The black-haired maid hurriedly walked along the gravel path in the courtyard from the manor gate to the magnificent three-story mansion. If Shad remembered correctly, this was the maid who handed the relic vampire ring to "that lady" on the third floor of the Lucky Southern Cross Club.
"'The lady' is here too?"
Xia De stood beside the long table, looking up at the manor house not far away. He could only see a few young girls in evening gowns standing on the terrace on the second floor and chatting with each other.
One of the girls, a girl with long red hair and holding a glass of wine, noticed Shad's gaze and pointed him in the direction of her friends.
He saw the girls on the second-floor terrace were all looking over here. Although he didn't want to get into trouble, Xia De still nodded slightly to show his greeting, and then left the place as if nothing had happened.
"It's really a novel experience to see so many hair colors at once."
He thought to himself as he arrived at the courtyard behind the manor.
Xia De didn't know the exact area of Lake View Manor, but even without counting the racecourse connected to the manor and the nearby farms, the area here was beyond the imagination of outsiders.
Behind the house is the garden, which is divided into different parts. Walking to the back, the manor is directly connected to Lake Schluch, and there are even small docks and cruise ships on the lake. Shade has seen young men and women boating on the lake with candles.
He didn't get too close to the lake, not because he didn't want to appreciate the beautiful sight of March hanging above the blue waves in the night sky, but simply because the lake was too cold.
The garden itself was enough for Shade to see the world, but he didn't know if it was a custom, but there were always young lovers going deep into the garden. Although they didn't do anything indecent, they just expressed their love on the bench, but it still made Shade, who was walking around everywhere, feel embarrassed.
He wandered around purely to gain more knowledge and better adapt to life in this world. He intentionally looked for something to do to kill time, but before he knew it, only a few business cards were left, which were prepared for Baron Lavender's friends, and there was no need to distribute them anymore.
So I thought about finding a place to sit down, and saw that there were many gentlemen and ladies walking among the flowers in the garden maze, so I left this area and thought about taking a rest under the tulip bush statue over there.
But before they had taken a few steps, they saw a group of people emerging from a path surrounded by flowers on the side of the manor. That was the side door connecting the manor garden to the horse farm. They hurried in under the guidance of an old man dressed as a butler holding a kerosene lamp.
There were more than ten church members with serious faces and wearing uniform black coats. The reason why they were judged to be church members was because not long ago, Father Augustus mentioned the dress and weapon requirements of the church ring magician team when they appeared.
Although Shad didn't see the church's holy emblem and therefore couldn't tell which Orthodox church these people belonged to, they were undoubtedly dangerous.
Thinking in my mind, I naturally turned in another direction along the path in front of the garden and passed by a group of people.
As they passed each other, the voice in his head simultaneously reminded him that the elements of "miracle", "enlightenment" and "whisper" had appeared, which once again confirmed Shad's guess about their identities.
"However, if every ring sorcerer can give such an obvious warning when passing by the Orthodox Church team, then what secret actions can they take... ...Are you the only one who can do this? A lady who claims to be another me."
Do you need me to repeat it again
“It’s because of the sensitivity of my soul.”
Xia De said in his heart, and then heard the woman's pleasant laughter again.
The leader of the team of more than ten people was a middle-aged man who was about the same height as Shade, but so strong that he looked like he could kill Shade and his orange cat Mia with one punch. Most of the team members behind him were men. Among the two women, one looked about 30 years old and had purple lips; the other was probably less than 18 years old and had long brown hair. Even Shade could see that she looked a little nervous compared to the others.
"Is this your first time on a mission with the team... Why does she look familiar? Oh, yes, I ran into her when I went to pick up Mia at Purple Iris Lane the other day. I had a strange feeling at the time (note)."
Xia De thought to himself, without turning back to look at the group of people. Instead, the voice in his head spoke, of course not teasing Xia De to pay attention to the strange girl:
Stranger, you saw your destiny.
"Hmm? Did I see it? When did I see it?"
He wondered in his head, but he kept moving forward, fearing that he would be mistaken for a bad guy by the ring wizard team of the Orthodox Church.
"But think about it, why should I be nervous? I haven't done anything bad, so why should I be afraid... I'm a good person."
The pace slowed down, but there was still no turning back.
It's hard to explain. After meeting her many times, you discovered that this strange girl is different. Even if I don't say it, you should have felt her difference.
The voice whispered.
"Can you express it in a way that I can understand?"
Xia De asked back, pretending to be curious about the blue-winged butterfly in the flowers in front.
I thought I would still get no answer, but unexpectedly this time the woman's voice was so considerate:
The appearance of the chosen person of destiny here seems to indicate that something big is about to happen.
"'That lady' has arrived, and the Orthodox Church team has also shown up... something is indeed wrong. So, do I need to leave?"
He asked in his heart, but did not get another answer.
Shad knew he had to make the decision and couldn't rely on the woman's voice that claimed to be "I am you".
But after thinking about it, he decided not to leave. This was certainly not because of the half pound reward and the unreimbursed car fare, but because leaving suddenly would be very conspicuous, and he was determined not to get close to any dangerous places and not to take the initiative to get into trouble.
"This place is so big. As long as I don't wander around and don't deliberately seek danger, can the danger still involve me with the Orthodox Church's ring warlock team present?"
He thought to himself and returned to the long table full of food.
Even if strangers gathered together, they could still talk because of common topics. Xia De, who wanted to finish his midnight snack early, was unknowingly involved in the discussion about the "feasibility of immigration to the New World".
The New World discovered by people during the great geographical discoveries fifty years ago is vast and rich in resources, and there are hidden places full of strange relics of ancient civilizations and even tombs.
But so far, no traces of living indigenous people have been found in the New World. Therefore, scholars from the Kingdom of Delarion in the north of the Old World and the United Kingdom of Carsenrick in the south all agreed that this was abnormal and that the population could not be easily transferred there. For this reason, there has been no large-scale official colonization between the two continents so far, only a large number of military pioneer corps, adventurers and ambitious people who brought their families and friends to that rich land.
The Kingdom's officials are also considering this issue. It has been more than 50 years since the Great Geographical Discovery. The first generation of adventurers who set foot on the New World have all grown old, and some have even spent their entire lives in the New World, but nothing has gone wrong. Therefore, whether official population migration can be carried out has become a hot topic again in the past decade.
The men sitting at the long dinner table at Lake View Manor, dressed in formal attire and enjoying the cool night breeze of early summer, had a heated but substantive debate on the issue. The novel viewpoints made Shad nod frequently, and he knew that no matter what era, people always liked this kind of conversation.