As she was preparing to continue her discussion with Iyue, the maidservant stationed outside the house suddenly knocked gently on the door.
“What is it?”
Iyue asked from inside the room.
“It’s Lady Alexis from the Stillwind Forest Realm.”
“What does she want now? I already told her—”
Iyue furrowed her brows deeply and opened the door, ready to rebuke the visitor waiting before it… but she only saw the two maidservants who had been attending the rooms they were staying in.
“She said she has important news to tell you… She said she would wait for you at the dock.”
…
…
“I didn’t think you would come.”
Alexis, captain of the Stillwind Forest Realm Patrol Team, stood on the low cliff with a longsword at her hip, watching the steam ship ferrying personnel slowly pull away from the dock… She identified the arrival as Iyue by the rhythm of her footsteps alone.
“What do you want to say?”
“Sera is dead.”
“What…?”
Iyue’s expression shifted drastically. Facing her incredulous look, Alexis simply turned around and stated the fact once more—
“Your former student, my subordinate Sera Leinil, is dead.”
“I know who you’re talking about!” Iyue’s voice trembled. “How did this happen…?”
“This report came in this morning. In a certain area of the forest near Mirror Lake, her body was found alongside several patrol team members. A skirmish had taken place there. Only one survivor remained.”
“Patrol team… fighting among themselves…? Wasn’t she your subordinate?”
“She was my subordinate. But the patrol team members who fought her and fell around her were all from the Fenglin City Patrol Team. And the sole survivor… is Reiya.”
“…Reiya?”
“It was Reiya who killed Sera. She was gravely wounded, barely clinging to life. She is currently receiving treatment in Fenglin City.”
Alexis’s words made Iyue begin to doubt her own ears and sanity.
That day by the campfire lit by the Fire Spirit, those two children had been amiably sharing the same fruit can—in her memory, Sera had always been a child with an indifferent expression… but when Reiya was playing and laughing with her, there was always a rare tenderness in her eyes.
For those two children to slaughter each other?
This is a joke—Iyue even hoped Alexis would say such a thing.
But she knew very well that the patrol captain before her was not someone who told jokes… and there was no way she would make such a cruel one.
“What did you order them to do? Why were they by Mirror Lake?”
“I have no authority over the Fenglin City Patrol Team. Their presence in that forest was not by my instruction.”
“Then those Fenglin City patrol members were…?”
“According to the Captain General, Sera was someone she had placed by my side to monitor me. She took orders directly from the Captain General. The reason our movements were exposed was because she had been reporting everything about our team to the Captain General. And after we parted ways that day, I remained at the quarters the Captain General had arranged for me… losing contact with all my subordinates, including Sera and Reiya.”
“Last night, she led an entire squad to monitor your and the Royal Court’s movements on the Captain General’s orders… and for unknown reasons, Reiya was mixed in among them as well. According to Reiya, she and the other members of that patrol squad saw Sera throwing something into the lake… and when they confronted her, Sera attacked them first.”
“Reiya said that Sera genuinely intended to kill her… because before attacking Reiya, she had mercilessly killed the other patrol team members.”
“So Reiya had no choice but to fight for her life… and ultimately killed her. That’s everything I’ve heard.”
“So… Sera was the one who cast the curse and eroded the barrier.”
Iyue felt the world spinning around her… but she managed to maintain her balance in the end.
“The Mage found a container on her remains. From that container, the Mage detected traces of the curse. It’s essentially certain that she was the one who cast the curse into Mirror Lake.”
“Did Lai Wei An Se order her to do this?”
“I don’t know. But the fact that Sera was my monitor was told to me personally by the Captain General, just now. And after the Royal Court and the patrol team discovered the bodies and confirmed her identity, they sent people to investigate Sera’s residence, her personal connections, and her haunts… but results haven’t come in yet.”
“Who made her do such a thing…? If it wasn’t Lai Wei An Se…”
Lian’s grave expression and his sister’s tightly shut eyes kept flashing through Iyue’s mind.
She looked up at Alexis and found her seemingly waiting for her opinion—
“Do you have any idea why she would do such a thing? After all, you were once Sera’s instructor.”
“Then you’re her commanding officer! Don’t you understand her—”
“I truly don’t understand her. She was a withdrawn child… the team members found her too hard to approach. In my unit, only Reiya would tirelessly try to reach out to her. Yet even Reiya never heard her speak about her past. And while I had intended to ask… I never managed to find the time to have a proper conversation with her.”
Alexis lowered her head, her voice steeped in regret and sorrow.
“I don’t know much either… but I remember she was a child recommended to the training grounds by a girl from one of the families. I once asked about her family, and she told me she was the child of a pair of servants, and that both her parents had already passed away.”
“Later I asked her what the girl who introduced her was to her… she told me they were friends. That girl’s name…”
Iyue strained every ounce of her memory to recall everything connected to Sera.
Since this was something from several hundred years ago for her, recalling it came with some difficulty.
“Ah… I remember now. The child seemed to be called Liesel.”
“Liesel… I don’t recall anyone by that name among our generation. But if she could recommend a servant’s daughter to the patrol team’s training grounds for preparatory training, then she must have held a certain status within her family… at the very least, not someone like me.”
Alexis thought for a moment before saying this.
“I’m confident I’m not mistaken… You should use this as a starting point for your investigation.”
Why shouldn’t I tell her about Lian’s speculation…? That hairpin in Sera and Nefi’s hands… If she was the one who arranged all of this…
Watching Alexis with her head bowed in thought, Iyue remained silent.
“…Your information is indeed valuable.”
After a long pause, Alexis looked up at her and bowed her head in gratitude.
“Is that all you called me here to tell me?”
“Partially. Both Sera and Reiya held you in high esteem… and you clearly cared about them as well. Since you’re also caught up in this matter, I thought you deserved to know.”
Alexis paused, and then her usually calm eyes suddenly blazed with intense emotion:
“But most importantly… I cannot believe this! They were my subordinates! Sera had been by my side for over a hundred years, and Reiya as well… they were both good children! How could they come to such an end…?”
She bent down, clasped Iyue’s hands, and wept as she poured out her grief.