"Sir Elder? Why are you here?"
The man's voice seemed relieved. "I saw those people sneaking around, so I've been following them. If you're alright, then open the door, and I'll take you out."
The man inside was silent.
"Are you okay or not?" Elder impatiently knocked on the door, in fact, compared to his previous attitude, it could be considered mild.
But the young girl's voice was firm: "I'm fine; you can leave now."
"You're fine; why don't you open the door? Open the door; I'll take you away, it's not safe in this neighborhood."
The sound of the man knocking on the door became more irritating, Dill could feel the whole wooden door shaking. The other party's strength was not small.
"I'm not opening the door."
Dill's resolute and frank attitude made Elder freeze for a moment, and then he couldn't help but let out an exasperated laugh as if he understood something.
"Heh, you suspect me of being a werewolf?"
Dill silently pressed herself against the door; the other party was indeed not a werewolf but also not a good man who practiced chivalry.
She couldn't guarantee that Sir Elder was not in league with those people; no matter how much Sonderenberg knew about those ancient "customs" of Jonestown and how much he acquiesced to them, she didn't believe that Elder had anything to do with them.
After all, he had resisted the Silver Knight's investigation from the start.
"This door won't resist a werewolf, but I won't open it, so please hurry and go somewhere else." She repeated it stubbornly, all the while hoping that the other man would realize that it was easier to escape alone than with two, and that she alone had a better chance of making it big than he did.
The person outside the door didn't say anything, everything seemed to fall into silence, and just as Dill breathed a sigh of relief, a fierce thrust suddenly hit her back.
Touch! Touch! Touch! The man pounded on the wooden door with such frenzied force that the whole cabin shook, and for a moment, Dill thought he was about to break in.
She pressed herself against the door, and when she vaguely heard the sound of a brush, as if a sword were being pulled out of its scabbard, Dill could barely contain the urge to scream.
Could someone please tell her what the hell was wrong with her?
"Go fuck yourself all you want, dumbass."
Not relieved before he left, he kicked hard at the door with a thud that made Dill's back hurt a little.
She didn't dare to be careless and pressed her ear to the door panel, and sure enough, the footsteps didn't go far away and soon reappeared near the cabin, reappearing closer to the door.
Dill couldn't stand this foul-tempered feudal aristocrat, and the little witch licked the wound on her hand, her dry lips moisturized by blood, and with some sweet and vicious curses also coming out of her mouth
"Dill?"
Mucha.
Outside the window, there was still a blanket of darkness. The teenager's clean and clear voice was like the light before dawn; he always seemed to be able to come in time for her moments of crisis, but right now Dill couldn't feel half the warmth.
She only felt coldness all over her body, only the blood on her lips was hot and burning.
The young girl opened her mouth, not knowing what to say for a moment.
"Sir Elder, he..."
"He fled when he saw me; are you alright? I've been looking for you!"
Mucha's tone sounds full of worry; it's not hard to imagine the silver-white flawless knight following the guidance of the stars, through the dark forest, all the way to adventure and trouble, just to find one person.
Just like every suffering princess waiting for the knight, the perfect fairy tale is about to come to a perfect ending.
"I ..."
How can I not say that I'm fine? Shivering, Dill fumbled for the salt pen she had on her person and placed it slightly in the palm of her hand to catch it.
"I saw the werewolf." She shuddered.
Mucha didn't seem surprised, his voice was rushed but not too clear. "I too heard the screams and followed them, we can't stay here for too long. Dill, I'll take you away."
The knight had managed to find the suffering princess, and all he had to do was open the door to win a happy ending.
The emotions that had been tense all night almost collapsed at that moment. Dill's shoulders loosened; he was no longer able to cope with the load. She wearily pressed against the door panel but still had no intention of opening the door. She spoke breathlessly, "I'll take you away.
She spoke breathlessly, "Mucha, I found Sir Russell's sword, the blade made of bronze, the hilt a brass gavel."
Mucha was quiet for a long time, so long that Dill thought he was gone, before she heard him give a soft, "Thank you."
Dill suddenly had a feeling: In fact, the other party had already known everything.
A kind of defenseless absurdity makes Dill want to laugh; fate is the game of the gods. Now that she is practical enough to understand that she is an outsider, this game can be really fucking interesting, and she would like to bet for herself.
"Dill? We really must go."
Mucha knocked gently on the door, and unlike Sir Elder, he never directly asked Dill to open the door from the beginning to the end. The teenager was forever acting like a perfect prince, patiently waiting for the young girl to voluntarily open her heart and jump into his arms.
But the closed wooden door remained unmoved.
"Mucha, do you still have the scented bag I gave you?"
"En... still a." Mucha does not seem to understand her question, after all, now is a moment of life and death.
The young girl, however, began to gossip with him: "It's stuffed with wolf-repellent herbs handed down from my old grandmother; I don't know if it's useful or not; I just think it doesn't smell good."
The man outside the door couldn't help but let out a muffled laugh. "As long as it can repel wolves, I'll tolerate even the strongest stench. Besides, this is your first gift to me; oh no, the first gift should be an apple."
Dill huffed back a soft breath. The air of the chilly night was so cold and bone-chilling that she could barely breathe.
"I also gave one to Mrs. Cole, do you remember her?"
"Isn't Lily's mother?"
"She told me you were the most handsome man she'd ever seen."
Mucha gulped and blushed a little, staggeringly. "Why are you talking about this all of a sudden?"
"Before that, she had never seen you."
The teenager gave a slight lurch as if he didn't understand what she meant.
"Why did you know she was Mrs. Cole at first glance." The calm voice was devoid of ambiguity.
Mucha subconsciously returned, "At that time in the marketplace..."
"She had been looking for Lily all morning that day and hadn't even been at the fair."
Across a door panel, the two, who had once talked with open hearts, both fell silent.
"Dill, you think I'm a werewolf."
Mucha's tone was smirking: "Or a werewolf in silver armor."
He wasn't annoyed like Sir Elder, just calmly laughing at himself, as if he had heard a not-so-funny joke.
Yes, ah, who would have thought that a werewolf would waltz up to the scene of the crime in the name of a god in full silver?
Dill stared out the window at the darkness of the night, trying not to give away her emotions as much as possible, and quickly said, "Silver has to be pierced through a werewolf's body for it to work, and on the first night the mayor served wine in silver cups, and everyone had a drink but you."
The loaded silver armor would not have serious effects as long as there were no wounds on the body, but the werewolf's body could not withstand the wine that had been purified by the silver, and it only took a shallow sip to make them go crazy and show their original form.
Mucha sounded a hundred times more helpless, but tried to remain patient as he explained, "I had a night patrol that night, so of course I couldn't drink, and I'm glad I kept my commandments because I was fighting the werewolves to the death that very night and saved the alarm man, don't you know all of this perfectly well?"
Obviously, the one who was wrongly accused, he instead humbly pleaded, "Dill, we really need to leave quickly. I've fought with that demon; it's not a power that humans can imagine."
It was fine if he didn't say anything; as soon as he did, Dill thought of that night.
She had been separated from the black werewolf just as she was today, by a mere flimsy wooden door, but Doom had always remained silent, even now. The unveiled werewolf seemed to tell her in silence that she was not his target and that he would not harm her.
It all made sense; even if he had acted perfectly, he would still have left traces, now strung together in a complete web of the young girl's memories.
She should have known better whenever the teenager arrived. In time, no, maybe earlier, when he followed the scent to the apple tree, he saw a knight on foot because he didn't need a horse at all.
Not waiting for Dill's response, Mucha laughed helplessly. "Just because I'm better at recognizing faces and don't like to drink, should I be suspected of being a werewolf? Dill, this is ridiculous."
"I also think it's ridiculous—a werewolf dressed up as a knight saying something about avenging another knight who hunts wolves. Not only is it ridiculous and laughable, but does the name Mucha come from the knight whose identity you took?"
Dill felt a jolt behind her as the stale dust on the overhanging beams shook off a puff of fine gray snow. It was the sound of someone's fist hitting the boards hard, and she heard him finally stifle a low curse.
Great, she'd angered him.
Just when Dill thought he was going to continue explaining, or even cursing himself angrily, the teenager coldly remarked:
"Did you delay for so long just to set up the boundary?"
Her heart froze in an instant, and when the other party finally flipped over the ID card in her hand as she had hoped, Dill's head only went blank.
She slowly stepped back, the salt pen clutched tightly in her hand, and the wooden door that had not budged even after being pounded by the man many times earlier cracked open with a large, dark slit.
The pupils of those inhuman eyes were brighter than they had been during the day, like two glowing, burning stars in the darkness of the night where the sun and moon were nowhere to be seen; ordinary humans didn't have that kind of glow, and she should have known better.
The young knight stood outside the door, but Dill no longer felt at ease and trusted; the shadows on the ground were like angels' dark wings, and even Laurel couldn't help but feel that the young knight's eyes were brighter than in the daytime, like two burning stars in the darkness of the night.
Even Laurel couldn't help but whisper in her ear.
Amber had once told her that the more dangerous a demon was, the more it liked to disguise itself with the beauty and holiness of a god, how else could it lure humans into falling for its tricks?
Dill slowly looked up and met those eyes.
Golden-green eyes with remnants of fiery smoldering, molten gold colored powerful magic slowly flowing in them, just gazing at him, the scorching power was enough to pierce through the souls of mortals.
Werewolf.
That once reliable and loyal knight was just the human skin he wore, and perhaps Mucha wasn't even his real name. This isn't some fairy tale of knights and princesses; this is the real Little Red Riding Hood meets Grandma Wolf.
"I'm not the only one with a double mask, am I?" The young werewolf's tone was calm. "Miss Witch?"