Belrand, Upper City, Duvishchar Street.

As a famous noble residential district, the streets here were broad and clean. All kinds of manor buildings were luxurious yet antique, dazzling to the eye. Looking up from the smooth stone-slab road, the exquisite reliefs on the walls on both sides were lifelike, as if they could come alive at any time, adding an even more stirring touch of vitality to the night.

Unfortunately, right now, this place was deathly silent, because most of the residences on both sides still had not welcomed new owners.

After that purge that could be said to have shocked the entire empire, there was always a trace of bloodstench lingering in the air here that refused to go away, enough to make one nauseous. And the blood that had failed to wash away through the sewers had dried on the bluish stone slabs, forming terrifying paintings—arrogant and unrestrained, like mad demons howling and wailing.

"In the dead of summer, this is creepy as hell."

In the darkness, tiny points of firelight brightened and dimmed. Wisps of white smoke mixed into the night fog. Though it was early summer, a man wrapped head to toe in a thick cotton coat cursed under his breath and viciously threw the cigarette butt that was about to burn his fingers to the ground.

He ground it out underfoot, letting it return to the dark. Yet the darkness did not last. When the clouds drifted away, a faint, cool glow spilled down, falling onto his face—so pale it seemed clearly worn thin by overwork.

"So the empire’s nights have a moon this beautiful, too."

He tilted his head up and gazed at that bright moon. In his dim eyes, who knew what picture was being outlined—but the sigh that left his mouth was full of melancholy.

"The empire’s moon is beautiful, but how can it compare to the one back home?"

Another figure stepped out of the shadows without a sound.

"Owl?"

"Hertz?"

"The mark?"

"Here."

"The passphrase?"

"Dovier’s lakes."

"So it really is you... it’s been a long time."

Hertz, who had arrived at the agreed time, studied the hook-nosed, weathered man not far away with a complicated expression. He was someone he had once been extremely familiar with—yet he had almost failed to recognize him, and had even needed the mark and the passphrase to confirm his identity.

"Twenty years, right? I thought you were dead a long time ago."

"Yeah. A long twenty years. Sometimes even I thought I’d already died—that what lived in this world was nothing but a body moving on its own. Pity. Words like that are only a wandering poet’s delusion. As long as you’re alive as a person, you have to suffer bitterly with your soul along for the ride."

The man fumbled around inside his cotton coat for a long time before finally producing a cigarette case. He pulled out a cheap cigarette and was about to offer it to Hertz... but perhaps Hertz’s expensive, elegant clothes reminded him of something. The man gave a bitter smile and suddenly flung the cheap cigarette hard onto the ground.

"Look at me. Habit, I guess. How could I offer you that kind of trash?"

As he spoke, he opened the hidden compartment of the case, revealing cigars from the kingdom’s Dugar District—dark in color, uniquely fragrant, unmistakably high-quality.

"Here, try one. I only recently had the money to buy a few, but I can’t buy too many. People would get suspicious."

"I remember you didn’t smoke these before."

"Smoke enough trash tobacco, and even Krodi’s trash starts to feel like a treasure."

There were only three cigars. The man handed one to Hertz and took one for himself, clipping it open with a clumsy unfamiliarity.

White smoke spread again.

Hertz didn’t hurry to taste it—rare as it indeed was, but something his status had long since made him disdain. Instead, his gaze fell on the photo tucked at the top layer of that cigarette case, flickering slightly.

"That’s your wife and daughter?"

"Yeah."

The man lifted the photo and handed it to Hertz with the air of showing off. A gentle smile rose on his face despite himself.

"Yes. This is my wife. I met her twelve years ago at a bar in the Lower District."

"She’s pretty."

"Hah, right? Back then she was a fallen young lady from a fallen noble house. When she first married me, her temper was huge—she always thought I was useless, that I couldn’t earn money, that I’d never get promoted, so she couldn’t use the high-end cosmetics and high-end clothes she used to, and she even got looked down on by her old sisters... but later, she started managing the household properly. The other day, when I got promoted, I specially bought her a gift to celebrate, and she chewed me out for ages instead—said I only knew how to waste money. Heh heh... I’m telling you, once that woman starts nagging, it never ends. Besides me, probably nobody in this world could stand her. But she just had to meet me. What bad luck."

The man shook his head. "Bad luck—and pitiful."

"Is that so?"

Hertz examined the middle-aged woman on the left side of the photo. In truth, she could no longer be called particularly beautiful. Time had left too many marks on her—wrinkles and the heaviness of middle age were practically a woman’s mortal enemy, making her look far older than noblewomen her age.

But as soon as one looked at the cute girl beside her, one could glimpse a little of the fallen young lady’s former grace.

"Your daughter is cute too." This time, Hertz said it sincerely.

"Right? Right?!"

When he spoke of his daughter, light even rose in the man’s dim eyes.

"Everyone says my daughter looks like her mother, but I think she looks like me. ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) Look—these big eyes. Don’t they look like me when I was young? Just as good-looking. Let me tell you, my daughter isn’t just cute—she’s smart, too. Her grades are always at the top at school. Not long ago they even tested her and found she has magical talent. She’s already been accepted early by a pretty good magic academy. This autumn she can go study. That part’s like me too. Good thing she didn’t inherit her mom’s brain, otherwise, tsk tsk..."

When it came to his wife and daughter, the man seemed to have endless things to say. Hertz listened patiently, because this guy—once a classmate at the same academy, and a friend, who later walked a completely different road—was worth half an hour of respect.

"Ha. That’s enough small talk."

But the man glanced at his watch and took the initiative to cut off his own flood of words.

"Time to handle business."

In that instant, it was as if another personality surfaced on the man. The decadent air was swept away. The shoulders inside that oversized cotton coat seemed to straighten, making him look much taller. He rubbed his face, and his expression turned solemn and imposing.

This was the "Owl" Hertz remembered.

"This is the instruction from above."

Without any more nonsense, the man directly handed Hertz a coin that looked extremely ordinary—a tourist souvenir coin that you could buy for five Aimier in a Lower District shop.

"They actually used you to deliver the message?" Hertz asked in surprise.

"You’re the delegation leader now. With so many people watching you, it’s naturally not convenient to use your channels."

The man drew a deep breath. Cigar smoke curled through his nostrils as he said,

"And who told you what I’m delivering is only a message?"

"What?"

Hertz froze.

After a few more seconds of shock, he finally realized this meeting was not as simple as he had imagined. He quickly took the souvenir coin and sank his mind into it.

When his perception probed inside, he detected the faint, familiar number formed by magic within the coin.

That was the kingdom’s confidential code.

Hertz’s thoughts grew heavier. Following the established procedure, he poured in magic at a special frequency... half a minute later, the seal opened, and Hertz finally could read the information on it.

"This is..."

Hertz’s pupils shrank. The information Owl delivered completely exceeded his expectations. It caught him off guard—no, it made him afraid.

"This... who gave this order? This kind of thing... how could it be so easy to—"

"Someone who can issue this kind of order—there’s only one in the entire kingdom."

The man said calmly. "With your intelligence, can’t you think of it?"

"I..."

Of course Hertz could. You could figure it out with your knees. He just couldn’t quite believe it.

Leaving aside what kind of cold-bloodedness it took to issue such an order so casually...

...this instruction was even more like throwing all of his careful planning during this period straight into the trash.

And it even meant...

"Why?" Hertz took a deep breath, but still couldn’t suppress the turmoil inside.

"Why do this? This is basically the same as completely—"

"Shouldn’t you be asking yourselves that question?"

"We..."

Hertz opened his mouth, but the words of rebuttal reached his lips and still couldn’t come out.

Because the daytime match had indeed smashed more than half of the meticulous plan behind this mission.

And the instruction from that person in the kingdom was only delivering the final blow.

Perhaps to that person, this was merely one option among several. If this path didn’t work, then naturally they could only walk another.

Nothing wrong with it. Reasonable. Logical.

"But... but he..."

Hertz’s lips trembled. His face was ashen.

"He is still my most proud student."

"That’s your choice to make."

The man tossed away the half-smoked cigar and ground it out underfoot, saying coldly, "People always have to make choices, don’t they?"

...

...

Hertz finally left.

The man remained standing there, pulling out his cigarette case again.

He hesitated. In the end, he gave up the last cigar. He took out a cheap cigarette—the kind he’d been smoking for twenty years—lit it, and drew in deep.

Smoke spread out. His severe face relaxed again. He leaned against the wall, lifted his head to look at the moon, and didn’t know what he thought of when he suddenly smiled.

"Damn it."

He said,

"I forgot... today’s my daughter’s birthday."

He took a hard drag. Not bothering to clean up the cigarette butts on the ground, he turned and hurried away.

As he moved along, the patrol police and the passing knights on the street all acted as if they couldn’t see him. They let him pass through the blockade in this area and reach the edge of the Upper City.

This was his new home, which he had only moved into not long ago.

These twenty years, he had stumbled and struggled through the empire’s political arena, rolling and crawling, yet never accomplishing much—always holding tiny, insignificant posts. Only after the recent purge, when many positions in the empire opened up, did he get a chance to take office and, on the fringe of the Upper City, buy a two-story small building.

Maybe fate really was that kind of mysterious thing.

He took out his key and unlocked the door.

But the key had only just been inserted into the keyhole and made a sound—before he could even turn it, the door suddenly opened by itself.

A plump woman stood behind it. The moment she saw him, she started cursing without holding back.

"You dog thing—where the hell did you run off to fool around? You forgot what day it is today, huh? Huh?! Now that you’re some big official, you think you can look down on me, is that it? Let me tell you—back then you were just a poor brat who couldn’t even afford food. Besides me, who would’ve looked at a dog thing like you?!"

The curses were filthy.

Yet the man suddenly bared his teeth and smiled.

"Ah, sorry, sorry. A social engagement. Couldn’t refuse it. I’m a bit late."

Out of habit, the man scratched his head, and as he skillfully slipped into the house from the woman’s side, he explained,

"As for what day it is—our daughter’s birthday. How could I forget? Look, I brought cake and a gift."

When the woman saw the cake and the gift box in his hands, her expression finally eased a lot, though she still kept cursing.

"Buying cake is enough. Why buy a gift? The kid isn’t that little anymore."

"You still need a gift. She’s been waiting."

"I’m warning you—if you waste money, I won’t let you off!"

"No, no. I’m always frugal. You know, you know..."

The man kept smiling along. He grabbed an apron, tied it on, and started helping with preparations.

So a small, warm birthday party was held like this. Even though she kept saying not to waste money, this time also had the meaning of celebrating the man’s promotion, so the woman splurged in a rare moment and made a whole table of dishes.

She even made the creamy stew she had learned back when she had been a noble young lady—something she hadn’t made in over ten years. Her technique was a bit rusty, but it was passable.

The daughter, who had never seen such a lavish spread, let out a cheer and, full of anticipation, stuck candles into the cake one by one.

The candlelight swayed, lighting up the woman’s and the daughter’s flushed faces, and reflecting on the whole table of food—warm enough to make one feel like they were in a dream.

The man sat at the table, dazed.

Yes. A dream.

To him, this was only a dream.

But dreams... always had the moment you woke up.

The man closed his eyes.

His daughter’s voice sounded by his ear—that innocent child’s voice echoing as she made a wish: that her father could come home early every day and spend more time with her.

But in the next instant, Owl opened his eyes.

His daughter blew out the candles.

The world fell into darkness.

"Such bad luck... and pitiful."

In the dark, a soft sigh sounded.

Not long after, the candles were lit again, their faint light flickering.

Illuminating two faces—deathly pale, terrified, confused, and disbelieving.

Blood flowed down from their slit throats, drip, drip.

On the cake, the candles still gave off faint white smoke—ten of them, symbolizing ten years old.

Owl casually tossed the lit candle in his hand. In an instant, a surging tongue of flame leapt up, gradually swallowing and occupying everything that had filled more than ten years of his memories. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

"Goodbye."

He whispered a farewell.

"To what I loved most."

The two-story building that had cost the man ten years of savings turned into ruins in the flames in the blink of an eye. Awakened residents and patrol police hurried over together to fight the fire. Some even shouted the man’s name anxiously.

They remembered him clearly. He was gentle with people, honest in his work, cherished his wife, doted on his daughter. He had only moved here not long ago, yet had already become close with many. So many people were truly worried about him.

And in the night, the man who had now once again become "Owl" carried away all the results of his twenty-year infiltration and raced out beyond Belrand.