Upon reaching the riverbank, she found a large rock to land on. She then looked at a wild bear nearby that was also drinking water and asked very politely,
"Mr. Wild Bear, I'm planning to drink some water here. Could I trouble you to go a bit further downstream?"
"Roar!" Clearly, the wild bear did not appreciate Flandre's form of address.
After a roar, it lunged at Flandre without hesitation.
A foul, bloody stench wafted toward her, causing Flandre to frown involuntarily.
"So, Mr. Wild Bear, that's a no, then?"
Flandre tilted her head slightly, then made a grasping motion in the air. The next second, the charging wild bear instantly disintegrated into a pile of fragments.
"How unlucky. I originally wanted to wash up here, but you've gone and made a mess of things, Mr. Wild Bear."
With a light leap, Flandre jumped onto another stone slab dozens of meters away.
After landing, she cupped some water in her hands and simply washed her face.
Once she had rinsed the metallic taste of blood from her mouth, she looked up at the twin moons in the sky.
"What a rare sight. Speaking of which, these twin moons rise and set together, unchanging for ten thousand years, just like me and Sister.
Sister would surely love them if she saw them."
Flandre thought of this and happily began to twirl in circles on the stone slab.
In the past, Remilia's praise would have followed at a time like this, but now only Flandre remained to dance alone under the moon.
Consequently, she soon stopped.
"Sigh, I really do need to find a way back... I've only been out for a day, and I already miss you, Sister."
Flandre curled up, hugging her shins with her hands, her wings wrapping around to cocoon her in the center. Before she knew it, she had fallen asleep.
The next day, the bright sun woke her.
"Good morning, Mr. Sun!
Come to think of it, I don't seem to be afraid of sunlight anymore!"
Flandre stretched out her hands, feeling the warmth of the sun shining on her body.
"It's like Izayoi's embrace—not a bad feeling at all!"
After a moment of thought, Flandre clapped her hands, finding the perfect way to describe the sensation of the sun on her skin.
Standing up and stretching, Flandre once again performed a simple wash by the river before setting off northward.
Shortly after she left, news of Little John's death reached his father, a local financial commissioner.
Upon learning that his son had died from having all the blood drained from his body, he hurriedly reported the matter.
Though he was deeply grieved by his son's death, this involved a Sarkaz Vampire. If he dared to hide it and something went wrong, he would likely be torn to shreds by the fury of the Elector and the Towers Aristocracys governing this area.
Upon receiving his message, the Towers Aristocracys immediately arranged for personnel to examine the two corpses.
[The deceased were indeed drained of all blood, and both had small punctures on their necks.
Based on a comparison of the tooth marks, the culprit should be a juvenile Vampire.
However, cross-referencing interrogations of witnesses with memories extracted via spells, the target moves extremely fast and is capable of flight.
While it is unknown why a juvenile Vampire would appear here, I believe it is necessary to dispatch professional Casters for an investigation.]
This investigation file soon appeared in the hands of the Elector and the Towers Aristocracys. Following Flandre's flight path, they quickly discovered the shattered remains of a Rift Beast on a riverbank several kilometers away.
Though they didn't know why a Rift Beast had died there, as top-tier predators of the wilderness, ordinary creatures simply lacked the strength to fight them.
Let alone tearing it into dozens of pieces as seen here.
After an inspection, they unanimously agreed that although no traces of Originium Arts were detected in the Rift Beast's remains, it was undoubtedly the work of that Vampire.
Only those Vampires would act with such bloodiness and cruelty.
As for why the target would attack a Rift Beast, it was likely because she intended to rest there, and the unlucky beast had provoked her.
[The target is moving north. Given the target's speed, they may have already reached the territory of other Electors or even Ursus. Continued tracking is not recommended, but northern movements should be closely monitored.]
The message reaching the Elector's hands was suppressed by him.
Since the party wasn't here to cause him trouble, he couldn't be bothered to continue a time-consuming and labor-intensive investigation.
It was just two dead people, after all—hardly a major event.
As long as the eyes of those Sarkaz weren't fixed on his own territory, he would turn a blind eye to someone occasionally passing through and collecting a bit of "toll."
On the other side, Flandre took less than a week to traverse Leithanien and arrive in the territory of Ursus.
However, she discovered another very difficult problem.
She didn't understand the Ursus language.
This made it impossible for her to communicate with the locals to find the location of the Reunion Movement.
"Damn it, why is it that in Japanese anime everyone speaks Japanese, and in Chinese donghua everyone speaks Chinese, but when I transmigrate into a Chinese game, I can't understand a single word..."
Flandre stomped her feet in frustration.
But she still had to find a way.
She calculated that she could probably speak the languages of the Higashi and Great Yan, plus the Sarkaz language she had somehow learned, and the Victoria language (the other soul had passed TEM4, so if Victoria spoke English, she knew a bit).
But Leithanien, which she had first passed through on her way north, was likely a choice between German or French, and Ursus was the trilling Russian—she knew neither.
That's why she was at a loss in this situation.
However, Talulah should know the language of Great Yan, and given the Black Snake's education, she might have a smattering of other languages. The Big Guy "Patriot" Boczkowski, as the last pure-blooded Wendigo, was 100% certain to know the Sarkaz language.
So, as long as she could meet those two, she would have a way to communicate.
While Flandre was wandering around searching for traces of the Reunion Movement, a few dark shadows soon caught her attention.
One side was chasing, the other fleeing.
The ones fleeing were two people who looked covered in injuries, while the ones following closely behind playing a game of cat and mouse were a group of Ursus Patrol members wearing masks and black military uniforms, with daggers at their waists and hand crossbows in their hands.
"Damn it, don't shoot those two in the limbs. These bastards still need to be sent to the mines for labor. If you injure their legs or break their arms, the mines won't take cripples."
Seeing one of his subordinates preparing to use a crossbow, the leader shouted a curse.
Hearing his words, the others laughed and joked as they put away their crossbow bolts.
In their eyes, the two Infected fleeing not far away were like autumn grasshoppers—they wouldn't be jumping for much longer.
Although winter hadn't set in yet, the north wind had already begun to blow in Ursus.
In this weather, two thinly-clad Infected, covered in wounds, wouldn't be able to run very far.