The young man and Kaneko sat tight inside the tent. Gunshots cracked outside, explosions rolled like storm drums, and neither dared move, afraid the war’s stray flames would lick through the flap. They didn’t know what was happening out there, only that the world felt beaten dim.

They’d crossed the border late, true, but months of skirting the frontier had sanded down their nerves. Chaos had become a familiar wind.

They didn’t know how long they crouched there. The gunfire thinned, like rain easing. The young man risked a look—outside stood a girl with blood staining her right shin, dust caking her Magic Armor, shallow cuts sketched across her skin.

Shadow pooled in her eyes. She caught his collar with one hand and flung him back onto the bedding like tossing a sack.

Night Frost was in a foul mood. Every mission found its own accident, and every enemy came sharper. Last time had been Cantata One against Cantata Two, then Cantata Two against Cantata Three, then that eerie Human Secret Domain. Now it was a mechanical contraption from some nameless faction, dismantled in smoke and grit.

It made her feel like the enemies were all mold in the dark, every one creeping under boards. Only her side walked in daylight, the banner out and the name known.

Blade was the same—using the Twelfth District’s Order Keeper branch as a screen, laying roots in Aklatia out of sight. But by her pace, Aklatia would be brought into the open sooner or later. She must have hands buried deeper still.

Blade sent Night Frost out, and she’d thought it a small errand. The moment she stepped outside, it turned into a full river. Lucky she was careful—otherwise, Blade wouldn’t see her tomorrow.

When she got back, she’d make Blade explain herself.

For now, she glanced at the young man she’d thrown onto the soft quilt. She walked toward him, one slow step after another. The guy did rotten things, sure, but he had the spine for it—could bend, could stretch. Give him time and he’d carve himself into someone.

Hatred smoldered in the young man’s eyes, but he didn’t move. He didn’t know what happened outside, but Night Frost walking in straight as daylight meant she could topple their leader. Charging her would be courting the grave.

His road of earning money under the banner of revenge had been pinched shut by Night Frost, yet he wasn’t angry. He felt like any other refugee now; the Twelfth District would have relief. If he stayed alive, he would rise and fatten again.

The plan had failed. Kaneko was useless to him now. He’d taken her when he slipped away from his team to make the plan work; with the plan dead, there was no reason to keep her tethered.

That border outfit was truly weak. He’d thought borrowing their “prestige” would let him bully the Twelfth District’s Order Keepers. He hadn’t expected the Magic Maidens to wipe them in just a few days.

They hadn’t been good men either. They promised him cooperation, then planned a black-eat-black, knife him and swallow the supplies whole. Dead suited them.

Even if they had lived, the supplies wouldn’t have reached their hands. He’d already struck a deal with another camp; those fools were just puppets.

Of course, the other camp wouldn’t get anything either. He’d prepped a space tool—touch the pallets, swallow everything, and slip away under night like a fish into black water.

The plan was a painted scroll; reality was bare bone.

Kaneko held no hint of fear in her eyes. More innocence shone there, but it couldn’t veil her keen mind. The saying that onlookers see clear wasn’t wrong—she saw the young man’s play clean through.

Her mind was steady and grown. Facing her felt like facing Blade. No—more like facing another Illusory Glass. Yet different in some way Night Frost couldn’t quite name.

Night Frost said nothing. Kaneko seemed to know what she meant; she nodded once, like a reed bowing to wind.

The young man had been angling for the Twelfth District’s supplies; hauling him in wasn’t wrong. Even without Kaneko’s nod, Night Frost would have tied him up. Her goal was simple—earn a strip of Kaneko’s goodwill. If Kaneko was a hidden big shot, winning that glance mattered.

Come on. We’re three arcs deep—fate ought to send out a boss to push the plot. Knowing the author’s taste for trouble, Kaneko wasn’t simple; she might even front the next volume.

Four or five minutes slipped by. Night Frost bound the young man deftly, then felt around the tent and pulled out a few more ropes.

“What’s this?”

Night Frost had caught a glint of something hard under the soft quilt. A little square, with a finicky pulse of Mana and space ripple about it. She lifted the bedding. The young man yelped, afraid she’d take the block away.

The square dropped into her hand cold as a winter pond. In this twenty-degree air, it felt fresh from the ice cellar.

It was silver all through, faint patterns etched on its faces. The carvings were just ornament, no arrays hidden within.

She fed Mana into it. The square only shivered. It reacted to her Mana, but not much—it devoured a portion and left the rest.

That devoured Mana sparked a buried space scent inside it. The next breath, all her Mana was repelled cleanly, like water flung off lacquer.

Night Frost didn’t recognize the thing. The Eye Orb might. Judging by the young man’s face, it was a prize.

She wrapped it with Mana, planning to sit it in her box’s corner. As the silver block neared the box’s mouth, a repulsive force made the box’s internal space quake twice. Bad sign. She pulled it back at once and checked the box inside, careful as a surgeon.

It had been said in earlier chapters: the box was made by cutting and processing space, hard to craft. The cut segments were unstable, which made them rare.

Night Frost inspected the box’s space. A small piece was visibly gone. Food stacked on that side sank and slid into a misaligned pocket. Jagged cracks crawled across the inner wall like lightning scars.

They’d barely touched. Yet the box’s space had shattered to this state, turned brittle as eggshell. It felt like a Mana-tipped finger could crumble it outright. All of which made the block seem anything but ordinary.

Once it was out of the box, the block’s space aura thickened, like it had claimed the box’s pocket for itself and left ruin behind.

Her clothes had no pockets. She cradled the silver square on a cushion of Mana and held it in her palm.

Next, she found a few more ropes and trussed up the not-yet-dead scum in the tent, threw them in a heap—except Kaneko.

She stripped a dozen Kro-77 pistols from their hands, plus a few submachine guns. She hadn’t even seen them fire those.

Night Frost wasn’t a gun person. She stuffed the lot into the small space box. Even veined with cracks, it could barely hold.

She was about to scout the far camp when rustling steps approached. A few silhouettes rose from the plain. Night Frost squinted—wasn’t that Chen Xiaoyin and her crew?

The toughest Cantata Two from that camp had been lured here by Night Frost. All Chen Xiaoyin’s team had to face were a few Cantata Ones and some dozens of men.

From the first blast, it took them less than half an hour to clean the camp out. Quick hands, clean work.

“Sorry. We hit a trap and got here late…”

Chen Xiaoyin looked sheepish. She’d stepped into a pit at the camp gate, and the poison-beasts inside took a while to handle. Thankfully, no one got hurt.

Their route had been set. Who would expect the ground to go hollow today, and spit out a mess of venomous things?

Then again, this was the lifted border. Running into Monsters was normal enough. When Lujin Lushi arrived, they could take over. Night Frost didn’t care to wade deeper.

Chen Xiaoyin also had a small space box. Night Frost dropped part of the haul into it for her to take back and make the report. You skim what you should—no need to be a saint.

Speak of Lujin Lushi, and they arrived.

Rotor thunder fanned across the plain. The crowd looked up. A helicopter “floated” in from afar, circled overhead, and hovered. The downdraft blew pebbles into dust-swirls. Chen Xiaoyin and her people cleared a space for it to land.

Night Frost narrowed her eyes, scanning the helicopter. Empty. Nothing loaded.

Promises of pre-talk humanitarian supplies were air. Blade had never meant to hand over a grain.

“Lujin Lushi squad on site. Border organization members neutralized. The next wave, arm up. Escort these people back.”

Lu Jin and Lu Shi jumped down and marched the prisoners toward the helicopter. Behind it, two trucks of fully armed troops rolled in.

“You’re late…”

Night Frost looked at Lu Shi. Her inky skirt hem lifted in the wind, a black swan’s feathered arc.

“But there’s a nasty Monster over there. Go take a look. Oh—and the haul’s with Chen Xiaoyin. My space is damaged. Not fit for storage.”

Night Frost pointed toward the opposite camp. After briefing Lu Jin, she turned and walked away, idly weighing the silver square in her hand like a piece of moon-ice.

Lu Jin and Lu Shi traded a few quick words, and Lu Jin left. No surprise—she was headed to that mysterious hollow.

Night Frost didn’t want to burn time here. Better to go draw a line with Blade and ask if this mission came with compensation.

She had barely gone when a massive insect erupted from the soil, carapace black as ink, spikes bristling all over.

Lu Shi’s shadow danced with it. Chen Xiaoyin’s team escorted the captives back to the Twelfth District. Lu Jin moved to support Lu Shi.

And none of that had anything to do with Night Frost anymore.