“The Queen will summon you soon. Please prepare yourself!”
Lai Wei An Se shouted across her subordinates and the crowd… but Yi Yue still didn’t look back, leading her horse and walking toward the place where she and Lian had gotten separated.
“Fall back.”
After Yi Yue left, she ordered the adjutant beside her.
“Are you alright? You came all the way from the dance party, yet let her slip away right in front of us.”
After the adjutant passed on the order, the Ranger Corps formed up. While they were forming up, the adjutant asked Lai Wei An Se, who looked calm.
“I’ve achieved my goal. We found her before Nephtalia, and in such a form… hehe.”
She revealed a confident smile, then turned and left.
Meanwhile, Lian was in a narrow alley not far from the slope, constantly jostling with the surging pedestrians—
“Move aside! I want to see the Hero, Lord Yi Yue!”
“Honestly… stop pushing!”
Even without magic power, her strength was not comparable to ordinary people.
But she couldn’t just throw all these Yi Yue fanatics blocking the way… so she could only try to escape the crowd in a direction with fewer people.
“Finally out… where is this?”
She barely managed to extricate herself from the chaotic crowd, only to find herself in an unfamiliar street.
The surrounding buildings all looked the same… and her horse was gone. She could only wander through the blocks based on rough directions and memories.
“Coming through, coming through!”
The people in these blocks were also increasing… they all seemed to have come to see Yi Yue.
Lian had a brainwave and leaped to climb a large tree by the street.
This tree leaned against a splendid house. It wasn’t particularly tall, but enough to see the street view of several blocks near the Lower District where buildings were generally low.
Stepping on the tree crown at the top, she looked down and saw the crowd converging in one direction—
“There!”
Then she jumped from the tree to the roof of the house, and then leaped continuously along the building tops, following the crowd.
Her movements were very swift, and since the citizens were focused on squeezing through the crowd, no one noticed the girl racing across the rooftops until she arrived near the slope where Yi Yue was.
“Yi Yue… where is Yi Yue? She’s leading a horse, so she should be easy to find. But now there are many people with horses on the street…”
Just as Lian was searching for Yi Yue’s whereabouts with her eyes, she saw someone climbing onto a roof not far away—
“……!”
Lian quickly pressed against the chimney beside her, hiding her presence.
“Found her?”
“Not yet. That kid is wearing the uniform of the Stillwind Forest Realm Patrol Team, right? It should be very conspicuous…”
“We were searching on the ground before, haven’t searched the rooftops yet.”
Lian poked her head out slightly from beside the chimney… she saw two Ranger Corps members.
Their uniforms were different from the Stillwind Forest Realm’s style… clearly they were members of the Fenglin City Ranger Corps.
“The Captain General ordered us to restrict her movements… but ensure her safety. What do you think, what is her relationship with Lord Yi Yue?”
“I don’t know. Matters outside the mission, don’t pay too much attention or speculate.”
‘What happened?’
Lian had been swept away by the crowd before Yi Yue and Lai Wei An Se started talking, so she couldn’t hear the conversation on the slope.
But from these members’ words, she already knew they were coming for her.
‘They’ve already started searching the rooftops… then I have to get back to the street now!’
So she silently climbed down from the eaves, avoiding the notice of those two members.
After returning to the ground, she quickly took off her Ranger Corps cloak, then turned into a nearby empty alley.
She folded the uniform and put it into her bag. Then she heard the tiles on the roof above clatter—
Those two members must have left.
After confirming the surroundings again, Lian carefully walked out of the alley.
She didn’t know why these guys wanted to catch her… but she could roughly guess it was related to Yi Yue.
‘So this was why she looked so worried? Those people waiting at the slope clearly knew she would pass by there, and now the citizens were also gathering there—’
‘This must be the work of those people in the Stillwind Forest Realm Patrol Team. They probably want to catch me and then threaten Yi Yue.’
Lian quickly deduced the conclusion. She hid in the crowd to spy, and found more and more shadows flickering on the rooftops.
The forces searching for her were increasing… and they even had simple sketches of her. So she could only play hide and seek with them in the streets and crowds.
“How can we never find her… enough, summon a spirit!”
Lian, relying on her agile movements, the environment, and timely disguises, played the members for fools… but as a result, she had no leisure to look for Yi Yue.
And when she quietly passed under the eaves where the Ranger Corps stood, she heard the small captain in charge angrily say.
“Huh? But in a place like the Lower District, there isn’t enough affinity to summon low-level spirits to appear—”
“Then spend magic power to summon a mid-level one! This is the Captain General’s order… we must find that girl before Lord Yi Yue! Call all the nearby members here, I’ll host the ritual!”
‘This is bad.’
Hearing that the surrounding members were gathering here, Lian quickly distanced herself.
With the efforts of the members, the mid-level spirit was summoned… that captain, pale and sweating profusely, collapsed onto the roof.
“Spirit Lord… please help me find that human girl.”
The summoned was a Wind Spirit. It had an egg-sized gray round body, with a small whirlwind swirling leaves around it.
The captain showed the portrait in her hand to it… it bounced twice as if nodding, then turned into flowing wind that swept through the surrounding streets.
Its wind raced through the streets… lifting the hats and hoods of everyone on the street to confirm their faces.
After a few minutes, it had almost completed the search of most of the block—
Then it discovered that in a wooden box collecting fallen leaves at the street corner, the leaves were trembling slightly.
As a Wind Spirit, it was intimately familiar with airflow disturbances… it immediately understood that was not caused by the wind. It reformed and then rushed toward the wooden box.
“Wawah!”
It used a strong wind to sweep away the leaves in the box… then a black-haired girl with a ponytail emerged from it.
“……”
It was very clear that this was the person its summoners wanted to find. But the moment it saw her, it froze.
Because it had never seen a human shining with such dazzling light… in its eyes, there was no one more beautiful in the world.
“Umm… can you not tell them I’m here? I will definitely repay you!”
The girl—Lian—looked up, showing an awkward smile, and said this to it.