Two hours earlier, Nora Scott had finished looking over most of the blueprints, then packed her things and called Pedro Langley.
She wanted to go back.
Although Pedro was puzzled, he was always accommodating to her, so he imdiately arranged for a private helicopter to pick her up.
The helicopter would arrive in just over an hour.
Nora told the survey team "two hours," also accounting for their packing ti.
"Mr. Oliveira, are you leaving with them?" Annabelle Pinto asked reluctantly, glancing at the helicopter approaching from afar and raising her voice to Jared Oliveira.
"The Durant Sisters have left, and the survey project’s been canceled." Jared smiled nonchalantly, "I have no reason to stay."
"But Loulanel—"
Halfway through her sentence, Annabelle looked at the surrounding survey team and didn’t dare make the plan public.
"Though I’m curious, this matter isn’t urgent." Jared said evenly.
"Are you giving up working with us?" Annabelle asked subconsciously, but quickly realized sothing and her expression tightened, "No, you’re choosing Nora?"
"She’s renowned in the Northwest and has the connections of Biel Hall, along with Master Sliver himself..." Jared didn’t evade her, revealing the cards Nora already had, then casually smiled and asked politely, "Who would you choose?"
"..."
Annabelle was speechless.
After a pause, she said almost angrily, "But my trump card—"
Jared chuckled, "I’ve already found out, haven’t I?"
"..."
Annabelle was so angry she nearly ground her teeth to dust.
What a ss.
She’d been duped!
Nora had only revealed her known cards, but both Annabelle and Stella Durant had unknowingly shown their trump cards to be unknown... She even suspected Nora and Jared had conspired in private to draw out her and Stella Durant’s cards.
But—
Her trump card was the least useful.
Stella Durant kept her maps to herself, not giving any opportunity for Jared, April Thomason, or Nora to swap them!
Annabelle was furious enough to explode.
...
Nora, April, Jared, and Frank Ford boarded the helicopter after packing briefly.
An hour later, they arrived at Sand Delta.
Pedro had arranged everything for them—accommodation first, then a car to take them to the airport the next day. April would go to Cloud City, Frank to the Capital City, and Nora and Jared to Anchel.
When they arrived at the hotel, it wasn’t dark yet. At the entrance, Nora hesitated and asked the others to go inside first as she had sothing to do.
"Need company?" April asked.
"No need," Nora smiled gently, "just getting so things."
"Alright then," April nodded, "be careful."
"Yeah."
Nora nodded, watching the three enter the hotel.
She stood at the entrance for a mont, glancing at the setting sun hanging in the west, flaming red—a sky filled with twilight, painting the rolling clouds, casting a pale red glow across the ground.
She looked up and walked towards the nearby supermarket.
*
An hour later, Nora sat on the sofa in the hotel suite, looking at the two lines on the pregnancy test and felt a bit unreal.
The whole journey, she hadn’t gotten her period.
When she arrived in Maze Village, she had a rough suspicion. That night, she wanted to tell Pedro about it over the phone, but was interrupted, realizing there was no convenience store selling pregnancy tests in the village, so she couldn’t confirm it at the ti—and temporarily didn’t tell Pedro.
She planned to confirm before telling Pedro.
But, too many things occupied her mind then, and Nora hadn’t considered what she would do if her suspicion was true.
Have it?
Or not?
If she had it, how would she raise it?
This problem was entirely outside her thought process.
At that mont, the phone rang, and Nora glanced over, seeing "Pedro Langley’s" na, feeling a twinge in her eye.
She picked up and answered.
"Have you eaten?" Pedro’s voice was gentle and husky.
"Hm?"
Nora’s eyelids lifted as she belatedly realized she hadn’t eaten yet.
She had gone to the supermarket and ca back directly.
"I ordered you takeout from that place you recomnded last ti," Pedro wasn’t surprised, chuckling softly, reminding her, "Rember to eat."
"Oh."
Nora Scott replied listlessly.
Pedro Langley asked, "Was this trip too exhausting?"
"Not really."
"Then take a good rest, and don’t go wandering around tonight." Pedro Langley’s voice carried a gentle warmth. "I’ll head over to Anchel in a few days when I have ti."
When he wasn’t being difficult, this man was inherently gentle.
"Got it."
Nora Scott answered vaguely.
Considering her current condition, even if she were equipped with a gadget to get her to places like Baja or the Durant Sisters’ residence like last night, she wouldn’t agree.
Nora chatted with Pedro Langley for a while, without ntioning anything about pregnancy. Rarely was Nora so conflicted, and just as she decided, the doorbell suddenly rang; the food delivery had arrived.
She went to collect the delivery, and thinking about it, lost interest in sharing more with Pedro Langley.
Taking out the dishes one by one, Nora put her phone on speaker mode and placed it on the coffee table, asking, "Aren’t you curious if I found anything on this trip?"
Pedro Langley then asked, "Did you find the entrance?"
"I did," Nora replied calmly, "It’s in Loulanel Village."
"A village?"
"Yeah."
Due to the signal blocking in the village recently, Nora hadn’t contacted Pedro Langley. When she reached out to him this afternoon, she was busy packing and didn’t chat much, so Pedro Langley didn’t know the specifics of what happened in Loulanel Village.
During this al, Nora briefly shared the details with Pedro Langley, omitting unnecessary ntions of the investigation team and her own troublemaking antics.
She organized information about the Loulanel project, clarifying the situation with the Durant Sisters’ group.
"Why are you so familiar with the daily changing routes of Loulanel Village?" Pedro Langley asked.
"I looked through those three hundred odd maps and discovered—" Nora paused, raised her eyebrow slightly, and leisurely ate a piece of green vegetable before continuing, "That was a toy from Easton."
"..."
"I started learning chanical Techniques just as I beca aware of things. At that ti, Easton often gave a movable maze toy with three or four hundred variations. I could play it all day long and spent about three years fully mastering it."
"..."
Your grandfather truly is a genius.
After a mont of thought, Pedro Langley asked, "What happened to the toy?"
"He burned it," Nora said, "Every toy I mastered was burnt clean."
During childhood, Antonio Easton gave Nora many toys, and since each one was ’destroyed without a trace’ after she mastered it, she never revisited them and gradually forgot. But fortunately, so things have a kind of inertia, so she felt familiarity with the maze village’s routes and often found paths.
Oh.
Perhaps it also has sothing to do with her intellect.
After all, if Antonio Easton’s toy was studied by so people for thirty years, they might still not achieve results.
"Are you sure Maze Village is the entrance because of this?" Pedro Langley asked.
"No," Nora continued eating rice, "After examining all the maps and using your drone to observe the village’s layout, I confird it. It’s a bit complicated, but overall, I’m sure Maze Village is the entrance."
"... Okay." Pedro Langley chuckled, then asked, "Are you the only one who can open it?"
"Yes, and no."
"Hmm?"
"If there’s only one person in the world who can open it, it must be ," Nora lightly pursed her lips, "But, I can’t open it."
"What do you an?"
After a mont’s pondering, Nora suddenly asked, "Do you still rember our analysis? chanism City has another entrance map."
"The eighth map."
"Yes." Nora slightly furrowed her brow, "Robert Durant’s chanism City map is obtained, only Alexander Vaughn’s two are left. But, the eighth map hasn’t surfaced yet. The maze village’s transformation types are too nurous. If I tried one by one, I might not open the entrance in a lifeti. We must find that entrance map."
What worries her most now is—
Antonio Easton didn’t finish the drawings before he passed away.
After all, Antonio Easton’s illness was unexpected. Although he had many years to prepare, the workload for these maps is really imnse, and completing them alone in less than twenty years would be difficult.
"Oh."
Pedro Langley responded.
Nora sighed, "Langley, your reaction is a bit cold."
"I might know where the eighth map is," Pedro Langley said slowly.
"... What?"
Nora almost choked on a mouthful of rice.
"Do you rember your dowry?" Pedro Langley hesitated then asked.
Nora murmured in agreent, then squinted suspiciously, "Wasn’t it a gift until I turned thirty?"
"... Perhaps you recall that file folder," Pedro Langley reminded hesitantly.
Nora: "..."
Pedro Langley, you’re done for.
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