Whispering Verse

Because early on Tuesday morning, Father John sent a letter telling Shade that he had helped Shade acquire a brand new time key, so Shade arrived at Yuewan a little late that morning.

In the evening, he would attend the King's birthday banquet in Tobesk, which was of course also an important red butterfly day, so Shade planned not to come over in the afternoon and visited Yuewan in the morning just to not miss the latest news.

I thought nothing would happen overnight. At most, it would just be another victim of "actinization". Unexpectedly, when I arrived at the witch's manor, I found that something was wrong with the atmosphere. The maids and servants working in the manor all looked sleepy. Even the real ring magician girls didn't look like they were awake.

Although Miss Matilda who led Shade to the study worked hard, when they came to the third floor and walked through the corridor, they passed by the maid holding a quilt to dry it and yawned. The blonde maid Chang couldn't help but yawn quietly.

She raised her hand to cover her mouth and then looked forward, determined not to look at Shade's expression at this time. But Shade, who was following her, could clearly see that half of her face and all of her ears were blushing.

After entering the study, Shade did not greet him with "Why is it so cold in Yuewan today? It won't snow again." Because in the study, in addition to Miss Belindel, there were also a little unicorn curled up on the cushion and a lying figure. Emilia sleeping on a unicorn.

Miss Matilda took a blanket and covered the elf girl with her. Emilia closed her eyes and rubbed the hair on the unicorn's back, then continued to sleep deeply. After the Silence Charm was placed next to Emilia, the witch, who was also not in good spirits, said to Shade:

"good morning."

"Good morning, what happened last night? You were partying until the wee hours of the morning?"

He walked to the countess, who forced a smile:

"Fun banter, but not a party."

Fatigue made this lady with a fat-red birthmark look even more lazy and haggard than usual. Her voice was very soft:

"I usually rest here at ten o'clock in the evening. Last night, after everyone in the house returned to their rooms, some strange footsteps appeared throughout the house. At first, they were just very light and slow, and even I couldn't I was sure if it was a hallucination, but it was past the early hours and the footsteps were becoming more frequent and getting closer to the person trying to sleep.”

She leaned her body on the back of the sofa, then kicked off her high heels, put her legs and feet on the sofa, and looked at Shade in a curled-up position:

"Poet-level relic [Footsteps in the middle of the night], the one who brought the relic is Emilia. This thing is very dangerous, it just scares people and makes them unable to sleep at night. I have never encountered this kind of relic before, and I don't know it. The effect is so obvious. Oh~ In short, except for those girls who left the house to rest outside in the middle of the night, the others, like me, only fell asleep after the sky outside started to turn white after five o'clock. "

Seeing Shade looking at Emilia, he wanted to get up to check the situation, but was stopped by the witch:

"Don't disturb her rest.

The effect of the relic disappears after dawn, but according to the records I have read, the relic will still appear after sunset. Emilia didn't dare to sleep this morning after the series of footsteps disappeared. After we all took a short rest, she waited alone with her eyes open, and then fell asleep after we got up. She is such a good girl, but she is a bit unlucky. "

It was difficult to hide the tiredness on her face. In fact, it was perfectly fine for a ring magician to stay up all night, but this relic had the effect of exhausting people who couldn't sleep due to the sound of footsteps. Fortunately, it is just fatigue and sleepiness. As long as you resist being frightened, there will be no sequelae. Therefore, this relic is only the lowest "poet level".

"Please allow me to apologize to you on Emilia's behalf. If that relic appears again tonight, why don't I take her out to live?"

Shade suggested.

"What are you talking about?"

The witch said softly, waving to Shade and gesturing for him to sit next to her:

"When I agreed to let her stay temporarily, I guessed in advance that there would be an accident. This is just a poet-level relic. I will deal with it when I wake up. She is your friend, and she is my friend."

Shade sat down next to her, so the witch hugged his neck, and then put her head on his chest as if listening to his heartbeat.

Shade waited for a while but saw no other movement from her. When he lowered his head, he realized that the countess had curled up in his arms and fell asleep deeply.

He felt funny about this, but he was worried that she would be uncomfortable sleeping like this, so he cast a look at Miss Matilda for help, but found that the head maid also looked quite tired. The other maids were able to take a break after dawn, but she probably didn't get much rest.

So Shade made a gesture and asked her to go to sleep for a while instead of standing by the sofa waiting for the countess' order. The blonde maid showed a slight smile. After hesitating for a moment, she came to the coffee table in front of the sofa. After curling up and sitting down, she also lay on the coffee table and closed her eyes.

No one dared to break into the study to disturb them, and it seemed that there was nothing that had to be dealt with personally by Miss Belindell on this Tuesday morning that would warrant knocking on the door from the corridor.

So the elf slept, the witch slept, the maid slept, and even the little unicorn fell asleep, except Shade, who had slept well last night, and was not sleepy at all.

He was worried about disturbing the girls' rest, so he sat stiffly on the sofa and did not dare to move. Later, when the witch was squirming in his arms to find a more comfortable leaning position, he took the opportunity to take out a book from his pocket.

So this gloomy morning was spent in this wonderful and peaceful atmosphere. Shade actually liked this kind of leisure time. When he was flipping through the "Psychic Compass" in his hand, he compared the differences in the rhythmic breathing sounds, and then felt that such a comparison seemed a bit offensive.

Anyway, the girls' light sleep to refresh themselves lasted until about eleven o'clock. Judging from the breathing rate, the first one to wake up was Emilia who fell asleep the earliest. The sleepy elf girl did not get up immediately. Instead, after realizing the current situation, she continued to lean on her almost Little unicorns pretend to sleep when they wake up together.

About five or six minutes later, the witch huddled in Sha De's arms also woke up. Because the two of them were close together, Shade could easily tell that she was also continuing to pretend to be asleep. She was probably as embarrassed as Amelia to be the first to wake up.

[Is it possible that she just doesn’t want to leave? 】

she asked with a smile.

The third person to wake up was Miss Matilda. After the maid opened her eyes, she met Shade who was looking at her over the book. Both of them blinked, and then the blonde maid sat upright in front of the coffee table, then stood up while holding the hem of her skirt.

She smoothly smoothed the wrinkles on her skirt, and when she saw Shade smiling at her, she turned her face away from Shade. And when she came to the window and opened it to ventilate the study that had been stuffy all morning, Emilia and Miss Belinder "woke up" almost at the same time when the window made a sound.

Shade found this scene more interesting.

The little unicorn, who had been pressed by Emilia's head all morning, could finally stand up and walk around the room quite lively. Emilia stretched after getting up, but remembered that Shade was still here. , the half-stretched arm was immediately retracted.

As for Miss Belinder, although she woke up, she did not leave Shade's arms immediately. Somewhat lazily, Miss Matilda opened the door and arranged for the maids to prepare lunch.

After arranging lunch, she still refused to get up. It wasn't until the little unicorn came to the sofa and kept poking her that she had to sit up so that Shade could reach out and touch it. She finally returned to her normal appearance. .

The Countess did not comment on her morning's sleep, but went to the bathroom to wash up with Emilia. So everyone met in the restaurant half an hour later. Shade thought that the girls who had just woken up would lose their appetite, but it seemed that this did not affect everyone's lunch.

"Miss Belindel, where are your mother and sisters? Didn't what happened last night affect them?"

Shade asked curiously. These ladies and girls were still at the manor the day Amelia first arrived, but they didn't see the unicorn.

"They happened to be out of town last night, and our family also has a manor outside the city. I sent a letter this morning asking them to stay outside the city for a few more days."

The blonde witch said. Emilia on the side wanted to apologize for the trouble caused by her arrival, but the witch was still talking:

"It's not a big deal. There's been a lot of chaos in the city recently. It's good to let them live outside the city for a while. After lunch, let's go deal with the [midnight footsteps] matter."

"You want to create a dark environment, simulating midnight conditions?"

Because when she was in Tobesk, Emilia came into contact with three relics called "urban legends" at one time, namely the sage-level [Friendly Neighbor] and the keeper-level [Malevolent Continuous Curse]. Letter] and the clerical level [Ghosts in the Afterglow], so Shade still knows about the poet level [Footsteps in the Midnight]. Although I don’t know why Emilia, who is targeted by the devil, only attracts such relics. , but the angel-level [corpse in the wall] that seems to be the most dangerous will probably appear later.

Miss Belindel nodded:

"Yes, the 'midnight' in the triggering condition of [Midnight Footsteps] is indeed related to time at night, but during the day it can trigger additional effects due to light. But even though it is only the lowest poet-level relic, we can't Too careless."

She took a stack of divination cards from the maid behind her, shuffled them briefly and pulled out the first one.