Time passed quietly.
Bavaria, Germany, Northern Europa.
Beneath the cover of lush vegetation in the municipal courtyard.
Sunlight filtered softly through pale green leaves.
Miss Sophia sat in the grand administrative hall, decorated in the Baroque style, helping process recently received documents.
She was also reading an email from England:
"Extraordinary Person Act, Westminster's highest-priority issue.
Mr. Franks, have similar incidents increased recently in Bavaria?"
"Miss, crimes involving extraordinary people have occurred frequently of late. The most famous was likely the Provence Sleep Event. After the six o'clock bells rang in the evening, all tourists fell asleep for unknown reasons."
"What were the results of the follow-up investigation?"
"According to reports, during the subsequent review, some tourists with no background in painting produced exquisitely detailed sketches of Pale Purple lavender.
The Academy determined that they had experienced consciousness resonance due to Mental Pollution."
Franks was the Reinhardt family's butler and had served two generations of Dukes of Bavaria.
Sophia had grown up under his watch, so this sixty-year-old gentleman naturally held nothing back.
"I heard All Souls College has recently been conducting in-depth research into this subject.
Miss, do you plan to return from England after completing your studies?"
"For now, I can only attend Christ Church. I haven't yet had the chance to enter All Souls College."
Oxford All Souls College had been founded to commemorate the souls of those who died in the Hundred Years' War.
Unlike Oxford's other colleges, it had no students of its own.
Every year, All Souls College admitted new members.
It invited Oxford University's finest students to take an examination organized by All Souls College, and the two most outstanding students became its newest members.
Becoming a member of All Souls College was considered the highest honor in England.
And after the Origin Era.
All Souls College eased the restrictions on the number of members it recruited each year.
Accordingly, being an extraordinary person also became one of the entry requirements.
The young lady had none of the airs of a noble. Instead, she smiled at the elderly butler, who was old enough to be her grandfather, and said:
"But Christ Church has the same dining hall as Harry Potter's, and the atmosphere is wonderful too."
Oxford University in England had only three terms a year, each just eight weeks long. The three terms together only amounted to six months.
So, even if she merely used her holidays to study under her father.
Sophia could gradually deepen her understanding of Bavaria's territory and administrative affairs.
Yet at the same time, she had gained another concern:
"Since there is no way to prevent extraordinary phenomena from emerging, European social order will definitely be affected."
"Little Sophia, that isn't something you should worry about."
Her father, Duke Joseph Reinhardt, pushed open the door and entered.
"In an era of change, finding a way to establish a new order is the duty and glory of the nobility."
He saw that his daughter was still worried.
So he smiled at her with great kindness and said:
"I'll hold a banquet before this Westminster conference. Then you'll be able to see others' views for yourself."
She nodded.
Then she seriously opened the administrative dossier that had just been updated:
"Father, Zero-Sum Game's antisocial extraordinary people in Regensburg kidnapped fifteen children for a cult ritual. Have all the criminals been caught?"
"Not all of them. Two got away.
Both were stray rats from the outer districts who escaped Zero-Sum Game. They fled to Celtic territory under England's jurisdiction. The Rangers and the Clock Tower will coordinate the pursuit."
Upon hearing that.
Sophia felt somewhat reassured.
Looking out from the office into the distance, she could see Zugspitze, Germany's highest peak, rising majestically.
Even in the heat of summer, the snow atop its mountains never melted.
The magnificent snow-capped Alps, and the faint light reflected by the picturesque foothill lakes.
This was Bavaria's unchanging beauty.
As the girl admired the view, she also found herself thinking more deeply about reality.
She was no longer the little Princess who had once slept clutching fairy tales in a velvet bed.
Bavaria did not need a noble heir who only knew how to indulge in pleasure.
"My teacher once said that change always brings death and sacrifice."
"Little Sophia, you still don't understand.
Once you have seen that vast sky and earth in the distance, how could you ever want to stop moving forward?"
Unlike the conservatives and academic factions of the Clock Tower, the Roman Curia, and the Great Library.
Joseph Reinhardt was a steadfast pioneer.
Just like Ludwig I before him.
At the dawn of the European Industrial Revolution, when the world could still be changed, he chose to establish Germany's first railway.
From that moment on.
The long journey from Nuremberg to Fürth became a record of civilization, roaring amid the whistle of steam.
Joseph put on his coat, his voice growing gentler.
"Little Sophia, tell me about your university life at Oxford."
And so.
Time passed quickly.
On the eve of the Extraordinary Person restrictions conference resolution at the Westminster House of Lords.
Duke Reinhardt hosted a premier banquet for the nobility at the Cairns Hotel.
Because the coming conference would affect all of Europa.
He did not choose to keep the news under wraps.
Instead, he also invited the editor-in-chief of The Times, England's most authoritative political newspaper.
As the crystal chandeliers in the resplendent banquet hall lit up.
Europa Nobles in the finest bespoke attire arrived one after another.
In the night wind, the bells of Great St Mary's, Cambridge, which had rung uninterrupted since 1793, flowed on.
At that very moment.
A handsome man in a black trench coat appeared in a London alley not far from the Cairns Hotel.
He elegantly adjusted his bow tie.
Then.
At the instant he brushed past a waiter dressed in Cairns Hotel attire.
A muffled gunshot rang out.
The assassin disguised as a waiter beside him collapsed into the alley without any warning, leaving behind only one calm sentence:
"First one."
London's night was quietly stirred by the breeze.
Just like.
A delicate butterfly whose mere flap of its wings could trigger a tornado on North America's West Coast.