Dorothy was Liz Toriduo’s codename in the Fourth Agency.
Liz had grown up in the lower districts of Londinium.
She had once been an abandoned infant found on the doorstep of an old church.
No one knew who her parents were, yet her straight nose typical of Albion, her slightly curly chestnut hair, and her soft gaze reminiscent of the Gauls all declared that she was a mixed-blood of the Southern and Northern Continents.
The old priest of that church—a kind and deeply lonely man—had adopted Liz and given her a childhood filled with love.
The believers who came to the old church for worship were all ordinary people of modest means living in the surrounding area.
The church was not only a sacred place of prayer but also a harbor for the souls of the community residents.
They gathered there to share one another’s joys and sorrows, and the old priest always listened patiently, offering each person warm care.
In such an environment Liz blossomed like a flower in summer, drawing in the warmth and affection around her and gradually forming an open and passionate character.
She was like a ray of sunlight inside the church—warm and bright, illuminating the hearts of the believers.
The old priest was not only a devout believer but had also once been an outstanding figure in the field of probability theory, enjoying considerable renown.
From the age of four Liz had studied under him.
Her talent was such that by the age of twelve she already possessed accomplishments comparable to those of a graduate of Orfa University; originally she had every prospect of becoming an outstanding auditor.
But fate always seemed to enjoy cruel jokes.
That very year a newly appointed priest suddenly declared that the church should be demolished on the grounds that it was old and in disrepair.
In truth this was merely a tactic used in the competition between dioceses for believers.
The church’s funds came mainly from the donations of the faithful, and the old church was the only sanctuary for several surrounding blocks, with a large congregation.
Churches in the upper districts already lined every street; the clergy competed fiercely for believers.
That newly appointed priest had received guidance from high levels of the Church and intended to open up new territory in the lower districts by annexing the old priest’s church.
The state religion of the United Kingdom, the Holy Christine Church, stood independent of the jurisdiction of the Southern Continent’s papacy.
This was thanks to Queen Christine’s self-proclamation as a saint seventy years earlier after she had slain the Demon King.
Her great achievements had forced the Pope himself to travel to the Northern Continent to canonize her, and from that time onward the believers of the United Kingdom no longer paid taxes to the South.
Yet this had also led to the wild development of the Northern Church after it lost the supervision of the cardinals.
Priests and bishops redrew diocesan boundaries on the map of the United Kingdom and amassed wealth at will; their extravagant lifestyles even made the cardinals of the Papal States envious.
Facing the crisis of the church’s demolition, the old priest wrote repeatedly to the higher Church authorities, pleading for the decision to be changed.
To him that church was not merely a religious site but also a home for himself, for Liz, and for the nearby community residents.
Regrettably, the higher Church never responded.
In the end the newly powerful priest sent men to remove the holy images from the old church and pour kerosene inside to set it ablaze.
When the flames began to spread, the old priest desperately rushed in trying to save his academic materials and probability tables, but he was trapped by the thick smoke and never came out again.
By the time Liz arrived at the scene it was already too late.
Looking at the broken walls among the ruins, she understood the newly appointed priest’s true motive—he too was a scholar of probability theory, and this act was not only for the sake of competing for believers but also out of jealousy toward his teacher’s academic achievements.
The silence of the Church hierarchy also exposed the political power standing behind the new priest.
At first the nearby residents expressed indignation, but as time passed and under various pressures they gradually fell silent and even began attending the services conducted by the new priest.
Only that patch of scorched earth quietly reminded people amid the snowflakes of everything that had once happened.
Throughout the entire autumn Liz studied every kind of gambling technique.
On the day the first snow fell she carried funds borrowed from a moneylender and placed a bouquet of white flowers before the ruins.
Afterwards she walked into the new church and said to the newly appointed priest, “You have no idea how high my teacher’s academic level was. Now that he is gone you will never know. But I am his only student. I can represent him and gamble against you. If you beat me, it will be equivalent to proving that you have surpassed him.”
The newly appointed priest accepted the challenge.
This was not only a contest of intellect but also a duel over reputation.
That night the lights in the church never went out; only Liz knew how brutal the gambling session had been.
At dawn Liz walked out of the church, her face pale and her steps unsteady, yet a light of relief shone in her eyes.
She had finally obtained justice for her teacher.
Unable to bear the result of defeat and the debt pressure that followed, the newly appointed priest chose to end his own life.
When the believers discovered him they all understood that this was the result of Liz’s revenge for the old priest.
Although Liz was innocent under the laws of the United Kingdom, the important figures standing behind the new priest had no intention of letting her go.
Yet the assassins they hired could only watch helplessly as Liz walked into the mansion of the Toriduo family, for no one dared challenge the vampires who ruled the dark world.
Before preparing for that gambling session Liz had already submitted a letter of allegiance to the Toriduo family.
Inside that mansion that never saw sunlight she signed document after document and contract after contract.
With every name she signed on a piece of paper, another layer of her social identity as a human being was stripped away, like an onion being peeled layer by layer.
After all the signatures were completed, only the name Liz remained.
At that time Liz still did not know that, in order to seize power from the Vandro family, the head of the Toriduo family, Alexander, had ordered nearly a hundred newborns to be transformed every year and sent into the Intelligence Academy, intending by this method to occupy more posts for the family inside the Cerberus Bureau.
Yet the majority of those newborns failed the qualification assessments and were sent to sanatoriums.
Liz was the forty-second newborn transformed by the Toriduo family in Londinium that year.
Liz was fortunate enough to survive the initial Embrace.
At the Intelligence Academy she met her roommate, little Claire.
At that time Claire was like a small hedgehog covered in spines; apart from classes and training she had no interaction with anyone else, as if the whole world owed her money.
But Liz liked this little creature very much.
She knew that Claire, like herself, also had secrets—they were both people who disliked this world.
Therefore, whenever group work was required to complete coursework, Liz often volunteered to team up with Claire.
Claire, for the sake of graduating smoothly, naturally did not refuse.
Thus two girls of completely different backgrounds and personalities became good friends during the harsh academy years.
It was like an enthusiastic and friendly puppy and a hedgehog curled into a ball being locked together in the same cage.
When the cage was opened one discovered that the hedgehog had already uncurled its body and fallen peacefully asleep, while the puppy lay beside it, occasionally licking its own paws.
Perhaps it was because during that loneliest period of their youth they both longed for companionship and happened to meet each other.
On days without classes Liz would take Claire and secretly slip away to the port of Orfa University, then under cover of night rent a small boat and row across to the bustling downtown of Londinium on the southern bank to wander around.
They usually escaped in the evening, when the lights of the city lit up one after another.
Elegant gentlemen and ladies stepped down from formal carriages in front of the theaters; the owners of snack stalls in the nearby markets lit their stoves—together they formed the nightlife of Londinium.
This was one of the few times when Claire would show a faint smile; she liked this noisy atmosphere very much, so Liz often took her out to play in secret.
Compared with the theaters and markets, the place they visited most often was the bookstore.
The codenames Cheshire Cat and Dorothy were also chosen by the two of them during this period.
Claire liked to read the books written by Christine—from The Spirit of the Laws to The Wizard of Oz.
This legendary First Supreme King had left behind dozens of works of widely differing subjects yet all transcendent and extraordinary, works that still profoundly influence the academic and literary worlds to this day.
Claire loved reading those fairy tales, and Liz followed suit.
When filling out the employment intention form before graduation there was a column for future operational codenames; both of them selected names of characters from fairy tales.
Claire chose the Cheshire Cat, a short-haired cat in the story that appeared and disappeared mysteriously and possessed the ability to materialize or vanish at will—perfectly matching Claire’s ability.
Liz chose Dorothy, a little girl who was drawn into a fantastical adventure because of sudden misfortune; Liz felt that her experiences were rather similar to her own.
Their combination was mismatched in this way, yet strangely well-coordinated.
Before coming to the Intelligence Academy Claire had already undergone combat training.
That ability which resembled instantaneous teleportation had once made even the combat instructors unwilling to spar with her; she was a natural combat specialist.
Liz was a natural actress capable of playing anyone, and her shooting was also first-class; her rifle had received a perfect score in the firearms practical training.
Her mathematical talent shone brilliantly in the mechanics courses; before graduation she was already able to assemble and repair firearms by herself, a fact that greatly surprised the examiners of the qualification review.
Supporters on the battlefield were far more valuable than those solitary warriors who did not care about their own lives.
After the two of them graduated and entered the Cerberus Bureau, Liz did not follow the family’s advice to enter the First Agency, which was responsible for supervising local areas and offered desk work.
Instead she joined the Fourth Agency, which was responsible for hunting their own kind, together with Claire.
She followed Claire on field assignments for three years and circled the whole of Albion.
The work of the Fourth Agency should not originally have been this exhausting, yet Claire, for some reason, never stopped accepting missions and taking trains to the locations of her targets.
Claire had never told Liz about her identity or her secrets, and Liz had never actively asked—this was the tacit understanding the two of them had always maintained.
Liz did not think there was anything wrong with it; accompanying Claire and watching her go a little crazy was rather fun as well.