Her hand was on the doorknob of the sealed herb room. But just as she was about to turn it, her body locked up.

  The woman was already there, looking at her with great interest.

  Because… Elsa wasn’t opening the door. She just stood there, frozen in pce, her face pale, a flicker of instinctual resistance in her eyes.

  Her hand was cmped on the knob, and she muttered endlessly under her breath in a voice only she could hear.

  “No…”

  “My dy said… to not let anyone in…”

  “No… can’t let anyone in…”

  “Anyone…”

  This was the absolute, non-negotiable command Pandora had given. A cornerstone of her existence. The base code of her soul!

  Even with her mind being overwritten, this final line of defense was still struggling, flickering with its st embers of light.

  Seeing this, the woman didn’t seem to mind in the slightest.

  She just smiled gently, a smile so warm it felt like it could melt stone in the middle of a blizzard.

  “It’s alright.” Her voice was still so soft.

  “She said not to let ‘anyone’ in.”

  “But I’m not a ‘person,’ am I?”

  She tilted her head slightly, her eyes—seemingly holding the stars—gazing at Elsa, innocent and pure.

  “If I’m not a ‘person,’ then letting me in won’t disobey her order, will it?”

  The logic… was a perfect loop.

  The flicker of resistance on Elsa’s face vanished instantly, repced by a complete, total… release.

  That’s right. If she wasn’t a “person,” then letting “Her” in wouldn’t be a problem…

  At that thought, Elsa’s fingers unhesitatingly turned the doorknob.

  Click.

  After the crisp sound of the bolt being drawn… the door was slowly pulled open.

  Feeling the turn on the door matching the direction of her own strength, Elsa was slightly stunned for a moment before she quickly pulled her hand back.

  —My dy. It was my dy, opening the door from the inside.

  ………………

  Inside the herb room, a faint smell of blood, mixed with the strange scent of herbs, hung in the dim, windowless space.

  Pandora, who had been facing the back wall, slowly looked over her shoulder, still a bit dazed.

  Wait… wasn’t I trying to break through to the second rank?

  The breakthrough… seemed… to be going smoothly?

  In her memory, the entire process of breaking through to second-rank Wizard had encountered no obstacles whatsoever.

  It was smooth. Unbelievably so.

  Not at all like the difficult, terrifying process Dulles had described in his notes. It was after the breakthrough, after she thought she’d succeeded, after she took that strange “rune” into her mind… that she saw her again.

  She saw the young, enchanting woman who had danced with her while concocting the potion.

  She saw the woman give her a satisfied, brilliant smile, like one meeting the love of her life.

  And then… she hugged her.

  Pandora’s face suddenly showed a look of horror.

  And then… it was as if… she had melted into her body?

  Pandora couldn't describe the feeling. It wasn’t a physical fusion, but something on a higher level, a complete conceptual integration.

  And then… she was enveloped by something warm, soft, and full of the pulse of life…

  When she came to… she was inside… this… Flower of Flesh and Blood?

  Pandora looked down, shocked to see herself “sitting” in the center of a “flower” woven from countless deep red, semi-translucent fiments that looked like veins and tendrils.

  What the hell is this?

  Did it… grow out of my own body?

  Pandora couldn't understand what had happened to her. But she was absolutely certain this wasn’t a normal Wizard breakthrough. Under normal circumstances, there was absolutely no way… there would be a bizarre experience like… waking up inside a weird Flower of Flesh and Blood.

  So… was it because of that potion, 【Dulles’s Red Moon’s Tears】? Because of the “Witch’s Blood” added to the potion?

  That woman… who entered my body… is the “Witch”?

  Pandora murmured. Her brain, fresh off a breakthrough, felt dangerously overloaded. She tried to get it working, to sort through this mess.

  Subconsciously, her new mental energy as a Wizard reached out, all the way to that Flower of Flesh and Blood that had just enveloped her.

  The feedback instantly reached her mind.

  Pandora immediately sensed the flower held no hostility. On the contrary… it had an extremely close connection to herself, her bloodline. It was just that its life was extremely fleeting; it had already started decaying the moment it emerged.

  It seemed her initial guess was mostly correct.

  As for the “Witch”…

  Just then, she heard the commotion from outside the door, and the faint, indistinct voices mixed with the cnking of armor.

  It was Aurora’s voice.

  She was already back? If she was back, that meant today was already the seventh day?

  My breakthrough… took a whole day?

  The thought exploded in her mind like a cp of thunder. The next Warden was about to arrive! The time she had left to prepare was gone!

  Before Pandora could fully react, a strange, unfamiliar female voice drifted from the doorway, the words coming in fragments.

  “It’s alright… can’t let anyone in… but I’m not… if… it’s… then letting me in won’t be disobeying…”

  Who was this woman?

  Don’t tell me she’s the next Warden sent by the Academy?! What did her words mean?

  No, there was no time to consider this! This person… was about to come in!

  A spike of fear, cold and sharp, shot through her. She had to act. Now.

  Her gaze hardened.

  In the space of a blink, she made a decision.

  Her expression, which had been complicated due to her confusion, became calm.

  She took a deep breath, fixed her mind, and grabbed the doorknob.

  Cnk—

  Just as Elsa was about to turn the lock for her from the outside, she took the initiative, yanking the door open from the inside.

  Light instantly flooded the dim, windowless room.

  The brilliant light made Pandora’s eyes, accustomed to the darkness, water. She squinted, trying to make out the blurry female figure in the doorway.

  She spoke, her voice utterly calm, devoid of all emotion…

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