"To Teacher Valerie."
The coal lamp on the desk in the bedroom glowed softly, and Ave stowed the envelope with a heavy expression. The red hawk at the windowsill nodded to her, took the envelope in its beak, spread its wings, and disappeared into the night.
Over the past two years, she had sent over twenty letters to the society, but she never received a satisfactory reply.
This time, unsurprisingly, the great nobles of the Imperial City once again rejected her application for troop deployment to Ximu Town. Those pampered individuals always believed they had more important matters to attend to and dismissed the threats she mentioned in her letters.
This evening, her teacher proposed relocating her back to the Imperial City, saying her mother was getting old and she shouldn't keep letting her family worry.
Ave clenched her fists.
Those people were completely unaware of the crisis facing the Empire.
The sudden appearance of werewolves in the forests, the curse objects suspected to be of level three or above, and the blood moon last night—everything indicated the followers of the Evil God had set their eyes on this border town.
Her gaze again lingered on the yellowed newspaper on the table.
"The Downfall of the Witch—Followers of the Evil God stand no chance against the Empire!"
The bold headline showcased the writer's pride. This reporter from the Horned Owl Beast Daily was present under the execution platform, witnessing the witch's execution and chronicling her life story in the newspaper—the Empire's once most outstanding Elemental Shaper, who had fallen to the Evil God's influence.
The black and white colored image on the newspaper kept altering, repetitively showing the execution scene Ave had seen countless times—a woman with her head covered by a black hood bound to a stake. The executioner poured oil over her, igniting her with a torch, engulfing her almost instantly in flames. When the fire extinguished, only a charred corpse remained on the stake.
Ave frowned deeply. Never did the Church allow anyone to see the witch's face. The official explanation was that the witch possessed evil eyes that could enchant people, but it also gave space for various speculations.
Like in the battle that devastated most of the Imperial City, the Church failed to capture the Lindong Witch alive and could only find a scapegoat.
Yet, the reporter from Horned Owl Beast Daily believed the Church's propaganda completely. After the execution, the newspaper lavishly praised the Church's achievements, and to this day, the great nobles of the Imperial City believe the Lindong Witch to be thoroughly dead.
However, rumors claimed that the severely injured witch had escaped the Church and the Knight Order's encirclement, fled to the border town, and left the Empire's boundaries.
Ave, exhausted, rubbed her forehead. She had integrated all the rumors, speculating the most likely escape route of the Lindong Witch, which was precisely why she had insisted on coming to Ximu Town after leaving the Imperial City.
Ximu Town was the last stop for the Lindong Witch, and in the eyes of the Evil God's followers, this town held an exceptionally special meaning. They dubbed it the "land of destruction and rebirth," firmly believing that when the Lindong Witch resurfaces, she will bring doom to this decaying Empire.
That was two years ago.
Recently, various signs around Ximu Town indicated manifestations of the witch's resurrection. Ave had already sent her collated routes and manuscripts back to the society, but...
The nobles of the Imperial City regarded her as a delusional clown with very little power, given that she was only a graduate of the Enlightenment Society with a second-tier level. Even her father wrote, warning her against sending more absurd letters, asserting that those would only disgrace the family.
Ave sighed, tidying up the materials on the table before placing them into the drawer.
Only time can prove everything.
Thus, she once again ignored her teacher's suggestion, preferring to die along with the truth.
Ave took off her windbreaker, hung it on the rack, and wrapped herself in a blanket, lying awake in bed for a long while. Besides the matter of the Evil God's followers, another issue troubled her mind.
Ave always felt she had forgotten something, yet when she tried to think carefully, she couldn't pinpoint it. For a truth seeker, this was nothing short of torment.
Her sleep was restless, plagued by endless nightmares.
She dreamed of being on the town's street, where everything was blanketed in ice and snow, facing familiar residents of the town frozen mid-flight—panicked expressions forever captured at that moment.
She also dreamed of a cloaked figure overlooking her from the top of the clock tower, wearing a bizarre mask beneath which gleamed a scarlet eye.
When the sky outside began to lighten, Ave woke from the nightmare.
She threw off the blanket, sat up in bed, her body already soaked in sweat, her golden hair standing on end from fright, and finally remembered the matter she had forgotten last night.
"Oh no!"
"Forgot to take food to Ethan!"
"That guy... wouldn't he be eaten by the hungry wolf chicken?"
Meanwhile, the early-rising Ethan also experienced a shocking surprise as he stepped out of his cabin.
Miss Keroy noticed him leaving; she cheerfully stood up on the mattress and greeted him with a good morning, inadvertently revealing what lay beneath her.
A corpse stared blankly, stretched out with a long blood trail on the ground from its right hand reaching forward.
Ethan stared at the body for a good ten seconds before calmly retreating into the cabin, shutting the door.
Perhaps he hadn't fully woken up.
Ethan composed himself, patted his cheeks to stay awake, prepared himself, and pushed the door open once more.
"Good morning, Miss Keroy."
"Cluck cluck!"
The lively Miss Keroy responded to him.
She sat back on the mattress, obscuring the body with only a protruding segment of the right hand visible, along with the bloodied mattress.
"Go dig a pit, Miss Keroy."
"Cluck?"
Having received the order, Miss Keroy promptly trotted to the vacant ground in front of the cabin, scratching the earth with her claws as Ethan picked up a shovel from inside the cabin and followed.
During the digging, Ethan heard Miss Keroy's explanation.
She picked up the corpse from the road; during the night, she heard cries for help and went to investigate. By the time she arrived, the man was bleeding from all orifices, convulsing unceasingly on the ground. Seeing that he had completely lost consciousness, afraid he'd catch cold lying there, she dragged the man back to the cabin and placed him on the mattress, covering him with feathers from her belly for warmth, akin to incubating an egg.
What a kind little chicken!
Ethan wanted to praise Miss Keroy's kindness, but if someone else witnessed this scene, it might spawn another version of the story.
For instance, they might say he and the wolf chicken teamed up in the wild to attack an innocent passer-by, brutally murder him, plunder his belongings, and then bury the body.
"Ethan, I brought you milk and bread—"
The voice that made Ethan's scalp tingle appeared from behind, unsurprisingly interrupting once it came closer.
He stiffly turned around, seeing Ave standing atop the mound, scanning him vigilantly with both her eyes and golden locks.
"Let me explain."
He needed to explain the situation to Ave clearly and concisely, "This person, died of natural causes."