211 Refuge
Selma Payne’s POV:
Dorothy clearly understood what I meant.
While Eve and the others were discussing whether to send the news back immediately, she whispered to me through mind link, “You think that Captain Frank’s disappearance and reappearance could also be affected by spatial sorcery, right?”
“Yes, I do.”
“But I’ve been to that house with Master Hayley and Master Kevin, and nothing like the canyon has happened.
“Maybe the structure of the false space is different. For example, the canyon has the beginning and the end connected. However, Captain Frank’s cabin might be a simple overlap of two spaces, like a stack of cardboard boxes, sharing a common entrance and exit but leading to different spaces.
“So, we were in two different spaces that night with Captain Frank. That means the opening times of the two spaces are staggered! Whether Captain Frank was in a fake or real space, it would only open at a particular time.
“Since this period differs from the time we’re keeping an eye on it, it’s not open at least from 2 am to 5:30 am. The lights-out time is 10:00 pm, and Captain Frank usually patrolled for nearly half an hour after the lights-out, which is 10:30 pm. So it would be open for business until 10:30 pm. In this case, its opening hours should start from 5:30 am and continue until at least 10:30 pm.”
“From 5:30 pm to 10:30 pm...”
I was not a top history student, but I recalled a history lecturer at Sivir Academy giving a public speech to explain the ancients’ lives to the students.
“... In fact, the life of the ancient people was not as boring as we imagined, and they did not always sleep early and wake up late. Just a hundred years ago, our ancestors lived from seven to nine. Doesn’t it sound similar to modern times? In fact, for the witches and wizards far away, this period could be extended to both sides. Some conservative witches even follow the routine of 5:30 pm to 10:30 pm because they believed this was the time experienced by the world’s first witch.”
Was this a coincidence?
The space was open from 5:30 am to 10:30 pm, and Mullwica was a famous conservative witch in history.
Was Captain Frank in the real space when he disappeared? And was this space Mullwica’s home that we had been searching for?
But I didn’t have time to think about it because Eve had decided to send someone back to report our discovery.
This group of humans wasn’t surprised by this. It was as if they already knew there was a layer of fake space here. She said, “And their camp happened to be behind the canyon, which means this was not an accident. They have a way to pass through the canyon.
“No matter how they got to know about this, it’s obvious that they know more about this place and the ruins of the witch clan than we do. This is not good news. If their target is the ruins of the witch clan, we will not have the upper hand.”
I volunteered to take on the task of delivering intelligence. Dorothy will stay behind. If there were any other situations, we could communicate immediately.
“It’s hard to travel in the snow, be careful.” Eve sent the other team members and me off.
Compared to the morning, the snow was even heavier. Although it wasn’t as severe as a blizzard, it still caused quite a bit of trouble for our operation.
Misfortunes never come alone. Halfway through our journey, we saw the shadow of a pine forest in the distance – a piece of the demonic shard was waiting for us!
If there were other people around me, this would be an excellent opportunity to find the devil’s seal. However, two people were not enough to support an operation team.
“Mark the location. We’ll take action after discussing it with the headquarters.”
I had to give up this opportunity.
Due to the wind and snow, our speed was almost half what it was before, and we only arrived at sunset.
Frank and Master Mary agreed with my guess and believed that the folded space was likely to be a witch’s work. There might even be many such folded spaces left in the ruins of the witch clan.
“There are indeed such records in some ancient European books,” Master Mary said. “Especially during the witch-hunt period, witches did everything they could to avoid being hunted down. Several extremely powerful or talented witches could replicate reality and create folded spaces as a shelter. However, these witches also pay great attention to protecting their privacy, so no detailed historical materials are passed down.”
This meant there wasn’t any information on spatial magic that we could use as a reference.
Mullwica was a supreme witch who had left her name in history. She might have known spatial sorcery.
Then, the question was, even if spatial sorcery existed in the witch clan, how could we detect it?
Other than Mary, Hayley, and Kevin, there were a few other werewolf grandmasters on the team. However, none of them were skilled in spatial magic. They had only heard of it before, like me, a layman.
In fact, rather than saying that the werewolf grandmasters did not know, it was better to say that no one in the world knew. Even the existing supreme witches and wizards might be unable to do anything.