At night, Viktor sat in the carriage as he returned to his residence in the royal capital.
This mansion had already been rebuilt.
When the servants outside the gate saw their master arrive, they all bowed together and opened the carriage door for Viktor.
After getting down from the carriage, Viktor put both hands in his pockets. Cocotte was carried out from the carriage behind him, gently lifted by a streak of white magic, slowly floating into the air.
Even without soft white clouds beneath her, she was already sleeping like a dead pig.
"Mm, thanks for your hard work."
The white cloud in the sky drifted down and circled Cocotte several times.
The magic array in the air glimmered faintly. Viktor used magic to place Cocotte onto the cloud, then said softly, "Take her back to the garden."
Naturally, the cloud did not dare disobey Viktor's command. Carrying Cocotte, it whooshed off toward the garden.
In the blink of an eye, it vanished without a trace.
Viktor watched the direction where the cloud disappeared, thinking to himself.
This instance run had been extremely successful, and Cocotte's help played no small part in it.
As a fifth-tier mage, Cocotte's usefulness was far greater than when she was still at the fourth tier.
If one had to make a comparison, it was like the "instance" system itself had been upgraded.
Of course, the magic mirror also deserved some credit, making the world far more realistic.
However, Cocotte becoming a fifth-tier mage had still not been reported to the Mage Council.
After all, ever since returning from the Elven Forest, she had been busy carrying out the tasks Viktor entrusted to her.
As a result, although Cocotte had become a fifth-tier mage, she still had not learned a single fifth-tier spell.
Viktor looked at the pitch-black garden while searching through his memories.
In the game, most of the more practical fifth-tier spells could basically be learned in Endymion's magical library.
It seemed he would still need to make another trip back to Endymion when he had the chance.
Thinking of this, Viktor shook his head.
He turned and entered the mansion. The quiet courtyard even made Viktor's steps feel lighter.
Upon entering the mansion, right by the main door, he happened to see Liya standing there, as if she had just come downstairs.
She held her chest with both hands, looked at Viktor, and asked, "You're back?"
"Didn't you say the assessment would take a long time?"
Viktor nodded and replied calmly, "Yes. It's not over yet."
The new students' practical assessment lasted three days.
During these three days, the new students would remain inside the mirror world.
But Viktor had returned early.
Because he did not need to stay there watching the students the whole time.
The other professors and the headmaster would observe the students through mirrors inside the academy.
Even the Empress herself was personally staying at the academy.
Possibly because of Aurelian.
But in any case, with the Empress at the academy, the students' safety was naturally not a problem.
No place was safer than being under the protection surrounding a member of the royal family.
This was also the longest freshman assessment in the history of the Royal Magic Academy.
Of course, if any student voluntarily gave up during the assessment, they would be safely released from the bright mirror.
Her gaze kept drifting to the side, her expression stiff, making her feel rather awkward.
After all, ever since the last time she discovered that Viktor had secretly read her diary, she truly did not know how to face her brother.
However, Viktor seemed completely unconcerned, as if that incident had never happened.
He calmly walked past Liya and headed upstairs.
Liya opened her mouth, wanting to say something, "Gwen, she…"
'Is she okay?'
But in the end, she still couldn't call it out.
Her voice was extremely soft, so soft that apart from Liya herself, even Viktor didn't hear that mosquito-like question.
She let out a sigh, watched Viktor's figure fade farther and farther away, and gently closed her lips.
Viktor lightly pushed open the wooden door to the study and began searching for books on the neatly arranged shelves.
The aftermath of the battle had not affected this place; every book lay intact where it belonged.
Viktor's fingertips brushed across the spines, finally stopping on an old, thick ancient tome.
Driven by magic, the book floated into Viktor's hands.
He opened it and began to read.
It told mythological stories about how gods in ancient times bestowed thought upon their believers.
The thoughts granted by different gods each had their own characteristics, and the fanatical emotions contained within gradually evolved into various forms of faith as time passed.
Years later, those with absolute faith were revered as messengers of the gods.
They carried faith through to the very end in order to bring the gods back.
They firmly believed that only by doing so could they show the gods that humanity needed them.
After carefully finishing the book, Viktor gently closed it.
There was more than one kind of [Goddess Believer], and naturally, there was more than one god.
So there were plenty of fanatical believers who worshipped different gods.
They had basically completely distorted the gods' original intentions, using a single, stubborn interpretation to wrongly carry out what they believed to be the gods' will.
Yet in this book, their actions were even excessively glorified.
In the game's background setting, those fanatical believers of different gods all shared one common goal, to find the Child of God.
They believed that the Child of God was a human perfectly fused with a goddess's power, the best candidate to recall the goddess.
In the eyes of devout believers, the Child of God was the purest and most sacred representative of a god in the mortal world.
Thus, it was not hard to understand why those fanatical believers had set their sights on Gwen.
They regarded her as the Child of God directly under the Goddess of Justice.
Yet ironically, the future Gwen, after awakening her cold, impartial justice stance, showed no mercy whatsoever to the Goddess of Justice's believers.
After Emperor Aubrey died, many evil beings took advantage of that period to infiltrate.
Those goddess believers also began to stir.
As a result, countless of them were killed by Gwen as she carried out justice.
Even now, they were still hiding in the darkness.
Viktor set the book down, narrowed his eyes, and looked out the window.
A full moon hung high in the sky, and on its pale surface seemed to linger a trace of eerie black miasma.
That black trace slipped behind the moon without warning and vanished without a trace.
In the darkness beneath the moonlight, Vega's figure blocked the pale moonlight, shadows flickering faintly across the ground.
It was flying about at that moment, the sound of its wings beating echoing in the night wind.
After a while, the crow seemed tired and quietly landed on a tree branch.
"Damn it, Viktor. What kind of contractor makes his god spy on other people!?"
Though Vega complained angrily, it still arrived at its destination.
Standing on the branch, it stared straight at the Drin mansion.
The enormous mansion was extremely quiet. Not many lights were lit, and under the pale moonlight, it appeared especially lonely.
Then, Vega's single eye turned an intense shade of blue.
Within Vega's vision, it saw it.
Countless black, writhing, stripe-like forms were slowly climbing deeper and deeper into the Drin mansion.
Truly strange.
Vega had never seen any god with a group of believers like this.
As expected, only those stubborn, willful goddesses would have such a group of blind, brainless fans.
Vega withdrew its sharp gaze and pecked at its pitch-black wing with its beak, doing its best to look like an ordinary crow.
At that moment, a servant walked out, holding a lamp. She stood at the mansion entrance, looking around, even glancing up at the treetops.
Because it was too dark, she only noticed a crow standing on a branch and did not realize that this crow had only one eye.
After the servant's gaze moved away and she returned inside the mansion, Vega finally flapped its wings and flew toward the window of Gwen's bedroom.
Gwen's bedroom was not unfamiliar to it.
Vega passed through the window and approached the bed.
It saw the silver-white, steadfast knight lying unconscious on the bed, her eyes tightly shut.
Clearly, there seemed to be no discomfort anywhere on her body, yet she simply could not wake up.
As if she had fallen into endless sleep.
Looking at the unconscious Gwen, Vega thought with some amusement, 'How about letting Viktor come over and kiss her? Maybe she'd wake up then?'
'Those storybooks always have plots like that, don't they?'
But deep down, Vega knew this nearly absurd method definitely wouldn't work.
It stood there as a pitch-black formation gradually and mysteriously took shape beneath its feet. The chaotic tentacles twitched for only a short while before slowly coming to rest.
Dark light gradually enveloped Gwen's body, giving off a mysterious and evil feeling.
Vega looked at Gwen and smacked its beak, saying, "Don't know why Viktor pays special attention to you alone."
"Tch, just take it as doing it for him."
It shook its body, and a jet-black feather gently fell beside Gwen's bed.
Then, as if turning into a puddle of black water, Vega slid down along the floor by the window. The entire crow's body disappeared without a trace.
The black feather remained by Gwen's pillow, rising and falling along with her steady breathing.
Under the moonlight, the black feather shimmered faintly, like a gemstone, flickering with mysterious radiance.
Vega flapped its wings in the sky, about to fly toward the Cravenna mansion.
But suddenly, it blinked, sensing something was wrong.
Its body flipped in midair, then flew off in a direction completely opposite to its original course.
In the forest near the royal capital, a white figure was continuously hunting various monsters.
Blood flowed across the grass, slowly gathering into a small stream that reflected the crimson moonlight.
The corpses of magical beasts, their white bones exposed, were piled into a small hill, standing quietly beneath the moon.
Safiroth slashed a monster's throat with her sharp long blade, then tossed the corpse onto the pile.
She leaned against the mound of bodies, brutally devouring her spoils while stuffing all the various materials that dropped from the monsters into her own pouch.
As Safiroth swallowed a chunk of beast flesh, all the fur on her body instantly stood on end as she felt danger suddenly descend.
A cold light flashed in her eyes as she stared straight ahead.
Whoosh!
An arrow glittering like ice crystal shot straight toward Safiroth, sparkling under the moonlight.
Safiroth instinctively dodged the fierce attack.
She turned her head and saw a white-haired old man with a face full of wrinkles.
His face carried the resilience carved by time, and several deep scars still remained.
He rode a horse, surrounded by a group of sturdy battle mages holding various tools.
Every one of them wore white cloaks bearing the same emblem, like the only snow and ice on this grassland, making them stand out strikingly.
"Tsk, I thought it was some kind of monster. Never expected it to be a person."
After clearly seeing Safiroth, the old man slowly put away the ice bow he had conjured in his hand.
His sharp gaze shifted to the man beside him as he asked, "Levi, what do you think?"
The man beside him rode his horse closer and pulled down his hood.
His golden hair shone brilliantly under the moonlight, and a ripple-like blue glow flashed through his eyes.
"She's a bit problematic."
"Let's capture her alive first."