It was already afternoon when she woke up again.
Eleanor wasn't there.
A white paper box had appeared on the bedside table, printed with the gold-stamped logo of "Lady Silver Spoon."
Pavela struggled to open the lid with her left hand.
Caral Hazelnut Mille-Feuille.
It was still warm.
She used a fork to put a small piece into her mouth.
Sweet.
Though the taste seed a bit different from the one she had that day.
It was still very sweet.
So sweet that her eyes began to sting again, making her curse herself for being so pathetic.
Before she had even finished three bites, the door was pushed open.
The newcor was Margaret von Oppenheir.
The Major General was dressed in civilian clothes—a dark long dress paired with a dark green trench coat, her dark brown hair draped casually over her shoulders, untied.
Her dark green eyes looked exceptionally deep in the dim light of the ward.
She was also carrying a chair.
It must have been brought from the lounge at the end of the hallway, the kind of wooden chair with armrests.
Pavela watched as she placed the chair by the bed, sat down, crossed her legs, and rested her folded hands on her knees.
"You look much better this ti than the last," Margaret said.
"Last ti, half my body was shattered."
"That's why I said you look much better."
Pavela put down the fork and leaned back against the pillow.
She studied Margaret's face.
The Major General also looked a bit exhausted.
There was a faint layer of gray-blue under her eyes, unnoticeable unless one looked closely, but Pavela's eyes never missed such details.
These past few days had probably not been easy.
"Does Eleanor know you're here?"
"She's the one who sent ."
Pavela blinked.
"To be precise," Margaret leaned back in the chair, "she said, 'Clean up the ss you made yourself,' and so I ca."
"..."
Pavela thought about Eleanor's expression when she said that.
It was likely that kind of calm where her ice-blue eyes showed no ripples, her lips had no curve, but every word felt like it was chiseled from beneath a layer of ice.
Forget it, she wouldn't think about it.
"I've been lying here for four days," Pavela said, "and I haven't heard a single bit of news from outside."
"Little Eleanor won't let anyone in?"
"Aside from the military doctor and herself, not even a fly can get in."
Margaret gave a soft chuckle.
"So, what do ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) you want to know now?"
"Everything," Pavela said. "Tell everything that happened since that night, one by one."
Margaret rubbed her chin, organizing her words.
"I'll start with the arrest operation."
"Seven mbers of the Iron Teeth Society, all captured alive. You took down three before the formation was activated, and the remaining four lost their Wayfarer powers after the formation blocked The Way Back, and you subdued them one by one."
Pavela nodded.
She knew this.
After all, she had done it herself.
"What about the Gendarrie?"
"Lieutenant Graf's special operations team, eight people, plus a 'Hound-II' Light Reconnaissance ch."
Margaret paused, the curve of her lips changing subtly.
"All knocked unconscious by you."
"Was anyone seriously injured?"
"No," Margaret said. "The most serious injury was two cracked ribs; the rest were just superficial wounds and concussions. No casualties."
Pavela nodded again.
It seed her control of force was quite good.
During this Way Back Deviation, she hadn't lost her mind like last ti.
She was sober.
Sober from beginning to end.
But the erosion still took effect.
Pavela rembered when she subdued the first Iron Teeth Society mber; she had pinned him against the base of a wall, the tip of her blade against his nape. She only needed to press down two centiters to sever his spine.
She had been ready to strike then.
Then a thought surfaced without warning.
Killing like this seed too ugly.
The angle of the knife was wrong.
If she stabbed from this position, blood would flow down the muscular grooves on both sides of the spine, soaking the collar and forming an irregular, haphazard bloodstain on the snow.
Too casual.
Too crude.
She should change the angle.
The tip of the blade should enter the gap between the third and fourth cervical vertebrae, at a fifteen-degree angle to the left, with the depth controlled at two and a half fingers.
This angle would allow the blade to slide in along the fibers of the intervertebral disc, severing the spinal cord while preventing the tip from hitting bone and causing unnecessary deflection.
Clean.
Precise.
No redundant waste.
Like a perfectly crafted work of art.
Pavela also rembered her reaction at that ti.
She stopped.
She looked at her fingers gripping the knife.
Her fingertips were incredibly steady.
No trembling, no hesitation.
She had even slightly adjusted the angle of her grip, like a painter adjusting the tilt of a brush.
Then she felt nauseous.
A bone-chilling disgust rising from the depths of her soul.
Disgust at her own thoughts just now.
It reminded her of the Punishnt Camp.
It reminded her of those who served with her.
There was a guy, number 404-717, forrly a butcher, sentenced to death three tis before being thrown into the Punishnt Camp.
He would hum while killing.
He would carefully choose where to strike, admire his "work" after the kill, and speak in the tone of a connoisseur critiquing an oil painting: "This cut is good, but the cross-section of the scapula could be cleaner."
Those were the people Pavela hated most in the Punishnt Camp.
Because it was disgusting.
An instinctive, uncontrollable disgust.
Killing was for survival.
Because if you didn't kill them, they would kill you.
Because of the simplest, cruelest, and most honest logic on the battlefield.
Killing was not an art.
Absolutely not.
Never.
So Pavel Ivanovich Sokolov never cared about "aesthetics" when killing.
She couldn't allow herself to care about such "aesthetics."
But now—
A voice was whispering in her mind.
It said: This isn't good enough.
It said: The angle of the blade should be two degrees further.
It said: If the edges of the cut could be neater, the speed and direction of the blood spilling out would form a perfect arc, falling on the white snow like a carefully conceived painting.
Pavela understood in that instant.
The erosion had co.
The erosion of the Path of the Magician.
Transformation, manipulation, the manifestation of will.
The pursuit of "perfection."
So she sheathed her knife and rely knocked him unconscious with the hilt.
She would rather let all the enemies before her go than let herself turn into sothing like that.
Not even for a second.
Not even for a single thought.
It was unacceptable.
That night, she didn't kill a single person.
Everyone she took down, including the Ferryn of the Iron Teeth Society, the soldiers of the Gendarrie, and the ch pilot.
All were struck with precise, restrained force, just enough to knock them unconscious.
Not a bit more, not a bit less.
She wanted to prove sothing this way.
To prove that the thought wasn't hers.
To prove that she was still Pavela von Schwartz.
Not so damn "artist."
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