Chapter 1503: Morningstar
Maggie’s sudden reaction brought the entire team to an abrupt halt. Among them, the veteran mage Modir was the quickest to respond—so much so that before the Dragonborn lady had even finished her last word, he had already wrapped himself in three layers of protective shields. In the following seconds, he cast multiple layers of protection over the entire team, and for quite some time afterward, he kept reinforcing their defenses without pause.
Of course, while casting shields, Modir didn’t neglect his surroundings or his communication with Maggie. First, he expanded his senses to confirm that their group was the only one in the forest. Then, he sent out two rounds of mental pulses, scanning the area. Only after that did he frown and turn to the Dragonborn lady. “There’s no one here… What exactly did you see just now?”
“No, there is someone—I’m certain,” Maggie said, her brow furrowed as she kept her gaze fixed on a patch of shadow nestled deep within the trees. Similar dark patches dotted the forest, unnatural clusters of gloom that maintained an almost tangible outline even under sunlight. The exploration team had been careful to avoid these areas all along. “Deep in that shadow, I’m sure I saw a… figure.”
“A figure?” Modir frowned and glanced toward the spot. “No signs of disturbed foliage, no residual magic or life force… What kind of figure did you see?”
Though he saw nothing himself, Modir didn’t dismiss Maggie’s words as mere fantasy. His extensive adventuring experience told him that when a teammate suddenly insists they’ve seen something, it’s best to assume it’s true—misinterpretation is one thing, but ignoring a potential threat out of complacency is another. Especially here, in the most cursed forest in the world… Heaven only knew what the Lady of Night had left behind in this place during her daze.
“A figure cloaked in black, completely shrouded in a dark hooded cloak,” Maggie recalled slowly. “I couldn’t make out the body’s shape—just a pitch-black shadow beneath the hood, an indistinct mass of darkness. And the figure didn’t move at all. Every part of it was perfectly still… which is strange, because there was wind in the forest just now. No matter how steady a person stands, their clothes would flutter, but not this figure—not even the edges of the cloak stirred.”
“Like an illusion projected into the air, with no real body present,” Modir interrupted with a guess before Maggie could finish. Then he frowned, analyzing. “The pitch-black ‘shadow’ beneath the clothing sounds a bit like the shadow dwellers I know of, but their bodies are always wrapped in something like burial cloth—that’s a very distinct and standard trait. Aside from the cloak, did you notice any other features?”
Maggie thought carefully, then shook her head slowly. “The cloak was the only feature. No ornaments or weapons… Wait, there was something—a silver-white emblem, like a brooch fastening the front of the cloak.”
The Dragonborn lady frowned again. “But I didn’t get a clear look at the emblem’s design—the figure appeared only for a moment. In fact, it started fading even before I shouted at it.”
“A moment… but you definitely saw it, right?” Modir considered, then looked seriously into Maggie’s eyes. “Would you mind if I used a little… magical aid to help you recall the details from your short-term memory? Don’t worry, I won’t pry into your privacy—actually, I can’t.”
Maggie blinked, then seemed to catch on. “You mean ‘Memory Extraction’? But isn’t that spell only usable on oneself? It’s for learning spells and such… You can use it on others?”
“The original version is self-only, yes, but I’ve modified it,” Modir said cheerfully. “Sometimes I adventure with temporary teammates. After all, an extra pair of eyes means more safety. But temporary teammates aren’t always experienced adventurers, so I use magic to boost their abilities just in case…”
Maggie’s expression turned a little strange. She was curious about what bizarre adventures this great adventurer had been through to accumulate such an array of incredible experiences and unconventional solutions. She was even more curious about what kind of reckless desperados he considered ‘temporary teammates’—people bold enough to join him on adventures that would be relegated to the very end of any hero’s legend. But none of that mattered now.
“Then please go ahead,” she said, taking a deep breath and quickly deciding. She trusted Victoria deeply, so she was willing to trust this man as well. “Short-term memories fade easily. Let’s hurry.”
Modir nodded and wasted no time. He traced a shimmering rune in the air, then guided it to form a complex, arcane array beside Maggie. As the formation closed, he said, “Relax. You might feel a bit dizzy or your vision blur—that’s normal.”
Maggie nodded silently. Nearby, the Steel Cavalry soldiers instinctively took up watch and guard positions. As Modir’s modified Memory Extraction spell activated smoothly, Maggie felt a brief haze cloud her mind—in that instant, a fragment of her memory transformed into a kind of “image” stored in a magical network terminal, a clip that could be edited and manipulated. An external force precisely controlled the flickering scenes.
Suddenly, the moment she had seen just minutes ago flashed vividly in her mind—the fleeting, illusion-like vision of the mysterious figure cloaked in black, the dense shadows of the forest, the darkness spilling from beneath the cloak, and the silver-white emblem or brooch that gleamed like a star against the black background.
As the image sharpened and froze, Maggie sensed the surroundings dimming even further than before. The next second, she keenly noticed a shift in the atmosphere—a kind of “blockage” that obscured perception.
She looked up and found herself standing alone in a clearing scorched by dragonfire. No one was around—not the great adventurer Modir, nor the Steel Cavalry soldiers who had accompanied her. They had vanished.
An illusion? A false memory implanted in her mind? Or had she been transported to some abnormal space?
Several possibilities flashed through Maggie’s mind at once, and she immediately went on high alert. Then she noticed a figure in her line of sight—standing quietly just beyond the nearby trees. It was the same mysterious person in the black cloak. Maggie was absolutely certain the figure hadn’t been there a moment ago.
“Who are you?” she asked, tightening her grip on her longsword and assuming a defensive stance, breaking the silence. “Is this your doing?”
She expected the figure to vanish like before, but to her surprise, the shadowy presence actually responded. They stepped forward and reached up to remove the hood concealing their face. At that moment, Maggie’s eyes fell on the silver-white brooch pinned to their chest.
Her expression changed instantly.
It was an alert eye above a pair of crossed daggers—the emblem of the Imperial Intelligence Agency.
The hood fell back, revealing a head of silver-white hair and a pale, unsettlingly ghostly female face. The sight was strange, as if the hair and face hadn’t existed before but had materialized from the shifting shadows the moment the hood was removed. Maggie even suspected the face was a temporary construct made just for communication—the figure beneath the cloak was probably still nothing but a void of darkness.
This eerie scene and the figure’s somewhat uncanny appearance made the Dragonborn lady even more cautious. She stared at the silver-haired girl—whose features were blurred by the extreme pallor, even her eyeballs were the same pale color as her skin, making Maggie feel as if she were dealing with an unpainted statue. “Say again—who are you? And what about the emblem you wear…?”
“I am a senior operative of the Intelligence Agency’s Shadow Affairs Division,” the mysterious silver-haired girl said. Her inhuman traits were so pronounced that Maggie was oddly struck by the fact that she could actually speak human words. But the content of her words was even more shocking. “You can call me Morningstar, Miss Maggie.”
“Shadow… Affairs Division?” Maggie stared in astonishment at the pale silver-haired girl. “I’ve never heard of such a department within the Intelligence Agency…”
Maggie wasn’t an insider, but she knew the general structure of the agency. She knew there was an Internal Affairs Division handling domestic matters, an External Affairs Division for foreign issues, and a Purge Special Division dealing with disloyal elements within the imperial government. But she had never heard of a “Shadow Affairs Division”—and from the name, it sounded like a significant department.
And this title came from a strange girl who had mysteriously appeared on Violet Island, someone who clearly wasn’t from Cecil’s people. That made the whole thing even more suspicious.
Not to mention, the girl knew her name.
“I know you have many questions, and I understand you’ve never heard of the ‘Shadow Affairs Division’—that’s normal, because even Director Amber and His Majesty don’t know about it,” the silver-haired girl smiled, though her colorless face made the smile somewhat eerie. “I’m sorry to speak to you this way, but we didn’t expect the great adventurer to use ‘Memory Extraction’ on your short-term memory. That caused him to discover the ‘mark’ left in your mind, and he might have erased it by accident, which would have been a waste of effort.
“To prevent that, I had to activate the mark in advance while the adventurer was extracting your memory… Rest assured, this is just a small corner where your memory and consciousness intersect. Your body remains safe in the real world, along with your companions, and our conversation won’t even take a fraction of a second in reality.”
“…Is this some kind of mind control, a spell that implants thoughts? Like the divine magic of the Sleeper back then?” Maggie frowned, cautiously watching the girl’s every move as she slowly lowered the tip of her sword—a gesture signaling a temporary truce, though she remained far from letting her guard down. Her gaze drifted again to the other’s cloak, settling on the insignia of the Intelligence Bureau. “Are you really… an agent of the Intelligence Bureau? Then why would His Majesty King Gawain and Miss Amber have no idea you exist? And from what you just said… there are many of ‘you’?”
“Please don’t misunderstand,” the silver-haired girl smiled gently, seemingly unfazed by Maggie’s suspicion. “This is merely a subtle technique to influence dreams and perception, not the dangerous kind of mental invasion. As for the details behind my identity… I’m afraid some things cannot be revealed before certain moments in time. All I can tell you is that ‘we’ bear no hostility. ‘We’ are your friends, allies, and comrades—serving the Empire for many years, though our loyalty has remained unknown.”
“I don’t like this cloak-and-dagger way of speaking. It only makes me more wary,” Maggie said coolly. “I don’t care how many secrets you ‘have’ to hide. What I want to know is… your purpose. Why come to me?”
“To establish a point of interaction between the Intelligence Bureau’s Shadow Affairs Division and the real world through this conversation,” the silver-haired girl explained, bowing slightly. “Our connection to the real world will strengthen after this exchange, helping us fulfill our mission. Another purpose is to deliver a message.” She paused briefly, gathering her words before continuing, “Our ‘big boss’ asked me to ask you to pass a message to your highest superior. Simply say…”
She hesitated again, then went on: “It’s heartening to see a civilization finally ready to come of age, but great dangers still lurk along the path ahead. Large-scale manipulation of public thought is extremely perilous—please proceed with caution. Also—Lady Night invites Gawain Cecil and his distinguished guards to visit the City of a Thousand Towers.”
Maggie’s eyes widened slowly.
As always, Morningstar’s words were cryptic and somewhat baffling, yet beneath the veiled phrasing lay endless implications. Maggie felt her thoughts whirl in confusion, and after a moment she couldn’t help but ask, “Wait, you just said ‘Lady Night’? So you’re delivering a message on her behalf? Didn’t you say you’re an agent of the Intelligence Bureau? And isn’t your ‘big boss’ supposed to be Amber…?”
The pale silver-haired girl only smiled, offering no answers. Instead, she slowly pulled up her hood—and in that instant, Maggie’s instincts were confirmed. The girl’s face vanished into shifting shadows the moment the hood was drawn up, revealing features no human could possess!
The next second, Morningstar slipped into the forest’s darkness. Maggie’s eyes strained wide, but she couldn’t detect how the girl disappeared—almost as if the very act of vanishing had been erased, the mysterious Morningstar dissolving into nothingness within her senses.
(Recommendation time! The book is titled Actually, I’m Not a God. Though it’s not very long, I sincerely recommend it. The setting and writing style are quite distinctive. If you’re interested, give it a look.)
(End of chapter)