Seeing Desty had no move left, Shebelle wrung her thoughts like a damp cloth, desperate for an idea.

She said, her voice fluttering like a sparrow, “Sis, aren’t you heading home? I know the roads. I can take you to Jaha Town. There’s a boat, and it’s about to leave. You helped me—I can repay you with this.”

It was a little girl borrowing an adult’s way, holding out a deal like a lantern in a storm.

She had seen grown-ups barter like weathered traders, so she grabbed Lucimia’s wish to go home and offered cooperation like a hand extended across a river.

Who’d expect a child to think like this, quick as a fox slipping through reeds.

You had to admit, her plan was sharp, catching need like a hook, asking help, then paying back; most people would have nodded like reeds in wind.

But Lucimia wasn’t most people, a lone hawk flying her own sky.

“I can fly.”

“…” Shebelle choked, the words sticking like dry rice.

She refused to give up; after a long think, her mind creaked like an old mill and found another path.

“Th-then I can introduce you to a handsome big brother. Uncle Anjelo is super handsome. I call him uncle, but he’s only twenty!”

“I’m not interested.” Her tone fell cold as shade under a pine.

“Th-then… I’ll introduce a beautiful big sister…”

“Doesn’t sound better than… Yuna.” Lucimia spoke before sense caught up, the name flashing like a swallow.

“What?”

“Uh, nothing.”

“I can still— I can give you money. Not much, but—”

“I don’t need money.” Lucimia had gold sleeping in her Storage Ring, quiet as stones in a stream.

“Then…” Shebelle ran out of ways and lowered her head, slow as dusk, not knowing where to turn.

“Ah.” Lucimia sighed, a thin frost drifting from her chest.

She looked at the crying girl, tears bright as raindrops. Then at Desty, stunned like a statue under dust.

The choice lay entirely in her hands, heavy as a sealed jar.

With the Devouring Authority she could call now, helping one person was light as lifting a feather.

If she nodded, the boy would be saved, sickness swallowed like ink in water.

If she shook her head, that unfamiliar little boy would leave the world in a few days, quiet as a candle’s last wick.

So—what would Lucimia choose?

Her lips pressed tight, thoughts circling like crows.

She only needed to follow the girl, let the shadow sweep once across the boy. The problem would dissolve like salt. Then she could head home, heart steady as a stone.

Desty’s letter promised the path was clear; going home shouldn’t be hard. The main thorns were Elyssus’s followers and the Magic Array, and Yuna, a name that burned like a coal.

She had to find a Dark Deity who could revive Yuna, or someone else with time-swaying power, a hand that bent clocks like reeds.

Thinking that, she asked Desty, voice cool as moonlight, “Do you know any Dark Deity with Authority like Resurrection? Something close works too.”

“Huh? Resurrection? Why ask so suddenly…” Desty blinked, confusion rising like mist at dawn.

But holding the thought that if Lucimia got her wish, maybe she’d help, she sifted the church’s records like grains through a sieve.

“For resurrection…” Desty thought and twisted her hair, fingers coiling like vines.

Lucimia noticed the habit, small as a moth’s beat.

What was that? A hair-twisting quirk while thinking? Like her own urge to bite a finger when problems clouded in.

“Got it!” Desty tossed her hair, a ribbon snapping in air. “There’s a Dark Deity with similar power. The Authority is Life. Records say it can revive others.”

“Really?” Lucimia’s eyes lit like lamps. “Can it revive someone who never existed in history?”

“Uh…”

What kind of question was that? Revive someone who never existed? It sounded impossible, like catching smoke.

Desty’s mind fogged, and she spoke slowly, “I’m not sure…”

“Alright.” Lucimia’s spirit sank, a sail losing wind.

Still, the question sparked a new thread, a little ember in her own chest.

“Revive someone who never existed in history.”

Maybe the path wasn’t resurrection. It was creation, weaving from emptiness like a spider making silk.

Treat Yuna as a fictional figure, and create her by some method, a statue given breath.

In theory, it might work; but the mind… consciousness was a maze full of thorns.

Forget it. Shelve the plan, keep it like a knife wrapped in cloth.

Then Lucimia looked at Shebelle again, gaze steady as a well.

“Have you met anyone with special abilities? Best if it’s tied to time. Or someone far away one moment, then suddenly right beside you the next.”

She asked just to try, hope thin as smoke, expecting nothing.

Unexpectedly, the girl shot her hand up, excitement bursting like a sparrow flock, “Yes! I’ve seen one!”

“Really?”

“Really!” Shebelle’s certainty rang like a bell.

“Who is it?” Lucimia pressed, voice sharp as a pin.

“It’s—” Shebelle started, then thought of something, clapped her hand over her mouth, sealing words like a jar lid.

She whispered, sly as a fox, “If you can save my brother, I’ll tell you…”

Well now. A clever little thing, playing trades like a market hawker.

Lucimia raised a brow, a smile hooking her lip like a fish, and said softly, “Sure. No problem.”

The girl’s eyes brightened at once, two lanterns in the dark.

“But.” Lucimia’s tone turned, cool as rain, “If you lie to me, I’ll give the sickness back to your brother.”

“I won’t! I won’t lie! Really!”

“Good. Settled. I help you. You help me.”

“Mm!”

Who’d have thought she would help the little girl in the end, compassion rising like a tide.

Desty watched Lucimia nod and let out a long breath, relief flowing like warm tea.

She stepped to Lucimia’s side and whispered, “Why are you looking for someone with time abilities?”

Lucimia glanced at her, snorted like a cat, and turned her face away. “I’m not telling an ingrate.”

“You! I’m not an ingrate. I wrote the letter, didn’t I?”

“Hmph.”

Even with Desty’s explanation, Lucimia ignored her, silence hanging like a curtain.

Shut out cold, Desty turned her face too, sulking with a little scoff, “Tch, fine. Keep your secrets.”

The two drifted apart, space stretching like a dry riverbed, with Shebelle caught between them, hands fluttering like sparrows, unsure what to do.

“I—I’ll lead the way! My home’s in the village ahead!”

So the three walked on through mud, the earth sucking at their steps like wet clay.

Lucimia scanned the world and had to sigh again at the desolation, a wasteland painted in ash.

From the river inland, corpses and scattered bones lay by the road like broken driftwood.

The soil was gray-dead; no weeds dared sprout. Trees had long turned to dead wood; a light kick burst them into powder like old bark.

What chilled Lucimia was the decay without life—no worms, no flies, not a single buzzing speck.

Yes. Not one.

Under normal skies, leave bodies lying and flies, maggots, even hungry birds would blanket them like a black veil.

Yet there was none. Not a wing. Not a buzz.

The quiet pressed down, terrifying, with only the soft rasp of three feet on dirt, a hushed susurrus like dry leaves.

Was this really just a plague? It felt like the land had shifted into wasteland, a desert made of sickness.

Lucimia wanted to ask Shebelle what happened here, but then thought—she came to heal the brother, not to cure the land, a traveler passing like a shadow.

It was surely tied to a Dark Deity or an Evil Entity, and most likely that Plague God Niral, a name like iron in snow.

The more you know a Dark Deity, the more dangerous it clings, a hook in flesh. Better let it go. She didn’t want that Plague God marking her, turning departure into chains.