Volume 6, Chapter 18 – The Late-Night Visit

After the lights in the city went out one by one, in a room with only two people, Yisi, in a different outfit, straightened her clothes in front of a mirror. The faint candlelight cast a dim yellow glow on the walls. If someone had just entered the room, they would have mistaken Yisi, completely hidden in black, for a thief—of course, no thief would stand so openly in a room.

“Mask, cloak, gloves… Mm, fully prepared. Camilla, are there any other parts of me that could be recognized?”

Although she had discovered the interesting rubber, Yisi had not yet thought of where to apply it. Rubbers with different properties should be used in different fields; for example, the rubber used to make tires is difficult to use for rubber gloves. So, before making time to study the properties of the rubber, Yisi chose to first visit the Pope of the Ymir Church at night. Firstly, the situation of the Fallen within the church’s sphere of influence was worrying. Secondly, the current state of the Fallen would also make Mary, who was also a Fallen, feel uneasy.

“Besides your voice and your scent, there’s nothing else to worry about, Onee-sama.” Lifting a strand of Yisi’s silver hair, Camilla held it to her nose and sniffed lightly. “It has Onee-sama’s scent. It’s reassuring.”

“My scent… Even if you say that, Camilla, I have no idea what kind of scent it is.”

To be honest, Yisi felt quite embarrassed. A scent is something the person themselves can basically not detect. Even if Camilla said it was reassuring, Yisi couldn’t be sure if it was a scent that would make people frown or one that wasn’t so unpleasant. And setting aside the former, even if it was the latter, Yisi still felt embarrassed. Even with someone close, if they were suddenly praised with ‘you have a nice scent’, one would can’t help but blush and suspect that it actually smelled bad.

“There’s a hint of blood, but it’s mostly floral tea and fruit. If you smell it when you wake up in the morning, it can quickly sweep away the feeling of drowsiness. This is Onee-sama’s scent.”

“In other words, smelling it at night would make it hard to fall asleep…”

“N-Not at all! Onee-sama has the magic to make people fall asleep quickly. Just lying by Onee-sama’s side makes me feel drowsy.”

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But that’s just for you, Camilla. It might be a different story in others’ eyes.

Because the matter of her scent was too embarrassing, Yisi cleared her throat twice and changed the subject.

“Ahem, the scent is indeed something to be addressed, but it’s not that important. People who aren’t close to me basically won’t notice.”

She wouldn’t allow strangers to get close to her, and she didn’t think her scent could be smelled by someone a meter away.

“As for the voice, ahem.” Yisi coughed again. “What do you think of this, Camilla?”

Her clear, girlish tone instantly changed to a voice full of the charm of a mature woman. The change was so great that it made Camilla look surprised.

“Has Onee-sama learned disguise techniques?”

“This is a function of the mask. It can change the player’s—the wearer’s voice.”

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In “Ragnarøk,” it was not uncommon for players who were male in real life to use female characters in the game. But in the era she lived in, gender reassignment surgery was already very advanced. After undergoing a gender change, not only would there be no side effects—even the reproductive organs would change—but it was even possible to change back to one’s original gender if one was not satisfied after the change. Therefore, it was quite rare for men to use female characters. It was more common for people of the opposite sex to occasionally guest-star as one another. That was why this mask existed. It could allow the player to produce the tone they wanted, thus assisting them in role-playing.

“So it’s a mask that conceals perception…”

“You could say that, probably.”

The mask did indeed have the effect of blocking detection magic, but Yisi didn’t think it was what Camilla called a ‘mask that conceals perception’. Her silver mask could only cover the upper half of her face. Compared to a full-face mask, there were still parts that could arouse suspicion. It’s just that she was currently in the [Third Form Awakening] state. The cat ears on top of her head and the large, not vampire-like wings, combined with the deliberately changed tone of voice, made it very difficult for anyone to associate ‘Viel’ with ‘Yisi’.

Yisi placed her hands on Camilla’s shoulders and patted them lightly.

“Well then, I’m off.”

“I will wait here for your return, Onee-sama. If you encounter any trouble that is difficult to resolve, I will immediately notify Edith and the others after seeing the firelight and we will go to the central temple together.”

If you see a firelight, you should leave Mitters Bayer immediately. A situation that even I can’t handle won’t be resolved even if you call the Fallen Angel over.

Yisi did not say her inner thoughts out loud. No matter what, this was Camilla’s sentiment, and she should accept it, not tell Camilla ‘don’t worry about me’—she was afraid that even if she said it, Camilla wouldn’t listen. Her little sister was always exceptionally stubborn in this regard, to the point where Yisi sometimes thought that if she were to enter her grave one day, Camilla would follow her in death.

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In order not to worry Camilla, let’s try to resolve the conflict without resorting to force.

“Ah, if I sense any danger, I will immediately teleport back to your side, Camilla.”

“Mm.”

With Camilla seeing her off, Yisi disappeared from the room.

…

The disappeared Yisi soon reappeared above the snow-covered central temple. Like the Blood Clan castle in the royal capital of Alvier, the central temple was also built around the Tower of Alexia and the Mitters Bayer Tower. A blue pillar of light shot up into the sky, dyeing the thick, dark clouds that held raindrops a deep blue.

Of course, this was just the sky. If one were to look down, the area near the central temple was still brightly lit, as if it were daytime.

The biting winter wind blowing in her face made Yisi tighten her collar.

“Living in the central temple, you probably can’t even sleep well. In a place with so much light, it would feel bright even with an eye mask on. No wonder they had to build an underground space.”

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Yisi switched the Omniscient Map to a cross-sectional view. The church’s underground space was intricate and complex, as complicated as the structural diagram of a starship, to the point where it gave Yisi the feeling that she was not in another world, but had come to a super-futuristic sci-fi world. The church’s underground space was far larger than the one on the surface.

It’s already at least three kilometers deep underground. If this were on Earth in the culturally similar Middle Ages, it would be absolutely impossible to build such a huge structure three kilometers underground.

As expected of a world of magic.

“There are far more people living underground than on the surface. I feel like something is strange.”

If the excuse was that the lights of the temple on the surface were too bright, so they hid underground to rest, it was barely acceptable. However, the number of people active in the underground space was at least five times that of the temple on the surface, and this five-times figure was based on the daytime population of the surface temple. Combined with some other things, Yisi couldn’t help but feel that she had unintentionally peeked into someone else’s secret.

If she were to tell others what she had just seen, the church would definitely spare no effort to suppress the news and trace the source. Yisi had such a premonition.

“It’s a pity I’m just a passerby with no superior. Otherwise, just with what I discovered, it would be enough for me to obtain a hereditary title.”

Muttering to herself, Yisi locked her target on the person named Julius Fafnir Ymir Harry. After confirming that there was no one else in the small room where the Pope was, she activated her teleportation magic.