“Ha!”
In the rear courtyard of the mansion,
Aurora chanted a strange incantation to a flower, and when it didn’t react, she added an extra tone at the end.
“…Reverse! Countercurrent! Ummm… Reverse!! Countercurrent!!”
*****
A gentle breeze blew through.
The flower swayed back and forth with the wind but still showed no significant reaction.
“I don’t believe it.”
She switched to a strange posture and began chanting a spell that wasn’t even recorded in the textbooks.
“What are you doing?”
A familiar voice came from behind. Aurora turned and saw Misha sitting in the pavilion.
“Mi-Misha?! ”
Misha got up from the pavilion. The moment her foot stepped onto the golden sunlit ground, she quickly pulled it back as if she had touched something burning.
“The sun… it’s so dazzling.”
“I guess the goddess must have punished me to never see sunlight again this lifetime.” She said with a hint of helplessness.
Then she sat back down inside the pavilion.
“It’s probably because you haven’t been out of the basement for so long, Misha…”
“When did you start sitting here, Misha?”
“Around one in the morning.”
“One in the morning?!” Aurora exclaimed, eyes wide with disbelief.
It was now two in the afternoon. If Misha had been sitting here since one a.m., that meant she had been here for almost thirteen hours?!
And that meant the somewhat embarrassing posture Aurora had just made had been witnessed…
The thought caused a faint blush to creep onto Aurora’s cheeks.
“Ahem, Misha, is something bothering you?”
“Why do you say that?” Misha asked in confusion.
“Because… because you’re always holed up in your research lab all day, so it’s rare to see you out here.”
Misha swung her legs under the chair, bored, and said, “Actually, I just hit a bottleneck in my research. I wanted to come out and get some fresh air, clear my head.”
“I see…”
No wonder she hadn’t taken off her lab coat even outside. Her mind was still entirely occupied with her research.
Come to think of it, Aurora had never seen Misha wear anything other than that white lab coat. Even the lining inside was a simple pure black.
Her appearance was the complete opposite of Princess—one was extravagantly luxurious, with jewels embedded in her clothing, while the other was minimalistic to the extreme, only black and white.
Since her own thoughts were stuck and refusing to rearrange properly, Misha simply wanted to chat about something else to stimulate her mind.
She looked at Aurora curiously and said, “I’ve been watching you do some strange things here since noon. Aurora, are you trying to summon a demon?”
“If that’s the case, you’d also need to prepare things like lamb’s blood and graveyard grass. I can help gather them.”
She herself wanted to try summoning, and even if it failed, it didn’t matter. After all, Lorabel was guarding the place. No matter how powerful a demon was, it wouldn’t stand up to Lorabel’s exaggerated blessings.
Ninety-nine percent magic damage reduction, ninety-nine percent instant healing, eighty-one percent guaranteed critical hit, and one hundred percent immunity to corruption—all of these individually were relic-level blessings.
“Summoning a demon.”
Aurora was surprised. Had Misha really mistaken what she was doing as a demon summoning ritual? That was a huge misunderstanding.
“Not summoning demons at all.” She waved her hand.
“Actually, that night, I felt like I accidentally used some incredible magic, but now I just can’t seem to reproduce it…”
After a while, Aurora confessed everything to Misha in detail.
She had heard from her sister that Misha had great expertise in magic, so she thought maybe Misha could help.
“Hmm…” Misha tilted her head, pretending to think deeply.
After a long moment, she said, “Indeed, your body contains an immense amount of magical power. You could even call it a bottomless pit. It’s strange that such concentrated magic could be completely depleted in such a short time.
“Besides, I don’t believe there’s any monster capable of absorbing that much magic without exploding.”
“Exploding.”
She stood up, stretched toward the sun, her bones crackling.
“That’s quite an interesting problem. Maybe there’s some kind of relic inside your body.
“Leave this matter to me. I’ll need your cooperation during the research.”
“Really?!”
Aurora stood up excitedly, grasped Misha’s hand, and smiled. “Thank you so much, Misha!”
Her smile was as radiant as sunlight, almost causing Misha to involuntarily squint.
“The sunlight, so dazzling…”
“Hm?”
“Eve!”
Suddenly, another familiar voice came from the other side of the mansion.
Aurora recognized the voice as Saga’s and the others’.
“They’re looking for you, Aurora.”
With that, Misha released her hand, waved to her, and headed back inside the mansion.
“If you find anything, come down to the basement and find me. Goodbye.”
“Yeah, see you.”
After a simple farewell, Aurora hurried toward the mansion’s front gate.
Sure enough, she saw Saga and Little Mo waiting on the other side.
“Ah, Eve!”
Seeing Aurora, Saga happily raised her right hand and waved.
Her other hand held a basket, which looked full of medicinal herbs.
“What are you two doing here?!”
Aurora opened the gate and let them inside.
“Of course, we came to see you, Eve.”
“How’s your injury recovery? Is it okay to get up so early?” Saga asked worriedly.
“It’s not early. I’ve been unconscious in bed for ten days, and I’ve been lying down resting these past few days too. My waist almost can’t straighten anymore.”
They all laughed as Aurora looked at the baskets Saga and Little Mo carried.
She worried, “Did you go out gathering herbs again?!”
“No way, Little Mo and I really got scared this time.”
“These are all from the Witch Market.”
“And I bought a lot for Eve too!”
With that, she pulled out another basket of herbs from her sleeve and handed it to Aurora.
“For me?”
“Of course! To repay you for saving my life that night.”
“Unfortunately, although these herbs are the highest quality from the market, they’re still not as good as the ones we picked that day.”
“Really…”
Aurora glanced at the herbs in the basket and compared them mentally to the ones gathered in the forest that day, noticing the difference in color.
The market herbs were clearly duller, while the forest ones were full of vibrant luster.
“If only someone’s magic could speed up the growth of the herb seeds…” Little Mo suddenly said.
“Speed up growth… I know how to do that!!”