Chapter 787: The Evidence Beside Patty

Patty was visibly delighted by the arrival of “Uncle Gawain.”

It had been a long time since she last saw him, or heard his stories about the pioneering days, the era of Gondor, and all sorts of other whimsical tales.

Though she was nearly fifteen now, and among noble children her age were already making formal appearances in society and learning to manage family affairs, to outsiders she still seemed like a child—her appearance younger than her peers, and in terms of knowledge, she lagged far behind other noble children.

Years of severe illness had robbed her of almost her entire childhood. It was only this year that Patty had resumed her studies, and many of the questions she asked struck Gawain as unusual for someone her age.

Yet, on the other hand, her unique experiences had made her mentally more mature than her peers. Perhaps because she had lost the ability to move freely and depended entirely on others for survival, she had developed a keen sensitivity to the emotions of those around her.

“Uncle Gawain, are you feeling a little upset?” she asked cautiously, having noticed a subtle shift in his tone. She immediately stopped her endless stream of questions.

Gawain paused, his gaze settling on the little girl before him.

She was sitting well in her wheelchair, able to tilt her neck back on her own, her large eyes fixed on him without blinking—full of curiosity and a hint of worry.

“No, I’m not upset,” he said after a moment, smiling and shaking his head. “I just got distracted, thinking about something else.”

“Getting distracted isn’t good,” Patty said seriously. “But you’re an adult, and adults have a lot on their minds, right?”

“I do have a lot to think about,” Gawain replied with a smile, “but I can always find time to tell you a story.”

As he spoke, part of his attention quietly shifted. He activated a hidden port that connected to the mind network—a secret ability he had mastered over time. Even without fully immersing his consciousness, he could use his special privileges to access network resources and perform covert operations.

Once his shallow consciousness linked to the network, he looked back at Patty.

She was still just Patty—her face hadn’t changed to resemble Selina Gelph’s, and no other presence appeared beside her.

But Gawain was now certain that Selina was indeed “here,” connected to Patty in some strange way.

Because right next to Patty’s small wheelchair, invisible to the naked eye, a lantern quietly hung suspended in midair.

…

Patty needed plenty of sleep each day to repair her worn spirit and allow the effects of the “Limb Regeneration” spell to take hold. Before seeing Gawain, she had already watched over two hours of magical shadow plays, then listened to many of his stories. Soon, it was time for her afternoon rest.

Gawain watched as her personal maid gently wheeled Patty into the next room and carefully settled her into a specially designed immersion pod. After confirming Patty had fallen asleep peacefully, he left the room and went to the castle’s reception hall, where Lady Ropeni was waiting.

The noblewoman rose from her high-backed chair and bowed to Gawain. “Your Majesty, thank you for caring for Patty. She will surely be very happy today.”

“She’s much better now, so I’m relieved,” Gawain nodded, taking a seat by the window. “I saw that Patty has been using the immersion pod to rest—has she been using it all this time?”

“Yes,” Lady Ropeni replied, “for almost a month now.”

“Any side effects? Is she comfortable with it?”

The questions sounded like normal concern, and Lady Ropeni saw nothing unusual. “None at all. The immersion pod works very well. The technicians you sent were very diligent—they stayed here for four days to ensure Patty had no issues before leaving. They even handed over the technical manuals to the local magitech engineers. As for Patty, she was a bit uncomfortable at first, mostly because she wasn’t used to sleeping in an unfamiliar bed. But now she’s adapted well.”

Using the immersion pod all along…

Gawain stroked his chin and asked, “What about the Sleeper’s Crown? Where is it now?”

“I put it in the castle’s basement, alongside some other extraordinary artifacts,” Lady Ropeni answered. “Since we don’t plan to use it again, I’m considering sealing it somehow—after all, it’s connected to the Sleepers.”

Caution had become second nature to her.

But when dealing with the Sleepers, such caution was still far from enough.

“You don’t need to worry about sealing it. I plan to take the crown with me,” Gawain said. “For… research.”

Lady Ropeni’s eyes flickered slightly. Though Gawain’s tone and expression showed no hint of alarm, her maternal instincts suddenly flared. She fixed her gaze on him. “Your Majesty… is there something wrong with the crown? Is Patty—”

“Don’t be too worried,” Gawain quickly waved his hand. “It’s just for technical research. Patty is doing well.”

Only then did Lady Ropeni visibly relax. “That’s a relief. Sorry, I tend to get overly anxious when it comes to Patty…”

The noblewoman left. As the governor of Grant, she had many official duties to attend to. Gawain returned to his own quarters, closed the door, and noticed a short, chubby figure peeking out from the shadows near the curtains.

After confirming no one else was around, Amber confidently emerged from the shadow realm and smiled at Gawain. “According to the data, Lady Ropeni is a hard person to trust easily, but she trusts you deeply—when you said Patty was fine, she truly relaxed and got back to work.”

“I just don’t want her to bear unnecessary stress. After all, we haven’t figured everything out yet,” Gawain said casually. “And we need to avoid alerting the enemy.”

“Alerting the enemy? That’s an interesting phrase—I’ll write it down,” Amber’s eyes lit up as she jotted down the new term in her private collection of “Emperor Gawain Cecil’s Divine Banter.” Then she looked at him curiously. “By the way, is Patty really okay?”

Gawain pondered briefly, then said quietly, “In the mind’s eye, there’s a lantern beside her.”

“…Holy hell.”

“But the situation is better than I expected,” Gawain continued. “Selina Gelph hasn’t taken over Patty’s soul, and Patty shows no signs of damage. They might be coexisting peacefully—Patty herself may not even realize anything unusual about herself…”

Amber’s eyes widened. “You’re still optimistic after seeing the lantern? Then what kind of ‘worst-case scenario’ did you imagine before?”

“In the worst case… Patty is Selina Gelph,” Gawain glanced at Amber. “Long before we met Patty, before she ever touched the crown, she was already dead. For years afterward, the body was inhabited by Selina.”

Amber shuddered at the thought. “…Holy hell!”

Gawain was pleased to have startled the fearless half-elf, his mood lifting slightly. “It’s truly chilling, isn’t it? When it comes to mental horrors, the Sleepers are definitely more skilled than the End of All Things…”

“I’m not scared because of that,” Amber waved her hand. “I just think it’s terrifying that a woman over seven hundred years old pretends to be a teenage girl, calls you ‘Uncle Gawain’ when you meet, and has been calling a woman in her twenties ‘Mom’ for years. That’s classic Sleeper creepiness…”

Gawain: “…”

Realizing continuing this conversation with the elf was a dead end, he decisively changed the subject. “We still can’t confirm the exact connection between Patty and Selina. To avoid alerting the enemy and to control the situation with the Sleepers, we can’t take any overt action here in Grant—we can only maintain external surveillance.”

Amber patted her chest. “Got it. That’s my specialty.”

Noticing Gawain still looked thoughtful, she asked, “What’s on your mind? Anything else?”

“I’m wondering… how much has Selina Gelph already seen through her eyes, and why she’s remained silent so far,” Gawain sighed softly and shook his head. “Patty now sleeps using immersion pods made by Cecil, and our maginet communication technology isn’t a secret—it’s widely used in Grant. A seasoned Sleeper could easily detect traces of mind network technology in the maginet communications. If Selina is truly hiding deep within Patty’s consciousness, she can see all this through her ‘host’s’ eyes. Even if this evidence isn’t enough to prove that the ‘Outer Wanderers’ can invade the mind network, it should be enough to alert the Sleepers. Yet Selina has done nothing. Many of the contingency plans Daniel and I prepared remain unused.”

“Hmm… the more silent and strange someone is, the more suspicious they become,” Amber grinned. “Any sabotage can be countered or fixed, but the scariest is when someone says nothing at all.”

She paused, then shook her head. “But on the other hand, as long as we keep developing maginet communication, the Sleepers can’t help but notice. When things reach a certain scale, they have to surface—that’s inevitable. In this kind of conflict, ‘we hide everything, they see nothing’ is just the beginner’s stage. ‘We reveal everything, they see it but can’t do anything’ is the advanced stage. Now, it’s time to prepare to end the first stage.”

Gawain stared at Amber until she felt awkward and twisted her neck. “Hey, why are you looking at me like that?”

“Nothing, I just think what you said makes a lot of sense,” she smiled. “Indeed, our mind network technology is maturing, and the Sleepers will definitely notice. Thinking back, when I first met Patty, I knew Selina often appeared with her in the Dream City, so I never revealed anything about the ‘Outer Wanderers’ in front of Patty. At most, Selina can only see our maginet tech progress through Patty’s eyes.”

“Now I’m curious about one thing,” Gawain continued. “Patty only uses the immersion pod to sleep—she no longer connects to the Sleepers’ mind network, to avoid exposing our ‘network intrusion.’ But if Patty no longer enters the mind network, how does Selina, who’s ‘beside’ Patty, maintain her connection to it?”

Amber scratched her head.

Even she couldn’t figure out the answer to that.

…

At the foot of the snow-covered Eastern Mountains, a shimmering wind shield blocked the wild snowstorms. Beneath the shield, energized iron rails stretched across the land, gradually disappearing into the distant blizzard.

The wheels rolled on, the machinery humming a metallic melody. A magical train, its carriages bearing the emblem of the Cecil Empire, roared along the energized iron tracks shielded by a protective barrier, racing across the land like a colossal steel serpent.

Unknown mountain ranges slipped past on one side, while the grasses and railings near the tracks blurred into a hazy streak from the train’s swift passage.

Outside, the winter wind howled cold and fierce, but inside the train was warm and cozy. Traveling across the wilderness inside the belly of this iron beast was truly a wondrous experience.

Matilda Augustus sat upright in the spacious, comfortable seat, her gaze drifting through the crystal glass inset in the carriage wall, taking in the exotic landscape beyond. A faint smile curved her lips.

A strange new land…

(End of chapter)