Free Web NovelMargaret watched her for a few seconds, then withdrew her gaze and pulled a silver cigarette case from her pocket.
"Smoke?"
She opened the case and offered it to Pavela.
Inside, a row of slender cigarettes was neatly arranged, the paper a pale gold, embossed with the crest of some noble family.
Pavela took a look and shook her head.
"I don't smoke."
"Good girl." Margaret took one out and held it between her fingers. "A noble miss of your age really shouldn't smoke."
She pulled a lighter from another pocket and lit the cigarette.
Pale blue smoke drifted up from her lips.
"So," she exhaled a puff of smoke and looked at Pavela, "you must have many questions for me?"
Pavela did indeed have many questions.
What are the the twenty-two paths of return?
What is a Wayfarer?
What is a sequence?
What exactly is the Path of the Tower?
There were too many questions—so many that she didn't know where to start for a moment.
"But," Margaret spoke before she could open her mouth, "I can't tell you here."
Pavela's brow furrowed.
"Why?"
"Because this is the Seventh Police Precinct." Margaret pointed at the busy police officers around them. "These are all ordinary people."
Her tone was flat, but Pavela caught the underlying meaning.
Ordinary people.
Not "Ferrymen."
Not "those walking the Path of the Sequence."
They didn't belong to that secret world she still knew nothing about.
"There are some things not everyone is qualified to know," Margaret said. "If you want answers, come find me at the Royal Knights Academy."
Pavela blinked.
"The Royal Knights Academy?"
"Yes." Margaret blew a smoke ring. "As it happens, the new semester is approaching."
She turned her head and looked at Pavela.
The afterglow of the setting sun danced in her dark green eyes like burning flames.
"I can give you an enrollment slot directly."
Pavela didn't respond immediately.
The Royal Knights Academy.
The place Eleanor entered at fourteen and graduated from at sixteen as the top student.
The place where Irene was currently studying.
The Victorian Empire's highest institution for training elite mecha pilots.
If she entered that place, she would be able to pilot a mecha—not a ramshackle monstrosity like those in the Punishment Camp, but a real, sophisticated Imperial mecha.
She could also learn about those secrets she knew nothing about.
The the twenty-two paths of return.
Ferrymen.
sequences.
These mysteries that had plagued her for so long finally had a chance to be answered.
But—
"Why?"
Pavela asked.
"Why what?"
"Why help me?" Pavela looked at Margaret. "I almost stabbed you to death just now."
Margaret let out a soft chuckle.
"Almost," she repeated. "But you did land a hit."
She pointed to the wound on her left shoulder.
"This wound is the first time I've been injured in combat in nearly five years."
There was a strange sense of reflection in her tone.
"A Sequence V Destroyer, in a state of complete loss of control, pierced my shoulder with an ordinary military knife."
She looked at Pavela with appreciation, amusement, and a trace of an indefinable emotion in her eyes.
"Do you know what that means?"
Pavela shook her head.
"It means your potential is greater than most people I've ever met," Margaret said. "If someone guides you, if you can control your power—"
She paused.
"You will become very strong. Strong enough to change things."
Pavela didn't speak.
She wasn't sure if that counted as an {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} answer.
After all, saying 'your potential is great' sounded more like a recruitment pitch than a reason to help.
"Of course, if you think that reason is too fake and empty—"
Margaret seemed to see through her thoughts, the corners of her mouth curling up slightly.
"I have a more practical reason."
She exhaled smoke and pointed at the busy police officers in the hallway.
"At least five explosions occurred in Victoriana today. A terrorist organization launched an attack in the heart of the Imperial capital. And you—"
She looked at Pavela.
"Chased them into their stronghold alone, beat their people into cripples, and almost killed someone in front of the police station who was likely an accomplice."
Pavela's brow twitched slightly.
"That person was definitely their accomplice," she said. "She had a special ability that made others overlook things."
Margaret raised an eyebrow.
"Path of the Moon?"
Pavela didn't know what that meant, but she nodded anyway.
"Call it whatever you want. In any case, her ability didn't work on me."
"It didn't work on you," Margaret repeated, a hint of amusement in her voice. "But it works on ordinary people."
She drew a circle in the air, encompassing the surrounding police officers.
"If you hadn't caught up to her, she would have vanished into the crowd with that man holding the detonator. Tomorrow, the Imperial Parliament Building would have been a pile of rubble."
Pavela's eyes narrowed slightly.
"You know their plan?"
"I just interrogated that man," Margaret said. "He was very cooperative."
Her tone was flat, but Pavela could imagine how that 'cooperation' came about.
A terrorist who had just been hunted by a terrifying girl, facing a general who could easily defeat that same girl—
There was truly no reason for him not to cooperate.
"So," Margaret continued, "you actually saved many people today. You prevented a much larger disaster."
"But the problem is—"
She flicked her ash.
"How did you know where that basement was? How did you catch up to those two in such a short time? The abilities you showed in combat—that reaction speed far beyond normal people, those combat techniques, the anticipation of ballistic trajectories—"
She looked at Pavela, her gaze sharp.
"All of these require an explanation."
Pavela fell silent.
She understood Margaret's point.
She had been too high-profile today.
On a commercial street, in front of countless onlookers, she had displayed combat abilities that didn't belong to a 'noble miss' at all.
What would those people think?
What would those people say?
Who is 'Pavela von Schwartz'?
Where did she come from?
Why does she have these abilities?
"If word of this gets out," Margaret said, "the Imperial Security Bureau will take an interest in you."
Pavela's brow furrowed.
The Imperial Security Bureau.
She didn't know what that organization was, but just the name sounded like something one shouldn't provoke.
"They will investigate your past."
Margaret continued, "Investigate how you came to the Schwartz Family. Investigate where those extraordinary abilities of yours come from."
She paused, her gaze meaningful.
"The Schwartz Family can protect you, but they can't protect you forever. Eleanor has a lot of influence, but not enough to block the Imperial Security Bureau."
Pavela's lips pressed into a thin line.
"So," Margaret exhaled her last puff of smoke and stubbed out the cigarette on the armrest of the chair, "this is a deal."
She looked at Pavela with a candid gaze.
"You enroll, and I'll help you clean up today's aftermath."
"Students of the Royal Knights Academy have a certain degree of immunity. The Security Bureau can't just investigate students of the academy, especially—"
She pointed to herself.
"Students under my name."
Pavela looked at her.
"Students under your name?"
"I have a special teaching project at the academy," Margaret said. "The details aren't for disclosure, but you can understand it as—I will be your mentor."
A mentor.
A guide.
Pavela recalled Margaret's words from earlier.
"Who guided you onto this path?"
"No guide, no contract, no ritual—theoretically, you should have been consumed by backlash long ago."
"If someone guides you, if you can control your power—you will become very strong."
So this was the real purpose.
Margaret had set her sights on her 'potential' and wanted to take her as a student.
Cleaning up the aftermath and giving her an enrollment slot were just incidental conditions.
—This felt like a normal deal now.
The corner of Pavela's mouth moved slightly.
"I need to think about it."
Margaret didn't seem surprised by this answer.
"Of course."
She nodded. "There's still more than half a month before the semester starts. You have plenty of time to consider."
She stood up from the chair, stretched her injured left shoulder, and frowned slightly.
"You can ask for Eleanor's opinion. Or Marquise Schwartz's."
She turned and walked toward the end of the hallway.
"They should be able to give you some advice."
Pavela watched her back and suddenly spoke up.
"General."
"Thank you."
Pavela said.
"Don't mention it," Margaret waved her hand. "This debt is charged to your tuition."
Her figure disappeared at the end of the hallway.
Leaving Pavela sitting alone on the hard wooden chair.
The surroundings were still noisy.
Police were still running back and forth.
The infirmary door was still constantly being pushed open and closed.
Pavela leaned back against the chair and closed her eyes.
The noise in the hallway gradually became distant, as if separated by a thick layer of glass.
The footsteps of the police, the groans of the wounded, the clatter of metal instruments from the infirmary—she actively blocked all sounds from her consciousness.
Should she accept?
She was thinking.
Margaret's proposal was indeed very tempting.
An enrollment slot, immunity, a guide—these were all things she urgently needed right now.
Especially the last one.
What if the one standing in front of her at the end hadn't been Margaret, but Eleanor?
What if it was Irene?
What if it was Victoria or Cecilia?
She didn't dare imagine that scene.
It couldn't go on like this.
She had to learn to control her power.
Control that system of unknown origin, and control those souls that still churned deep in her mind to this day.
Control the power brought by that so-called Way Back.
Not just to become stronger and survive in this world.
But also to ensure those people she had started to care about wouldn't be hurt again.
People she cared about.
Pavela repeated the words in her heart, a bitter smile appearing on her lips.
Since when did she actually have 'people she cared about'?
In the Punishment Camp, she only cared about whether she could live until tomorrow.
On the battlefield, she only cared about whether the enemy would kill her. ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com
But now—
She had friends, she had family.
Eleanor.
Irene.
Victoria and Cecilia.
Even that Marquise, who was as cold as a block of ice, was protecting her in her own way.
These people.
She didn't want to lose them.
Pavela's eyes opened again.
In that case, she had already made her decision.
...
Five minutes later, Eleanor returned after finishing her statement, only to see this scene:
Her younger sister was leaning against the chair, her left arm wrapped in bandages, her dress stained with blood, but her face bore a strange, thoughtful expression.
"Little Pa?"
Pavela looked at her.
"Sister Eleanor."
Her voice was a bit raspy, but her tone had returned to its usual calm.
"I have something I want to ask you."
