That afternoon, feeling that he had rested enough, Shade had originally planned to visit the underground area of the abandoned mine. It was there, while searching for the so-called "Mithril Mine," that he had first encountered the "Watcher." He wanted to confirm whether he could find traces of that special insect again through the same method.
But changes always outnumbered plans. Just after lunch, news came from the city: an entire street in Vesta City's Old Town had suddenly vanished into a Great Fog, only to be replaced by another street that seemed to have been transplanted from the spacetime of the past.
Such things were no longer considered major incidents in Vesta Woodland, but after an investigation, this accident showed no traces of any relics or other powers being involved.
In other words, this was the first large-scale temporal anomaly within the city limits to arise entirely naturally. It was a very significant and terrible sign, indicating that the local problem had become imminent.
The Witches' investigation also ran into a small problem. That afternoon, while Vanessa led a team through the woodland to survey the mine veins, two of the girls in the group, both mid-ring sorceresses, mysteriously disappeared.
The Great Witches searched for half the afternoon before finding them near the forested area around the already sealed-off Love Lake. Yet those two girls from the Golden Dawn Opera Troupe believed they had merely been separated from the group for five minutes. They had not even realized that they had "gone missing."
Shade, who had nearly been called out to join the search, spent that afternoon dealing with Flora's situation.
Since returning from death last night, the plump, round-faced owl had fallen into a peculiar state of "hibernation."
Because Grandma Cassandra said she was fine and believed that