Chapter 62: Weeping Novella
As the carriage slowly stopped in front of the Judgment Tower, it was already late afternoon.
“Help me put on my socks~”
After chatting with Shaya for a while and receiving a special massage, Selly seemed to have regained her usual liveliness. She gently kicked her bare white feet, signaling.
The last person to have Shaya put on socks was Witch Miss, but Selly was more proactive.
“I’m not your servant.” Shaya tossed the black socks onto Selly’s lap and stood up. “Is there a place to wash my hands?”
“No washing allowed!”
Selly stopped wearing socks, slipped her bare feet into small leather boots, then jumped up from her seat, wrapping her arms around Shaya’s neck and hanging onto him.
“You’re the first man to help me massage my feet; I’ll remember this for my whole life.” Selly lightly tiptoed, bit Shaya’s ear, and laughed mischievously, “How does it feel?”
“Just alright.”
Shaya adjusted his pants, ignoring her entirely, having completely forgotten how he had been sneakily getting too familiar with her just moments ago.
“I don’t know why, but you’ve become a lot more agreeable recently.”
Selly clung to Shaya, kicking her legs, forcing him to hold her thigh to carry her on his back.
Looking at Shaya’s profile, Selly didn’t speak, gently resting her chin on his shoulder, enjoying the brief moment of tranquility.
What’s wrong with me?
Why… does this man feel like poison, drawing me in?
Selly blinked, unable to help but think.
She lightly sniffed the masculine scent on Shaya, feeling her heart race.
Growing up surrounded by countless boys, none had ever given her a feeling like this.
Although she initially approached Shaya for another purpose, after spending so much time together, Selly had to admit that she appeared to have started caring about this guy somewhat.
“Is it really okay for others to see us like this?”
While carrying Selly, Shaya sighed.
“Go!”
Selly was unfazed, clasping her long legs together and mimicking a horse-riding sound.
Then, the couple got out of the carriage.
The Violet Family’s expensive carriage naturally attracted quite a bit of attention, so at this moment, people were watching these two young individuals walk out of the carriage in such a close manner.
Shaya felt somewhat helpless.
Although the last kissing incident had already caught the attention of the fifth prince, Shaya wasn’t afraid of him.
Without a doubt, a mere prince doesn’t have particularly strong subordinates, does he?
To put it bluntly, not even a Sorcerer could help him level up anymore; his focus was on the deities now.
But he was more afraid of trouble, right?
Fortunately, after entering the Judgment Tower, Selly jumped down voluntarily, at the same time her demeanor became slightly more aloof.
It seemed that her previous attitude was only directed at Shaya.
As a high-ranking inspector, Selly had clearly reached this level just after coming of age, relying on her family’s connections; let’s be honest, she was still Shaya’s direct female superior.
“We should find a professional to solve your problem.”
Selly said flatly.
At the same time, she shot him a cold glance.
Seeing Shaya’s lack of reaction, she paused for a moment, then subtly poked Shaya’s side.
“What’s wrong?”
“Why are you not reacting at all?” Selly whispered, “Don’t you boys like this kind of cold, aloof woman?”
Upon hearing this, Shaya disdainfully glanced at her chest, shook his head, and said nothing.
If we’re talking about the aloof, cold woman style, Witch Miss would completely outclass this little girl; it’s easy to distinguish between true coldness and a feigned high coolness.
Seeing that Shaya was ignoring her, a flicker of displeasure crossed Selly’s eyes, but remembering that Shaya had important matters to attend to, she decided not to say anything for now.
He led Shaya to the teleportation array, arriving at her office area.
Just like the earlier carriage, the Judgment Tower appeared to be just a moderately sized tall tower from the outside, even though it had many floors, its footprint was not particularly large.
However, once inside, it felt completely different; the actual space expanded by more than tenfold!
As a high-ranking inspector, Selly had a working group directly under her, with an entire floor for their office. Thus, when Selly and Shaya entered through the door, many members looked up.
“Inspector Lady.”
They greeted in unison before continuing with their work.
It seemed no one cared about Shaya’s identity next to her.
It appeared that this young lady of the Violet Family had quite a grip on her subordinates, far surpassing that foolish woman Angelica.
It seems that even among grand noble heirs, there’s a difference in intelligence levels.
Selly lightly clapped her hands and said, “This is Shaya Adelaide, my assistant sent from above to assist me; you must refer to him as officer as well.”
“When I am not here, his orders are equivalent to mine.”
“Understood.”
Although her subordinates were somewhat surprised, they responded in unison.
Then, Selly waved towards a certain direction.
A girl wearing a somewhat tattered cloak stood up in a panic, pointing to herself, “M-me?”
“You’re the only diviner here.” Selly said calmly, “If I’m not looking for you, who else would I look for?”
…
“What a troublesome woman.”
Octave clicked her tongue, watching the weeping Novella in front of her.
Just moments ago, upon noticing something unusual downstairs, she had told everything to the other party.
Shaya hadn’t expected that his actions that night at the Violet Manor had still had some flaws. Although his identity was not uncovered, he was still caught by experts in tracking individuals.
The reason was simple: it was Novella’s faint aura of the bounteous mother tree.
This aura was very weak; one could hardly perceive it unless they stood face-to-face like Octave, but even with some rare ancient magical artifacts, it wasn’t impossible to detect.
In just three days, Count Violet’s influence and the organization known as “The Sun” managed to narrow down their search.
It wasn’t that Shaya was careless; he was actually quite prudent, consulting Miss Jhin’s advice for every single step while escaping.
But Miss Jhin was merely a remnant of consciousness.
Moreover, she had not reached the rank of a deity in her lifetime, so she certainly wasn’t all-knowing and would also make mistakes.
“I’m s-sorry, but… I want to see Mr. Cain.”
Tears filled Novella’s eyes as she gently wiped her face, looking pitiful.
“Stop crying! You look ridiculous!” Octave said impatiently, “He has his own matters to attend to; since he entrusted you to me, I won’t let them take you away.”
Although unwilling, Octave was still a Bloodsucker who kept her promises.
Moreover, she had already received quite a few precious materials from Shaya as compensation before, and if she simply handed over Novella, it would go against her dignity.
“Go upstairs and hide well. No matter what sounds you hear, don’t make a sound.” Octave handed something to Novella, “Hang this on the doorknob; unless a Sorcerer comes to break it, no one will be able to enter for a while.”
“Besides me and Shaya, you shouldn’t open the door for anyone else; do you understand?”
“W-what about you…?”
Novella didn’t want to leave Octave alone here and tugged at her clothes.
“Don’t worry; I’m a noble Bloodsucker; you think those insect-like moving blood bags can harm me?”
Saying this, Octave gave her a hard push, then untied her ponytail, letting her long white hair cascade down her slender shoulders.
Her scarlet pupils gleamed with a blood-like light.
“What a bothersome guy.”
Watching as Novella swayed violently from her push, she said displeased.
Octave never would have thought she would stand up for a man’s mistress in her life, although that wasn’t her original intention.
She slowly walked to the window, pulled back a corner of the curtain, and peeked outside.
Unbeknownst to her, the entire street had become extraordinarily quiet.
…
Back in her study, Novella quietly sobbed, wrapping herself in a blanket, her body slightly trembling.
As if sensing something, she vaguely felt that if she were captured today, the outcome would involve much more than just imprisonment.
Her instincts told her that the illness in her body was directly related to those people’s intentions.
Perhaps after today, she would no longer be herself but would reappear in this world in a form she did not wish for.
Forgetting her daughter, forgetting Shaya, forgetting those few who cared about her.
Forgetting everything.
In truth, she was not afraid of death, for after so many years of being ill, she was well-prepared to die at any moment.
But she believed she still had things to do.
She had thought the time ahead would be long.
But when faced with reality, she felt profound regret instead.
“I-I haven’t had a chance to see you again and thank you yet…”
Novella cried, holding the copy of “Jane Eyre” signed with Cain’s pen name tenderly, gently stroking the pages.
…
“Can you locate it?”
Shaya looked at the shy girl diviner with her face concealed by her cloak and asked.
“Ah, ah, I’m sorry, um… Sorry!”
The girl was staring at the sketch he provided, and when Shaya suddenly spoke, she stammered awkwardly.
“She’s not good at talking to men; let me handle this.” Selly stepped in to smooth things over. “Sangtiya, can your ‘Drip Water Location Method’ lock on to this place?”
Seeing this, the girl named Sangtiya let out a sigh of relief.
She gently patted her slightly rising chest, lowering her head to speak softly, “Insufficient clues; if only I had something belonging to someone who has been here, the success rate would increase significantly…”
Upon hearing this, Selly turned her gaze to Shaya.
Without hesitation, Shaya considered this situation beforehand, which is why after killing the Black Mask, he had torn off a small piece of the robe stained with his blood.
After handing the piece of clothing to Sangtiya, he watched her carefully.
The girl fiddled with it for a moment, then sighed in relief, nodding repeatedly, “I-I think it should work.”
Saying this, she pulled out a map from her robe, which showed a rough layout of the Royal Capital’s upper and lower districts as well as nearby areas.
According to Shaya’s previous conjecture, the deep cave with the human-faced tree roots should be near the Royal Capital, thus narrowing their search area significantly.
Sangtiya spread the Royal Capital terrain map on the table, then pulled out a vial hanging from her neck.
The vial contained a light green liquid.
Once she entered her professional field, she seemed to become much more skilled. Under their watchful eyes, she lightly dipped the tip of her slender finger into the green liquid.
When the liquid hung like a droplet on her fingertip without falling, she gently closed her eyes and recited a spell.
From Shaya’s limited knowledge, she was speaking in ancient elvish.
After a moment, the drop of liquid on her fingertip emitted a faint green glow.
Only then did she open her eyes, cautiously lifting her fingertip high above the map, the drop ready to fall.
Under Shaya’s astonished gaze, she began to move her arm gently, searching aimlessly on the map.
After a while, the droplet suddenly fell from her fingertip, landing on a certain spot on the map.
Three pairs of eyes looked at the spot simultaneously.
Then, Shaya and Selly both exclaimed in surprise.
“Mingden Street?”
As the area with the highest population density and foot traffic, this place, although lacking landmark buildings, was densely populated, and many outsiders and adventurers favored living here.
This was also where Shaya had struggled in the past.
But the problem was that the sketch drawn on the map indicated a location within a cave-like passage.
Mingden Street simply couldn’t fit the conditions!
“Did you calculate it wrong?”
Shaya frowned, looking at Sangtiya.
To his surprise, Sangtiya’s face turned red, seemingly wanting to refute him, but ultimately did not speak up.
“No, it shouldn’t be wrong.” Selly gazed thoughtfully at the area on the map, “I said when we first got this map that it looked somewhat familiar.”
“This is likely the location of the underground sewer in the center of the Royal Capital. If I remember correctly, there is indeed a sizable drainage port there.”
Shaya felt a chill run down his spine.
Despite all calculations, they hadn’t anticipated that those lunatics would set the location of the summoning ceremony beneath the most populated area of the Royal Capital!
Moreover, it seemed that there could be danger for Octave and Lady Violet!
“Sorry, I urgently need to leave.”
“Hey, today is your first day at work!”
However, the boy’s hasty silhouette had already vanished at the doorway.
