“Hero, do you know where Vieya went?”
Night had fallen. nesis stood on a hanging tower, gazing into the distance. Ever since Vieya disappeared, the masked attackers in the small town had grown far less aggressive.
At such a critical mont...
What exactly had Vieya gone off to do?
Earlier, it had been the sa—Vieya impatiently wanting to act alone, to go sowhere, to do sothing.
Even if they’d managed to talk her out of it back then, nesis knew she had never abandoned that secret thought buried deep in her heart.
Everyone had secrets they didn’t want others to know. That much, nesis understood.
But the main reason was that Vieya didn’t trust their team.
What was she so afraid of?
“Hero?” nesis prompted again.
Rania didn’t respond. She only stood there, silently looking in the direction where Vieya had vanished.
After a long pause, she finally spoke softly. “Maybe the Holy Sword made her sense sothing bad was coming...”
...
Click.
Vieya pressed down the handle of the double doors and pushed them open. Stepping into the theater, she walked along the corridor, opening one room after another—each lit but empty, not a shadow of anyone inside.
But by then, the little fox who had been following her everywhere was gone.
Ten minutes earlier—
While she and the little fox were enjoying pastries together, Vieya had quietly added a drop of sli secretion into the teapot.
Because she had eaten plenty of poisonous mushrooms and hallucinogenic flowers back in the forest, ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) her body could now deliberately secrete small amounts of mildly hallucinogenic or sleep-inducing fluid.
This trick wouldn’t work on anything with strong resistance to toxins, but for a weakling fox, it was perfect.
After just three sips, Hu Xiaoqi was knocked out cold, snoring face-down on the table.
Once Vieya used to confirm the little fox was in deep sleep, she began searching her body.
Don’t be fooled by how little the fox girl wore—those fluffy tails of hers could hide things too.
And sure enough—
Vieya pulled a ring of keys from the bundle of tails.
“......”
She just sighed, feeling nothing in particular, and took the keyring with her as she left.
Afterward, she checked the building again. All around was endless void—no visible path of escape.
So she returned to the theater, carrying the keys, searching room by room for any door that might be locked.
“This is the first floor...”
Opening the first door, Vieya stepped inside. Red candles were lit, and a bed draped with a sheer red veil dominated the room.
Vieya hesitated, then approached and lifted the veil.
“Nothing here, and yet it’s all done up like this...”
Shaking her head, she left the empty room and moved on to the second.
Room by room, she searched—until the ninth and final one, when she suddenly felt sothing off.
This room had a wooden cabinet that the others didn’t.
Creak...
Maybe from age and disrepair, the hinges gave off a shrill noise as she opened the cabinet.
The little sli girl flinched, froze, then waited a few seconds before cautiously opening it all the way.
Creak...
Inside hung a few indecent-looking dresses and so blue-and-white striped underwear. The rest of the cabinet was empty.
So, just an ordinary closet.
Unlike the other empty rooms, this one simply looked... lived in.
“Is this the fox’s room?” Vieya clicked her tongue, disappointed.
She was about to close the cabinet and go check the second floor—where there were rows of audience seats—when sothing caught her eye: a locked drawer in the lower compartnt.
Too lazy to worry about the fox’s right to privacy, Vieya tried the keys one by one.
Click.
The lock sprang open with a light sound. She pulled the drawer open—but it was empty.
“Strange... why lock an empty drawer? What a joke.”
Whatever, leaving.
Suddenly—
Clack-clack-clack!
Clack—clack!
What was that sound?
Vieya turned back sharply. The heavy cabinet was moving, sliding aside to reveal a dark, doorless opening behind it!
Her heart jumped—then lifted with sudden joy. Usually, when sothing like this happened, it ant one thing: an exit.
She tossed the keys in her hand, smiled faintly, and stepped inside.
It was a long, spiraling staircase descending into darkness. As she went down, she began to feel sothing was wrong.
Wait... if this was an exit, why did the path lead downward?
Could it be sothing else?
Her joy vanished. But she wasn’t about to turn back now, not after coming this far.
Might as well see it through to the end.
After a long descent—
A faint orange light appeared ahead, warm and soft as a candle fla.
Vieya quickened her pace, almost running toward it.
“Eh...”
She froze mid-step.
Beyond the light, one after another, stood rows of iron cages. Inside each cage was a fox-eared monster girl.
At the sound of footsteps in the dark, they shrank into the corners of their cages, faces filled with terror.
Their naked bodies pressed against the cold iron bars, the chill so deep it made them shiver.
Even Vieya, standing in the shadows, clenched her fists... then released them... then clenched them again.
Only after a long silence did she step forward to the cages.
“How long have you been trapped here?” she asked quietly.
“......”
Not one of the foxes answered—even after realizing the one before them was just a harmless-looking white-haired girl.
Vieya walked to the nearest cage and began testing keys on the padlock, ignoring the frightened eyes of the fox girl inside.
Click.
One cage open. Then another.
It took ti. Enough that the drugged Hu Xiaoqi might already be waking, furious to find she’d been searched head to toe—her hidden key stolen.
But Vieya no longer cared.
A fox that could do such things to its own kind—what kind of fox could that be?
Click.
Click.
One after another, the cages opened, but none of the fox girls ca out. They still crouched inside, trembling.
Then—
The first one freed, a red-haired fox girl, finally spoke. Staring at Vieya’s back, she hesitated before gathering her courage.
“Benefactor, are you the one that little Qi locked upstairs?”
“The one she locked upstairs?”
Vieya blinked but didn’t slow her hands. “What do you an?”
“Aren’t you one of those who escaped from above?” The red-haired fox girl looked just as confused by the question. “That little Qi—she’s captured a lot of ordinary people... ever since the day a group of masked ones ca to her.”
Then the red-haired fox girl abruptly stopped talking. Her eyes darted toward the pitch-black passageway, full of fear. “Benefactor, hide quickly! If little Qi finds out what you’ve done, she’ll never let you go!”
A faint, unhurried set of footsteps echoed from the darkness.
At the sa ti—
Vieya’s grip on the keys tightened.
So that was it...
She understood in an instant. Maybe she hadn’t been wrong from the very beginning—this fox was the mastermind behind everything in Mount Aisa. Even if not the supre leader, she had enormous authority.
And now—
The whole basent went silent. The footsteps stopped at the entrance.
Heh. So, ti to drop the act, is it?
Was that really the plan all along?
Then co.
Vieya’s body loosened, ready for the sudden strike that might co from behind at any mont.
Co on.
Kill .
Whether it’s murderous intent or a sneak attack—
Once your evil nature shows itself before my eyes, your life will be no more than a candle fla snuffed in a breath.
“Hu Xiaoqi.”
Vieya’s gaze chilled, her expression blank and cold.
Then a familiar face appeared beside her. Those sa soft white ears drooped as Hu Xiaoqi’s scarlet, glass-like eyes looked calmly at her.
“If you were to die,” she said softly, a tender smile curving her youthful face with a trace of seduction, “I think... besides being sad, I would also be heartbroken.”
“After all, we’re friends.”
“Drop the act.”
Vieya said, “The mont you let steal your keys, you already lost.”
However—
Hu Xiaoqi only smiled, still without a trace of hostility.
She suddenly grabbed Vieya’s right hand, her tone still gentle.
“Little sli... you really don’t rember ?”
“!”
Vieya tensed, her hand straining harder and harder.
She tried to break free—
But couldn’t.
Her strength was fading, weakening—
Draining away.
What had started as a silent contest of force now looked more like a quarrel between lovers.
Hu Xiaoqi lowered her head, her furry white ears hiding her face.
But Vieya had never imagined that the useless, crybaby fox could make such an expression.
“Little sli,” Hu Xiaoqi whispered, still holding her ever-weakening hands.
“It’s you who lost.”
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