The turmoil of the terrifying attack at the Beauville evening banquet had passed for three or four days already.

It was Elizabeth's memorial day, as well as the first anniversary of Merka and Turing's relationship.

Outside, the snow continued to fall softly, and the two of them were comfortably nestled in the villa arranged by Maria.

The ice and snow outside looked like frost churned out of an ice shaving machine, covering the ground in the backyard of the villa like a fine carpet.

If you looked carefully, you could see a snowman that Turing and Merka had built together in the backyard - its faintly pink carrot nose revealing the care taken by the two young hosts when building it, and a hint of the festive spirit of a prosperous year ahead.

Inside the villa, the charcoal in the fireplace continuously emitted a warm and inviting heat, baking the antique furniture inside to be soft and fragrant.

Turing, draped in a bath towel, approached Merka with a fruit platter in one hand and a bottle of cool yogurt in the other before sitting down beside them.

Turing gently pushed the yogurt towards Merka and asked tenderly, "Still tinkering with your...spectrometer?"

Merka had been huddled over the table full of instruments for the whole afternoon, not even stopping for lunch, just toying with his strange apparatus.

"Have you come to any conclusions?"

Merka seemed a bit irritated as he took off his monocle glasses and took a sip of the yogurt Turing had handed to him.

"This isn't a spectrometer... it's a mass spectrometer."

"It's used to analyze the composition of substances."

"It is something I found when cleaning up the remnants of the Tide Witch."

Merka retrieved the item from the mass spectrometer and placed it back into the glass container meant for storage.

As Turing looked through the translucent glass box, he noticed what Merka had just been measuring.

It was a fragment of a small gear.

Since the small gears from Red Port had transformed into small trees, they were difficult to destroy.

Merka had uprooted it and planted it in the courtyard of the villa on the Lakeheart Island, hoping to find out what it really was through research.

The result was...

"What's the result?"

Turing pointed at the small gear and asked Merka.

"There is no result."

Merka massaged his temples with a headache.

"The substance composition is different every time I measure it."

"It seems to read my mind."

"When I guess it has metal properties, it has metal properties. When I guess it's non-metallic, it vanishes."

"It seems to exist in a state between subjective and objective... it doesn't seem like a substance that would appear in the real world."

"I've tried almost everything from the real world, but nothing matches its nature."

Turing frowned unhappily, stood up, and walked behind Merka, grabbing his neck and shaking it from side to side.

"I don't want to hear about these incomprehensible things all day long~"

"Either you're at home researching every day, or you're learning the piano from Lady Maria."

"Don't you have anything else you want to do?"

Merka seemed to remember something and suddenly fell silent.

Turing looked at his serious profile, a mischievous expression playing on his face.

【Enlightenment?】

“Yes, I forgot to boil water today.”

“If we don't boil water soon, we won't have time for dinner.”

Merka, indifferent, stood up from the chair, not idle, and cleanly switched off all the mechanical switches at hand.

“Turing, if you're not busy, could you help me chop some firewood?”

“We need it to boil water.”

Turing looked at Merka, who was tidying up the equipment, with a black line on his face, feeling a sense of bitterness in his heart.

【How can there be such a person?】

【So frustrating.】

“Hmph, you'll regret it soon.”

Merka watched Turing walk away after making a harsh remark, sighing inwardly.

“This child…”

“Ultimately, still a little princess.”

“Always thinking about running away and the clichés of reconciliation.”

“If two people are living together, they can't avoid the mundane matters of life.”

As Merka tidied up the equipment, he thought to himself.

However, just as Merka was about to put the experimental materials into the safe, he suddenly found that the small gear fragments he had placed on the table were missing.

“No way, Turing.”

“Is she responsible for this?”

Merka shook his head with a wry smile, feeling helpless, and slowly walked towards Turing's direction to follow her out.

——————————————————————————

Outside, the snowstorm had stopped. Turing sat in front of a large wooden stump, nonchalantly wrapped in a red snow coat.

A bright red cord was tied around her chest.

Wrapped tightly from head to toe in the snow coat, she looked like a winter elf.

“…”

Turing, bored, toyed with the axe in one hand and caressed the glass box that had been passed over from Merka with the other.

On the wooden stump in front of Turing, a brand new, fragrant wooden box was placed.

Turing had just crafted this wooden box with the axe.

Inside the box was a strange black liquid swirling around.

“Are you angry?”

Merka placed one hand on Turing's waist, gently lifted her up, placed her on his lap, and snuggled together in a small wooden chair.

“Not really…”

Turing pouted, looking down without looking at Merka.

“…Little Xixi.”

Merka affectionately called out Turing's former name.

This memory known only to the two brought Turing's attention back.

“Look up at the sky.”

Turing looked up as instructed.

A faint green snow moon hung in the sky.

It reflected a golden sunlight.

Silently telling tales of unspoken loneliness.

An overwhelming feeling blossomed in Turing's heart.

She felt so grateful…

If she hadn't met Merka, if they hadn't shared so many days together, and experienced hardships together.

How should she face this lonely moon?

Whether staying here as the once forsaken Turing.

She is bound to be frozen into an ice sculpture by the snow and white night of this day.

"The moonlight is so beautiful."

"Isn't it."

Merka gently strokes Turing's shoulder, soothing Turing's startled and restless soul.

Turing feels better now, no longer mad at Merka as before.

"Do you like the moon?"

Turing asks Merka with a smile.