"You're from Purple City?" Sylvie said, tapping her cheek with her slender finger in thought. "I think I've heard the merchants who come to sell things say that there's a city called Purple City north of the Elf Forest. They often stop over in that city."

  "North?" Lux asked. "Then do you know where the Theater Capital is?"

  "The Theater Capital..." Sylvie began to think hard. "I think it's north of Purple City... even farther away from the Elf Forest."

  "Hmm... is that so?" Lux narrowed her eyes, a bit resigned.

  "Lux, your original destination wasn't..." Sylvie seemed to have come to a slightly frightening conclusion.

  "No, I guess I was heading this way," Lux replied. After all, the hand that appeared like a phantom had pointed towards the forest, so her intended direction should have been here, probably, maybe, perhaps.

  "Then why did you come here?" Sylvie asked curiously, though she added quickly, worried that her question might be rude, "I'm just trying to understand your destination, so maybe I can help you with directions."

  "Actually... I don't really know where I'm going," Lux decided to be a little more honest.

  "Huh? You don't have a destination?" Sylvie exclaimed in surprise. "Does that mean you're a legendary wandering bard, searching for poetry and the distant horizon, like the footless bird?"

  "What's a footless bird?" Now it was Lux's turn to be curious.

  "It's a bird without feet. It has to keep flying, flying without a destination. When it gets tired, it rests in the wind, and when it wakes up, it continues to fly. The moment the footless bird lands, it dies," Sylvie explained.

  "Really? That's amazing," Lux said. For Lux, who hadn't gone to school, the world was full of endless wonders. "But I'm not a wandering bard or a footless bird. I was just led here." Lux tried to explain.

  "Isn't that the Luxe as a wandering bard? Guided by fate, searching for their grave in the vast sea of life," Sylvie said, sounding excited.

  "I think you've misunderstood," Lux waved her hand. "I escaped when Purple City was burned down. Then I met a blue-skinned man, and..."

  "Purple City was burned down? When did that happen?" Sylvie was very surprised, even interrupting Lux.

  "About three months ago," Lux said.

  "Three months ago?!" Sylvie said, even more astonished. Then her eyes widened as she asked, "But it's only a two-day trip from here to Purple City!"

  "That's not the point," Lux said, not wanting to discuss her three-month-long ordeal of being lost in the forest. Not at all.

  "The important thing is that the man gave me a strange crystal shard and asked me to take it to the Theater Capital. But then I saw..." At this point, Lux wasn't sure how best to explain. She could only try to describe it as she understood it. "A hand suddenly appeared, and that hand pointed in a direction, towards here. So I came this way."

  "So you're saying," Sylvie said after thinking seriously for a moment, "that the smoke from Purple City is poisonous, and you inhaled the toxic fumes and hallucinated? Like you ate some poisonous mushrooms?"

  "I don't think so," Lux explained helplessly. "And my goal is to find more of those shards."

  "Really... Can you show me your shards?" Sylvie asked curiously.

  "That's not really possible, because that shard is already—" Lux pointed to herself. "—absorbed into my body."

  "What?" Sylvie didn't understand what Lux was saying. Then she said worriedly, "It really might be the poisonous smoke. If that's the case, I'll get you some antitoxin tomorrow. Some toxins can stay in your system for a long time..."

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  "It's really not that," Lux clarified. Sylvie, though seemingly mature and reliable, tended to fixate on strange details.

  "It's one of my abilities... or a curse I was born with," Lux confessed a secret to Sylvie.

  "An ability? Could it be—" Sylvie seemed to have guessed. She looked surprised.

  "Yes," Lux said. She didn't know what would happen after she said this, but she couldn't bear to deceive such a kind and innocent elf like Sylvie. Even though it was dark, if Sylvie couldn't accept her identity, then she would just leave in the night.

  "I am a Cursed One," Lux said, then took a breath. "My ability is Devour. That shard has already been absorbed into my body."

  "Lux," Sylvie said, her tone serious as she grasped Lux's hand. Even Lux was taken aback. She looked into Sylvie's turquoise eyes, so clear and sparkling, yet filled with worry.

  "You absolutely must not tell anyone else about this here. You must never let anyone, any other elf, know about your ability," Sylvie said, her eyes locked on Lux's. Her voice was firm and earnest. "And this isn't a curse. It's just a natural ability you were born with."

  "Okay. Thank you, Sylvie," Lux said, touched by Sylvie's sincerity. She even felt a bit ashamed that she couldn't, and didn't dare, tell Sylvie about the other matter...

  "It's nothing," Sylvie said with a smile. "So, what do you remember about that shard?"

  "I remember that a Blessed of the Wealth Church said it was related to the rebels," Lux mused, recalling fragments of memory from three months ago.

  "You escaped from a Blessed?" Sylvie asked, slightly surprised. Although the Blessed of the Wealth Church were said to be pathetically weak compared to the Blessed of the Seven Great Temples, the fact that Lux, a girl like her, could achieve that was still remarkable.

  "Yeah," Lux nodded. She didn't really want to brag about how she herself had defeated a Blessed and a Demon Hunter combo, but she was a little bit wanting to brag, but Lux still restrained herself.

  "There's one more thing," Sylvie cautioned. "You absolutely must not let anyone else know about the rebels either."

  She patted Lux's shoulder. "In Radiant Glade, or rather, on the entire Continent of Divine Grace, the rebels are a very sensitive topic. The believers of those gods don't care whether you're actually a member of the rebels or not. As soon as they find out you have any connection to them, they'll arrest and execute you without hesitation."

  "So this is also very important," Sylvie repeated, emphasizing her point.

  "I understand," Lux nodded solemnly in response.

  "So, can you use magic?" Sylvie asked. "What kind of magic is it? You don't have to worry about magic here. Magic isn't prohibited in Radiant Glade. There are some restrictions at most, because... well, there are many jobs that require magic that we elves do." Lux noticed that Sylvie's voice was a bit low when she said this.

  "My magic comes from devouring," Lux replied.

  "Comes from devouring?"

  "Yes." With that, Lux demonstrated the Shadow Cloak and the Beast Gauntlets. When shadows appeared beneath Lux's feet and her whole body was covered in white bone armor, Sylvie gasped in surprise.

  "That's amazing! But this magic is too easy for others to spot, especially for the magic archer elves with their sharp eyesight. And your magic, how should I put it... doesn't quite fit Radiant Glade's aesthetic. If you encounter some Blessed who hate ugly magic, they might accuse you of something" Sylvie warned. Lux realized that she did indeed have quite a few things about her that could attract danger.

  "I don't know how well your magic would adapt to our magic here, but most elven magic can only be learned by elves. Perhaps you could try learning some elven combat techniques?" Sylvie mused. "But my elven combat skills aren't very good, so I probably wouldn't be able to teach you." This topic unfortunately ended there.

  Then Sylvie and Lux began discussing the shard again.

  "So this shard is a very important thing, then?" Sylvie asked.

  "I don't know exactly what the shard is, but it's very important to me," Lux replied. Then she stroked her chin, trying to recall. "When I absorbed the shard, I saw some scenes."

  "There was a man, a golden-haired man wearing red and white armor, holding a greatsword, and fighting something. But those things were blurry, and I can't really remember what they were," Lux tried to describe what she had seen.

  "Purple City, shards, the rebels, and the characteristics of the man you described..." After piecing together all the clues, Sylvie froze, as if stuck for two seconds. Then she muttered, "I know. So something like that actually happened..."

  Though Lux didn't know what Sylvie had figured out, she was glad that Sylvie didn't think Lux was hallucinating from inhaling some kind of poison gas.

  "Lux," Sylvie raised her head. Her voice was filled with complex emotions. Lux felt Sylvie was almost trembling.

  "Perhaps there really is something like fate's guidance in this world. Lux, I want to tell you something next, but before that, please listen to a story."

  "Go ahead," Lux said, also affected by Sylvie's emotions. She sat up straight, ready to listen attentively.

  "This is a story about a person known as the God Insulter—" Sylvie spoke as if narrating ancient history, or perhaps an epic tale. Her ethereal voice imbued the story with a magical power, as if she were trying to pull Lux into that time and place to witness it firsthand.

  "—and also called by another group of people, the Failed Hero, Roland.