"I had a strange dream last night. In the dream, Leicia and I held hands and turned into a red butterfly. We flew and flew. The people in the city who were hit by the red light from our wings also turned into red butterflies. In the end, everyone turned into red butterflies and flew together."
"That's really strange. What happened in the end?"
Shade asked curiously. The blonde girl carefully picked up the bacon with a fork. The cat lying on Shade's lap sniffed it and opened its eyes.
"Then we saw Mia squatting on top of the bell tower in the sunset, and then she pounced and swallowed us up."
“Meow!”
Mia jumped from Shade's lap to the table. Even if she didn't intend to grab the food, she would at least go and sniff it. However, Shade, who knew the cat's nature well, grabbed the back of its neck, lifted it up and put it back on his lap.
Dorothy smiled as she watched the scene in front of her. She felt that it was quite enjoyable to watch Shad playing with the cat in the rainy weather.
"What do you think this dream means?"
"Well... If you miss Leicia, don't worry. Isn't this Saturday the new Red Butterfly Day?"
Then he was rewarded by Dorothy's ignoring his "dream interpretation" for several minutes.
The wooden boat that Shad brought back from the bottom of the water outside the island on Monday night has been repaired on Megan and Audrey's cruise ship after a day of processing yesterday. It was not the power of time that was used to repair the wreckage of a hundred years ago, but the repair work was completed with ingenious craftsmanship.
That morning, when Shad handed the cat to Dorothy and came to the cruise ship docked on the River Duin with an umbrella, in addition to Megan and Audrey, Miss Sylvia was also there.
"Good morning, Shad."
The black-haired space witch greeted Shade and took him to the cruise ship cabin. Megan was standing in the innermost drainage cabin, looking at the repaired boat in front of her. She had two arms stretched out from behind her, gesturing as if she was about to cast a spell, but when she saw Shade coming, the two real arms immediately retracted:
"Good morning, Shad."
The purpose of Shade getting this boat out was to find a way to make the boatman's soul appear and get the key. Megan and Audrey repaired the boat and even invited Miss Sylvia, who was supposed to handle the affairs of the Glass City, to come. Naturally, they had their own ideas:
"We don't know if we can still summon the soul after leaving the island, but we have to try. So, we have to try to restore the environment that caused the soul to appear, that is, the chaotic state of water and space. In addition, we have to try the normal method of stimulating the soul, that is, repeating what the boatman did when he was alive."
She handed the same information to Shade and Miss Sylvia:
"I checked. If I'm not mistaken, this boat belongs to Old Renault, the second-to-last boatman in Green Lake Town. He inherited the responsibility from his father and is responsible for the ferry work in Green Lake Town."
"Wait a minute, that town is so big, and it usually only relies on one small boat. How does it maintain contact between the townspeople and the outside world?"
Miss Sylvia asked a question, and Megan replied:
"Of course, we don't rely on this ship alone. Green Lake Town belongs to the Kingdom of Delarion, and there is usually a large ship connecting Green Lake City every day. If a resident misses the big ship at 10 a.m. every day, old Renault will be responsible for sending them to the lakeside. Sylvia, don't think that the town more than a hundred years ago was as prosperous as ordinary towns today. At that time, the wave of the steam revolution was just beginning to emerge. How much travel needs do you think the townspeople in the countryside have?"
"You said he was the second to last?"
Xia De also raised questions.
"Yes, he disappeared before Green Lake Town was abandoned. From what we can see, he was alone in a boat and it sank in the lake. Afterwards, his son became the town's new boatman and escaped from Green Lake Town that night. Today, the descendants of the boatman Old Reno's son still live in Pukhov Village by the lake. My girls found them while investigating the descendants of Green Lake Town and got this."
She showed a rusty, simple silver pendant that looked like an anchor:
"Their family heirloom is not pure silver. It is said that this thing has been passed down in the family since the days of Green Lake Town. I checked it and it is just ordinary silver jewelry. And it is said to be a family heirloom. I paid a little more than 15 pounds and bought it easily. Maybe it will be useful in the future."
"15 pounds..."
Shad once again felt that the witches' view on money was different from his own. After all, Miss Mia Gold only sent him 10 pounds a month.
"Something is wrong, Shad said. The location of the sunken ship is very close to the shore. Besides, it is impossible for the boatman not to be able to swim. I don't understand, how did the old Renault you mentioned die?"
After Miss Sylvia finished reading the information and Megan's plan, she couldn't help but ask again, and Megan shook her head:
"If you're curious, you can ask him yourself later. However, I guess it has something to do with our ancestors. Although my grandfather destroyed the sealing ceremony on the island, allowing the four people of my father's generation to live outside the island, it now seems that our ancestors had arranged the matter of the thirteen keys before that, so it's hard to say whether he knew what my grandfather did... Let's go, Sylvia, you brought the relic with you, right?"
The boat was transferred to the Duin River, and then Shade and the two witches went up together. This primitive boat needed oars to move, and although the witches could make it move by itself, this was in the city, so Shade had to row it.
In order to restore the situation back then, Shade rowed the boat from the city all the way to the river mouth, and then into Green Lake. This made him suspect that the two witches had called him here just for rowing. But fortunately, they were going downstream, so it was not very strenuous.
After the magic enveloped the surroundings, the boat stopped on the lake. Megan threw away the umbrella that was in the way and used an invisible force to push away the rain above the boat.
She nodded to Miss Sylvia, who then produced two metal dolls placed back to back and stuck together.
Both dolls were palm-sized, crudely made, and both wore buttoned coats, black boots, and hats. The metal dolls looked exactly the same, the only difference being the color of their clothes and hats, one was all red and the other was all green. Although it was obvious that they were made of metal, they were still very cheap toys, the kind that Resia and Margaret would never have seen.
Although the paint on the surface has not peeled off, it has already shown a worn appearance due to the years. There are letters engraved on the faces of the two dolls, which together form a complete sentence:
Confusing the colors means confusing the world.
"They have magnets on their backs so they can stick together back to back."
Miss Sylvia explained:
"Secret Keeper-level relic - Red and Green.
The only detachable part of these two dolls is the hat. In normal state, the red-clothed man wears a red hat, and the green-clothed man wears a green hat. At this time, they can be contained by simply placing them and a certain amount of green ridge ore in the same sealed container. Once the hats of the two are exchanged, the relic characteristics will take effect, that is, chaos in the surrounding space. During this period, everyone who witnessed the hat exchange process will have strange red and green lights appearing alternately in their vision. Once a certain light no longer flashes but appears for a long time, it means that the relic has entered a state of loss of control:
The red light persists: With the puppet as the center, all entities in the surrounding space are gradually wiped out; the green light persists, the puppet comes alive and turns into an evil creature whose name I cannot tell.
Megan, standing next to Shad, added:
"This is a relatively dangerous Secret Keeper-level relic, almost comparable to the Secret Keeper-level measure, the Secret Keeper's Eye. I remember that it was Sylvia's teacher who contained it about 15 years ago."
"Yes, when the teacher was still here, he often used this to train my spatial perception."
The black-haired witch recalled the past, sighed, and then told the purpose of asking Shade to come along:
"This relic can easily get out of control. When the teacher was still here, she also had the ability to stabilize the surrounding space with an aura or a field, just like you do. Although I have similar magic now, the space in a place like Green Lake is fragile, and no one can guarantee that this relic will not have other problems. So for safety, you must be present before we can use this relic."
"no problem."
For safety reasons, Shade even took off the black time key and turned it into the Staff of Yggdrasil. It was the first time that Miss Sylvia saw Shade use this angel-level staff weapon, but she was doing serious things now, so she didn't ask too much about the origin of the relic.
After Shad and Miss Sylvia were ready, Audrey's hand reached out from behind Megan and changed the doll's hat. In this way, Megan could react immediately if anything happened.
The hats of the two puppets were also fixed by magnets, so it was very convenient to swap them. When the swap was completed, Xia De felt that the rainy sky suddenly turned into night, and then the red and green lights that flashed alternately for unknown reasons almost blinded his eyes:
"Wait, why is it dark?"
"I don't know either, but the relic hasn't gotten out of control yet... The spatial chaos effect is about to begin, so be prepared."
Shade's perception had already detected the power of the whispering element's chaotic space, so he held his long staff and waited calmly on the boat with the two witches. Megan also placed the "heirloom" on the bow.
The plan went smoothly. At the deliberately empty position on the bow, as the red and green lights flashed alternately again and again, a dark green soul shadow slowly took shape, then bent down and picked up the silver anchor pendant.
The boatman actually showed up.