The Girl Who Stitched Monsters

The two of them stared at each other across the long table in silence.

After a moment, Isolde slowly raised her hand.

At her cuff, the plain little button gave off a faint glow.

The [Secret-Seeker Button] slipped free from the edge of her black lace sleeve and landed in her palm.

It looked utterly ordinary, like a small decoration sewn onto any old piece of clothing.

But only Isolde knew that without it yesterday, she might not have been able to wrest any advantage from Orren’s contract.

She pinched the button between her fingers and flicked it forward.

It slid across the long table. Orren reached out and caught it with a movement as light as catching a gold coin.

Isolde said coldly, “You’re only holding it for now. I’ll take it back one day.”

Orren lowered his head and looked at the button. He rubbed it lightly with one finger, like a greedy man admiring a treasure.

He slipped the [Secret-Seeker Button] into the innermost hidden pocket over his chest, then pressed a finger against the mouth of the pocket.

A ring of tiny contract runes appeared, then quickly faded.

“Of course,” he said softly. “I look forward to that day.”

Orren pushed the silver box forward. It slid smoothly along the long table and stopped in front of Isolde.

Two teleportation stones lay quietly inside, their gray-blue mist drifting slowly within them.

[Trade completed.]

[Lost, Secret-Seeker Button.]

[Acquired.]

[Teleportation Stone, Gray Dove Monastery Rear Mountain Corpse Road.]

[Teleportation Stone, Sylvain Castle.]

[Notice, Teleportation stones are one-use consumable items. Please use them carefully.]

Isolde stared at the last line and still felt a pang of loss.

But in this world, money flowed out like water, and recovering losses meant robbing someone else. She would have to get used to that logic sooner or later.

Just then, beyond the dining room window, a thin line of white light appeared in the depths of the gray fog.

It was far away, but sharp as a blade, slowly cutting through the outer shadows around the castle.

Orren said slowly, “The monastery has already begun probing the castle’s coordinates. Miss Isolde, you do not have much time.”

Isolde stood and looked down at the teleportation stone in her palm. Within the gray-blue mist, the mountain road piled with corpse sacks grew clearer and clearer.

“Lia, while I’m gone, hide the castle completely from the outside.”

Then she looked toward Orren and ordered, “And take good care of Mr. Orren.”

Lia bowed respectfully.

“Yes, Miss.”

Lia led Orren away, leaving the two teleportation stones lying quietly on the table.

Isolde stood by the window and watched the gray fog churn outside the castle. For some reason, unease stirred in her chest.

Gray Dove Monastery was not Sylvain Castle.

The castle was a nest of bones and corpses she understood. It was an old board left behind by Valen.

The Holy Court was different.

It wore the face of light, and the more brightly a place dressed itself in light, the harder it became to see the shadows underneath.

Isolde lowered her eyes and lightly touched her own face.

This face and title were far too conspicuous.

Even if she merely stood at the monastery gates and did nothing, the Holy Court’s people would probably raise their holy emblems at once and drag her to the judgment platform for a thorough roasting.

Worse, Orren had mentioned that the Northern Witch-Hunters, the Black Tower, and a Descender party might all be going there.

Any one of those three would be enough to give her a serious headache.

Isolde closed her eyes and began using her disguise skill.

[Witch’s Mask.]

After she had devoured the castle authority, this passive ability had changed as well.

Several outlines even surfaced in her mind, all of them souls she had devoured.

Isolde looked at Grant Vale’s crude face and crossed it out without hesitation.

Too stupid.

Rowan Keene wouldn’t do either.

That face looked exactly like the sort that would get beaten in an alley first and questioned later.

Mina Vale, however, was usable.

A mage class. A female identity. An appearance that did not draw too much attention. Traces of basic holy-light skills.

With a little adjustment, Mina’s identity would be suitable for disguising herself as an independent mage and slipping into the outer area of the monastery.

Isolde’s fingertip paused over Mina’s silhouette.

But just as she was about to choose, a ripple suddenly spread through the deepest darkness.

Then a fourth figure emerged.

The figure stood far away, shrinking into a corner like a child who had done something wrong.

She was thin, with black hair tied back using the most ordinary elastic band. Her face was pale from long-term hunger and fear.

She wore a torn beginner’s coat. Old scars marked the backs of her hands, and her eyes hid too much cautious pleading.

And beneath it all was a humble, desperate desire to survive.

Evelyn Hart.

The Evelyn Hart from her previous life.

Isolde’s breath caught.

She had not expected [Witch’s Mask] to peel out even the past she most wanted to carve away.

She had expected even less that the clearest, truest profile of her soul would still look like this.

That shadow stood in the dark as though she had been dragged back into the world one second before being swallowed by the serpent swarm.

She said nothing.

She only looked at the witch Isolde had become with eyes full of despair, confusion, and a fragile will to live.

Isolde’s outstretched hand froze in midair.

She had thought she had forgotten that face.

But now that she saw it again, something still struck softly against her chest.

A complicated wave of rejection rose inside her.

Instinctively, she wanted to look away.

She hated that shadow.

She hated the Evelyn Hart of her previous life, weak, yielding, and willing to press her dignity into the mud just to keep others from abandoning her.

That useless girl, still full of modern kindness and manners, had been toyed with in a brutal world until her death. By the end, the only thing she had learned was how to identify crystal ore.

She was the greatest shame of Isolde’s life.

Yet the instant Isolde tried to turn away, her heart clenched without warning.

That girl was still her.

She was the child who had once gone to school step by step in the modern world and looked forward to the future.

She was the girl who had been pushed into the deepest mud, yet still gritted her teeth, cried, and desperately tried to survive.

She had been weak.

She had been foolish.

But she had never truly surrendered to the darkness.

If Evelyn Hart had not struggled in the mud until the very last moment and refused to close her eyes, how could Isolde have crawled back from hell to take hold of the board?

They could not be separated.

That girl was her root, the most painful and cleanest piece of flesh in her soul.

Outside the window, gray fog beat against the glass. Deep within the castle, the wooden beams gave a faint groan.

Isolde let out a self-mocking laugh.

She could choose Mina Vale.

That would be safer, more reasonable, and far more like the sort of mage who might appear near the Holy Court.

But if even she despised that weak version of herself, then in this cold and cruel world, the girl who had died in the serpent swarm would truly rot forever in unknown mud.

The life-saving skills Evelyn had never obtained.

The dignity she had never been granted.

The road she had never finished walking.

Why shouldn’t she begin again?

At that moment, her hesitation disappeared.

The witch’s coldness and Evelyn Hart’s obsession melted together perfectly in the dark. What flickered in Isolde’s eyes was still the same spark of a soul that had never accepted defeat at the hands of fate.

“You, then.”

Isolde raised her hand and touched that thin shadow with gentleness and certainty.

In the darkness, the shadow that belonged to Evelyn Hart lifted her head.

The next instant, gray misty light rose from beneath Isolde’s feet and climbed over her hem, waist, shoulders, and neck inch by inch.

Her elaborate black gown faded away.

Her skin, once pale enough to seem almost translucent, gradually gained the color of an ordinary human. Her overly long black hair shortened and fell to her shoulders, while her features slowly became plain and delicate.

In the mirror stood a young woman around twenty years old.

She was not especially beautiful.

She was not striking.

But she was alive.

Isolde raised a hand and touched the mirror.

When the cold cracks met her fingertips, she suddenly smiled.

“Not bad. Cleaner than I looked in my previous life.”

But appearance alone was not enough.

She closed her eyes and slowly drew out the mage class traces she had analyzed from Mina Vale’s soul.

A faint thread of white light rose from the calloused palm of her ordinary human hand.

She pressed the light-aspected spell formula down until it was very shallow. It was not as pure as that of a true Holy Court priest, nor did it carry the cold gloom of the castle’s forbidden magic.

It was closer to the sort of spell a low-level wandering mage might use.

Limited cleanliness.

Limited power.

Everything was just right.

She controlled her power with precision and covered the witch’s mana channels with the unicorn’s sacred nature.

At that moment, even if a high-ranking Holy Court Inquisitor stood before her and inspected her carefully, he would only think she was an ordinary human mage with a little foundation.

No one would connect her to the terrifying witch in the castle who played with souls.

Everything was ready.

Isolde changed into a short gray cloak. Beneath it, she wore a lightweight mage robe that had been washed until it had faded slightly. Two ordinary low-grade potion vials and an unremarkable dagger hung at her waist.

Finally, she picked up the teleportation stone from the long table.

When the cold stone touched her palm, the gray-blue mist inside trembled lightly, reflecting her current appearance.

Evelyn Hart in the reflection looked at her.

And Isolde looked back at Evelyn Hart.

“We’re leaving,” she said to herself.

The next second, her fingers tightened, and she crushed the teleportation stone in her hand.

Gray-blue light exploded like a storm.

All the candle flames in the room bent inward at once, in a strange and unnatural motion.

Isolde heard the roar of wind.

Then her entire body was swept into a violent spatial current.