Seraphina leaned against the back of the chair, her gaze still drifting outward, worry and weariness showing between her brows.
“Still worried about her?”
Seraphina came back to herself, slapped away Movira’s less-than-honest hand, and glared at her with no good temper. “And whose fault is that! Otherwise I could go talk to Lina right now, instead of being ‘locked’ to this chair like this, unable to move…”
As she spoke, she moved her still-powerless arms with a trace of irritation.
At those words Movira only let out a light laugh, and did not answer the complaint. Or rather… she did not dare answer it.
She shifted the subject back to Lina instead.
“Lina’s mood, I don’t think we need to worry about too much. She got through the years after that matter. Her resilience far exceeds what we imagined. A disturbance like this is nothing to her.”
Seraphina thought it over. It was true. Even the first time she met Saint Eustacia, that moment of collapse had not lasted long. By the next day she had recovered a great deal.
But who would want the price of that resilience?
“Of course I know. I understand. It’s just… I can’t help worrying. Think about it carefully. She’s barely 20 now, still a child, and she has to bear so much…”
Pfft— Movira failed to hold it in, and laughed.
The way Seraphina said it, one would have thought she herself was some world-weary elder! As if she were a senior many years older.
“What are you laughing at?!” Seraphina turned her head sharply, and stared at Movira with suspicion.
A knock cut their talk short again.
Ailinuo pushed the door open and came in. She first bowed to the two of them with all due respect, then stepped quickly forward and set a dispatch before Seraphina.
“Your Majesty, Your Highness, this was sent urgent from Blackstone Outpost. The messenger stressed that the contents are extremely important!”
Ailinuo spoke very fast, as if she wanted to get herself out of there at once.
When she finished, she withdrew at once, and shut the door.
Seraphina thought it was another discovery of new land. The worry in her mood thinned a little, and she broke the sealing wax.
When her gaze took in the writing, though, the ease on her face vanished at once, and her expression grew heavier and heavier.
“What is it?” Movira sensed something wrong, and leaned in to ask.
Seraphina pushed the dispatch toward her. “It never rains but it pours… The report says the Abyssal Lesser Demons at the outpost have gathered abnormally again.”
Movira’s first reaction was still to think little of it. “Abyssal Lesser Demons? Nothing but scraps, unless a high-ranking leader appears.”
“This time is different. Aiya, look for yourself!” Seraphina shook her head, and shoved the dispatch right in front of Movira’s eyes, short of pasting it to her face.
The report set out the abnormal behavior of the Abyssal Lesser Demons in detail. They were injecting some unknown crystalline substance into the surrounding land.
Wherever the contamination passed, life was lost at once, and a breath of death and rot spread out, identical to the marks of an Abyssal Disaster.
Bask had also found that, within the range of these substances, Abyssal Lesser Demons could appear out of thin air, as if directly summoned!
Even Movira could not help a little doubt at that. “What ability is this? They haven’t evolved at all in nearly 100 years.”
A rough sketch was attached at the end of the report. Supplies on the border were too scarce for anything better. It showed the crude outline of gray crystals, varied in form, roughly needle-shaped, and some rectangular. Whatever the things were, the outpost did not dare act lightly, and could only seal and isolate them for the time being.
“Have you seen this before?” Seraphina looked up at Movira.
Movira shook her head. “Never heard of it. An Abyssal Disaster can present itself in a great many ways, but this… at least, I haven’t seen it.”
“Then… should we ask Dekalorin? The tracks of the Abyssal Disaster cover this land. The human side may have similar records?” Seraphina thought a moment, and suggested it.
“I’m afraid that won’t work.” Movira refused again, and explained, “An Abyssal Disaster differs enormously in form and traits across regions and conditions. In the Demon Realm it is called an ‘Abyssal Disaster,’ and it produces ‘Abyssal Lesser Demons.’ On the human side it is usually called a ‘Calamity,’ and it produces ‘monsters.’ In the Miracle Forest it may be yet another thing, called a ‘Baleful Scourge.'”
“Their essence is the same, but the surface and the weaknesses, the ways of answering them, are often worlds apart… A direct comparison would not mean much.”
After hearing that, Seraphina leaned back a little disheartened. Even with Movira behind her, she hardly minded.
“All right… It seems I still have far too much to learn in this.”
In her heart she was already calculating how to squeeze out time to fill in the related knowledge.
“Do you have any preliminary idea now?” Seraphina asked.
“I’ll listen to you.” Movira blinked, and very naturally threw the question back again.
Seraphina shot her a look with a trace of “disdain.” “All right. I knew asking you was useless. You have no opinion of your own at all…”
Her wrists and fingers still could not hold a pen. They were powerless. “Then you write it. I… the way I am now, what I write might as well be oracle-bone script…”
“Oracle-bone script? What is that?”
“Aiya, it’s a kind of very… anyway, it means the writing isn’t writing.”
“Oh… all right.”
Movira was quite willing to serve. She spread a fresh sheet of parchment at once. “Speak, my Princess Regent.”
Seraphina considered a while, then gave the orders.
In short: the border soldiers were to stay alert, and not act lightly before the specialists arrived.
After that, they were to begin moving the fertile land inward as far as possible, into Giantwing Demon territory.
Seraphina had keenly sensed that the place would not be peaceful in the future. Summoning the Giantwing Demon chieftain was also to be arranged and carried out.
Last, recruit a batch of mages of real learning from across the Demon Realm, specializing in land and geology. Those skilled with plants would be better.
Movira polished Seraphina’s words a little, and turned them into a more formal style.
When she finished, she blew the ink dry and turned her head. “Nothing else?”
Seraphina said, “On paper, that’s all.”
“Oh? From your tone, there’s more? Something ‘off the paper’?”
“Mm.” Seraphina nodded, and deliberately lowered her voice. “Share a copy of all the data on this with Dekalorin.”
“All right. I understand.” This one Movira had not expected. She did not quite see what it could do, but…
Whatever instruction Seraphina gave, she carried it out without fail.
“Unshaken in danger, and thorough in thought. My Seraphina really is taking on more and more of a leader’s bearing, the kind that plans the battle from the tent! Except, of course, in certain other respects…”
As she spoke, she did not hesitate to circle Seraphina’s slim waist, and draw her a little further into her arms.
The blunt praise made Seraphina’s cheeks warm. She dodged, a little embarrassed. “Stop that! This… this is only the most basic response!”
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