Millennium Witch

Book 3: Chapter 220: Even Above Friendship?

“Lucia, is this your old fl—old friend?” Once the two drew close, Yvette Loxivia heard the pink-haired girl say in a somewhat disgruntled tone, “And aren’t you two way too late? We’ve been waiting almost an hour—what’s going on here?”As she said the latter, her gaze fell on Yvette’s face.

In fact, she’d guessed right. The tardiness really was because of Yvette. She didn’t need to interview for the Disciplinary Committee, so there was no outside pressure at all. Without Lucia prodding her out of bed, she could sleep till noon.

“Sorry, sorry,” Lucia said, embarrassed, then made introductions. “This is Yvette Loxivia—you know. Yvette, this is Anya Vida, and this is Flami Frost, the friends I mentioned. You finally get to meet.”

“Hello,” Anya said, flat as water.

“Hello, Miss Loxivia. You can just call me Flami.” Flami smiled warmly. Unlike Anya’s chilly manner, she was full of curiosity about Yvette; her gray irises slid over Yvette as if searching for secrets hidden beneath that plain exterior.

“You can just call me Yvette, too.” Yvette replied politely, scarcely letting her eyes rest on Anya before meeting Flami’s gaze head-on.

Only when the perpetually smiling girl couldn’t withstand Yvette’s direct look and glanced away, flustered, did Yvette’s lips lift with amused interest.

She thought, This Flami may not be hiding her species like Nixia, but she is hiding her strength. Whose expert is this?

Yvette let out a faint sigh in her heart but didn’t call it out. Who knew if the girl was a self-taught type here to polish her basics? In this world, knowledge often grants more power than raw mana and rank.

If the Academy of Truth didn’t lock down its cutting-edge tech from leaking out—and if its frontier knowledge weren’t kept internal, redeemable only with Academy credits—the Radiant Continent would have far more top-tier powerhouses. “Let’s hurry in for the interview,” Anya said, cutting the small talk short as she grabbed Lucia’s hand and headed for the branch doors.

Yvette and Flami followed. Since Yvette wasn’t interviewing, she waited on a sofa in the first-floor lobby while the other three went upstairs with a guide.

The wait wouldn’t be long. Only those coming through the Battle Arts College enrollment channel needed to interview in District Two. The three would later choose the District Nine Disciplinary Committee branch, report again, and become interns. That Anya and Flami both lived in District Two yet still planned to serve in District Nine clearly had a reason: Lucia was choosing that branch.

While she waited, Yvette strolled around the first floor of the Committee branch and saw many posted wanted notices, each with the bounty listed below.

Among the lot, the most conspicuous was a wanted criminal named “Bazel Gais,” worth 600 gold crowns—the highest bounty at the moment.

The poster had only a distant black-and-white photo: the back of a short young man. The blurb below said he was a cultist of the witch cult, had recently carried out three indiscriminate poisonings in the City of Truth, with over twenty dead and more than a hundred permanently disabled. Motive unknown—suspected ritual to an Eldritch God. Proficient in Wind and Shadow Magic.

Yvette stared at the photo for a while, thinking, No face—what are we supposed to track, thin air?

Still, she decided to keep an eye out. The City of Truth is part of the Academy of Truth. As the Silver Witch’s “Foundation Mentor,” equal in rank to the Founding Dean—even if she was traveling incognito—she should do her part.

After a little over an hour, the three interviewees came downstairs chatting and laughing. By the looks of it, things had gone well.

After a quick word with Yvette, they took the subway back to District Nine to head for the branch there.

The mood along the way turned a bit awkward. Anya happily chattered about the combat tests during the interview; Flami chimed in now and then. Lucia felt uneasy. It made Yvette seem like an outsider who couldn’t fit into the group—four turning into three plus a stranger. That wasn’t what she wanted at all.

In the end, Flami couldn’t stand it. On the subway she switched topics: “Tomorrow’s Sunday. Want to go out and wander a bit? Better than sitting around.”

“Where to?” Anya asked.

“Let’s set the plan first and decide later,” Flami said. “How about it?”

“Sounds—how about it?” Lucia looked to Yvette.

Yvette shook her head.

She could sleep on weekends, or go to the library, or roam key Academy sites to see how the City of Truth’s core systems worked. What that did not include was strolling the streets with unfamiliar little schoolgirls.

“Then I’m not going either,” Lucia said without a second’s hesitation.

Flami and Anya stared at Lucia, stunned.

It had been one thing on campus. This was their first time seeing it up close: the Academy’s top prodigy this intake, Lucia, acting like a puppet on strings—her will governed by that utterly ordinary chestnut-haired girl.

Whatever the chestnut-haired girl meant, that’s what Lucia meant. There wasn’t even a flicker of hesitation or resistance—in spite of the fact that the two of them were Lucia’s friends now too!

Was this hypnosis? Was that chestnut-haired girl a mesmerist? A cultist? A sorceress—or a witch?

How could she sway Lucia’s thoughts like this?

“Why, Lucia?” Anya finally couldn’t help herself. As a friend who often hung around with Lucia at the Academy, she felt she ought to carry some weight—enough at least to make Lucia hesitate before refusing. How could it be so fast, so final?

Then she looked coldly at Yvette. “Brown-hair, is this necessary? Do you have to control even this? What are you to her, anyway?”

Hearing the accusatory tone, Yvette wondered what she should even say.

I am clearly chestnut-haired, not “brown-hair.” This pink-head has no manners.

Before Yvette could speak, Lucia panicked. “No, you’ve got it wrong, Anya—Yvette never asked me to. It’s all my own choice.”

“Do you have some dirt she’s holding over you?” Anya didn’t buy it.

“Absolutely not,” Lucia said, like swearing an oath.

“Then why can’t you spare even a day?”

“I—uh—”

Under Anya’s barrage, Lucia ducked her head, all at sea—until Flami clapped as if struck by revelation. “Could it be that, in Lucia’s heart, Miss Yvette already matters more than anything?”

She paused, then added in a tentative tone, “Even above friendship?”

Anya gaped, staring at Lucia in disbelief—only to see Lucia’s fair cheeks flush scarlet at once, like ripe apples.

“D-don’t say nonsense like that, Flami! There’s no ‘above friendship’—the way you put it is weird—” Lucia stammered.

She considered her attitude toward Yvette to be that of a dearest friend—plus gratitude toward a benefactor and a reverence for a mentor she couldn’t put into words. Clean and pure. But the way Flami said it made everything sound… off.

Especially in a crowded subway car, with a few boys from other colleges pricking up their ears and sneaking glances over, making her even more mortified.

Anya, however, had clearly accepted that framing. She sank onto the clean cushioned seat, hollow-eyed. “Lucia, you—you actually—”

“No!!!” Steam nearly puffed from Lucia’s head. Along with shame and anger, a heavy sense of powerlessness at being slandered welled up inside.

How did it turn into this?

From start to finish, Yvette hadn’t said a word. Sitting apart like an onlooker, she watched the rough view of the subway tunnel slide by, then quietly shut her eyes.

If she’d known Lucia’s friends were all such characters, she wouldn’t have come.

She regretted it.