"Sis… did you hear anything?"
Because of where she had been standing, Loughshinny had barely caught any useful information at all. So she turned toward Eblana with a curious look—only to find her sister wearing an expression tangled with shock, disbelief, incomprehension, and a dozen other emotions all at once.
She had never seen Eblana look like that before.
"Sis…?"
"What… happened in there?"
Her younger sister's quiet question pulled Eblana out of her daze. She turned to look at Loughshinny's puzzled face and parted her lips, as though she wanted to say something—but at that moment, her throat seemed utterly incapable of producing words that could describe what she was feeling.
Before the silence could settle completely, Eblana only pursed her lips, bit down lightly on them, then took Loughshinny by the hand and fled the place at almost panicked speed, hurrying back toward the place they now called home before Zuo Jian could finish his conversation and come out.
All the way back, no matter how many times Loughshinny asked, Eblana only kept repeating the same quiet words.
"It was nothing."
But those words—were they meant for her sister, or for herself?
No one knew but Eblana.
As for Zuo Jian, who was still inside speaking with the stranger, he only relaxed a little when the prickling sensation of being watched from behind finally disappeared.
In truth, not long after leaving home, he had already begun to suspect that someone was tailing him.
By now, all signs pointed to one unmistakable fact:
The matter of his taking in Eblana and Loughshinny—and the bloodline the two girls carried—had already been noticed by people with ulterior motives.
The sudden increase in eyes on the three of them over the past few days was proof enough.
And after what had happened with the thug he had sent to jail not long ago, Zuo Jian understood something even more clearly.
His enemies remained hidden in the dark, while he and the girls stood fully exposed in the light.
He had no way of knowing whether the eyes watching them belonged to ignorant onlookers, local hoodlums lured by bounty money, or genuine experts already dispatched by powerful nobles.
So for Zuo Jian, the best strategy at the moment was simple:
Run.
Get out of Victoria. Get to somewhere the local aristocrats of Victoria could not easily reach.
Only then could Eblana and Loughshinny truly live the kind of life ordinary children were meant to have.
To that end, almost the very night he arrived at this realization, Zuo Jian began making preparations.
First of all, under so much surveillance, he judged that sneaking out of Victoria with the two girls unnoticed was practically impossible.
In that case, he might as well make the commotion bigger.
So he openly let it be known that he intended to take the two children abroad. He even went so far as to sell the family estate at a loss in exchange for a large sum of cash on short notice. At the same time, he deliberately involved the black-market broker before him, turning them into part of his smokescreen.
"By the way, once the estate is sold, I'd like to ask your organization to help me acquire a residence in another country. Would that be possible…?"
"Rest assured," the broker replied with a grin. "We may not be the most legitimate institution, but our business network is very broad indeed. Which country were you hoping to settle in?"
Zuo Jian smiled easily and answered in a casual tone,
"Columbia."
With that, every piece of smoke and misdirection he had prepared was in place.
To outside observers, the picture would be straightforward: a man named Zuo Jian Lefort, frightened by the people watching him, hastily selling off his ancestral home at an absurdly low price so he could flee to Columbia with his two children.
If his guess was correct, his enemies would most likely choose to strike on the day of departure—when they boarded the steam train.
But what they would never suspect was that this had all been nothing more than a carefully arranged deception.
On the appointed day, he really would buy three tickets.
That did not mean the three of them intended to board.
Thinking this through, Zuo Jian left the broker's office and headed straight to a bank.
At the self-service ATM, the screen loaded for a moment before displaying a balance so large it almost looked absurd.
He had opened this account earlier, through an international bank.
As for where all the money had come from…
Did he remember that time he and Eblana went down into the Lefort family's underground chambers to "borrow" a little money from the ancestors?
The valuables she had brought back up had not been limited to a few rings.
The very next day, she had handed all of it over to him, saying she had no interest in any of it. No matter what, though, Zuo Jian had only rubbed her head and told her with a smile,
"You'll understand their value later."
And so, before their movements could be fully exposed, Zuo Jian had moved as quickly as possible—selling the jewelry and valuables to pawnshops in exchange for large amounts of cash, then coming here to open a fresh account with this international bank.
In Eblana's name.
Because beyond the dangers posed by the forces targeting the girls, there was an even more important issue he still had to face.
He opened the simulation panel and looked at the progress bar that governed the entire scenario:
Affection.
Zuo Jian understood one thing very clearly: once that bar filled to the end, the simulation would be over.
And he would leave them forever.
Given how quickly the progress had already risen to forty-nine percent over the course of their time together, it was obvious that the simulation would not last much longer—
Just as that thought formed, the system suddenly emitted a bright, almost cheerful notification tone.
[Affection has increased by 11%. Current affection progress: 60%]
[New item selection will unlock within one hour. Please note…]
"Damn."
There was no joy in Zuo Jian's eyes as he stared at the abrupt increase.
He knew his time had grown even shorter.
He had to hurry.
Faster. Faster.
He did not have much time left to stay by their side.
With that thought in mind, Zuo Jian's brow tightened, and he unconsciously quickened his pace.
In the underground infirmary of the Lefort estate, Gray sat with narrowed eyes, the words Zuo Jian had spoken to her that morning still echoing through her mind.
"If this continues, you'll die."
"You need to leave your old way of life behind. Stop using your Originium Arts."
"Maybe you should try a completely different way of living."
At the thought, gloom swept across Gray's face, and she let out a cold, contemptuous laugh.
"Hah. As if. Who the hell knows my body better than I do? I'm not some fragile Feline."
With that, she lowered her head and, out of long habit, began invoking her Originium Arts—feeling the familiar structure of the spell building within her, just as it had countless times before.
Just as—
"Urgh—!"
Halfway through, a pain unlike anything she had ever felt exploded from her chest and spread through her entire body.
Even for someone like her, a mercenary who had endured all manner of injuries, this was agony beyond anything she had known. She dropped to her knees instinctively.
Then her pupils contracted sharply.
Her throat convulsed.
"Blaaagh—!"
She opened her mouth, and black blood poured out.
It felt as though every mouthful were mixed with innumerable razor blades; each time it passed through her throat, the pain worsened.
Several minutes later, Gray finally forced herself back upright. Staring at the pools of blood staining the floor, she muttered in a trembling voice,
"No way… I fought like hell to get out of that damned place called Kazdel. How the hell am I supposed to die for a reason like this?"
She sounded almost like she was hypnotizing herself, desperately trying to insist it was impossible.
But then the pain surged through her limbs again, even worse than before, and it felt as though her spine had been ripped out. She lost all support and collapsed to the floor once more.
Only after a long while did Gray manage to stagger back to her feet, leaning heavily against the wall. Looking down at the blood on the ground, she could almost picture herself writhing there only moments before.
Suddenly, she split into a hoarse laugh.
"Hah… hah… hah… fuck!"
"This world is so damn unfair."
At that moment, the communicator in her pocket began to ring.
Gray pulled it out. The moment she saw the caller ID, only exhaustion remained in her eyes.
She moved her finger with what felt like the weight of a thousand pounds before finally pressing the answer button.
"Yeah…" she rasped, sounding on the verge of passing out.
"Any news on the two sisters?"
It was Warwick.
Gray parted her dry lips to speak, but her eyes drifted once more to the blood on the floor.
"If you keep living the way you have been, you'll die, Ms. Gray."
The information she had been about to give him was swallowed back down.
Instead, her voice shifted back into its usual light, teasing tone.
"Don't be so impatient, Your Lordship. There are plenty of Wyverns in Victoria. Finding two Dracos disguised as Wyverns isn't exactly easy. Why not… wait a little longer?"
"You'd better be quick. My patience is limited."
"Yes, yes~"
Gray ended the call.
She stared at the device in her hand, caught in a rare mood of something almost like melancholy.
Only after a while did she murmur to herself,
"Leave… my old life behind?"
...
"Leave… my current life behind?"
After returning home, Eblana locked herself alone in her room. Sitting before the mirror and looking at her own reflection, she froze.
What was that expression?
Regret?
No… how could she possibly look like that? Why would she feel attached to this quiet, ordinary life?
There was nothing here worth clinging to.
Nothing…
Surely the world that woman spoke of—the one brought by the earl trying to use her—was the world she had always known to expect: a place full of plots and schemes, where every gesture reeked of desire and exploitation.
So why… why could she not make her choice?
"I've grown weak… Is this Zuo Jian's fault?"
Grinding her teeth, Eblana's hands clenched into fists of their own accord.
....
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