Amidst the rattling of the wheels and the drawn of horses.
Klein, his top hat resting by his lap pulled his head away from the window and toward Selina.
He deliberated his words before saying, "The Heath family... They're your neighbor?"
Selina jolted from gazing the passing buildings. Recalling her dream, she reply melancholically, "Yes. The Heath family, they're the ones who welcomed me warmly after arriving into Tingen."
"You're from... Constant City correct?" asked Klein with curiosity.
Selina thought briefly, to which she nodded shortly after.
Seems Ms. Roy doesn't have the mood for conversing the past... Klein fell into silence.
Moments later, he suddenly blurted out, "How's your stay in Tingen so far?"
"...It's better than when I first arrived." Selina smiled softly.
Finding their conversation settling as time passed. Klein went into initiative and said, "I have lived here in Tingen, together with my siblings..."
"You have siblings?" blurted Selina out of surprise.
Klein found himself letting out a soft grin.
"Yeah." He replied. "Melissa is my younger sister. She acts so much similar to a house's lady rather than a normal younger sibling. Perhaps due to the living condition and the lack of our capabilities..."
The original Klein's capabilities... He added in his heart.
"She become the one responsible for monitoring our expenses and become responsible for our financial workarounds."
Selina's attention remained glued curiously.
Klein felt a slight pressure, but regardless he continued, "We have a big brother, his name is Benson. A very reliable man who had singlehandedly supported my tuition and managed to place me into college until I have graduated.
"What you're looking at now is that man's doing. A full-fledged official."
"Not a beyonder of Nighthawks?" Selina lightly teased while smiling.
She knew that beyonders are kept from the public. So seeing that Klein's brother, Benson might've expected a more normal 'official' from providing income in these past years only to be shrouded in truth that his brother had become a beyonder.
"It was unexpected, not of negative nor positive either." replied Klein, returning the same expression.
Selina shifted her posture slightly and then followed up, "How's you brother like?"
"Benson?" Klein snapped for a moment.
He saw her nod, and with it, he paused for a few seconds.
"He's a hardworking man." He finally spoke. "The nominal head of our family after our parent's. Despite his lack of education, he felt no shame about his working-class background... He's a brother you will be proud of, who managed to enroll and complete my education."
"He sounds like a great man." Selina commented after hearing the depth of Klein's words.
Seeing that an opportunity arrived to inquire back at Ms. Roy. Klein did not hesitate to take it.
"What about you?" He subtly shifted the topic. "I heard from Mrs. Heath you experienced a lost of loves ones before coming here."
Selina chuckled dryly. "Mrs. Heath sure knows her way with words..."
"..." Klein failed to see how he would respond.
Recalling her three days in Milo, the original Selina's captive stay that forced her into marriage while slowly realizing the truth.
Despite her transmigration. These emotions and memories settled deeply that Selina couldn't merely shook it off. The lost of the original Selina's parents is already akin to her apprehension of returning home.
Selina sighed before replying, "I lost them... In a fire."
A fire?
Klein mentally took note of this as he listened closely.
"A fire caused by cults. They burned my family's manor, took the life of my parents and even the townspeople... I have to thank the Goddess that I managed to escape and hide.
"This persisted until a heavy torrential downpour rained down in the town. It swept buildings with its phantom gales, one after another. Thank the Goddess once more that this only lasted for a bit. And seeing that the people, who aren't what they seem to be, vanished after the weather had cleared. I quickly used this as an opportunity to wait for a train at the station."
She paused momentarily and looked at Klein for any minor reaction.
She suddenly saw him with a firm expression.
At last, he opened his mouth and said, "Were you already a beyonder after the cult incident?"
"..." Selina fell silent. Moments later, she suddenly displayed a look of indifference.
"A cloaked man gave me the potion. He told me once I ingest the contents, I would find myself capable to leave. In the end, he used it against me..."
Klein creased his brows. He probed, "How so?"
The trackless carriage fell into quietness.
Selina's delicate fingers wrapped around her cloth bag, caressing its fabric surface ever so gently.
Soon after, the corners of her mouth curled into a smile.
"You've already asked two question. I think it would only be adequate to concur on equal exchange right?"
Klein was taken aback.
He wanted to say that in exchange, she is allowed to ask three question as well after hearing that. However, a part of Loen's courtesy also involves respecting a woman's boundary.
In the end, Klein adhered and opted to wait until his turn to question. But to his surprise, after answering Selina's curiosity of divinations, the carriage had already arrived on the outskirts of Indus Region.
Despite this, he had gained a crucial information:
The cause of her beyonder relation wasn't by Ms. Lovers and merely apart of her connections.
As much as he wanted to ask this, he politely placed aside for now and took the initiative to walk out first and held her palm as she alighted.
...
Inside of a room, brightened by a balcony.
A phantom head detached from a world radiating with colors.
The face bore a huge hole while its hairless scalp each opening their eyes. From its mouth, a white envelope stamped through a red wax was pursed around.
It spinal cord, connected to it remained suspended in the air.
A woman, wearing a rimless glasses took the letter from the spirit. She tucked a strand of her raven-black hair and tore the note out.
Under the coursing crimson moonlight. Her deep-rosy eyes glimmered from the reflection of the window.
After thirty seconds. A spark burned the letter. The lady then placed both of her hands into her white, long gown-like coat.
She was just about to turn around when suddenly, she heard a loud rustles of footsteps echoed across the entrance.
A muffled voice then yelled from the outside.
"She's here! The vampire!"
At that moment, faint red spots began awakening from the corners of the room. The lady produced a white cloth and removed her glasses.
She briefly cleaned it up before putting it back to her eyes.
Just after this innocent action. The surrounding flames of the gas lamps flickered violently without a warning. Each split-second, darkness proliferated across the walls. Cornering the lady into isolation.
The illusory red eyes disappeared and the lady unknowingly found herself unable to move.
Bang! Crash!
The door broke down into pieces, and dust fog settled in and dispersed throughout the entrance.
Standing by the door. Rikes Moner, a Sequence 8 of the Sleepless, a medium height man with short brown hair lifted a seal by his left hand.
While holding a revolver loaded with demon-hunting bullets, he chanted in Hermes: "Dawn!"
Light burst from the flaring template. It disintegrated in an instant and the room was suddenly engulfed with light. A sun purifying charm at a level of a Solar High Priest!
At a split second. The lady with raven-black hair was consumed by the light.
From the corner of the room. Victor, a Sequence 7 of the Sleepless, laying unconscious by the wall abruptly woke up.
"I didn't see her!" He yelled with desperation.
The five nighthawks tasked in the operation was immediately on high alert.
Beyond the receding light. The woman's white, working-coat was left tattered on where she stood.
"...!"
At that moment, six shadow chains erupted from the floor. Each binds the three Nighthawks in their place, restraining them.
During that duration. The lady dematerialized from the herding of bats with burnt marks. In her white blouse and trousers, regardless of the injury, took out a door handle.
It a fragment of a door, brass and smooth, featuring its usual key hole at the center.
She dashed toward a corner of the room, pressed the door handle at its cold surface.
Specks of light formed an illusory door, accommodating exactly her height.
As soon as the dust settled, one of the Nighthawks found her in front of this door, converging with the wall.
Rike didn't hesitate to chant a poem, audible enough for the whole room to echo his voice.
Just as the lady fell into grogginess. An intense stimulus broke her out of her stupor, a liquid within her stirred her awake!
She had drunk a potion, prior to this siege coming the Nighthawks!
Immediately, she took this chance to turn the handle. The lady then phased out of the room!
Outside! Victor yelled internally and dashed toward a nearby window.
Thud!
He opened the glass pane and jumped toward the multifaceted roof. There he saw the lady extending her two illusory wings, ready to take off.
Bang!
Griem, their female member shot the lady.
However, due to a countless bats encircling the lady, one of the vermin was shot in the lady's stead.
Rikes was the next to jumped on the roof. Without a thought, he activated yet another charm!
"Dawn!"
The lady with raven-black hair saw this and commanded all of her swarms to charge toward Rikes.
In that same instance, light surged forward and devoured the advancing vermin. Each disintegrating into formless shadows.
Yet at the same time. The light shrouded the roofs and the surrounding residences. It felt like dawn of the morning had arrived.
However, in a matter of seconds it recedes, the lady was gone.
Victor quickly opened his Spirit Vision. He hastily scour each nook and crevices of the building, jumping from one building to another.
In the end, the woman vanished.
"Captain! She's not here!" Griem said in a raised voice.
At the same time. Rike leaped down from an erected gray chimney.
"She's nowhere in this direction." He shared his report.
This was a chance encounter. One faculty member of the hotel they're at had only caught glimpsed of what the lady's true form were.
Bloody red eyes reflecting the crimson moon. Pale, almost pallor-like skin extending a dark, grim batwings.
A Primordial Moon believer? Victor creased his brows. Gazing at the city's horizon.
"Let's return." His voice was deep. "We have to record this encounter. A certain secret organization may already making their own attempts."
"You mean the Primordial Moon believers?" Rike walked over to Victor's side.
"The Primordial Moon believers are a faction within the Rose School of Thought right?" Inquired by a high-pitched voice from Griem.
Victor nodded and confirmed, "Yes."
"The Rose School of Thought had recently been a subject of the masses. Mainly one particular incident relates to their newest activity." said Rike.
"The Milo Incident?" Griem blurted out. "It was about a young lady of the Ivory family right? The Mandated Punishers had all of the confidential about the matter but refuses to divulge anything!"
Rike nodded and said, "It was popular to the point that perhaps the Parliament deliberately tampered with the newspapers. The causes of it may have been due to a possible controversy."
Victor took a black pipe from his coat. Lighting it up before saying, "There is another... From what I've heard, another matter exploded in Feysac Empire. It details of a building, connecting to a chamber underground.
"The property was owned by a priest of from the Church of God of Combat, a young man named Yesir Burming."
He tucked both his hands into pockets and with deliberate pace he began walking to a nearby balcony.
While walking slowly, he added, "What happened was a sudden isolation of the surrounding Spirit World at the building's vicinity... This occurred in a matter of seconds before it suddenly vanished.
"The dioceses suspect this was a move made by the Primordial Moon faction within the Rose School of Thought. The church have also been capturing members of them through an anonymous intel."
Victor deepened his voice. "And this act was becoming more frequent."
The duo, Rike and Griem fell into silence.
"Let's return to the Holy Cathedral and discuss this further." Victor said firmly.
When they returned to the balcony of the room and slid the glass door.
They were met with an illusory door of light, pouring out like a river from its handle.