Footsteps echoed in the corridor again.

  Approaching.

  Elsa looked up, her blurry gaze cutting through the dim light to land on Aurora’s figure.

  But… when her gaze fell on the “figure” behind Aurora, her face, already pale, turned to ice.

  “Aurora…”

  Her voice wasn’t loud, but it was as cold as a stone pulled from a frozen river in the dead of winter.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Why did you bring a stranger here?”

  Elsa’s expression became deadly serious.

  In her beautiful eyes, which always seemed a bit empty, a killing intent erupted from nowhere, fueled purely by her own will.

  That thought, like a poisoned spike, tore through the heavy air of the corridor.

  “Are you going to betray my lady?”

  At the same time, struck by this sudden interrogation, Aurora froze mid-step.

  Elsa… what was she saying?

  Betrayal?

  “Elsa, what are you talking about?” Aurora asked, completely lost.

  Her face was a canvas of pure, unhidden confusion. The confusion was so real, so absolute, that even Elsa could see no hint of pretense.

  And yet, Elsa was certain she hadn’t seen wrong. She saw Aurora instinctively take a step to the side, as if to give Elsa a clearer view.

  “Isn’t she a friend of my lady’s? She was invited by my lady…”

  But Elsa stared at that “figure.”

  Her reaction was like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. She exploded.

  “No!”

  Her voice suddenly shot up, sharp as metal scraping, echoing shrilly in the wide corridor.

  “Have you lost your mind?!”

  “The world is already like this! How could my lady possibly invite a ‘friend’ over to the manor?!”

  “Besides, my lady has never had friends outside the manor!”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Elsa’s words, like a cold, gleaming scalpel, precisely dissected Aurora’s chaotic cognition.

  Every word followed a cold, strict logic.

  Aurora was stunned.

  Her brain, as if split open from the inside by this sudden, perfectly reasonable interrogation…

  Yes!

  The world was already like this. Zombies roamed, order had collapsed, everyone struggled just to survive. How could her lady possibly… have the state of mind to invite a “friend” to visit?

  Even if she really had a friend, she would have sent them to rescue people, or brought them back as a survivor. And besides… Betty had said her lady disliked socializing since she was little. And she herself knew her lady had never, ever mentioned a friend outside the manor…

  Aurora’s expression grew dazed. In those clear eyes, something was breaking through the soil, about to awaken from a forcibly imposed, gentle dream.

  The surrounding scenery, in her gaze, began to sharpen. The grain of the wall, the scratches on her armor, and Elsa’s figure, trembling slightly from extreme weakness and anger… Everything became so “real.”

  So real that she began to wonder, why had she so easily accepted the absurd premise of “my lady’s friend”?

  But, in the next moment, a voice as gentle as a mother’s lullaby sounded softly in the corridor.

  It wasn’t loud, yet it drowned everything out. It overrode Elsa’s sharp interrogation and the clanking of armor. It drilled, clear and direct, into Aurora’s ear.

  “What’s the problem?”

  That voice, passed through the eardrum, brushed past the ear bone, like a gentle hand tucking Aurora’s awakening cognition back to sleep, wrapping it once more in a layer of warm, safe amniotic fluid.

  In a doting, matter-of-fact tone, it offered a perfect, irrefutable answer.

  “She has no other friends, and isn’t that precisely because…”

  “I am her best friend?”

  Aurora’s dazed expression, in an instant, became clear and certain.

  No more doubt.

  No more confusion.

  Of course.

  My lady truly had no friends outside the manor, and that was because…the “lady” following behind her, was my lady’s best, and only… friend.

  Aurora no longer doubted her own perception. Her clear eyes held only loyalty and respect for her lady.

  However, this entire scene, which fell completely into Elsa’s gaze, was horrifying.

  Bone-Chilling!

  This wasn’t a simple memory lapse or a moment of confusion. This was… irrefutable evidence of cognition being overwritten out of thin air!

  From lucidity, to confusion, to being forcibly corrected, and finally to certain belief… The entire process took place within the space of a few breaths.

  Too fast to be natural. Too perfect to be anything but terrifying.

  Who was that woman? Who on earth was she?!

  A cold dread, sharp and absolute, seized Elsa, shooting up her spine and collapsing her already-fragile mental defenses. Her heartstrings tightened like never before…

  And yet, that gentle, almost eerie voice, slid into her ear again.

  It met no resistance. It was as if Elsa’s mental structure, as an alchemical construct that should be highly resistant to intrusion, was spontaneously, actively, welcoming its arrival. It was as if her own mind was holding the door open for the intruder, allowing it to pass unimpeded into the deepest core of her cognition.

  “Is she inside? Let me go in. She’ll be so happy to see me~”

  The woman giggled, a flirty, conspiratorial warmth in her voice, as if looking forward to sharing a little, intimate secret only she and Pandora knew.

  Elsa’s expression went blank.

  In her vision, the woman’s figure, originally blurry and indistinct, gradually became clear, concrete… And the “figure” she now saw was a perfect, spitting image of Pandora’s “very best friend,” whom her lady had, it seemed, mentioned once or twice in passing.

  Still as elegant, composed, mysterious, and mature as she was in her memory.

  Elsa bowed.

  When she stood up again, the detached, emotionless mask of an alchemical construct had been replaced by a relaxed, gentle smile.

  “Yes, my lady is inside.”

  Her voice had returned to its former softness.

  “Please, allow me to… for you…”