thought I saw my shadow squirming like smoke.
"What is going on with me?" I grasped my chest and closed my eyes. Something took away my consciousness from me.
< o >
A few minutes of silence later, a whisper echoed in the room.
"Presence Substitution."
Revelon's shadow on the bed vanished. He was still there, but he was nothing but a shell of a person.
The shadow reformed on top of the tiled roof and revealed Revelon with dark, red pupils.
"The merge is proceeding slower than I expected," Revelon muttered, his voice cold.
"Sir Revelon, I have been waiting."
Aleia, dressed in her signature black, stepped out of the night air as if she were woven from it.
"Mm." Revelon nodded. "My false cover is merging with me as planned, but the resistance is... annoying."
"Shall I assist you?"
"No. We cannot force this magic. It's beyond our means right now. I was told it would take at most a week, but it doesn't seem accurate by a large margin."
Revelon furrowed his brows. The speed of the merge suggested that it would take significantly longer than a week.
"Is it not because your cover is quite the innocent fellow?" Aleia whispered. She gazed at Revelon with fanatic devotion.
"..."
Revelon gave no answer. He stared at the moon, seemingly lost in thought. Minutes passed with nothing but the sound of wind and bugs in the air.
"Sir Revelon, do you think the moon is beautiful?" Aleia asked, trying to stir the still atmosphere.
"The moon?"
As if waken up from his reverie, Revelon frowned.
"Yes. Had you not been staring at it?"
"Was I? Anyways, let's meet the others." Revelon casually brushed Aleia's words. The moon was to be taken advantage of and not to be viewed. There was only one thing he focused on and that was completing his mission.
- - -
In an abandoned area in the woods of Westlin Town, a group of twenty black figures surrounded five men with their hands tied behind their backs. The sacks over their heads had long been removed.
These were the five survivors from the mayor's estate. But they were no longer the arrogant elite agents they had been yesterday. Their eyes were filled with despair.
"Please, let me live. I have a family…" the one on the farthest to the right implored.
He looked like the type who usually acted tough, but now stripped of his weapons and dignity, he was reduced to tears and snot.
Revelon and Aleia arrived at the same time. They appeared from the shadows. The only light here was the moon's, and it casted an ominous darkness in the direction of the pleading man.
"Kill him," Revelon ordered.
Thwack. Thwack. Crack. Pluesh.
Blades flew through the air instantly. One struck the back of the man's head, another pierced his eye socket, a third shattered his spine, and the last tore through his heart.
The attacks came from different directions and from different people among the twenty shadows. One of them came from right beside Revelon.
Neither of them expected the other to attack, and they were all looking at each other in surprise.
"Well, well. Aren't we all lively?" Aleia uttered. She grinned, scaring the rest of the group to take several steps back.
With graceful and well-placed steps, Aleia arrived in front of the man's corpse and pulled the blade that pierced his eye socket. As she did so, she casually glanced at the four men beside her.
They trembled and shook their heads vehemently.
"What, are you all pleading, too?"
"No, no, no! We aren't pleading at all!"
"Yesn't!"
"I have a family but I want to die with dignity!"
"I never liked that guy!"
All of them spat out words in desperation. The last thing they wanted was to be misunderstood.
"Great. I have a proposition to you all," Aleia continued, smiling widely, despite her mouth hidden behind a black veil.