After leaving the upper floor room, Saul was preparing to return to his cabin.

But he saw a little girl at the corner of the staircase.

A tiny thing, about four or five years old, biting her left thumb while looking up at Saul with round eyes.

"Big brother, are you a bad person?"

Saul hadn't seen such a small human child in a long time. He crouched down to look at the little girl. "I'm not a bad person."

"Not a bad person, then why did you go into that room?"

"If big brother was a bad person, he wouldn't have come out."

The little girl's mouth immediately formed a perfect circle, looking as if she had suddenly understood.

Saul found it amusing, patted the little girl's head, and stood up to go downstairs.

"Daddy!"

Saul froze, then looked down to see that the little girl wasn't calling him, but someone behind him.

He turned around and was surprised to see Paul, the wizard apprentice who had just interrogated him, standing expressionlessly in the hallway.

The adorable human child ran straight to Paul's side and hugged his knee. "Daddy!"

Wizard Apprentice Paul remained standing in place, motionless. It looked as if he wasn't being hugged by a little girl, but rather wrapped by a giant python.

But Saul could tell that when Paul faced the little girl, it wasn't fear but a kind of nervousness.

Extreme nervousness.

"Really is a father." Saul tried hard to control himself from showing an amused expression.

"Ahem," Paul cleared his throat, suddenly covered the little girl's ears, then said to Saul, "I'll give you a piece of advice—don't trust the cat's gratitude. People who encounter it may become lucky at first, but they all end up drowning."

"Drowning?" Saul thought of Mike's death.

That man who died in a thin layer of washing water.

Paul bent down and carefully but stiffly picked up the little girl like handling cream, no longer communicating with Saul, and turned to leave.

The little girl hugged Paul tightly, resting her chin on Paul's shoulder while blinking her big eyes at Saul.

Saul waved at the little girl and silently mouthed "goodbye."

The little girl didn't respond, just buried her head in Paul's shoulder.

"This is the first time I've seen a wizard apprentice with a child." Saul leisurely returned to his room.

Merchant Mike's death seemed to be deliberately suppressed.

During the rest of the journey, Saul heard no one discussing death, nor did anyone else have accidents.

After the airship flew steadily and boringly through the sky for a month, it finally reached Saul's destination—Sky City.

"This is Sky City."

As they were about to dock with Sky City's skyport, most travelers had packed their luggage and stood in the corridor on the top floor.

Although passengers still weren't allowed on deck before docking, the top floor corridor had windows for viewing the scenery.

Saul stood here for the first time, looking at the landscape ahead.

Two people stood beside him, one of whom seemed to have been to Sky City before and was introducing it to the other.

"Sky City was originally an island on the sea, then the City Lord cast magic to move it into the sky."

The other person cooperatively expressed admiration.

"Wow! Like a place where gods live."

Saul followed their gaze and saw, in a clear blue sky, a small island floating on clouds.

The entire island was quite large, with its lower half completely obscured by impenetrable clouds, as if floating on a sea of clouds.

The upper half of the island was a city built around a circular volcano.

A gray road wound spirally upward, leading directly to a water-blue castle at the highest point.

The mountain peak was capped with snow, while the foot was submerged in a sea of flowers.

White and pink petals were blown by the wind, swirling into local residents' homes.

Even viewing through a window layer, one seemed to smell the floral fragrance.

"It does look like a paradise." Saul praised silently, but his gaze fell on the lower half of the island completely shrouded in clouds.

The distance was somewhat far, and he couldn't see clearly what was beneath the clouds now.

But he knew that lifting an island would definitely require quite powerful magical formations for support and continuous resource consumption.

Actually completely unnecessary. Saul shook his head secretly. Expending massive magical power to lift an island—could it really be just for looks?

Appreciation aside, Saul didn't approve of such wasteful use of magical power.

Unless there were other hidden circumstances.

A few minutes later, the airship shuddered gently.

Two attendants came to open the door leading to the deck.

"Please disembark in an orderly fashion, no crowding."

People who could afford airship travel all had some wealth or status, and no one pushed or shoved.

Many people were even still in their rooms, planning to wait until most others had left before departing.

Saul, like an ordinary person, carefully carried his heavy leather suitcase in one hand and the orange cat in the other, stepping onto the not-very-wide gangplank and walking off the airship.

After following the crowd to the square outside the skyport, he didn't leave immediately but found shade under an awning outside a random shop and waited.

"Lord Saul, what are you waiting for?"

Kate was placed on the suitcase to facilitate their conversation.

There were already quite a few wizard apprentices walking around here, so the weak magical fluctuations from their secret speech wouldn't attract others' attention.

"Waiting for a cat."

"Meow?"

Saul's lips didn't move, but his voice reached orange cat Kate's ears. "After the wizard apprentice on the airship discovered Mike's body, he didn't find the white porcelain kitten. Only after I mentioned it did he become serious. Before that, he might have just treated Mike's death as an ordinary murder. What does this indicate?"

Kate smacked his lips. "It indicates someone took that white porcelain kitten before Paul saw the body."

He turned to look at Saul. "You're so interested in that kitten—why didn't you take it back then?"

"Because I wanted to observe objectively." Saul smiled. "Look, just like observing that attendant."

The attendant who had once guided Saul onto the airship and brought him to Paul for interrogation was now hurriedly coming down from the airship, also carrying a suitcase.

Just as Saul was about to follow, someone suddenly approached him.

The newcomer was a wizard wearing a water-blue cloak with several flower petals on it.

The cloak was inscribed with concealment formations, preventing outsiders from determining the person's strength.

But when Saul's mental power swept over, he immediately detected that the other party was a true wizard—a second-rank true wizard.

The person raised her head, revealing a beautiful face.

"Welcome to Sky City, Lord Saul."

Saul touched his face and asked without any pretense, "How did you recognize me?"

The female wizard smiled brilliantly. "Your cognitive blur magic is cast very skillfully—others can't recognize you at all. I only knew you were here under the City Lord's guidance."

"City Lord Ophelia? She actually pays attention to the skyport."

The female wizard who came to meet Saul smiled. "In Sky City, the City Lord is everywhere."

(End of Chapter)