Reunion

Midnight was approaching, and the moon shone bright among the sparse stars.

Moonlight descended from the sky like a sheer veil, spilling over the quiet Caro Town.

After standing outside Sonia's house for a long time, Erza finally knocked softly on the door.

She had been buried beneath a pile of rubble earlier, and by the time she got out, the boy who had committed the attack was long gone. She had searched until nightfall without finding a single trace of him.

At this point, her mission had been a complete failure.

Of course, even if she had caught the killer in the end, the mission would still have been a failure. After all, she had accepted a commission to provide protection.

She had only come here now to comfort the bereaved family and make the final handover for the commission...

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The knocking echoed through the quiet night. It wasn't loud, but it stood out all the same.

Soon, footsteps sounded, and the door opened a crack. A head slowly poked through the gap. It was Sonia, wrapped up from head to toe.

"Miss Erza?"

Sonia was visibly startled to see Erza standing at the door. "It's so late. What can I do for you, Miss Erza?"

Erza said apologetically, "I'm very sorry, Miss Sonia. I wasn't able to catch your father's killer."

Sonia fell silent for a moment and lowered her eyes. "Please don't blame yourself, Miss Erza. I know you did your best... Besides, it wasn't your fault."

The girl's voice was somewhat subdued. Though the mask she wore made her expression impossible to see clearly, her dejection was still plain to sense.

That was only natural. No matter who such a tragedy befell, it would be hard to accept.

Sonia hadn't made a scene, crying and screaming as she smashed things around the house... She had already shown great strength.

But that only made Erza worry a little. After all, people said that no sorrow was greater than a dead heart, and sometimes such unusual behavior was proof of excessive grief.

Though this was outside the scope of her mission and had little to do with her, Erza felt she should at least say something to comfort the pitiable girl, even if Sonia was older than she was.

Just then, a pleasant aroma suddenly wafted out of the house and reached Erza's nose. The rich fragrance of cream made her sniff involuntarily, and she instantly recognized the scent she had been longing for day and night—strawberry cake.

Erza, who hadn't even had time to eat dinner, couldn't help but look different. She instinctively peered past Sonia into the house at an odd angle.

The next moment, Erza froze on the spot.

"I didn't expect you to find out after all. In that case, I can only..."

Sonia's voice drifted eerily from beside her, its emotion hard to discern. Then she grabbed Erza and pulled her into the house.

"Come inside first!"

Bang!

The tremendous sound of the door slamming shut rang through the night sky. Even a faint tremor seemed to travel back into the house through the walls.

Yuri, sitting at the table, raised his eyes and looked toward the door. "Oh, isn't this, uh... Aimosha! I didn't expect you to find out after all."

"How are you here?!"

Erza's mind was still so full of confusion that she didn't even notice what Yuri had hastily called her.

She simply couldn't understand why the man who had killed the priest was in Sonia's house.

If that were all, it would have been one thing. What made her even angrier was that he was leaning back in his chair, preparing to enjoy a strawberry cake at his leisure.

She had spent half the day looking for this loathsome bastard and hadn't even had time to eat dinner, yet he had the leisure to sit here eating strawberry cake when she hadn't gotten any herself.

This was simply unforgivable!

"What, you want some too?"

Flames of anger flickered in Erza's eyes as she glared at Yuri. He seemed completely oblivious to what he had done. Instead of shrinking from her fierce gaze, he spitefully picked up the plate and waved it in front of her.

Erza's gaze instantly became "clear," drawn to the cake on the plate without her realizing it.

But the next second, Yuri suddenly opened his mouth and swallowed the whole cake like a black hole. When he was done, he flashed his trademark frivolous smile. "Sorry, it's all gone."

"!!!"

It was as if a bolt of lightning had struck from a clear sky. Erza's eyes shook.

She stopped thinking about why he was here. Magic surged wildly around her as she raised a hand, summoned a longsword, and prepared to cut him down.

"Mr. Yuri, please stop adding fuel to the fire..."

Looking a little helpless, Sonia stepped between them and blocked Erza's view with her body, "shielding" the man behind her who had killed her father.

She then turned to Erza and said, "Miss Erza, please calm down first. Mr. Yuri is a mage I commissioned. He isn't an enemy."

Erza was taken aback again. Her anger over the strawberry cake gradually subsided. Though she was furious now, she was not one to lose sight of what mattered.

The most important thing now was to find out why this man was here, and why Sonia was treating him so courteously.

Erza was straightforward, but she wasn't stupid.

In truth, she had a vague suspicion. After all, there had been plenty of oddities about the earlier attack, but it had happened so suddenly that she hadn't had time to think.

Now that she had calmed down, the problems were easy to spot.

He had descended from the sky as if he knew every outer defense; shot the priest dead without a single unnecessary movement or word; tried to leave without hesitation after killing his target; disappeared without a trace after fleeing the scene; and then there was Sonia's unusual behavior.

If she put all those suspicious details together...

There was only one truth—Sonia was the mastermind behind the priest's murder.

Erza could hardly believe she had suddenly arrived at such a bizarre answer. So she asked, "Miss Sonia, what exactly is going on?"

"Please call me Sonia." In response to Erza's question, Sonia said, "I'm very sorry, Miss Erza. I didn't mean to hide it from you. I just couldn't tell you the truth because I was afraid my father would find out."

Hearing that, Erza frowned, but she said nothing and waited quietly for Sonia to continue.

Soon, Sonia spoke. "I'm sure you know that our town holds a festival every so often."

Erza nodded. She had indeed heard people mention it while she was in town. After all, it was a long-standing tradition in Caro Town.

"Then do you know why we do it?" Sonia asked again.

"Why?" Erza frowned and thought for a moment. "To seek the gods' protection?"

Sonia shook her head and smiled helplessly. "That's just what we tell outsiders. I doubt even you really believe it, Miss Erza."

"Uh..."

Erza was at a loss for words. She didn't really believe in such things. She had only said it because she couldn't think of any other answer.

"The truth is, it's for..."

Meeting Erza's gaze, Sonia began to recount the true history of Caro Town once more.