Enya watched as the second Sharon departed, stowing away the spatial scroll used for storing gold coins that had been resting on the stone table.
She then shot a meaningful glance at Wendy.
However, Wendy didn’t seem to take the hint.
The elf maid stared back at Enya with a look of utter confusion.
Seeing this, Enya took a deep breath and exhaled a sigh of helplessness.
She snapped open her fan staff, shielding her mouth as she spoke softly.
“Put the cage on the table.”
“Of course, Mistress!”
When Wendy spoke those words, her expression was incredibly earnest.
One could sense a certain thrill in her voice, as if saying this brought her one step closer to those gold coins.
Enya watched as Wendy set the cage down and retreated to the side.
She couldn’t help but sigh again.
‘This maid is truly dim-witted! Can’t you uncover the cloth on the cage? Do I, your mistress, have to do everything myself?’
‘I…’
‘Forget it, it is no big deal.’
Enya finally let out a smile of resignation.
Keeping Wendy as a maid was meant to relieve her boredom anyway; she was someone to tease when things got dull.
‘A maid who looks capable and elegant but is actually a muddled little girl who understands nothing… that is a pretty good set of traits.’
These thoughts flashed through Enya’s mind for only a moment.
She reached out toward the golden birdcage, pinched the fabric, and slowly pulled it away, allowing the beautiful head inside the cage to see the sunlight.
Sylvia opened her eyes and looked straight at Enya.
Enya leaned back in her chair, folding her fan staff and resting it against her chin as she gazed into Sylvia’s gorgeous, violet eyes.
Once again, Sylvia was the first to look away.
She avoided Enya’s direct gaze, seemingly unwilling to let anything be read.
But that action in itself revealed that she was hiding something.
Even though Enya had severed her connection to her main body, Sylvia was still unwilling to confess.
A secret?
Enya wasn’t actually that interested.
She had no intention of dissecting Sylvia’s heart, nor did she care to learn about her ideals.
“What do you think of Madam Margaret’s body? Do you want it? If you do, I can get it for you.”
Those words caused Sylvia’s eyes to widen slightly. Her gaze fell back upon Enya’s calm face.
“Compared to Madam Margaret, I would rather have this elf’s body. If you are willing to let me use her…”
“Heh, are you worthy?”
Enya mocked her coldly, yet her expression remained so calm it was almost inhuman.
Through the subtitles translated by her glasses, Wendy understood Sylvia’s words.
She immediately narrowed her eyes and glared at the head inside the Golden Crow Cage.
‘Pah, what a wicked person!’
‘To think I was worried about the ride being too bumpy for her, so I carried the cage carefully the whole time. Now it seems my kindness was wasted on a villain.’
After giving Sylvia a fierce glare, Wendy looked up at Enya, her eyes shimmering with tears.
‘Mistress actually values me that much, waah~’
‘Back in the patrol team, I was always the one being ordered around. No one cared when I was hurt, and no one praised me for defeating corrupted magical beasts. No one cared about a loser like me at all!’
(At least, this was what Wendy believed.)
‘As expected, Mistress is the best!’
Enya looked at the light in Wendy’s eyes but only found it baffling. She didn’t bother with the airheaded elf maid, keeping her eyes fixed on Sylvia’s face.
“You didn’t actually take that seriously, did you?”
“…”
Sylvia fell into silence.
Enya had Wendy cover the cage before rising from her chair. Grasping both ends of her fan staff, she extended her arms and slowly raised them, pushing her chest forward and arching her back.
“Mm~”
Enya stretched.
Following that, she gave Wendy an instruction.
“Hang this cage in my room. After that, you can do whatever you want. I will come find you again in a few days. Do you understand?”
Wendy nodded vigorously.
“Understood, Mistress!”
“Mm, very good. You have great spirit. Keep it up, Maid Wendy,” Enya praised her solemnly.
The moment the words left her mouth, she vanished from the spot. Wendy didn’t even have time to react; in the blink of an eye, Enya was gone.
At that same moment, high in the sky, a figure of a woman with gray hair and a purple dress appeared.
She looked down and opened a pair of gold and red dragon eyes to gaze at the city below.
Within those peculiar pupils, a strange light shifted constantly.
She seemed to have activated some kind of special ability…
After watching for about ten seconds, Enya’s pupils shifted from the vertical slits of her Dragon Princess form back to the pale gold of her disguised state.
Withdrawing her gaze, she turned and spread the wings on her back.
Transforming into an inconspicuous silver glow, she streaked across the devastated White Stone City. This time, she was truly heading back.
Red Pine City, Asades Lord’s Manor.
A petite girl with wine-red hair sat naked before a mirror.
Her skin, exposed to the air, was as delicate as a newborn baby’s—supple and smooth enough to break at a touch.
The girl sat upright in her chair.
Her tiny, pink, jade-like feet could not reach the floor, so they hung in the air, crossed over one another as if they had nowhere to rest.
In her equally dainty hands, she held a glass of crimson liquid.
The girl in the mirror had a startlingly cute face.
A pair of small, pointed ears peeked through her hair, tinged with a flush of scarlet.
The girl’s name was Henna—or rather—Lilith Henna Asades, the last blood elf in the world.
She was also the former Lord of Red Pine City…
Henna’s blood-red vertical pupils looked down at the goblet she held with both hands. Taking a deep breath, she slowly drank the thick, crimson liquid. As she swallowed the red fluid mouthful by mouthful, Henna’s originally petite blood elf body actually began to change!
Her body grew slowly. Her immature, youthful frame expanded from just over one meter tall.
As she swallowed the last drop—even using her nimble pink tongue to lick the glass clean—Henna’s height finally reached over one hundred and seventy centimeters.
Furthermore, her chest now had undulating curves; she was no longer the smooth, flat board she had been before.
The long-lost feeling of weight actually made Henna feel a bit out of sorts.
For the past few days, she had been wearing pretty little dresses and being treated like a fragile child by her sister, Yelena.
Henna had had enough!
She looked at herself in the mirror.
This was not a return to her original appearance, but rather an enlarged version of her Blood Princess state.
Long pointed ears, blood-red vertical pupils.
Compared to when she was a little girl, the current Henna was more cold, haughty, and gorgeous.
Like a red rose…
What that goblet had contained was not human blood, but a red potion that allowed her to restore her body for a period of time.
The restriction was that it could not be used consecutively.
This was a reward given to her by that “Ms. Moth.”
The woman had said that as long as Henna behaved, she would periodically give her this potion to lift the bloodline lock seal for a while.
‘Isn’t this just putting a chain on me?’
At the thought of being controlled like this, Henna’s expression soured. But she could do nothing against that Ms. Moth, who came and went like a ghost.
Henna sighed and muttered to herself.
“I wonder how I should explain this change to Phil.”
Standing up, she put on a dress. After a bit of simple grooming, Henna walked out of her room.