Varie’s worry about the Time Domain was right. Mira’s state was ruinous, like fiery ants gnawing every bone, and a butcher’s saw tearing her heart to ribbons.

And that was only flesh-level pain, a surface frost over a deeper abyss.

Tessmi’s Lament deserved its venomous name. It shackled not just the body, but bit straight into the soul, a poison root stronger than common curses.

Though the curse carved into Mira had wavered under recent shocks of feeling, it hadn’t weakened. It surged higher, like a storm that feeds on winds—resistance only drew a harsher crush.

Any pushback hit the body and the soul, a hammer on steel and a wedge through grain.

Of all ways to resist, a magic domain—the soul turned outward—was a red rag to this bull. It invited backlash, the kind that even a tough mind flinches from by instinct.

Yet when Mira saw the face etched deepest in her memory, her soul jumped first, not her reason. She tore free for an instant and opened the Time Domain, nailing the Medicine Peddler to the floor like a pinned shadow.

Her soul moved as a thunderclap. Even Tessmi’s Lament, a mountain-slide of counterforce, couldn’t drown that savage surge that shattered its grip.

She hated this Nacha tribesman with a heat that smoked.

She wanted him dead.

Like the night he killed her mother while she shivered under the bed, she wanted to bite his throat. She wanted dark red blood to spatter walls and floor, to hear dog-teeth rasping her spine, to scream with a ripped voice that only wheezed.

She wanted him to know how she had lived all these years, winter after winter in her chest.

She had told herself she’d let it go, that she wouldn’t let revenge blind her. But every time she shut her eyes, the nightmare replayed like an unbroken reel, eroding her mental levee.

Until she saw her mother’s killer alive, and the dam broke, a flood under moonlight.

Now she needed only to slide her grip a few fingers forward on the hilt, and that old buried wish would bloom like nightshade.

Do it.

Finish… the vengeance for your family.

It felt like the obvious path. Everyone here who knew even a scrap of Mira’s past expected it to happen in the next breath.

However—

Mira didn’t swing.

She shook with ragged breaths. Blood ran from the small cuts on her face, mixing with sweat at her temples, streaking down and dripping onto flour-dust, blooming red like crushed poppies.

Her green eyes pinched tight with strain, and not all from the curse’s lash.

She was holding back, not just the unspeakable pain in her heart, but the urge to end him with one clean stroke.

Because she remembered Adelaide’s hands on her face that night, her voice repeating, hinting like a lantern under fog.

Find the one…

The real killer.

That thought poured over her like cold water, taming the wildfire, freeing senses that hate had smothered.

And she felt it again, that gaze, steady as a hunter’s moon, fixed on her from nowhere.

This man… was only a knife.

She studied his face—coyote-thin ears, mud-clouded eyes, and at his mouth, that huge split like a laughing wound—and she understood.

With the Nacha Tribe’s healing, a scar like that wouldn’t linger unless someone kept it. A signature, not a coincidence.

That split mouth, mocking like a grin, was the watcher’s bad taste made flesh.

The one staring at her was waiting for hot blood to win, waiting for her to kill this man, then cool down, see the “laugh,” and realize she’d destroyed a lead with her own blade.

His way of mocking and playing her. The kind of trick a raging Mira shouldn’t catch.

But Adelaide’s hint had planted clarity early, like dawn stepping ahead of the night.

That thin moment shifted the script a hair off its rail.

When the man tried to beg, Mira snapped the point to his throat and sealed his tongue with cold steel.

Do. Not. Speak.

She bit off each word, a predator with the jungle in her breath.

It wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t torture. It was the opposite, a shield cut in silence.

“Next, you only nod, shake, or motion with your hands. They mean ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ or ‘not sure.’ During that, you don’t speak. Got it?”

Everyone froze, even the pinned Medicine Peddler, minds blank like paper in rain.

What was she doing? Had she snapped? Varie’s look said all that doubt, but Mira just repeated the rules, fast and hard, bloodshot eyes never leaving the Medicine Peddler.

“You’re the Medicine Peddler who sells and distributes the Stimulant Elixir, right?”

He hesitated, then Mira tightened her grip, a warning like thunder in a valley. He bobbed his head so fast he almost cut himself, cold sweat flicking from his hair.

“Are you the only Medicine Peddler? Do you have accomplices?”

He waved both hands, uncertain as a loose reed. Mira paused half a beat, then pressed on.

“Do you make the elixir yourself?”

He shook his head without delay. The follow-up—“Do you know the exact ingredients?”—earned another solid no.

“Then you get it from someone… or something, don’t you?”

He parted his lips. His eyes wavered like a shaken pool. Mira nudged the point closer. He nodded again, frantic.

“Did they mention a ‘script’?”

He nodded. Mira went quiet, thinking a heartbeat, then clenched her jaw. She left the script aside and pressed, “Is your pickup location fixed each time?”

The Medicine Peddler nodded. Varie had seen enough. She strode up and grabbed Mira’s shoulder, heat in her voice.

“Hey! I know you don’t want to hear him talk, but this one-by-one stuff is slow. Hand him over. We’ll interrogate—”

“Give me the map.”

“…Huh?”

Varie frowned at the cut-off, but Mira snapped her head around, eyes locking, voice sharp as flint. “Now! We’re out of time!”

Mira was the only one who felt the clock, a drum in her ribs.

Drugged puppets slaughtering each other in front of her had made the script real as iron. It told her the watcher would never allow these marionettes to spill what he didn’t want known.

That’s why she sealed the man’s mouth—not to scare him, but to protect him from a trigger buried like a landmine.

She was almost certain those users had arrays set to activate on certain words, “coincidentally” making them snap right before revealing a key.

So she used a slow, brute-force way, spending minutes to avoid one fatal syllable.

Even with that safety net, her palms were slick. She knew the watcher wouldn’t sit still. He would strike. She needed to move faster.

“Give me the map!” She didn’t bother to explain. Grace could drown later. She shouted at Varie, then whirled back on the Medicine Peddler. “Then you point to the spot. Understood?”

“Uh—uh…?”

Varie blinked at the force in her. Trust won over confusion. She saw honest urgency on Mira’s face like wind over grass, and she nodded.

“Fine, fine. Your call.” She turned to the squad. “You heard her. Who’s carrying a map around Sanda? Move!”

Varie didn’t finish. Her lion ears snapped up, hair-tips flushing gold, and her short bow appeared in her hands like a sunlit arc.

“Look out!!!”

The market’s glass canopy shattered with a rain of shards. A long serpent of near-black mana dropped like nightfall and was on them in a blink.

Pressed for time, Varie loosed without a full draw. A golden arrow tore the air with a whoosh and met the serpent mid-flight, a clash that screamed like mana burning to ash.

Without full power, gold sank into black. The serpent swallowed the light, and Varie only bought a breath’s dodge. She rolled hard, grit in her teeth, and the serpent slammed where she’d stood, pulverizing stone like a cannon.

“What the hell—!”

She sprang up, anger hot and sharp. She drew her sword and set a tight guard, ready to measure this uninvited night-thing—

Then she realized she’d chosen wrong. The serpent didn’t chase her. It turned, arrow-straight for the real target—Mira, and the Medicine Peddler behind her.

No time to shout. Varie watched the black bolt lance for Mira, regret biting, and felt a flicker of relief—at least she’d bought a moment. Mira could still slip aside—

Her relief vanished like breath.

Mira didn’t dodge. She stood where she was, didn’t even lift her blade to guard. She froze like a stag in torchlight.

What are you doing?! Varie’s cry stuck in her throat.

A wet thud and a white-day burst of thunder answered instead, a flash that turned the market to noon.

In that white blaze, Varie raised an arm to shield her eyes. When her sight returned, her breath snagged on the scene.

Mira still stood, a half-step off her mark. The serpent that had aimed straight for her heart had pierced her left shoulder instead. Her hand gripped its body, and lightning danced where palm met midnight scales. The black serpent shuddered like it hit a storm and stalled.

Varie flew in and cut the tether feeding it mana, a clean stroke that severed support like a rope under a blade. The serpent blurred and vanished, leaving only the iron-stench of blood in the air.

Mira spat a mouthful of red and sagged against the wall, pale as paper in winter.

“Hey, are you okay?” Varie caught her up, but Mira lifted her face and shook her head.

"I... I'm fine..."

She said it like a cracked reed, coughed twice, then used her sword as a crutch to steady her stance.

Alright, at least she didn't look like death's doorstep—Varie let out a breath like a loosening knot, then her face clouded.

Because the Medicine Peddler behind Mira was in far worse shape, a shadow sagging in her wake.

His heart had been pierced clean through; he hit the floor, head lolling, life snuffed like a candle.

Damn it! Got played again!!!

With the trail to the Stimulant Elixir's production site cut off again, Varie slammed her fist into the wall, anger pounding like a war drum.

Frustration surged with nowhere to spill, a tide trapped behind stone.

Then a hand tapped her shoulder, light as a falling leaf.

She turned, and it was the very patient the black serpent had wounded.

His voice drifted like smoke. "It's fine. I already know... where to find it."