Upon reaching the riverbank, she found a large rock to land on. She then looked at a wild bear nearby that was also drinking water and asked very politely,
"Mr. Wild Bear, I'm planning to drink some water here. Could I trouble you to go a bit further downstream?"
"Roar!" Clearly, the wild bear did not appreciate Flandre's form of address.
After a roar, it lunged at Flandre without hesitation.
A foul, bloody stench wafted toward her, causing Flandre to frown involuntarily.
"So, Mr. Wild Bear, that's a no, then?"
Flandre tilted her head slightly, then made a grasping motion in the air. The next second, the charging wild bear instantly disintegrated into a pile of fragments.
"How unlucky. I originally wanted to wash up here, but you've gone and made a mess of things, Mr. Wild Bear."
With a light leap, Flandre jumped onto another stone slab dozens of meters away.
After landing, she cupped some water in her hands and simply washed her face.
Once she had rinsed the metallic taste of blood from her mouth, she looked up at the twin moons in the sky.
"What a rare sight. Speaking of which, these twin moons rise and set together, unchanging for ten thousand years, just like me and Sister.
Sister would surely love them if she saw them."
Flandre thought of this and happily began to twirl in circles on the stone slab.
In the past, Remilia's praise would have followed at a time like this, but now only Flandre remained to dance alone under the moon.
Consequently, she soon stopped.
"Sigh, I really do need to find a way back... I've only been out for a day, and I already miss you, Sister."
Flandre curled up, hugging her shins with her hands, her wings wrapping around to cocoon her in the center. Before she knew it, she had fallen asleep.
The next day, the bright sun woke her.
"Good morning, Mr. Sun!
Come to think of it, I don't seem to be afraid of sunlight anymore!"
Flandre stretched out her hands, feeling the warmth of the sun shining on her body.
"It's like Izayoi's embrace—not a bad feeling at all!"
After a moment of thought, Flandre clapped her hands, finding the perfect way to describe the sensation of the sun on her skin.
Standing up and stretching, Flandre once again performed a simple wash by the river before setting off northward.
Shortly after she left, news of Little John's death reached his father, a local financial commissioner.
Upon learning that his son had died from having all the blood drained from his body, he hurriedly reported the matter.
Though he was deeply grieved by his son's death, this involved a Sarkaz Blood Demon. If he dared to hide it and something went wrong, he would likely be torn to shreds by the fury of the Elector and the Towers Aristocracys governing this area.
Upon receiving his message, the Towers Aristocracys immediately arranged for personnel to examine the two corpses.
[The deceased were indeed drained of all blood, and both had small punctures on their necks.
Based on a comparison of the tooth marks, the culprit should be a juvenile Blood Demon.
However, cross-referencing interrogations of witnesses with memories extracted via spells, the target moves extremely fast and is capable of flight.
While it is unknown why a juvenile Blood Demon would appear here, I believe it is necessary to dispatch professional Casters for an investigation.]
This investigation file soon appeared in the hands of the Elector and the Towers Aristocracys. Following Flandre's flight path, they quickly discovered the shattered remains of a Rift Beast on a riverbank several kilometers away.
Though they didn't know why a Rift Beast had died there, as top-tier predators of the wilderness, ordinary creatures simply lacked the strength to fight them.
Let alone tearing it into dozens of pieces as seen here.
After an inspection, they unanimously agreed that although no traces of Originium Arts were detected in the Rift Beast's remains, it was undoubtedly the work of that Blood Demon.
Only those Blood Demons would act with such bloodiness and cruelty.
As for why the target would attack a Rift Beast, it was likely because she intended to rest there, and the unlucky beast had provoked her.
[The target is moving north. Given the target's speed, they may have already reached the territory of other Electors or even Ursus. Continued tracking is not recommended, but northern movements should be closely monitored.]
The message reaching the Elector's hands was suppressed by him.
Since the party wasn't here to cause him trouble, he couldn't be bothered to continue a time-consuming and labor-intensive investigation.
It was just two dead people, after all—hardly a major event.
As long as the eyes of those Sarkaz weren't fixed on his own territory, he would turn a blind eye to someone occasionally passing through and collecting a bit of "toll."
On the other side, Flandre took less than a week to traverse Leithanien and arrive in the territory of Ursus.
However, she discovered another very difficult problem.
She didn't understand the Ursus language.
This made it impossible for her to communicate with the locals to find the location of the Reunion Movement.
"Damn it, why is it that in Japanese anime everyone speaks Japanese, and in Chinese donghua everyone speaks Chinese, but when I transmigrate into a Chinese game, I can't understand a single word..."
Flandre stomped her feet in frustration.
But she still had to find a way.
She calculated that she could probably speak the languages of the Higashi and Great Yan, plus the Sarkaz language she had somehow learned, and the Victoria language (the other soul had passed TEM4, so if Victoria spoke English, she knew a bit).
But Leithanien, which she had first passed through on her way north, was likely a choice between German or French, and Ursus was the trilling Russian—she knew neither.
That's why she was at a loss in this situation.
However, Talulah should know the language of Great Yan, and given the Black Snake's education, she might have a smattering of other languages. The Big Guy "Patriot" Buldrokkas'tee, as the last pure-blooded Wendigo, was 100% certain to know the Sarkaz language.
So, as long as she could meet those two, she would have a way to communicate.
While Flandre was wandering around searching for traces of the Reunion Movement, a few dark shadows soon caught her attention.
One side was chasing, the other fleeing.
The ones fleeing were two people who looked covered in injuries, while the ones following closely behind playing a game of cat and mouse were a group of Ursus Patrol members wearing masks and black military uniforms, with daggers at their waists and hand crossbows in their hands.
"Damn it, don't shoot those two in the limbs. These bastards still need to be sent to the mines for labor. If you injure their legs or break their arms, the mines won't take cripples."
Seeing one of his subordinates preparing to use a crossbow, the leader shouted a curse.
Hearing his words, the others laughed and joked as they put away their crossbow bolts.
In their eyes, the two Infected fleeing not far away were like autumn grasshoppers—they wouldn't be jumping for much longer.
Although winter hadn't set in yet, the north wind had already begun to blow in Ursus.
In this weather, two thinly-clad Infected, covered in wounds, wouldn't be able to run very far.
Now they only needed to hang back behind them, constantly applying pressure until these Infected finally suffered a total collapse of physical and mental energy. In the end, they would despairingly be escorted to the mines by their group.
They had done this more than once for a simple reason: after such a process, the will of these people to escape would be completely crushed.
Knowing that escape was hopeless, they would just honestly spend every remaining day of their lives in the mines.
However, their luck was very poor this time, as they happened to encounter the passing Flandre.
Flandre's eyes lit up when she saw the two fleeing Infected.
She didn't have news of the Reunion Movement, but maybe the Infected did.
If she could save these two Infected, she might be able to find the location of the Reunion Movement with their help.
Seeing the weather getting colder, she had to find the Reunion Movement as soon as possible. Otherwise, once winter arrived, all of Ursus would grind to a halt, making it even harder to find them.
With a plan in mind, Flandre began to secretly follow from behind.
The reason she didn't act now was that the distance between the two sides was still very far. If she saved them now, she wouldn't even be seen, and given the language barrier, she couldn't act as their "savior."
So she had to wait until the two sides were close before descending from the sky to help them deal with these Reconnaissance Squad members, thereby gaining their trust.
As for these guys from the Reconnaissance Squad, they only made Flandre feel disgusted.
From the information in her memories, she knew that the Ursus Patrol could be said to be the most loathsome of official personnel.
If you killed nine out of ten people here, not a single one of those nine would be a good person, and the one who slipped through the net might be an even worse fellow.
These Ursus officials, who treated their own kind as currency to be bought and sold and made money by capturing and selling Infected everywhere, could be described as beasts in human skin.
Compared to this, the Sarkaz Royal Court seemed to at least belong to the humanoid category.
In the eyes of the nobles and high-level officials in Ursus, these Infected were just fuel; when there was a shortage of people, commoners could be too.
And these Reconnaissance Squad members, to achieve their goals and make money, might even use abnormal means to turn commoners into Infected just to meet their quotas.
Therefore, Flandre would feel no discomfort whatsoever in dealing with these Reconnaissance Squad members.
An hour later, the two in front finally couldn't run anymore and stopped.
Behind them was the equally panting group from the Reconnaissance Squad.
"Damned bastards, you can really run.
If it weren't for the fact that I still have vacancies in my quota and need to send you to the mines, I'd really like to just beat you to death."
The leader swung the long whip in his hand toward the two of them.
The two who had stopped looked with despair at the surrounding members of the Ursus Patrol, knowing they absolutely could not escape.
At that moment, the long whip suddenly underwent a surge of distortion, then abruptly snapped into several segments and fell to the ground.
"Who's there!" Everyone instantly pulled out daggers from their waists and looked around warily.
Although she really wanted to play out a Team Rocket meme right now, considering the language barrier, doing so would just make her look like a gibbering fool to others, so she abandoned the idea.
To demonstrate her strength, Flandre didn't speak. Instead, she directly reached out and began to call out the targets present one by one.
As she pointed at each one and grasped their "Eye," she crushed it cleanly.
Then that person would explode directly.
"Damn it, it's a Caster! Scatter and run!" After several people died in succession without any sign of the enemy, the survivors began to flee in all directions.
But it was already too late. Along the way, Flandre had already collected enough "Eyes" to bring about their deaths.
Seeing them prepare to flee, Flandre clapped her hands together, and all the "Eyes" in her hands shattered. Simultaneously, those people also exploded one after another.
Seeing this scene, the two Infected were completely terrified.
They huddled together, shivering as they scanned their surroundings, trying to find any trace of the person who had "saved" them.
"So, why is it that not a single one of them is willing to look up?"
Flandre noted that she had been circling above these people from start to finish.
If any of them had bothered to look at the sky, they would have discovered her.
Unfortunately, not a single person did such a thing.
Seeing a little girl descend from the sky, land in front of them, and then perform an elegant bow, the two huddled together shook even more violently.
Seeing their terrified expressions, Flandre kindly did not approach further, but instead examined them.
These two were one old and one young. The older one looked to be in his forties or fifties, while the younger one was about seventeen or eighteen. From their identical color and shape of bear ears, they were likely a father and son.
At that moment, she saw a symbol on the young man that she had been searching for for a long time.
An X-like insignia with the right side higher than the left; this was precisely the mark of the Reunion Movement.
At this, she realized she had saved the right people.
Thinking of this, Flandre revealed a sweet smile.
Peter and his father, Old Peter, were both Infected. Previously, they and several friends from the Reunion Movement had prepared to ambush a mine to rescue the Infected inside.
But they hadn't expected it to be a trap set by the Ursus Patrol.
Several of them were captured one after another.
Not long ago, he had found an opportunity to take his father and escape from the Reconnaissance Squad.
They didn't expect to be discovered so quickly, and then the other side gave chase.
Although they had tried their best to flee, how could two injured and hungry people outrun well-equipped and healthy Reconnaissance Squad members?
Just when the two thought they would be captured, these Reconnaissance Squad members suddenly exploded on the spot.
Although the scene was extremely disgusting, seeing those dead Reconnaissance Squad members, the two knew they were likely rescued.
However, the person who saved them did not appear from the surroundings, but descended from the sky.
And her exaggerated wings hung with crystals, the fangs at the corners of her mouth, and the Originium Arts she had just used all pointed to a character that only appeared in horror stories and movies in various countries as a major villain—a Blood Demon.
As the other party drew closer, the two couldn't help but get goosebumps all over.
Approaching, Flandre saw their expressions and thought her earlier actions had scared them. She stopped and pointed at the young man's shoulder, then pointed at the same position on herself.
Seeing that Flandre didn't continue forward but started gesturing, Peter swallowed his saliva and pointed to the Reunion Movement insignia on his arm.