In front of the ruins of the Windmill Mill, the night wind picked up, bringing a touch of autumn chill.
“What did you say?!”
She stared wide-eyed at the woman shrouded in black robes before her.
“What Sid? What Balke? I don’t know them at all…”
Huanji was still stubbornly denying everything, trying to bluff her way through.
“Lady, you must have the wrong person. I’m Huanji, an intelligence agent for the Night Owl. I’ve always operated in the Southern Region. How could I have ever been mixed up with some mercenary squad…”
Ailiya said nothing, simply watching her performance quietly, as if listening further was a waste of time.
Then, she slowly raised a hand clad in a white glove and grasped the edge of her black cloak.
Under the stunned gazes of Huanji and Graves.
Ailiya pulled it back, completely removing the wide hood.
The bright moonlight instantly spilled onto her iconic silver-white short hair.
Those ice-blue eyes, and that cold, delicate face—one so striking that even the night’s shadows couldn’t mask its beauty—were exposed without reservation before the two of them.
The air went dead silent for two seconds.
“Ai… Miss Ailiya?!”
The expression on Huanji’s face froze instantly.
How could she not recognize that face?
“I could never forget you.”
Ailiya looked at her, her tone flat with a hint of mockery.
“Last time you goaded Balke into dueling me, I already got a faint impression of that peculiar scent of yours. She tried to mask it thoroughly, but I could still pick it out.”
Sid opened her mouth, completely speechless.
Her proud disguise had been defeated by something as trivial as a scent.
But soon, when she confirmed that the person before her really was the Ailiya from the tavern—cold but not unpleasant—her taut nerves noticeably relaxed.
“Alright, alright, I’ll drop the act.”
Huanji—or rather, Sid—let out an extremely undignified sigh and directly snapped the frayed rope binding her.
She sat cross-legged on the ground, rubbing her sore wrists. The sycophantic, comical look was gone, replaced by the resignation of an old acquaintance.
She let out a bitter laugh.
“I really didn’t peg you, Miss Ailiya… ah, no, Lady Ailiya.”
“Skip the small talk.”
Ailiya pulled her hood back on, resuming her cold, off-putting aura.
“Since you’ve decided to follow me, it doesn’t matter if you used to be Huanji or Sid. From now on, if you dare to commit any act of betrayal…”
Ailiya glanced at the corpse of the Black Robe Mage in the distance.
“You’ve already seen what happens.”
“Absolutely not! I swear!”
Sid nodded like a dog wagging its tail, patting her flat chest as she guaranteed:
“I know which side my bread is buttered. Following you is way more promising than staying in that devouring den called the Night Owl.”
Ailiya checked the sky.
“It’s getting late. We’ve made too much noise here. Time to wrap up. Get up.”
She turned to look at Graves, who had finally caught his breath and climbed to his feet.
“What do you plan to do next?” Ailiya asked.
Before Graves could speak, Sid’s informant instincts kicked in, and she immediately launched into a smooth-talking redemption spiel.
“That’s easy!”
Sid patted Graves on the shoulder, putting on an act of a good comrade.
“Senior, you just go back to the organization and report. Tell them that during our rendezvous here, we were ambushed by the Holy See’s Inquisition Tribunal in secret.”
“These three unlucky bastards died gloriously covering your retreat! And you barely escaped with your life after a desperate breakout.”
“Those old farts have no witnesses, so just pin it on the Holy See. Our organization never liked those priests anyway—this isn’t the first time!”
Sid grew more excited as she spoke, already drafting the script in her head.
However, Graves didn’t take the bait.
He expressionlessly brushed off Sid’s hand and stared at her like she was an idiot.
“Do you think the people in the organization are morons?”
Graves let out a cold laugh.
“To cover one lie, you’ll need a hundred more. It’ll eventually come to light.”
Graves glanced at Ailiya, his tone turning resolute.
“Since I’ve decided to break with the organization, the safest move is to cut ties cleanly and just betray them outright.”
“If I keep staying, I’ll be purged sooner or later.”
Sid fell silent for a moment.
“You’re right.”
Sid dropped her playful demeanor, nodded, and then turned to Ailiya, her tone becoming respectful.
“Lady, what do we plan to do next?”
Ailiya replied flatly:
“You keep playing the role of the Wind and Moon Squad’s Diviner. Act as usual. When necessary, I’ll contact you.”
“Understood!” Sid responded immediately.
At that moment, Graves, who had mostly stayed quiet, suddenly pointed at Sid and raised a soul-searching question.
“Hold on!”
Graves glared with wide eyes, looking at Ailiya resentfully.
“Lady! This woman is full of tricks.”
“Why does she get to join just by flattering you with a few words?”
“That woman, who never says a truthful word, should sign a slave contract.”
Thinking of how he had been forced into labor by a single contract while this cunning woman got off scot-free, Graves felt deeply unfair.
Why did that bitch get to slide by just by kowtowing?
At the word “contract,” Sid’s heart skipped a beat.
Hearing this, Sid immediately panicked.
“Oh, Senior, you’re more petty than a needle’s eye!”
She didn’t want to become a puppet unable to control her own body either.
Sid sidled up to Ailiya, babbling nonsense and trying to wheedle her way out of it.
“Lady, you see, I’m just a delicate intelligence agent—weak as a chicken.”
“My greatest value is this clever head of mine. If I signed a contract that binds my soul, and it affects my mental prowess, wouldn’t that be a huge loss for you?”
“Besides, my loyalty to you is as clear as the sun and moon. I don’t need such cold formalities to restrain me!”
She fawned over Ailiya desperately, terrified of having that horrible contract imposed on her.
Ailiya quietly watched Sid’s comical struggle to escape the issue.
“You don’t have to sign.”
In truth, she had considered planting a contract on Sid as well.
Mainly out of consideration for Balke and the tavern owner Sise.
Those two were flighty, but they had treated her decently, and Ailiya held a bit of goodwill toward them.
At Ailiya’s permission, Sid let out a long sigh of relief and made a smug face at Graves.
“Damn it!”
Graves cursed in frustration and turned away moodily.
“Enough.”
Ailiya cut off the pointless argument.
“Graves, for the time being, continue to stay in the shadows. If I need you, I’ll contact you through the crow.”
“Yes, Lady.”
Though unhappy, Graves could only accept helplessly.
***
After tidying up the scene and erasing their traces, Graves took advantage of the night to leave Medi first.
Just as Sid was about to slip away too.
“You. Wait.”
Ailiya’s cold voice pinned her in place.
Sid’s heart lurched. She turned stiffly, forcing a smile uglier than crying.
“L-Lady… do you have any other orders?”
Ailiya walked slowly to her, looking Sid up and down as if searching for something.
“I remember, when you escaped earlier, you used a skill called Substitute Paper Doll, right?”
Ailiya’s ice-blue eyes showed a rare flicker of curiosity and a thirst for knowledge.
“That’s interesting. Can you explain the principle to me in detail?”
Encountering such a rare and practical survival skill, how could she miss the chance to learn it for free?
Sid was stunned.
She couldn’t process it.
This monster, who even knew high-level Night Owl secret techniques, was interested in her little life-saving trick?
Wasn’t that beneath her?
“Uh… I can explain, sure.”
Sid scratched her head, looking troubled.
“That’s a secret life-saving method passed down in my lineage. Actually, the principle isn’t that complicated if you strip it down…”
“But it requires extremely fine control over magic power and a certain level of mental ability. It’s not something anyone can learn just by hearing it once…”
“Speak.”
Ailiya’s tone was icy, with no room for nonsense.
“Fine, fine, I’ll talk!”
Sid shrank her neck in fright and hastily spilled the core principles and magic circuits of the Substitute Paper Doll in a torrent of words.
After all, this technique’s talent requirements were incredibly stringent—not something anyone could pick up after one listen.
She wasn’t afraid of Ailiya learning it; consider it a ticket of allegiance.
“Magic power is imbued onto specially prepared talisman paper. At the moment of a fatal attack, using an extremely subtle spatial magic fluctuation, the user’s body is swapped to a spot fifty meters away…”
A moment later.
“I understand.”
Ailiya opened her eyes and pulled an ordinary piece of paper from her bosom.
Under Sid’s utterly horrified, as-if-seeing-a-ghost gaze.
Ailiya’s fingertip glowed with a faint blue flow of magic power. In a clumsy but remarkably accurate way, she instantly traced the core circuit of the substitute technique onto the ordinary sticky note in her hand.
Sid stared at the paper emitting a weak magic fluctuation, her jaw nearly hitting the floor.
“This… how is this possible?!”
She had trained for two full years to master this magic.
And this woman, just by hearing her explain the principle orally, had directly replicated it?!
Was she even human?!
“The principle is fairly clever, but the range is limited, and it can’t maintain its effect for long.”
Ailiya casually pocketed the paper, offering a professional evaluation.
“As a low-cost life-saving measure, it’s barely adequate.”
She glanced at Sid, still lost in disbelief, and turned toward the forest.
“You can go now. Stay in touch.”
A cold wind blew.
Leaving Sid standing alone in the wind, utterly bewildered, unable to snap out of it for a long time.
I don’t understand why she didn’t make her signa contract, this is just for reassurance, I hope the author writes a betrayel scene to make the MC learn a lesson, otherwise it would’nt fit Sids character not to betray. Just because Balke is a good person doesn’t mean she has to spare Sid of a contract, Sid is clearly a rat.