Returning home from Viscount Glaint's mansion in the Empress District, Fors immediately threw herself onto the sofa. Although she hadn't done much walking today, she felt a desperate urge to recover all the fatigue from the previous ten days in one go.
However, she soon noticed something. She twisted her neck in an awkward pose and looked at Xio, who was flipping through a book borrowed from Viscount Glaint.
"Aren't you going to collect your reward?" she asked, surprised.
Yes, the reward. After finally completing that strike-mission, shouldn't Xio be rushing to get the intelligence about her father?
Given her usual attitude, even if she were half-dead, she shouldn't have the thought of "waiting until tomorrow"! Especially since she still had the energy to read a miscellaneous book.
Or was... Xio lying to her?
"The intelligence? I already got it. The client told me first and then assigned the task." Xio absent-mindedly flipped through A History of the Loen Kingdom's Nobility, not looking up. But she soon added, "By the way, didn't you have a gathering for your writer's circle tonight?"
'Changing the subject? Who releases the goods before payment for such important intel?' Fors grew wary, but she didn't show it. She pointedly looked at the wall clock and said:
"There's over an hour left. Let me rest a bit more."
"Oh. Then sleep. I'll wake you in a while." Xio nodded and continued reading.
Fors was surprised that the usually reckless Xio could be so steady. Realizing she wouldn't see any flaws by staying, she closed her eyes for a nap. When Xio finally called her, she straightened her clothes, grabbed her usual gathering supplies, and headed out.
But Fors didn't go far. She stayed in a dark corner, waiting. She expected Xio to come out soon.
...
Fors didn't know that this time, Xio wasn't lying. Having received a generous reward from Miss Audrey today, she planned to advance to [Sheriff] first before visiting Mr. Snow to settle their account.
Completely unaware that her best friend was waiting for her in the chilly autumn fog, Xio leaned back on the sofa under the gaslight, enjoying her first moment of leisure in a long time.
After ten minutes or so, she felt the hard book cover felt slightly strange. She carefully inspected it and found a hidden compartment, pulling out an old sheet of paper Audrey had prepared for her.
The front of the paper was covered in the special symbols created by Emperor Roselle, while the back contained a line of Ancient Hermes.
...
'Why hasn't Xio come out yet? Am I overthinking?' In the cold fog of Backlund, Fors was starting to lose her patience. Half-convinced she was being paranoid, she used her Beyonder power to "teleport" back home.
There, she saw Xio looking like she was about to cry, taking deep breaths to control her emotions.
'What's wrong? Did she use some messenger to talk to someone and get a terrible answer?'
Fors's sharp eyes caught an old piece of paper on the table in front of Xio. Her mind immediately raced with theories. She stepped forward, intending to comfort her seemingly fragile roommate, but then...
"OW!"
A familiar scream filled the room, followed by the sound of a heavy object hitting the floor. Xio immediately ceased her instinctive defensive strike and looked down at her best friend,Fors, who was clutching her stomach and rolling on the floor.
"Fors, why are you back?!" Xio's lips twitched as she asked. A teary-eyed Fors didn't answer immediately; it took her a while to recover from the elbow strike. Breaking into a cold sweat, she wheezed:
"I just... just got back. Xio, are you crazy? Attacking without even looking?! And you hit so hard!"
"Weren't you at a gathering? How was I supposed to know you'd be back so soon?" Xio retorted awkwardly. Fors frowned as she realized the situation wasn't simple. Xio hadn't noticed that she hadn't come through the door!
'How could she make such a mistake?' Fors muttered in disbelief. She stood up, rubbing her abdomen.
"Even if I startled you, that reaction was way too much!"
To Fors's surprise, Xio argued back, "It's just a normal reflex!"
Normally, Fors would have chosen to respect Xio's privacy. But Xio had been acting too strangely lately. Taking advantage of being on the floor, she quickly grabbed the paper that had fallen in front of Xio.
"What's this?"
"Don't look!" Xio screamed with more intensity than ever before, startling Fors. She forcefully snatched the paper back, seemingly wanting to tear it up, but she hesitated. Instead, like a child, she stuffed it behind her back as if that could hide it.
"Xio, something is very wrong with you!" Fors's expression became serious. In her memory, her best friend had never lost her composure like this, even at her most vulnerable.
Fors knew this was no small matter. Ignoring the dull pain in her stomach, she climbed up and stared at Xio with a heavy, caring gaze.
"What exactly happened?"
"It's really nothing..." Xio muttered weakly. But seeing Fors's resolve, she knew she couldn't hide it. She folded the old paper several times to completely hide the Ancient Hermes, and then confessed to Fors that she had mindlessly muttered the honorific name written in the script.
"You... where did your brain go?" Fors felt a massive headache coming on. But she knew she had to comfort her. She sighed and spoke in as steady a tone as possible. "It... it should be fine. The ritual was incomplete, and who knows if it's even real... By the way, does the name sound familiar? As long as it's not a known evil god or a hidden entity, it should be okay... Like me, I hear weird whispers every full moon, and I'm still fine, right? Uh... why are you crying?"
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]
T/N: "Sheriff" (治安官) - Reminder: Sequence 8 of the Arbiter pathway.
T/N: "Ancient Hermes" (古赫密斯语) - High-level mystical language used for rituals and honorific names.
There might be a mistake somewhere, im sleepy as heck when doing this shi, do tell the mistake you found on that paragraph comment, ill fix it asap later, yeah im uploading these chapter in advance cuz i want to sleep early, cya next week