"Oi, who are you? What are you doing?"
After a moment, I finally realized someone was messing with my clothes! I quickly rolled over, covering my chest and jumping off the bed. I tried to kick the person.
This was the same hotel room I fell asleep in earlier. Waking up meant Galadra had sent my soul back to my body. But who was this uninvited guest trying to take advantage of me?
My kick missed as she dodged at the last second. The intruder jumped back to the corner, moving very fast. Her hair was messy and the room was dark, so I couldn't see their face clearly.
The worst part was, my angry shout woke up the whole hotel. Adrian from next door rushed in, looking worried.
"Feliciana, what's going on?"
"Uh... it's probably nothing..."
I thought I recognized the blonde girl, but to calm Adrian, I quickly added, "Don't worry, it's a girl!"
"A girl? Isn't that more dangerous?"
Adrian got even more nervous hearing that. He was probably still traumatized from what happened with Nicola. He stepped forward to grab the intruder and see who it was.
"Get away from me, you idiot!"
As soon as the man touched her, the blonde girl yanked herself free and spread her three pairs of wings.
Adrian was stunned. Even though he was used to angels, he'd never seen this one before and didn't know how to react.
"Um... I guess she's my friend from Edenmere?"
I knew I guessed right, but because of her complicated identity, that's all I could say. Then I turned to question her. "But Aria, why did you sneak into my room in the middle of the night and do something so easy to misunderstand? Can you explain?"
"What misunderstanding?" Adrian asked, confused again.
"Nothing... let's hear what she has to say first!"
I quickly tried to calm him down. I looked at my chest and sighed in relief. Luckily my clothes had fallen back down, so nothing was showing. But Aria seemed unimpressed. She cupped her own chest and said sarcastically:
"You don't have much to worry about anyway. Mine are bigger! Besides, even if I wanted to do something bad, I wouldn't go for that part of you!"
Aiya, sister, is this really okay to say? Even if I don't mind, there's someone else here watching!
"Can you wait outside for me... don't worry, I'm fine!"
Aria probably came to talk about going back to Edenmere. With others around, she might be careful about her undercover identity and not say everything. So I decided to politely ask Adrian to leave, to avoid him overthinking things.
"Are you sure you're okay? I'll wait right outside. If anything dangerous happens, call me right away!"
Even though Adrian still seemed doubtful, he finally agreed after I insisted.
I could imagine his reaction if he heard that Aria had betrayed Edenmere and left with Michelle. Even though there were reasons behind it and it wasn't the full truth, it would take a lot of explaining.
"Okay, what's this about?"
With just me and Aria left in the room, I closed the door and got straight to the point.
"What else could it be? It's about me! How's your contact with Edenmere going? Looks like you've been having fun these past few days..."
I couldn't help rolling my eyes. Aria was usually quite proud, but now she had to lower her head since she needed help.
"Even if it's about that, you didn't need to come find me at night. Breaking into my room like this is too much. Who knows if you had other intentions?"
Her answer wasn't surprising - I had pretty much guessed it already. But remembering what happened when I woke up still made me shudder, so I scolded her.
"It's because you looked so weird when you were sleeping, like a dead person!"
Aria immediately argued back, with a strange look on her face.
"But we're angels. Even if we really died, we shouldn't leave any body behind. So when I saw you weren't even breathing, but your body hadn't disappeared at all, I got curious and came to check. I smelled you first but there was no stink like human corpses. Then I touched you and found your body was ice cold. That's when you suddenly woke up..."
"Nonsense! Even if you wanted to check, couldn't you have touched somewhere else?"
Hearing her explanation, I complained grumpily. But inside I felt relieved - it seemed it was all just a misunderstanding. Of course, I couldn't tell her about my soul leaving my body to visit the Earth Angel Galadra.
"Don't worry about how I sleep. As for Edenmere, Elara already told me about your undercover identity. So you can go back to Edenmere properly now!"
Normally, I wouldn't let anyone get so close even when I'm sleeping. But I didn't want to dwell on that, so I just told Aria what she most wanted to hear.
"Really? Thank you so much! I'll remember this favor. Next time we're back in Edenmere, I'll treat you to a meal!"
Surprisingly, she was so happy that she suddenly pounced on me and gave me a big kiss on the cheek. Then she spread her wings and flew out the window towards the northern border.
"Tsk, caught off guard..."
Watching her disappear into the night sky, I couldn't help rubbing my cheek hard. Good thing Aria doesn't wear lipstick like other girls, or it would be hard to explain to Adrian.
Wait, why am I so worried about my reputation when she's a girl too? Have I been influenced by someone?
Suddenly I realized something, but there was no one to answer me.
Nothing much happened after that.
The next morning, when we arrived at the Sage Council building in central Crescent City, the Republic's envoy was waiting with news about Reed as promised.
"Our intelligence agents in the area near the Empire's border have gathered some eyewitness reports. They mostly happened on the night five days ago, around when Parristol crashed. Someone accidentally saw angel-like creatures flying in the sky towards the Ilandra Dominion Empire. But because it was dark, they couldn't see how many wings there were. Some said eight wings, some said two wings, and there were reports of other numbers too. So we can't be sure. But we can say your friends were probably moving on their own will. It's unlikely they're in danger or captured..."
To be honest, even though the Republic's news wasn't very detailed, it gave us a valuable clue to find Reed.
"But if they're not in danger, why haven't they contacted us yet?"
Cyra didn't understand. Of course, that's what we all wanted to know, but the Republic's envoy couldn't answer us either.
But when they showed us the map of the Republic's border area where the angels were seen, I immediately squeezed Adrian's hand hard.
He turned to look at me in surprise. Seeing my expression, he seemed to understand what it meant, and could guess Reed's situation.
This border map lined up perfectly with the Ilandra Dominion map Galadra showed me before. The only difference was it mostly showed the Republic's territory. But just across that red border line was the area covered by that barrier even Galadra couldn't see through. However, this map didn't show the barrier.
"How do you know about that?"
When we asked the Republic's envoy about the barrier, they looked up in shock and disbelief.
"That's a huge anti-detection magic barrier that the Empire's border base just activated two days ago. It blocks out everything from the outside, including any enemy magic or spying. If your friends accidentally went in there, they'd definitely lose contact with the outside. But why would they do that? That Empire base is heavily guarded all year round and very secretive. Even our spies can barely get any reliable information. Even for angels, it's hard to say if it's safe to go there!"