“Little Sister Lian… what’s wrong? The float is going to stop in the plaza for a while. How about we get off and buy something to eat from the food stalls?”
“Little Sister Xiao Lian… she keeps saying she’s sorry.”
“…I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
Tilly and the girls around her had been trying to talk to Lian for quite some time.
Yet her eyes remained unfocused, her lips endlessly murmuring apologies to no one in particular.
“…Ah! Little Lian… Little Lian’s apron is full of glass shards!”
One girl who was checking her condition reached into her apron and got her hand cut by the fragments inside.
She looked at Lian with an expression full of worry and fear.
But Lian still showed no response. Nothing changed.
“Chief Steward… please look at her!”
Seeing this, Tilly cried out to Chief Steward Wright in a trembling voice.
With a grave expression, Chief Steward Wright quickly brought over a noble guest who was a doctor.
The noble doctor removed his glasses and sat down on a chair the maids carried over for him.
“You are Miss Lian, correct?” he said as he gently touched the center of her brow with his fingertip. “Can you hear me?”
Lian only continued to purse her lips, moisture clinging to them.
The doctor took a vial of medicine and some cotton from the medical case a maid handed him.
After carefully disinfecting everything, he brought the cotton soaked in medicine close to Lian’s nose.
Still no response. He gently pried open her eyelids to examine her pupils.
After confirming their condition, he used a tongue depressor to open her mouth.
He had expected some difficulty, but it opened easily.
He examined her tongue, then flattened her palm and checked her pulse.
“Lord Ferdinand, how is she?”
Seeing that he remained silent for so long, even Chief Steward Wright began to feel anxious.
“Hmm… her pulse is completely normal. This doesn’t look like epilepsy… it’s more like a condition.”
“A condition?”
“It means a mental issue. Her apron is stuffed with glass shards, isn’t it? That isn’t normal behavior. Did she experience some kind of severe shock?”
“I… I don’t know… After she went up with the Lady earlier, she came back down like this! Please, my lord… you must save her!”
As she listened to the doctor, the tears Tilly had been holding back spilled out.
She dropped to her knees with a heavy thud in front of him.
“Little Sister Lian… she’s such a diligent and well-behaved child! She never argues with anyone! And no matter what task she’s given, she always completes it seriously… even things she isn’t good at, she comes to ask us until she understands before doing them… someone like Little Sister Lian… how could anyone have the heart to thrilling her like that?”
“Little girl, please get up… I can’t be certain either. Without understanding the cause…”
The doctor looked troubled as he watched Tilly crying on the floor.
“Lina, where is the Lady right now?” Wright asked a maid nearby who was just as frantic.
“She’s in front of the mansion, guiding the guests on a tour…”
“Then hurry and bring her back—”
Boom!
A deafening explosion cut off all conversation, swallowing every sound.
The entire festival float shook violently, and both guests and servants were thrown to the ground.
Lian fell as well, but Tilly caught her in time so she did not hit the floor.
Thankfully, the shaking ended quickly and the float did not overturn. Still, chaos erupted everywhere.
Wine glasses, plates, food, and the accessories carried by the nobles were scattered across the ground in a terrible mess.
“W-what happened?”
“It’s the mansion… the mansion exploded! A whole section of the roof was blown away!”
“Where’s the Lady?!”
“No idea…”
“Then hurry and search!”
Amid Chief Steward Wright’s hoarse shouting, Tilly felt Lian move in her arms.
With tears of lingering shock, she looked down at her and saw Lian struggling to rise.
“Milin… Meliya… Vera…”
Tilly did not stop her. At that moment, the girl murmuring those names looked like the most miserable person in the world.
She watched helplessly as Lian staggered down the stairs, pushed through the chaotic crowd, and ran unsteadily toward the burning mansion.
As the howling gale brushed her face, Milin thought she must be dreaming.
One moment she had been introducing architectural details she had painstakingly memorized to the guests beside her, and the next moment that person was flung away by the blast wave.
She reacted almost purely on instinct. She reinforced her body with all of her magic power, stabilizing herself within the slowed perception of time, and clearly saw what was happening.
The mansion in front of her had exploded. Nearly half of its circular roof had been blown away, and scattered debris was falling toward the plaza.
She no longer had time to stop the falling stones, but she could still prevent the massive piece of roof that had been blasted high into the air from crashing into the center of the crowd and causing enormous casualties.
So she kicked off the ground with all her strength, her body shooting into the sky under the tremendous recoil, charging straight toward the roof fragment as large as a small house.
She clenched her fists and recited a flame incantation she had once learned—
“Red flames, be upon me.”
This was the most basic fire-type spell, meant to imbue one’s weapon or body with intense heat and flame magic.
A spell that normally could only spark on a fist or blade now turned Milin into a blazing meteor streaking through the air.
Wrapped head to toe in flames, she smashed through the fragment.
The rubble that would have scattered was burned to ash by the extreme heat.
After completely destroying the debris, she extinguished the flames and plunged directly into the burning ruins of the mansion.
“Hey! Is anyone there? Cough, cough, cough…!”
She searched for survivors amid the raging fire and billowing smoke.
The flames could not harm her while her body was enveloped in magic, but the choking smoke constantly interfered with her breathing.
She knew the best solution would be to use wind magic to blow the smoke away… but her wind magic had always been terrible.
If she misjudged the direction or force, she might make the fire spread even more.
So she found a piece of cloth, summoned some water, soaked it, and used it to cover her mouth and nose.
‘Why did it suddenly explode?’
But more than the cause, what worried her now were the people inside the mansion.
She knew they were Teacher Vera’s subordinates, the same people who had guarded the farm and protected Mother long before she was even born.
The Crown Festival was a legally recognized holiday in Northland.
Especially on the third day, when the Flower Crown Parade took place, the entire city shared the day off.
Every year during the parade, those uncles and aunts who were usually idle would mix into the procession, playing their favorite military instruments to perform for the people on the floats… surely this year would be the same.
Milin could only hope they had followed that tradition again this year.
But she also knew… not everyone would have joined the procession.
There would always be a few who stayed behind in the mansion to rest or receive visiting guests.
She had never learned how to amplify her senses with magic, but in her panic, the magic overflowing from her body naturally linked with the flames of the fire scene.
Through that connection, she immediately sensed a place within the inferno where an extremely powerful concentration of magic had gathered.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she rushed straight toward the location she had sensed.