He looked at the faces before him, twisted by fear and despair.

  He looked at the light extinguished in their eyes…

  He was out of options.

  He was really, truly out of options.

  If only… if only the bell would ring again. Just one more time…

  Patrick closed his eyes, csping his hands together. He mustered all the piety of his sixteen years of life and began to pray, silently, in his heart.

  ………………

  Inside the bakery, the desperate weeping and the dull thuds of zombies against the wooden doors intertwined into a cacophony of despair.

  But in a patch of shadow outside the bakery, two pairs of eyes were fixed on the building, which was shrouded in an aura of death.

  One pair belonged to Betty, full of pure fear and helplessness.

  The other belonged to Aurora, whose emotions were far more complicated—there was fear, there was worry, but more than anything, a violent, soul-tearing hesitation.

  “Sister Aurora… are… are we really not going to save them?”

  Betty’s voice trembled like a leaf in the wind, clutching Aurora’s clothes so tightly her knuckles were white. “They… they’re just like us, they’re still just children…”

  Aurora’s lips were a tight, tense line. She didn’t answer.

  How could she not see? How could she not hear?

  Trapped inside were the children of Calfskin Vilge, the future subjects of the fiefdom, the very people a knight was supposed to protect with her life!

  Her knightly oath, her sense of honor, the heart in her that had not yet been completely worn down by cruel reality—they were all screaming at her to charge forward, to use her own body if she had to, to smash open a path to life for those children!

  But…

  she took a deep breath, the cold, metallic air, tinged with the scent of blood, forcing her mind, foggy from blood loss, to become calm.

  She whipped her head around, looking toward the clock tower that stood abruptly in the center of the vilge.

  There, only silence.

  The life-saving chime of the bell had stopped long ago. A long time. Long enough for anyone to jump to the worst of conclusions.

  “Betty,” Aurora’s voice was hoarse and dry. “Lady Pandora… is still in the clock tower.”

  “But… but the bell stopped. Maybe it means Lady Pandora has already…” Betty didn’t dare finish the sentence, but the meaning was clear.

  “No.” Aurora cut her off, her gaze exceptionally firm. “If Lady Pandora had already made it to safety, she would have come to meet us. She hasn’t, which means she is still there, which means… she’s run into trouble.”

  She paused, gncing at the bakery, a hint of pain she herself didn’t notice in her voice. “Those children… they’re safe for now. As long as they don’t come out on their own, the monsters won’t get in for a while.”

  “But Lady Pandora is different!”

  Aurora’s gaze instantly became sharp and resolute. “Lady Pandora is our only hope! She is the… core of everything! If something happens to her, what’s the point of even if we save all the children in here? It would just be prolonging the inevitable, waiting for the next wave of despair!”

  She had finally convinced herself.

  Finding Pandora was more important than saving these children, who weren’t in immediate mortal danger.

  “We have to go, Betty.” Aurora stood up, pulling Betty to her feet as well. “We have to find Lady Pandora!”

  As she spoke, she remained vigint, scanning their surroundings. The sights and sounds on their journey here had been eerily strange. The streets were unnervingly clean, not a single zombie in sight, as if all the monsters had simply evaporated. It wasn’t until this group of children emerged from the bakery that the deathly silence was broken.

  She and Betty had made their way here cautiously, but they hadn’t seen a single trace of Pandora or Elsa.

  My Lady… where was she? How was she, right now?

  A huge worry, like a heavy stone, pressed down on Aurora’s heart.

  “Sister Aurora…”

  Betty’s quavering voice pulled her back from her thoughts.

  Aurora came back to her senses and realized that Betty’s teeth were chattering from fear, her whole body trembling.

  A bitter smile touched Aurora’s lips. She reached out and patted Betty’s shoulder reassuringly. “Betty, you go back to the safe house and wait for me. I’ll go alone…”

  “No!”

  Betty shook her head violently. Her round, chubby face had turned a little pale from fear, but her eyes were exceptionally stubborn. “I don’t want to! I want to stay with Sister Aurora! Even if… even if I get bitten by a zombie, I want to stay!”

  She sniffled, then added in a small voice, as if to cheer herself on: “I… I have a lot of meat on my bones, I’m sure… I’m sure I can st for a while!”

  Looking at Betty, who was clearly terrified but still mustering her courage, Aurora’s heart softened.

  This little kitchen maid wasn’t so useless after all.

  “Alright, then we go together.”

  Aurora had just finished speaking—

  “My… My Lady?”

  Betty suddenly froze, pointing behind Aurora and stammering, her eyes filled with disbelief.

  “Betty, what are you talking about?”

  Aurora subconsciously turned her head, following Betty’s gaze.

  The next moment, the string in her heart, stretched to its breaking point by worry, suddenly went sck.

  An immense surge of joy instantly washed away all the fear and anxiety!

  “My Lady! You… you’re alright, that’s wonderful!”

  Who else could it be, standing there, smiling, having appeared as silently as if melting from the shadows?

  However, after the initial surprise, Aurora immediately sensed that something was wrong.

  “Why…” She looked at Pandora, her brow furrowed tightly, “is red mist… is red mist coming from your body?”

  Pandora’s appearance was silent.

  To Aurora, she felt… strange.

  She was only a few steps away, but Aurora hadn’t noticed her until Betty had pointed her out. It was a form of stealth beyond her comprehension.

  At the same time, a kind of dangerous aura she had never felt before was radiating from Pandora. It wasn’t the simple air of nobility, nor a feigned calm. It was a… a feeling of power, on a level that could pose a real, tangible threat to her, a trained knight-squire!

  Pandora didn’t answer immediately.

  She just stood there quietly.

  A faint, reddish mist, like evening haze, was slowly seeping from the surface of her body, then slowly dissipating into the air.

  She looked a little tired, her face a little pale, but her eyes… her eyes were terrifyingly bright, as if a fme burned within them.

  She looked at Aurora and Betty, the corner of her mouth curving into a faint smile. The smile held the weariness of repetitive bor, and a kind of… self-assured confidence, as if she held everything in her grasp.

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