Flandre poked her small blonde head out from the flap of the tent, watching the rhythmic pitter-patter of the heavy raindrops drumming against the muddy grass outside. Feeling a wave of total damp discomfort washing over her skin, she let out a tiny, discontented huff, quickly turning around to burrow right back into the warm, comforting embrace of her older sister.
Fortunately, the gloomy weather didn't last forever, and the heavy rain finally tapered off early the next morning.
However, when Flandre peeked outside a second time, she looked down at the thickly churned, muddy ground with a look of profound, unbridled disdain. For once in her life, she completely abandoned her usual habit of running around restlessly across the terrain; instead, she nimbly floated up into the air, hovering off the ground while waiting for everyone else to finish packing up the camp before diving straight through the doors of the luxury carriage.
Seeing her uncharacteristic, mud-avoiding behavior, the others merely shared a warm, knowing smile with one another. Once Sakuya and Meiling had efficiently secured the last of their traveling gear, the group officially set off once more.
Two days of steady traveling later, the carriage drove smoothly across the geographical border, officially leaving the regional jurisdiction of Kazimierz behind.
At that exact same time, back in the bustling corporate capital of Kavaleriyaski, the headquarters of the Armorless Union finally received definitive field confirmation that the rookie strike team sent out on the previous assassination mission had been completely, systematically wiped out.
Although the high-ranking leadership of the union were all well aware of this catastrophic possibility from the very beginning, actually seeing the concrete, bloody results laid out in an official report was still somewhat professionally regrettable.
True to her personal survival plan, the Platinum stepped forward, solemnly stating to the board that she would personally travel down to the marshlands to thoroughly investigate the exact circumstances of the failure. She left the capital city in an unhurried, leisurely manner, and didn't bother returning to the office until a full week later—taking great care to look exceptionally "weary from travel" as she crossed the threshold.
She then formally submitted a detailed report claiming that the highly dangerous targets had already completely evacuated the borders of Kazimierz. She confidently asserted that she had aggressively tracked their wagon across miles of wilderness, but because the enemy possessed incredibly formidable, military-grade anti-tracking techniques, they had intentionally misled her down the wrong paths several times until she unfortunately lost their trail entirely.
Along with this dramatic, fictionalized report, she attached a massive, tightly packed pile of "mission-related" receipts for immediate corporate reimbursement.
The Lazurites and The Positions of Darksteel both simultaneously rolled their eyes in absolute, unspoken exhaustion after reading through the financial breakdown. Who the hell among the leadership doesn't already know that you spent the entire week happily fooling around and drinking inside a luxury Victorian tavern? And now you have the absolute nerve to come back here with food and alcohol receipts for corporate reimbursement?!
However, everyone within the inner circle explicitly understood that this entire target profile was an absolute, radioactive mess that not a single sane assassin wanted to touch with a ten-foot pole. The fact that Platinum had gone through this much physical effort to put on a half-decent theatrical act was already considered more than enough; anyone else put in her position might not have even bothered to fill out the paperwork.
So, after passing through several layers of bureaucratic polishing and creative editing, the finalized report was officially submitted to the higher-ups. Upon learning that even the elite Platinum had personally failed to capture the foreign travelers, the wealthy corporate board of the Commercial Federation could only angrily swallow their pride. The entire messy matter was eventually dropped.
On the other side of the continental border, after entering the sovereign territory of the grand Victorian Empire, a string of continuous, relentlessly rainy days made Flandre feel incredibly listless.
She lost all her usual energetic drive to move around, choosing instead to spend almost every single day lying lazily across the carriage cushions, listening intently to Patchouli Knowledge read historical stories out loud from her endless collection of books.
Patchouli casually read whatever specific text she happened to be researching at the time, and Flandre didn't particularly mind either way. If she managed to understand the dense historical prose, she would listen quietly, occasionally exchanging a few analytical words with the librarian. If she didn't understand the heavy terminology, she treated the monotonous reading entirely as a premium, soothing lullaby to help her nap. All in all, her traveling life was quite comfortable.
Meanwhile, the carriage slowly and steadily made its way deeper into the Victorian heartland, charting a direct course toward the legendary nomadic capital of Londinium.
As for why the Vampire Lord had explicitly chosen to visit Londinium in the first place? It was simply because Remilia was deeply, profoundly curious to see whether a foreign country calling itself Victoria was truly as—horrific—as the actual historical Victorian era she remembered from the outside world.
After all, in her deep memories of that specific human historical era, only the wealthy nobles and the great industrial merchants were ever considered actual human beings. As for the vast, struggling lower classes and the ordinary commoners, they were treated purely as expendable, short-lived consumables to keep the gears turning. One could realistically argue that certain dangerous Youkai living back in Gensokyo hadn't taken as many innocent human lives across their entire centuries-long existences as the sheer number of factory workers who died of grueling labor in a single great merchant's factory in a single calendar year.
Coming face-to-face with a sprawling, foreign superpower that boldly called itself Victoria, which also happened to be heavily anchored in a grand era of roaring steam engines and colossal machinery, how could she not be immensely curious to witness whether this nation, under such a specific name and aesthetic background, was truly the exact same nightmare as the Victorian era of her memories?
With a profound mood of philosophical curiosity and inquiry, their carriage slowly rolled toward the grand capital.
"Let's pull over and rest in this small industrial town for the night," Remilia instructed softly, looking out the window as the heavy rain clouds finally began to part. "The rain has just stopped completely, so Flandre can finally go out for a fresh walk to stretch her legs."
"Yay!" Flandre cheered, instantly jumping clean off the carriage steps and eagerly looking around the cobblestone streets. "I'm going off to play now, don't mind me!"
With a joyful burst of energy, Flandre's form blurred, instantly disappearing entirely from their sight.
"Second Young Lady—!" Hong Meiling called out, instinctively preparing to dash down the alley to chase after her, but Remilia casually reached out a hand to signal her to let the child go.
After all, no matter how late into the night Flandre chose to play out in the town, she could easily catch up on her missing sleep inside the moving carriage tomorrow during the day. But as their primary driver, Hong Meiling desperately needed to maintain enough physical energy to handle the reins. If she spent the entire night frantically chasing Flandre through the local rooftops, she would likely be completely exhausted by sunrise.
Although Remilia was a literal devil to strangers, she was remarkably kind and protective at her core. At the very least, she completely lacked that toxic, corporate mindset which dictated that because she paid a baseline salary, her subordinates were obligated to obey her commands unconditionally twenty-four hours a day like common beasts of burden.
Moreover, given Flandre's astronomical, planet-cracking physical capabilities, there wasn't a single entity living in this town who could ever hope to inflict a single scratch of harm upon her. Even if she somehow managed to stumble directly into a powerful, hidden enemy, Flandre possessed more than enough destructive capability to violently fight her way back out. And the very instant she unleashed her magical energy, the Mansion crew would naturally detect the fluctuation from across the sector. When that happened, Remilia could simply summon Gungnir to instantly blast a direct path of annihilation through the town to support her.
So, seeing that Flandre had been cooped up inside a cramped carriage for several consecutive days, the elder sister chose not to enforce any strict security requirements on her play time. Instead, the crew booked a block of luxury hotel rooms as usual, heading off to their respective quarters to rest for the evening.
On the other side of the town, seeing that her older sister hadn't sent a single annoying guard to watch over her shoulders, Flandre began to play even more happily.
After casting a flawless Invisibility Spell over her entire physical form, she took to the air, flying all over the dark town like a mischievous little woodland sprite. One moment she was pressed flat against a glass window pane, quietly watching a local family sharing a harmonious dinner; the very next moment, she would intentionally reveal a fraction of her physical form to a lone child sitting by a window just to give them a sudden, spooky fright.
The moment the terrified child ran screaming back into the kitchen crying for their parents, she would instantly hide her form completely from reality, floating in the corner of the room while laughing silently as the child frantically tried to explain the floating monster to the adults. Finding absolutely nothing out of the ordinary by the glass, the parents would grow so thoroughly annoyed by the lies that they would aggressively grab the child to deliver a firm spanking—a chaotic domestic sequence that Flandre found endlessly entertaining.
As she continued to fly leisurely along the dark alleys, her sharp eyes suddenly locked onto a woman dressed in remarkably thin, worn-out clothing down below.
Deep within the local Infected slum district, this lone woman was tightly clutching a small pile of hard, dry bread crusts, walking with extreme caution as she hugged the shadows of the crumbling walls. Whenever a local resident or a random patrol appeared even remotely ahead of her along the path, she seemed to always possess the supernatural ability to predict their approach well in advance, flexibly ducking into a side alleyway to avoid any direct contact.
There were admittedly countless desperate people living like this throughout the grim Infected sectors of Terra; perhaps she simply didn't want the surrounding thugs to notice that she had managed to secure a fair amount of actual food, thereby proactively avoiding unnecessary, violent conflict. This kind of survival instinct was exceptionally common in the slums and shouldn't have caught Flandre's specialized attention for more than a second.
But... but this specific woman was profoundly unusual.
Dangling directly from her slender back was a small, distinct pair of leathery, obsidian bat wings. They were structurally and visually almost identical to the elegant bat wings that rested on Remilia's very own back.
With that striking physical trait laid bare, the woman's true racial identity was completely obvious—she was a native Sarkaz Blood Demon.
However, within Flandre's personal memory and experience of their journey so far, the powerful Blood Demons they had encountered across the continent had all lived exceptionally well, commanding fear and respect. This was her absolute first time laying eyes on such a profoundly thin, malnourished, and physically weak Blood Demon—one who visibly appeared to possess absolutely no inherent combat capability or noble pride whatsoever.
Overcome with a sudden wave of intense curiosity, Flandre quietly drifted lower through the air to get a closer look.
The moment she closed the physical distance to about fifty meters, Flandre sharply noticed the thin woman suddenly freeze dead in her tracks. The Blood Demon instantly looked around the dark alleyway with a face full of profound suspicion, paranoia, and deep uncertainty, her eyes darting through the shadows as if she were desperately searching for a hidden observer.
Curious as to exactly who the girl was trying to look for in the dark, Flandre also began to actively scan the surrounding layout, only to realize that this sector was completely composed of an old, long-abandoned factory courtyard. Besides the trembling girl herself standing on the cobblestones, there was absolutely no one else present in the empty air except for Flandre.
In a startling flash of intuition, Flandre suddenly realized—could this weak little girl actually be looking directly for me?
But her high-grade invisibility magic hadn't worn off for even a millisecond, so how on earth could this fragile native person have possibly detected her presence through the air? Flandre's expression turned utterly bewildered, a wave of profound shock washing over her mind.
Wanting to test the limits of this mystery, Flandre quietly drifted even closer through the night air, determined to see if the other party had genuinely managed to break through her magical concealment.
The exact moment her floating form approached within thirty meters of the target, she saw the girl's wide, fearful eyes fixate directly on her specific coordinate in the sky. However, analyzing the slightly dazed, unfocused expression painting the Vampire's pale face, Flandre could be completely certain that the girl hadn't actually seen her physical body at all.