In the second year, during the peak of summer, one morning.
As Yvette lazily opened her eyes from the bed, she stretched her arms out in the cozy but cramped space, forcing herself to wake up fully.
With half-closed eyes, she looked out the window, greeted by a sky that seemed to be painted by a divine brush.
The clouds held the form of whales leaping from the sea, their fluffy edges appearing translucent and porcelain white.
The shade of blue in the sky was so pure it made her eyes feel swollen; it flowed seamlessly down the dome, blending into a watercolor-like pale cyan near the distant horizon.
This was the essence of summer… Listening to the cicadas chirping outside and feeling the cool air in the vehicle, her mood lightened, whisking her back in time to a past summer where as a teenager, she luxuriated in air-conditioned rooms, watched anime, and savored ice-cold watermelons.
Back then, she was carefree, unburdened by worries or anxieties about the future, completely unaware that years later, the same cicadas would accompany the hum of her electric scooter as she rushed down the hot streets, busily unable to pause even for a moment.
In this moment of nostalgia, she looked down and noticed the black-haired beauty sleeping on a makeshift mat, her head resting on Yvette’s small boot.
After half an hour of waiting, seeing that Abella still showed no signs of waking, Yvette felt compelled to extend her foot hesitantly, then withdrew it. Instead, she opted to gently pet Abella’s hair.
There was no other choice; the vehicle was just this small, and the boot had been co-opted. If she didn’t wake her maid, she couldn’t get out of bed to find her shoes.“Hmm… is it morning? Good morning, Mistress…” Abella yawned and sat up.
It was evident that over a year of their post-apocalyptic journey had significantly relaxed the formerly tense demeanor of the Spider Witch. In the initial months, she had remained hyper-vigilant even while sleeping, waking at the slightest noise. Now, it was quite different; Yvette suspected that even if she were to step on her head, Abella wouldn’t react.
Once she wore her boots and stepped out of the vehicle, Yvette woke up the sleeping black dragon and Ice Rain, who was dozing on the roof. She prepared some fish she had caught the day before by the stream as breakfast and soon got ready to set off for their next destination.
Over the past year, from a map perspective, the straight-line distance they had traveled wasn’t very long.
On one hand, they had wandered and taken detours. The vehicle had frequently traveled winding paths. On the other, they had spent two or three months in two different doll kingdoms along the way.
During their last stay in the doll kingdom, Yvette had learned about “Miss Bellflower from Kux,” discovering she had traveled to a doll kingdom known as the “Water Tower Kingdom.”
This was undoubtedly good news, as she had promised to deliver a letter to Copper Skin, and completing the task sooner was preferable.
Thus, upon gathering the approximate direction of the Water Tower Kingdom, Yvette instructed Abella to accelerate while driving to ensure they could complete their mission swiftly.
…
From the electronic map, the Water Tower Kingdom was clearly located within the Rustbone Free Territory, in a small city named “Fusjiang.”
Based on her expedition experiences through other ruined cities over the past year, unless this five-line city had hidden mysterious underground caverns like Kux that attracted “Outer Demons,” the returns were generally very low; they might earn a decent 1000 to 2000 points of aberrant mana at the most, which wouldn’t warrant a long stay.
However, once they activated the floating mode of the vehicle and soared over a range of mountains, when Yvette finally beheld the current state of Fusjiang, she was taken aback.
The city had transformed into a submerged ruin.
From a distance, it appeared as though the entire Fusjiang was a water city built atop a vast lake. The lake’s surface gleamed like a mirror, reflecting the clouds and sky above. A tilted signal tower, rusty and decaying, stood alongside the numerous high buildings, piercings through the surface like a steel forest suspended in midair.
Underwater, the streets lay about ten meters deep, covered with aquatic vegetation, as schools of fish darted through the submerged asphalt. Around the bend of a waterway, a paulownia tree grew at the edge of a building, swaying gently in the wind. Its pale purple flowers drifted down, caught by a whirlpool that swept through the half-buried bus.
The bus seats were long since covered in moss, with glowing green spores drifting in the water, which from a distance, looked like clusters of moving stars.
Inside the driver’s seat, both Ice Rain and Abella quickly became entranced by the rare view, while Yvette tore herself away, directing her gaze to the nearby mountains.
According to the map, Fusjiang was originally a city downstream of the lake. The upstream waters came from a well-known freshwater lake in the Black Tide Continent. If the dam had gone unchecked for hundreds of years, it would be quite reasonable for floods to sweep the city away.
She noted that between the buildings in the city, several makeshift bridges constructed from wood and steel were visible.
These weren’t likely built by humans, indicating they had to be created by the local dolls. If all went as expected, the Water Tower Kingdom would be the only doll settlement she had encountered that dared to establish its monarchy amidst the ruins of a human city.
After a brief moment, the vehicle, along with the black dragon, entered the city and parked atop a relatively intact structure among the ruins.
Yvette stepped out of the vehicle and waited a moment until she saw two dolls approaching on a small bridging made of alloy plates. The lead figure was a young humanoid doll who closely resembled a human, and he came over saying, “I am Ed, the Governor of the Water Tower Kingdom. This is my Deputy, Comet. May I ask who the esteemed guests are…?”
Noticing their profound cultivation realms, the young man paused for a moment, then inquired, “Are you perhaps Blessed Ones?”
“Not really,” Yvette shook her head and politely replied, “We are travelers visiting the continent. I wanted to ask if you have a lady named ‘Bellflower’ here, someone from the direction of Kux in the northwest?”
“There is indeed such a lady…” Ed nodded in surprise.
“I am Yvette Loxivia; we were asked to deliver a letter to Miss Bellflower while passing through Kux. I hope you can help us convey it.” Yvette took out the letter, preparing to hand it to the young doll before her.
Here, the task seemed to be nearing its conclusion, but Ed quickly shook his head and said, “I’m sorry, but we can’t do that.”
After a moment’s hesitation, he explained regretfully, “A long time ago, during an attack by aberrant creatures, Miss Bellflower was affected and tragically lost her life. The Blessed Ones from the Sanctum have informed us that her spirit has scattered. Even if we were to restore her cognitive core, she wouldn’t be the same as before, so we collectively buried her in the hills behind.”