The Girl Who Looted Tomorrow

After only a split second of hesitation, Euphemia said, “Come on. We’re following him.”

For Freya, this was only a simulation, so dying was not much of a concern.

But for Euphemia, everything happening right now was real. Even after knowing exactly how powerful their target was, she still made that decision. Her nerve really was something else.

Jerome went back to the same flatbread stall and bought a few minced-meat and onion flatbreads for breakfast.

It was obvious that he genuinely liked the stuff.

After eating, he went right back to wandering around like a man with nothing better to do.

Freya and Euphemia could not tell what he was doing, or what he was even trying to do.

Time passed.

An entire day slipped by in a blur.

Just as the two of them thought they would come up empty-handed again, Jerome suddenly raised a hand and stopped a carriage.

Then he said, “Kobdo National Academy.”

The moment they heard that, both girls snapped to attention.

Freya even repeated it aloud.

“Kobdo National Academy?”

Wasn’t that her school?

It was located in downtown Auxerre, the busiest part of the city.

But it was already evening. Why would Jerome go there now?

Freya quickly applied a physical enhancement to both herself and Euphemia.

Then the two began running after the carriage.

However, they were still sharing one Invisibility Cloak.

Walking normally was fine, but once they started running, their movements became much larger, and the whole thing became extremely inconvenient.

If they stayed too close together, they might step on each other’s feet and trip.

If they moved too far apart, part of someone’s body might slip outside the cloak.

To passersby, that would look like an arm or leg had suddenly appeared out of thin air and started moving around.

Very unsettling, to say the least.

But the current problem was a third kind.

Most of Euphemia’s attention was focused on the ground, because she was trying not to step on Freya by accident.

Because of that, her speed dropped quite a bit, which forced Freya to slow down as well.

Seeing the carriage pull farther and farther away, Freya knew they would lose it sooner or later at this rate.

So she simply reached out and scooped Euphemia into her arms in a princess carry.

Her small white feet moved rapidly across the ground, making soft little pattering sounds.

“Eh… eh?”

Euphemia froze completely.

Before she could say anything, Freya spoke first.

“Hold on tight.”

“Oh… okay.”

Euphemia answered while wrapping her arms around Freya’s neck.

After that, Freya ran almost halfway across the city.

Near Kobdo National Academy, the carriage slowly came to a stop.

Freya found a place to set Euphemia safely back on the ground.

She did not notice Euphemia’s face, which had gone completely red.

Her attention had remained on Jerome the whole time.

“This place… it looks like his destination is the hill behind the school?”

Kobdo National Academy was one of the top schools in the entire Kingdom of Tarapaca, so its campus was enormous.

Besides the usual classroom buildings, it also had faculty housing, student dormitories, dining halls, sports fields, laboratories, and many other facilities.

Behind the school was a small wooded area.

It had been turned into something like a park, and the students called it the back hill.

When students had free time, they could come here for a walk and relax.

Of course, it was also a favorite date spot for couples.

Euphemia took a deep breath and calmed herself down.

Then she asked, “Faye, you know this place pretty well?”

Freya nodded.

“Because I’m a student here.”

By the standards of her previous world, Kobdo National Academy could not really be called either a high school or a university.

It was closer to both at once.

Freya was currently somewhere around the second half of junior year and would soon be entering senior year.

After taking the Kingdom of Tarapaca’s unified national exam, which was basically this country’s college entrance exam, students with good enough results could stay at Kobdo National Academy for further study.

In other words, they would move on to university-level courses.

If their grades were bad, then they would naturally have to leave.

That was beside the point.

After hearing Freya’s explanation, Euphemia looked puzzled.

“If you’re a student here, why haven’t you been going to class?”

Freya said, “Because there are more urgent things going on right now. Who has time for class?”

As they talked, the two followed closely behind Jerome.

Naturally, Kobdo National Academy had security at the gate.

Under normal circumstances, outsiders who were not teachers or students were not allowed to enter.

But when the two guards at the entrance saw Jerome, neither of them showed the slightest intention of stopping him.

They simply let him in.

As they passed, Freya briefly closed her eyes and sensed them.

“These two guards aren’t real people. They’re [Soldiers].”

Euphemia said, “Mm. I can’t say I’m surprised.”

They entered through a side gate, so they soon reached the back hill.

The ground beneath their feet changed from neat stone pavement to soft grass.

When Freya’s fair, delicate feet stepped onto it, it felt like walking on cotton.

Soft, springy, and extremely comfortable.

The scent of grass and trees drifted through the air, carrying that clean freshness that belonged only to nature.

Freya could feel her spirituality becoming much more active.

In other words, if a fight broke out here, her strength would increase by at least ten percent or so.

There were no proper roads here.

Only in a few places, where many people had walked back and forth over time, had narrow dirt paths been worn into the ground.

Jerome did not take any of those paths.

His goal was very clear.

He stepped across the grass and walked deeper in.

After several minutes, a bare clearing roughly thirty feet wide appeared in Freya’s perception.

She immediately said, “This place wasn’t originally like this. Someone deliberately cleared away all the plants here and created this open space.”

Even so, Freya rose slightly onto her toes and looked toward the clearing.

It really was bare.

There was nothing there.

But when Jerome walked to the center of the clearing, he lightly stomped his foot.

It was as if he had activated some hidden mechanism.

Soon, red lines lit up across the clearing.

Dense patterns crossed over one another, forming one complicated design after another.

Euphemia frowned slightly and narrowed her eyes.

After staring at it for a long while, she finally said, “This is… an enormous occult array.”

“The outer layer is a hidden array meant specifically to conceal traces. When it isn’t active, it hides the main array in the center.”

Back at the abandoned warehouse, Euphemia had drawn an occult array for surveillance.

At that time, Freya had been able to see that surveillance array with Mind Sense.

But this array in front of them could not be sensed at all, even when she closed her eyes.

In other words, this so-called [Hidden Array] was also designed to counter the Earth Path’s Mind Sense.

If Jerome had not activated it himself, Freya and Euphemia would never have discovered it.

Freya asked, “Then what does the main array in the center do?”

Euphemia frowned and studied it for a while longer.

Only then did she answer with some hesitation, “I’m not sure. It’s too complicated. I’ll have to go back and check my references. The only thing I can tell right now is… [Burning]. Its effect should have something to do with fire.”

The moment she finished speaking, Freya and Euphemia thought of the same thing.

They spoke at the same time.

“So this is the disaster that sweeps through the whole city a month from now? The fire that devours the entire city?”

Freya continued, “But… can one occult array really do something that absurd? Create a fire on the scale of an entire city?”

“In theory, yes,” Euphemia said. “But this little array in front of us definitely isn’t enough by itself. To create a fire over such a large area, the array would also need to be as large as the city.”

“My guess is that this array is the central core. There should be many array nodes hidden in other parts of the city.”

While the two of them were talking, Jerome took several spirituality crystals from his belongings.

He crouched down and began drawing.

Clearly, the array in front of them was still unfinished.

Jerome had come here to continue building it.