As they were about to part, Artoria hesitated for a moment. In the end, she could not help turning back to Samael and voicing the doubt she had been suppressing.
"Come to think of it, why are you so certain that the woman from the Enzworth Family who looks so much like Alice is still alive?"
Under the moonlight, Samael stopped walking. After a brief silence, he raised his head toward the deep night sky and murmured softly.
"She'd better be alive. Otherwise..."
In an instant, the quick-witted Artoria caught the implication. Her pupils contracted as she muttered soundlessly.
...Alice!
Meanwhile, somewhere deep in the mountains of Fuyuki City's New Capital.
Under frost-like moonlight, beside a clear stream, a handsome young man in hunter's garb with a blue ponytail tied behind his head crouched beside a flat bluestone on the lower bank. Three fishing rods stood around him as he stared fixedly at a cluster of homemade floats in the calm stretch of water at the center of the stream.
Generally speaking, there were usually no fish worth catching upstream. The middle reaches rarely yielded anything decent either. The downstream banks tended to slope gently, and the current was steadier. In particular, the outlet was rich in oxygen, so fishing there often brought in all kinds of fish.
Clearly, judging by his choice of fishing spot, this handsome blue-haired ponytailed man was an experienced hand who knew what he was doing.
Got one!
Soon, as the float on his left bobbed up and down, the blue-haired man gave it a light tug. His face immediately broke into a grin as he decisively pulled up the homemade rod planted in the mud, skillfully reeling in, letting out line, and reeling in again and again until he wore out the sizable fish