Leonard's Investigation Progress

With Xio leading the way and Shermane following slowly behind, the two left the alley and returned to the street. Rather than taking the extensive subway network, they hired a carriage and traveled from the North Borough, where the Steam Train Station was located, toward the East Borough.

Only after carefully closing the windows and drawing the curtains, sealing off the carriage, did Shermane let out a sigh of relief and remove the hood from her head.

He—no, she—her medium-length brown hair had grown to her waist and was casually tied behind her head. Her features were far more delicate than they had been when she was "Shermane," though traces of her original appearance could still be seen: thinner brows, thin yet slightly broad lips. The difference was much like that between twin brother and sister.

Yet these traits, which could only have been called passable on their own, combined to give her a distinctive charm. Among the women Xio had met, she was the rare sort whose beauty grew on one over time, more likely than Fors—with her decent looks but lazy air—to attract the opposite sex.

Even those eyes, which had seemed somewhat melancholy in her days as a man and made people think she lacked masculinity, now perfectly suited her frail appearance. They made even Xio, a Bounty Hunter a head shorter than her, instinctively feel that she ought to protect her.

But he—no, she—was already a Sequence 7 Beyonder!

"Shermane, I never expected you to really become a woman." Looking at her friend's new appearance, Xio's expression was caught somewhere between sentimentality and bewilderment. "All that stuff you said before, about fate playing jokes and changes you'd long hoped for—I always thought those were just complaints about your life... And what about Freyja and Daisy?"

Xio