Whispering Verse

"I don't know what exactly happened. It wanted to find you, so it jumped into the night, and then it glowed."

Fiona said again, while Shade looked at his cat suspiciously. However, before he had other thoughts, Fiona explained:

"Since you said it has bloodline other than ordinary cats, I think it should be that when it faced a life crisis, it took the initiative to activate the power of the bloodline of its ancient ancestors. This kind of thing is not uncommon. No matter how thin the bloodline is, it is still considered an ancestor. The inheritance of power. In addition, when its tail touched mine just now, I seemed to have some special feelings, which should explain what happened just now."

Fiona herself is a mixture of human, elf and dragon, so her statement is very credible.

Time is running out at this time. Even if you want to explore the truth behind Mia's sudden glow, it is not now.

"Maybe so, let's see what's going on here first. Oh, Fiona, what we're looking for this time is..."

"A golden needle."

The foyer of the art museum is large, but only the doorway and above the reception counter have lights. This results in a large area of ​​the entire interior where light and dark interweave, without the warmth and comfort of the first two stores.

There was no one at the reception desk. A large portrait of a man with a black background hung on the wall behind the counter. The eyes of the man with a hooked nose seemed to be looking at someone outside the painting no matter which direction he looked at it.

There is an art book with a hard cover on the counter, which looks quite formal. The name "Midnight Art Museum" is written in white letters on the cover, while the rest of the cover is all black.

Opening the manual, the first page is not an introduction to the collection of artworks, but a warning written in black letters on white paper:

【Don’t make loud noises in the museum! 】

[Don’t damage the collections in the museum! 】

[Do not look into the eyes of any collection in the museum for more than ten seconds! 】

"It seems that this place is more dangerous than the first two places."

Shade said to Fiona. The red dragon girl nodded and watched Shade quickly flip through the collection manual.

Although this collection manual has more pages than the watch store's catalog, Shade was lucky enough to see the last key item to piece together the compass in Fiona's hand on page 103:

[The golden needle of the God of the Labyrinth - "The Lost Goddess", a magical item, the sunlight or moonlight shines on the standing golden needle, and the shadow will guide you. 】

The collection brochure of the art museum is a full-color picture, and the picture on the left is the golden needle. But it wasn't a sewing needle, because Shade didn't see the hole.

[The "Lost Goddess" is keen on building mazes, and it is rumored that the architecture of Eternal Night City is also related to her. 】

[Purchase requires payment, paint that can be used to paint on the night. 】

The words here are all from the current era of the Fifth Age, and judging from the grammar, the "paint" that needs to be paid can be painted directly on the "night" itself, that is, using the empty night as the canvas.

"What kind of strange request is this?"

Shade muttered, but not too embarrassed:

"Fiona, do you have similar items on you now?"

The red dragon girl reached behind her and took out the small package she had brought from the cafe. After a little rummaging:

"Maybe there was once, but not anymore."

"Okay, I'll go find it."

"So, you're leaving again?"

She asked rather pitifully. It was indeed cruel to leave her here alone, but Shade couldn't decide whether to stay or go:

"Continue to wait for me in dreams, and may the moon bless you, Miss Fiona Drago."

Shade said seriously, then found a wall without paintings, and together with Fiona set up a tent-centered camp again.

This time he brought more mattresses and quilts, making the tent very soft. Afterwards, Shade surrounded the tent with short stone pillars, and then tied each stone pillar in turn with thick hemp ropes. Shade stood outside the tent and inside the stone pillar fence, releasing his newly acquired thaumaturgy:

"Thorns of the Moon!"

After casting the spell three times in a row, thorn bushes of holy silver, orange yellow and bloody red clung to the stone pillars and hemp ropes.

Fiona held Shade's coat and sat in the tent watching Shade cast spells. After he bent down and sat on the ground to be at eye level with her, she said in a low voice:

"You must come back as soon as possible. In my dream, I will try to recall the forgotten things. You must come back."

"As promised, I will accompany you to the end of this city and then send you out safely."

Shade repeated what he had said. It was almost time and white mist had already surged around him. Little Mia squatted on her shoulder, curiously stretching out her claws to grab the white mist. Shade quickly turned it into a toy and put it in his pocket:

"Huh? Little Mia can also see this fog, and it doesn't belong to this time either."

Thinking in his mind, he said softly:

"Then it's time for me to go."

The red dragon girl nodded slightly, then asked with a slightly red face:

"Can you kiss me? Just a gentle kiss."

Looking at Shade with vertical eyes, Shade hesitated for a moment, then moved his face closer, and while Fiona was kneeling in the tent and closing her eyes, he tapped her red lips. Although we had kissed in the clock shop, and also in the Cadiz Library a long time ago, the soft feeling was still surprising:

"Good night, Fiona."

he said softly.

"Good night, Shade."

The red-haired girl responded, and when she opened her eyes to look again, Shade was no longer in front of her eyes.

(Little Mia is running.)

[Outlander, you have returned to the present time. 】

Stumbling out of the door where he was lying on his side, Shade touched his lips. The melancholy feeling made him sigh unconsciously:

"Now is not the time to feel melancholy. Mia~"

He took out the cat from his pocket, restored it and held it in his hand. He looked into the cat's big eyes. Shade also stared at it with wide eyes:

"Mia, when did you learn to shine?"

"Meow~"

The cat meowed softly.

"You mean, you felt the power when you came into close contact with the flame on the tip of Fiona's tail in the clock shop? When did I learn cat language?"

"She" chuckled and said:

[It just meowed~, the meaning is up to you to guess. 】

"Okay, can you please say the onomatopoeia of 'meow~' again?"

Shade asked, and of course "she" ignored Shade's request.

"So Mia, can you still shine?"

Shade asked expectantly. The silly cat looked at him without any reaction.

"So, what other skills do you have? Don't tell me, you still don't know anything."

Shade added, placing little Mia on the dining table. The squatting cat then stood up, and then tensed its muscles - if it really had any, the hair on its back would have exploded, looking like it was exerting great effort.

After waiting for a moment, an extremely weak, almost invisible light appeared on the cat's tail. Shade's eyes widened:

"This is it!"

"Meow!"

The light gradually became stronger, of course, it was only relative to that just now.

"It's coming! It's coming!"

"Meow!"

The light converged on little Mia's tail.

"Yes Yes!"

"Meow!"

In Shade's expectant eyes——

puff!

A small cluster of dazzling golden flames appeared at the tip of the cat's tail, but disappeared after shaking for a moment. If Shade had blinked just now, he might not even have been able to see the flames.

"Can you really make flames?!"

Let’s look at little Mia again. This cat is running around in circles chasing her tail excitedly. She seems very satisfied with her “power”.

"However, although it is considered a supernatural power, what is it? A small charged flame?"

So Shade picked up the cat with his left hand and held its tail with his right hand, and came to the stove amidst Mia's fierce struggle. After turning on the gas stove, he ordered little Mia to show off her skills.

It took a lot of effort to let the stupid cat know what he wanted to do. After Mia "charged up" again, a small flame appeared for the second time in the cat's tail held by Shade, successfully igniting the gas in front of him. stove.

"Well, from now on I can cook at home and save money on matches. I can also summon flames myself. This is a basic spell."

He didn't know how to describe this cat's ability. If he didn't count the transformation from a toy into a cat, this was the first extraordinary ability that this cat had shown, and it was something that Shade had always wanted to prove. But when this thing really happened, Shade felt that it was nothing at all and completely inconsistent with his psychological expectations. The particularity of this ability could not even be compared with Mia's own super intelligence.

[What did you expect to see? 】

"How about little Mia turning into the sun and dispelling the darkness of Evernight City?"

"She" had no intention of taking this sentence at all.

Although Shade had already done a lot of things this morning, it was only just before eight o'clock.

Seeing that it was still early, Xia De packed up and prepared to go out. Winter has come to an end, and the weather in Tobesk has been really good the past few days. But today the heavy fog familiar to citizens has enveloped the city again. Although the sun has risen, the city still looks gloomy.

The sound of carriages passing by and newsboys shouting news loudly could be heard outside the window. At this time, the doorbell rang downstairs. Shade went to open the door curiously, only to find that it was Iluna who had come to visit so early:

"There's new news!"

The seventeen-year-old girl said excitedly as soon as she entered the door. Shade invited her to go upstairs to talk, but Iluna had other things to do and was about to leave:

"Last Thursday morning, after you told me about the [Feast of the Earth Mother] at the Three Cats Inn, I told the church, and the church indeed began to arrange for me to go on a business trip to the Randall Valley, but the specific time Not sure. Beyond that, I see more verses about the Chosen Ones of the Earth!”