Red Butterflies in the Forest

Returning to the shore, Shade put on his shoes and socks, while the Black Skirt Girl sat on a rock by the bank and put on her white stockings and little black leather shoes.

Shade crouched by the stream to wash his hands before picking up Night Watchman again and slinging God's Gift Box onto his back.

The Black Skirt Girl did not introduce herself. Instead, with her hands behind her back, she asked curiously:

"Sir, may I ask what you came into the mountains for?"

Her blue eyes looked at Shade with a smile.

"I arranged to meet a friend at Summit Lake to enjoy the scenery."

"But for the past two weeks, the Five Gods Church has sealed off the road to the summit. No one can go up there now."

The summit was also an important site for the large-scale Divine Ritual prepared to seal Life and Death Limbo once more. Whatever the Church's reasons, they would not allow ordinary people to enter anytime soon. But Grandma Cassandra had surely considered this, so Shade was not worried about being unable to climb up there.

"Then, miss, what are you doing entering the mountains alone? Although the Middlesburg serial Murder Case was solved by a captain some time ago, a girl your age should not venture into the mountains by herself."

"I'm investigating the old villages that once existed in the Sikar Mountain Region, preparing material for my graduation thesis."

The Black Skirt Girl raised the notebook in her hand. The old villages of Sikar Mountain referred to the isolated hamlets scattered through the mountains before the city was established. But with the arrival of the Steam Epoch and Middlesburg's growing prosperity, most young people from those mountain villages had gone down to the cities. Thus, in only