“Little Ilya, do you have any leads on getting out?”
“Time is of the essence. We might urgently need to seek help from the Duke’s Estate.”
She turned to look at Ilya with slight worry.
The woman nodded, much to Shiya’s surprise.
“There’s an elevator on the first underground floor of the Longevity Factory that goes directly to the Imperial Capital’s sewer area.”
“But all of this takes time, Sister Shiya.”
Her calm doe-like eyes briefly glanced at the man’s corpse on the ground before turning back to Shiya.
“Also, to make things easier, you’ll need to take his place and become members of the performance enforcement team.”
Shiya tapped her chin with her fingertip and bent down to pick up the long-handled bone knife.
“We’d have to dress up as men? Little Ilya, there’s no way the two of us could pass as men, right?”
The woman couldn’t help but purse her lips and chuckle softly.
“I mean taking over, Sister Shiya.”
“No matter how a worker kills a mid-to-high-ranking member of the Longevity Factory, they can directly take their position.”
Ilya paused mid-sentence, her gentle light-blue eyes suddenly freezing.
The girl in front of her was puffing out her cheeks, struggling to lift that long blade.
As if sensing a somewhat puzzled, innocent gaze, she blushed, let out a light shout, and finally lifted the blade from the ground.
Then she stumbled, her body leaning backward, the long blade slipping from her hands and, carried by momentum, grazing right past the top of Little Leonora’s head.
The young lady’s face turned pale with fright.
She crouched down, desperately covering her ears with both hands, trembling.
With a thunk, the long blade embedded itself directly into the infirmary wall.
The girl stood up, displeased.
“Hey, are you trying to commit premeditated murder?”
“With such a frail body, you shouldn’t keep thinking about jumping into fights.”
Having dropped that remark, she moved to pull the long blade out of the wall.
She stood on her tiptoes.
Couldn’t reach it.
The young lady froze, pretended nothing was wrong by whistling casually, then jumped with all her might.
Still couldn’t reach it…
Behind her came an uncontrollable snicker from someone.
“Oh my, young lady, need me to come over and pick you up?”
Little Leonora’s earlobes were so hot they seemed about to drip blood.
Flailing her arms and claws, she spun around to charge at that nasty jerk.
“You’re clearly Shiya’s mother—how can you be so unserious!”
Watching the two girls tussling, Ilya’s eyelashes trembled slightly.
Doubts welled up in her heart.
‘Was it really the right decision to seek help from the two sisters first, rather than handling everything myself?’
“By the way, Sister Shiya.”
“This infirmary that appeared out of nowhere isn’t within the Longevity Factory’s building area, is it?”
The old elevator’s grated gate let out a dull clang as one dim yellow lamp after another was left behind below them.
They had finally traveled from the third underground floor’s production workshop to the second underground floor’s management area.
In stark contrast to the rust-speckled walls and intricate filthy drainpipes below, this floor featured pristine white checkered tiles, along with mechanical-feeling metal doors and corridor walkways.
But more striking than all of this was the middle-aged man leaning against the front office desk.
“Special Agent Ilya.”
“You’ve only been on the job for a short while, and you’re already wandering around with a purpose.”
The man spoke as he slowly approached the three girls.
His streamlined, taut muscles stretched the form-fitting black short-sleeve shirt, giving off an intense sense of pressure.
He took off his black sunglasses, revealing a pair of eyes as sharp and cold as a venomous snake’s.
“You need to give me an explanation, at least one that doesn’t raise suspicion.”
Little Leonora, carrying the long-handled bone knife over her shoulder, silently stepped in front of Shiya and Ilya.
Her youthful, light-red phoenix eyes showed no sign of weakness, clashing fiercely with the man’s gaze in the air.
Ilya stepped forward and placed a hand on her other shoulder.
Then the woman lowered her head, her tone sincere and extremely humble.
“Supervisor McCaith, these two female workers beside me killed the performance enforcement team member in charge of Production Line Workshop No. 4.”
“That’s why I was delayed a bit, bringing them up to handle the necessary procedures for their position adjustments.”
“What?”
Supervisor McCaith, who had been wearing an aloof expression, shouted out loud.
“Leger was an employee I carefully trained.”
“How could he be killed by two ordinary women?”
The sunglass-wearing man stared coldly at Ilya with a skeptical gaze.
“You helped them, didn’t you?”
Ilya bowed her head even lower, her tone calm as still water, almost flat and matter-of-fact.
“I didn’t interfere. Everything complies with the rules and regulations.”
Supervisor McCaith took several deep breaths before barely calming himself and slowly nodding.
“That’s good. In that case, let these two remarkably capable women go execute the person in charge of the flesh sedimentation pool.”
Ilya’s face darkened.
At some point, her fingertip had quietly picked up a violet petal as sharp as a blade.
“This goes against protocol, Supervisor McCaith. Regarding the person in charge of the flesh sedimentation pool, the high-level meeting already decided to consolidate all performance enforcement team members and act together.”
Supervisor McCaith remained composed, put his sunglasses back on, and turned to leave without looking back.
“As the operations supervisor, this is within my authority. Write your last wills in a moment, and then get ready to depart.”
Ilya stood still in place, her chestnut hair falling down to cover most of her face, making her expression unreadable.
Shiya walked over to her side and took the woman’s hand in hers.
“I’m fine, Sister Shiya.”
The woman, shedding her gloomy aura from just moments ago, held the girl’s hand in return and rubbed it against her cheek.
“It doesn’t matter if he makes things difficult for me, but now it’s affecting you…”
Her gaze seemed thoughtful, but in the end, she said nothing.
“Sister Shiya, let me first take you back to my room to prepare some alchemical weapons for self-defense.”
The woman’s bedroom was exceptionally plain.
Looking around, there wasn’t even a decent decorative item.
But when she pressed an inconspicuous switch on the nightstand with a click, the room’s walls immediately split apart, revealing racks upon racks of dazzling alchemical weapons.
The young lady was dumbfounded, her small finger pointing at the magic firearms.
“You made all of these by yourself?”
“Of course not.”
Ilya raised a hand and gently tapped a little violet flower that had poked its head out from the weapon rack, looking around.
“Ever since I was cursed by the Flower God, just like Aunt Martha, I’ve been able to control these little ones to help me.”
Masha was Hai En’s mother.
Shiya remembered Ilya mentioning that to her.
Hai En had fallen into the flower sea to save his mother, and his brain was devoured by the flowers.
Ilya didn’t seem to intend to linger on this topic.
“Young lady, try this.”
She tossed a magic shotgun into Little Leonora’s arms.
The young lady’s fingertips traced the fine engravings on the gun’s body, then raised it and pulled the trigger.
The eerily glowing, cold barrel spat out a searing wave of flame.
The impact blasted straight through the metal test panel, melting a large hole with its intense heat.
Even though most of her memories had been sealed, the young lady still, driven by her long-formed combat instincts, unconsciously curled her lips into a cold, sharp smile.
Seeing Ilya hand a crimson arm guard to the young lady, Shiya, full of envy, finally let out a light cough.
She grabbed the woman’s arm with both hands, even giving it a little shake in the air.
“What about mine? Ilya, where’s my equipment?”
Only then did the woman snap out of it, smiling as she brushed a few strands of hair from her forehead.
From the nearby wardrobe, she took out a black satin cropped blazer paired with a sleek short skirt.
“Sister Shiya, look at this outfit, isn’t it pretty? I carefully picked it out for you.”
The girl was stunned and quickly waved her hands.
“No, no, Little Ilya, I want weapons…”
The woman nodded, keeping her smile unchanged.
“This one doesn’t suit your taste?”
“Then Sister Shiya, how about this white collar-clasp shirt paired with a Scottish long skirt? You’d look great in it.”
Shiya finally snapped out of it.
Puffing her cheeks in annoyance, she leaned close to the woman, her sparkling, lively light-golden eyes staring straight into hers.
“Ilya, are you treating me like a pretty vase?”
But what the girl failed to notice was that when her lips parted slightly, letting out a warm, orchid-scented breath that gently brushed against the woman’s cheek, the violet curse markings on Ilya’s back emitted a shimmering glow, becoming even more eerily beautiful.
Her breathing grew gradually disordered, and her hand instinctively pulled Shiya into an embrace.
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