Shut up, brave man! I don't want to atone for my sins to you!

This question touched a nerve in Lacille.

She suddenly thought of Mla and what she had said to them before.

"——What's the difference between us and these parts?"

A certain idea was born uncontrollably from the bottom of her heart, expanded rapidly, and finally occupied her entire mind.

The witch suddenly raised her head and looked at the hero.

Then, she saw the same worry and horror in the hero's eyes.

"The mistress wants to destroy them?" Lacie asked in an almost trembling voice.

Charles took a deep breath and whispered:

"I don't know, but it's possible."

Apparently, they were thinking the same thing.

M'la had told them that the elves were more gears than children to the Matron.

The "gears" created to keep the Lentiheim machine running smoothly.

Therefore, each elf is assigned the most suitable duties since birth, and then, like gears, they will devote all their energy and long life to their respective duties until they can no longer complete the work normally, and then they will be replaced.

but if……

What if the gears have not yet reached the scrap standard, but unexpected abnormalities occur in advance?

For example, a gear suddenly developed its own consciousness. It began to feel that there was something wrong with the entire Lentiheim. It gradually came to the conclusion that it should not be just a gear, but a person... or, an elf.

For the first time, it began to yearn for "freedom".

Then, this idea quickly spread like a virus, and many other similar gears also had the same idea.

At first, they just thought, then they thought they could try to resist, and finally...

What kind of changes will the big machine of Lentiheim eventually undergo due to the awakening of a gear?

Rachel didn't know, and neither did Charles.

But the mistress may have anticipated a certain possibility in the future, so in order to prevent the big machine of Lentiheim from collapsing due to the abnormality of a gear, she decided to prepare for a rainy day -

It took away the gears that had already shown abnormalities, intending to dispose of them in advance, and then replace them with new gears.

Replace them with the deformed, twisted freaks that have already been produced in the breeding rooms.

[To be continued]

-

17. See you again

Lacie felt that the mistress was a bit extreme.

Or rather, she felt that her imagination of the mistress was a bit extreme.

Those who were captured were living elves, not gears, let alone parts.

Even if someone commissioned her to kill Charles, she would have to reply, "He is my beloved relative, my brother, and I have to pay him more" - but if it was really the mistress who took away the disappeared elves, she would have to destroy them...

Rachel suddenly felt that she and Charles had misunderstood the Archon who had entrusted them to kill the mistress.

Just as Fuwenna said, the mistress was indeed crazy.

Of course, it is also possible that none of this was done by the mistress, but if it was not the mistress, then who could it be?

Lacele thought and turned to look at Charles.

"What now?" she asked.

Charles said nothing, but bent down and picked up the pocket watch and lantern on the ground.

He kept the pocket watch close to his body and handed the lantern to Rachel.

"?"

Lacey was stunned for a moment, but did not reach out to take the lantern.

What did she think it meant?

As we all know, normal humans only have two hands anyway. Although witches cannot be considered normal humans, they also only have two hands.

One hand was used to hold the wand, and the other hand was used to hold the corner of Charles' clothes——

Then where did she get the third hand to hold the lantern?

Could it be that Charles no longer intended to let her hold his clothes?

Lacey was very unhappy, but she couldn't find any reason to refute.

But soon, she came up with a plan.

Who says you have to hold the lantern with your hands? Or, even if you have to hold the lantern with your hands, you can use a third hand that doesn't exist.

After all, there is a spell called "Hand of the Mage".

Then, the light blue third hand was summoned by Laciel. It obeyed Laciel's instructions, picked up the lantern that once belonged to Mula, and quietly floated beside Laciel.

As for Lacie's free hand, it was still tightly holding the corner of Charles' clothes.

Charles was stunned when he saw this, but in the end he didn't say anything.

He didn't seem to mind.

Lacey felt somewhat pleased with herself.

Humph, you want to get rid of her? It's not that easy!

Charles didn't know what Lacie was thinking, and he didn't seem to care whether Lacie was grabbing the corner of his clothes or not.

He just raised his head, and his sight seemed to penetrate the endless thick fog and lock on a culprit that no one could see.

Then he turned to Rachel and said:

"I want to go up and have a look."

Lacey was shocked.

She subconsciously wanted to ask Charles if he was crazy, but before she could say anything, she suddenly understood why Charles made such a suggestion.

Originally, Mulla would lead them to find Fuwenna, but now that Mulla had disappeared, there was no one to lead them, and they could only run around like headless flies in the thick fog. If they were lucky, they might find Fuwenna soon, but if they were unlucky, Fuwenna might have been captured before they found her.

You can't count on random events, so if that's the case, you might as well do something more meaningful with the limited time you have.

For example, go up and see where the boundary of the thick fog is, and whether the captured elves are really hanging in the sky.

So even though it sounds a bit far-fetched, if you think about it, it's actually quite reasonable?

Lacey couldn't help but let out a sigh.

She felt that this was not a conclusion that Charles had come to after careful consideration, but rather it was more like a reckless all-in that was inherited from the brave man's style.

But let’s just go all in.

There was nothing else for the two of them to do except play poker.

So Lacele finally decided to agree to Charles' proposal.

But the problem also arises - how should the two of them get up there?

Lacey quickly came up with a solution.

But before putting her plan into practice, she loosened Charles's clothes and said to him unhappily:

"Turn off your forbidden spell first!"

Charles was stunned for a moment, then he understood something and obediently turned off the forbidden spell.

Seeing that Charles was sensible, Lacee was too lazy to argue with him anymore.

She shook her wand and cast a flying spell on herself and Ciel, who had already turned off the forbidden spell.

Then the two of them slowly floated up.

Lacele was fine, as she often used the flying spell and was very familiar with it, but Charles was not used to the sudden decrease in gravity, so he was shaky and it seemed that he might fly around in the sky like a deflated balloon at any time.

Considering that Charles was willing to let her hold his clothes along the way, Lacie extended the wand in her hand to him.

"Hold it tight." She urged.

After a brief hesitation, Charles grabbed Rachel's wand.

His posture stabilized again.

Lacie snorted softly, not bothering to pay attention to him anymore, and instead ordered the Master's Hand holding the lantern to follow.

Under the protection of the two lanterns, the brave man and the witch quickly passed through the swirling fog and chased in the direction where Mula disappeared.

The thick fog is almost endless, and it is very easy to get lost when walking in it, and even lose the concept of time and space.

Laceel had no choice but to adjust her speed while silently calculating the distance they were flying based on her experience.

After flying about 500 meters upwards, they saw the dim sunlight shining through the thick fog.

Lacele took a deep breath, prepared herself mentally to see countless elf corpses hanging under the dome, then quickened her pace and broke through the fog with Charles.

So, after a long absence, they saw the scorching sun again.

The sky was blue, and the clouds were left behind them. Part of the crown of the giant tree broke through the blockade of the thick fog with them, and stretched its branches silently in the sky.

The imagined strange scene did not appear before Lacie's eyes.

There was no Mura, no vanishing spirits, no horrible unseen things.

The scenery before her could even be described as peaceful, but the more peaceful it was, the more creepy Lacie felt.

She unconsciously clenched the wand in her hand, then quickly turned her head to look at Charles and said:

"How come there is... nothing here?"

Ciel, who was checking the surrounding situation, said "hmm" softly and asked:

"Are you sure you saw M'La being pulled up into the sky by invisible strings?"

"Of course!" Lacier replied hastily, "My tracking spell will never go wrong!"

After saying that, she reacted instantly:

"Unless...unless Mura was not brought here, but was transferred to some other place in the thick fog!"

Lacier couldn't help but recall the bizarre scene she had imagined.

An invisible giant wandered in the thick fog, silently. It lowered its long and soft tentacles from the ceiling, digging into the roofs of the wooden houses, just like an anteater licking ants, and swept away the elves hiding in the wooden houses one by one with its tentacles and swallowed them into its stomach.

Could that be the mistress of the elves?

Could the mistress of the elves be such a strange being?

After all, the Matron was the only one who was suspicious, and she had the ability to make those elves disappear silently in the thick fog.

Thinking of this, Lacie let out a slow breath.

Of course, there is another possibility - the reasons for the current anomalies in Lentiheim do not come only from within Lentiheim, but more from outside Lentiheim.

Could it be that outsiders have taken advantage of the chaos to sneak into Lentiheim, and they are the real culprits responsible for the disappearance of the elves?

But this idea is too conspiracy-theory, and besides, Lentiheim is not so easy to invade.

The illusion spells and cognitive interference barriers that the elves had set up at the entrance to Lentiheim were quite sophisticated, enough to stop most of the ambitious people. The reason why she and Charles could easily enter Lentiheim was because neither of them were ordinary people.

Laceel quickly put this conjecture aside for the time being.

In today's world of insufficient intelligence, wild speculation will only make the already difficult-to-solve truth even more distant.

So she bit her lip, stared at Charles' face and said: