Melissa and Freya walked up the stairs to the second floor. After looking around the ballroom, the latter quickly found where Mrs. Fasin, Aitris’s mother, was, and smiled as she walked toward her.

Meanwhile, the former was surprised to discover that her brother Benson was chatting with a beautiful lady.

This was quite an unbelievable thing... After all, Melissa had worried a lot about Benson’s marriage prospects. More than once, she had hinted that her brother should spend more time interacting with their neighbor, Viscount Ebner Bryan, so he could learn from that "romantic detective" how to get along with girls.

Unfortunately, Benson seemed to have misunderstood and instead tried to persuade her to visit next door less often... which had left her sulking for quite a while.

But now, what was she seeing? Her brother had actually gotten the hang of it?

Melissa couldn’t help but reveal a gratified smile.

At that moment, Benson also noticed Melissa from the corner of his eye. He called her over and introduced her to the lady he had been chatting with happily, "Ruth, this is my younger sister, Melissa."

After saying that, he turned to Melissa and said, "This is Miss Ruth Brook. She is my... um, colleague, and also a good friend."

Looks like having you spend time with Ebner Bryan was the right call. See? Now you already have a ’good friend’. Feeling inexplicably excited inside, Melissa still greeted the other party politely on the surface.

Miss Ruth smiled and returned the greeting. After chatting with the siblings for a few more sentences, she returned to her parents’ side.

Watching Benson’s gaze continue to follow her departing figure, Melissa couldn’t help but cough lightly and say, "Benson, will Miss Ruth become my future sister-in-law?"

"She will..." Benson replied subconsciously, only to realize what he had said. He quickly glanced carefully at Ruth in the distance to make sure she hadn’t heard, then finally let out a sigh of relief. Turning back to face his sister’s burning gaze, he stammered, "Melissa, I’m still working on it."

"Then do you know her family background, her standards for choosing a partner, her personal preferences, her values... and most importantly, whether she has any feelings for you?" Melissa asked in quick succession, recalling content from one of Miss Fors’s romance novels.

"Uh..." Benson was rendered speechless. Aside from having some understanding of Ruth’s family background, he knew little about the rest.

Seeing this, Melissa shook her head helplessly and said softly, "Benson, I suggest again that you go learn from our neighbor, Viscount Ebner Bryan... If you can learn even one-tenth of his skills, maybe you’ll succeed in pursuing Miss Ruth."

Benson gave a bitter smile. Of course he wanted to learn, but the man was now a viscount and rarely held banquets or balls. How could he have the nerve to keep visiting?

Besides, it wouldn’t help to cram at the last minute, would it?

Melissa could guess some of her brother’s troubles, so she decided that tonight she would use a mystical item to enter that lady’s dreams and ask around—consider it helping her foolish brother a bit.

—Although the "Nightmare Badge" Klein had mailed her had expired, her brother’s colleague, the "Nighthawk" Leonard, had later given her a similar item, though it had limited uses.

...

October 1st, Saturday morning.

When Melissa compiled the results of last night’s dream investigation into a booklet and handed it to Benson, the airship, after flying through the night, finally arrived at its destination—the "City of Film," Beldan.

From afar, they could see a row of huge white letters erected on a mountain in the western outskirts of the city, forming the Loen word "Beldan."

Next, the theme park within the city, various buildings, and numerous artificial wonders came into view one after another, drawing exclamations from the passengers aboard the airship.

At this moment, Benson and Melissa stopped discussing Miss Ruth and instead enjoyed the breakfast provided by the airship while admiring the fairy-tale-like Beldan City below through the porthole.

"Daisy, look! Isn’t that the ’Haunted Castle’ you wrote in the ’dream’ section of the questionnaire? Wow! Viscount Bryan actually brought it into reality!"

"Yeah, Freya... look, that’s the Great Kulu Pyramid from the Southern Continent that you wrote down... it’s here too!"

Listening to the excited cries of the sisters at the neighboring table, Benson also smiled and pointed to a roughly ten-meter-tall robot statue, saying to his sister, "That’s the ’Optimus Prime’ you wanted to see, right? I didn’t expect the protagonist from Emperor Roselle’s stories to be brought to Beldan as well."

"Yes... but it’s a bit different from what I imagined..." Melissa frowned as she looked. "Where’s its boiler? Isn’t there a chimney? Even though Roselle’s novel says it uses energy cubes, when it transforms into a vehicle, how does it run without a steam engine?

"But Viscount Ebner Bryan wouldn’t make such an obvious mistake... Did I overlook something?"

Uh... Melissa, I don’t understand any of that... Benson kept his mouth shut, not disturbing Melissa who had fallen into deep thought. Instead, he opened the small booklet his sister had handed him about Miss Ruth’s preferences and began studying it seriously.

It was said that Melissa had gathered this information from many people last night—though he didn’t know how accurate it was.

... 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

At the same time, on the platform of Beldan City’s train station, Xio Derecha helped a middle-aged woman who looked to be around forty step out of the carriage, followed by a delicate-looking teenage boy.

The middle-aged woman resembled Xio by five or six points, though her features were more mature and far more worn. There were even strands of white at her temples.

The boy wore narrow-framed glasses and had slightly fluffy short hair similar to what Xio used to have.

They were Xio’s mother, Mrs. Carli, and her younger brother, Lo Derecha.

"Xio, after we arrive in Beldan, we won’t be hunted anymore, right?" Mrs. Carli asked again as she carefully walked along the platform.

"Of course. This is Ebner’s territory—it’s very safe. You don’t need to worry at all," Xio explained patiently.

Hearing the pride in her daughter’s tone when mentioning the Viscount of Beldan, Mrs. Carli couldn’t help but sigh deeply.

In her view, the reason that viscount was willing to shelter their family must be because her daughter had paid an unimaginable price. She didn’t believe Xio’s claim that it was simply because they were friends.

Friends... Back then, her husband had many friends, yet not a single one was willing to take in their family... From that perspective, this "Viscount of Beldan" was quite loyal and righteous... it’s just that his reputation wasn’t very good.

Xio paid no mind to what her mother was thinking. She first took the two of them on a tour around Beldan City, and only before lunchtime did they arrive at the viscount’s residence.

And when she saw the group of witch maids coming out from the mansion to greet them, Mrs. Carli’s worries for her daughter deepened once again.

Because no matter how one looked at it, those maids were no less beautiful than her daughter, yet had even better figures—and by intuition alone, none of them seemed simple.

(End of Chapter)