Rielle feels the warmth of his lips against her own and Artorius runs his hand along her back, pulling her closer.

Knock Knock!

Artorius pulls himself away from her and sighs.

“Might as well go see who it is,” Rielle says trying to contain herself.

As Artorius walks away, she starts breathing heavily.

“It’s been far too long. My body’s reacting way more than I thought it would.” Rielle thinks with a sigh. “I have to steel myself. Until I figure out who it is, I can’t let things cross that line. I owe them that much.”

Artorius comes back after answering the door.

“Sorry about that. It was one of my neighbors who saw us come in earlier. He was worried you were gonna buy up all the furniture.” He says. “But that can wait for now.” 

As he goes in to embrace Rielle, she places a hand on his chest and smiles at him.

“It got dark before I realized it, so I think it’s a good time for me to leave,” Rielle says.

“...Damn, that neighbor really killed the mood.” He mutters.

“What did he want?” Rielle asks.

“He thought you were a customer, trying to buy up all the furniture,” Artorius says.

“He’s not wrong. I do want every piece.” She says.

Artorius chuckles.

“I suppose I can tell him you offered to pay double.” He says.

A few moments pass by as they discuss the arrangements of the furniture. Rielle agrees to pay 1500sc for each piece and stores them in her bag. The space looked a lot emptier now that they had practically vanished into thin air. Rielle hugs him before leaving him for the night. 

“Let me walk you home at least.” He suggests. “It is dark after all.”

Rielle chuckles.

“I’m one of the most powerful witches of my time. I think I can handle a walk back.” She says.

“Alright, just be careful.” He says.

After waving goodbye, Artorius closes the door and leans his back against it.

“Damn.” He mutters with a smirk.

Meanwhile, Rielle walked through the darkening neighborhood she spots several houses with yellow tags on them.

“....Hm. I guess I should pick a place to live, so I can sleep tonight.” Rielle thinks. “These houses are somewhat close to Artorius, Maira, and Erica.”

“It’ll make things convenient.” She says.

Between the house on the corner and the one at the center of the block, Rielle knew which house she would rather choose. She goes to the house on the corner and puts the key in. She watches the yellow seal erupt into purple flames, before dispersing leaving not even ash behind. A slight creak as the door opens, and she enters the home. She flips the light switch near the door revealing the interior. Much like Maira’s home, the walls were all white and the floorboards were of a light brown wood.

“I do have to admit, that the houses here appear to be much more advanced than in the world of the living. I wonder who designed them. Having so many intricate things linked together by magic is no simple feat, yet it’s been replicated millions of times.” She says.

Rielle takes her jacket off and hangs it on the doorknob. She removed the furniture from her bag and placed a nice coffee table, that stood at about thigh-high in the living room. Then, placed a dresser in the master bedroom as well as a long thick desk, that she puts at the other end of the room accompanied with a stool. Afterward, she placed her bed in the guest room at the back left corner and placed the sheets over it. A set of deep blue with four pillow covers. After putting the covers over the pillows, she haphazardly tosses them onto the bed before falling over onto the bed. 

“I never thought coming to the afterlife would feel so draining. There’s this whole situation with Art, Mai, and Eri. The disturbing lack of magic users, my mother’s magic not being present, and even these nightmares. Even in the afterlife, I can’t escape my nightmares of him.” Rielle thinks. “Ugh. I hope everything works out. But such is hardly ever the case for a witch.”

While lost in thought at some point, Rielle fell asleep, lying on the bed halfway. 

The next day came in the blink of an eye. Rielle rolls over in her sleep and falls off the bed.

“Ouch.” She groans. “Well, good morning to me.”

She sits up on the floor and stretches her arms upward.

“That might be the best sleep I’ve gotten in a while.” She admits

Rising from the floor, Rielle lets out a yawn before walking into the dining room. 

“There’s a few things I want to figure out today, so asking around town might be a good idea.” Rielle thinks.

After showering and getting ready for the day, she heads out to gather information. As she stood on the porch, she noticed how lively the area was. Children running about, couples going on walks together and people walking their pets around town. She spots a park in the distance and decides to go there first. The park was large and extended to the western gate. There was a large area dedicated to where children play, complete with monkey bars, slides, seesaws, and various other amenities for children. Surrounding it was a fence to make sure children couldn’t run off. Rielle approaches one of the parents watching their kid run around.

“Excuse me, can I have a moment of your time?” She asks.

He turns to her, looks her up and down, then smiles.

“Sure. As long as you’re not trying to sell me something.” He chuckles.

“Oh no, I just had a question.” She says. 

He sits up on the park bench.

“Alright, shoot.” He says.

“I just moved in recently and wanted to know if anything strange was going on?” She asks.

“Mmm… Nothing out of the ordinary.” He says. “Why did something happen to you?”

“Not per se, but maybe it was my imagination.” She says. “Well, thank you for your time.”

Rielle waves goodbye, allowing the man to go back to watching his kid. Rielle spends an hour walking around town and talking to others, before taking a break at a bench in the neighborhood.

“No one’s noticed anything strange. I guess it makes sense, for the most part. Most normal people can’t even feel ether, let alone use it. If anyone would know about what’s happening, it’d have to be someone adept at sensing ether.” Rielle thinks.

Rielle’s eyes widen, and her jaw hangs open. She palms her face.

“It’s been so many years so I’ve almost forgotten. I know someone else that’s good at sensing ether.” Rielle thinks.

Rielle rises from the bench and traverses through the neighborhood, with a direction in mind, she makes for her destination. Moments later, she arrives a few houses down from Maira’s home and is standing at the door. 

“While I was getting ready for the date with Artorius, I heard that Maira and Erica live pretty close together. Apparently, Maira moved closer just to annoy her. But that information was pretty convenient.” She thinks.

Rielle knocks on the door, hearing the words “Coming!” from inside. A few thumps on the floor later, the door begins to unlock and it flings open. Standing before her was Erica with her hair down and covered in sweat.

“Ri?! What are you doing here?” She asks, while still holding the door. 

“I needed to ask you something” Rielle states. 

“Come in. I just finished doing some training.” Erica states.

She lets Rielle into the house but notices the house has carpet going throughout each of the rooms and watches as Erica sits down on a couch in the living room. Rielle sits next to her and turns to her.

“If I had to guess this isn’t about the love situation is it?” Erica questions.

“Yeah, unfortunately, it's about magic users,” Rielle says.

Erica sighs.

“You know how I was born with the ability to see and sense ether, right?” She asks.

“Although it shames me, I almost forgot,” Rielle admits.

Erica pats and strokes her hair.

“Well, it has been quite a few years. Magic users only gain this ability through training to use ether itself, like a skill that one has to cultivate.” Erica says.

“That’s right. Even I can’t sense it to the level that you can, with all my years of training.” Rielle agrees.

“I can determine strength, exact location, distance, and even state of health someone’s in, just through their ether alone,” Erica explains. “So I was using that to track down magic users that were in dire straits. But every time I would arrive, they would already be gone. Leaving no traces behind. And because my aptitude for using magic is poor, no matter how much training I did, it was useless. I couldn’t learn any spells to try and figure this out on my own. It only started happening 20 or so years ago.”

“There’s only so much one person can do,” Rielle says.

She raises Erica’s chin with her fingers.

“You have a tendency to try to solve everything on your own, especially since you used to be a knight. ” Rielle states. “You don’t have to work alone anymore, so let's think this through together.”

“Right!” Erica says. “For some reason or other, someone here has been targeting magic users. I thought it might’ve been because they wanted their accumulated ether, but I would’ve sensed such a large amount already, even if they were trying to hide it.”

“Then they must be using it for something else. There are any number of forbidden spells one could be doing it for.” Rielle says with her finger propping her own chin up.

“I hadn’t sensed any other magic users for a while meaning you might be the first in some time that’s appeared. Which means that you’re likely their next target.” Erica explains.

“I’ve been hiding my magic for a night now, so they may have difficulty finding me now among everyone else with normal ether,” Rielle says. “We can use that to our advantage, and have me lure them out.”

“I don’t know… That sounds too reckless.” Erica says. “If something happened to you, and I wasn’t able to make it in time. I’d…”

Knock Knock!

“Erica, I trust you. I know you can do it.” Rielle states as she caresses Erica’s cheek. “For now just calm down and answer the door.” 

Erica calms herself down and goes to answer the door.

“Maira?! What are you doing here?” Erica asks.

“I was coming to see if you knew where Elle is at,” Maira says. “I planned a whole picnic for us!”

“Uh… She’s probably around somewhere.” Erica says.

“Just let her in. It’d be better for her to know about all this after all.” Rielle says using message.

She opens the door widely and gestures for her to come in. Maira walks in and sees Rielle sitting on the couch.

“You two were gonna have a tryst behind my back!” Maira exclaims pointing her finger at Rielle.

“We weren’t, I promise. There’s something else we need to talk about though.” She states.

Maira looks at the serious faces of her and Erica, then sighs.

“What happened?” She questions.