So it seems that Alice talked to me a little longer before leaving and left something behind?
I remembered the ruby eye I had taken from the rabbit doll's face, and reached out to retrieve it from a crevice in my pocket.
As dusk settled, only a few traces of orange remained in the distance, failing to even tinge the nearby azure with its own color.
I held the round ruby, no bigger than a fingernail, and examined it carefully. Then I raised my slightly recovered left hand and held it up to the light filtering through the trees, trying to glean something from it.
Hikari, finally recovering from her paralysis, looked around as if she wanted to stand up and move to the vicinity, but her legs were still too weak to move. She could only turn her head curiously to look at me and Miyuki leaning together, and noticed the ruby I was holding in my hand.
“Mr. Yumi,” she called softly, “is that something Alice left behind?”
She clearly overheard our conversation.
I nodded, slowly turned the dial, and finally found a faint engraving at the edge:
"【The First Knights of Dawn】..."
Shen Xue murmured the words on the screen, then suddenly frowned: "Why does it say 'Knights'? Isn't [Dawn] a mercenary group of only four people? But her appearance is completely different from the other two I know."
“I can tell you very clearly that Alice is not one of the two members of [Dawn] codenamed [Radiance] and [Shine].” I shook my head. “However, she is indeed related to [Shine].
“I don’t understand.” Miyuki shrugged.
Hikari suddenly raised her hand, her expression suggesting she had just remembered something: "Ah, I know that. Once, during an adventure, I asked Yao about why our team name was [Dawn]..."
“At first, I thought they wanted to use the name [Dawn of Light], but it turned out that Sister Hui told me it was because Sister Yao wanted to commemorate the last home she ever had, and also hoped that this newly established home could become a new home that we, the homeless ones who joined later, would own and manage together…”
Suddenly, the sound of scattered falling objects came from not far away.
We instinctively fell silent and turned to look, but we didn't notice Anne standing there with a bundle of dry branches she was holding, staring at us with trembling, dark red eyes.
"I...I think I heard you mention...something about [Dawn]...?"
Hikari blinked: "I've told you before, haven't I? Our mercenary group is called [Dawnlight]."
“No, I mean…” Anne took a deep breath and uttered the name in a slightly trembling voice, “The Knights of Dawn.”
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