Having carefully extricated herself from Cookes, Yvette weaved through the snow-covered mountains for a while to ensure she wasn’t being followed before heading to the valley town and arriving at the entrance of the air-raid shelter at the bottom of the gorge.

It was still morning, but many of the magical dolls had already gotten up and greeted Yvette upon seeing her.

Yvette nodded in acknowledgment. Having lived here for four full years, she was not very familiar with the local residents and rarely engaged in conversation with them. This was not due to her discrimination against the mechanical tribe; rather, she was simply not a social person—like a pet, she just wasn’t affectionate.

However, today she felt quite good, her gaze unusually soft. This was mainly due to her successful morning, having managed to leave a dangerous area unscathed while honing her combat skills and gathering some useful intelligence. She felt that her progress had been significant.

Although the word “progress” sounded a bit strange when applied within the scale of over two hundred years, personal growth is not measured by time but by events. ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ novｅlfire.net

Otherwise, Dugrabi, who was nearly a hundred years old, would have matured into a great sage by now—yet he was still a young dragon who lashed out at others when feeling even slightly wronged.

She reflected on her last experience of being in danger and realized that this time around, she had taken the same kind of risk without any other distractions in between. It felt that she had performed exceedingly well, so it was natural for her to feel pleased. Although no one else could perceive her internal growth, she could praise herself.

Speaking of which, the Spider Woman’s combat ability was truly unfathomable. Even after battling with her for such a long time, Yvette had not seen any signs of weariness or fear on the Spider Woman’s face—instead, she was left with only a third of her mana.

If she didn’t rely on her dark eye ability and fought purely with her magical abilities, she might not have a guaranteed chance of victory… Yvette felt a twinge of worry.

The problem was, what could she do to quickly improve her power?

She pondered for a while and finally realized there was only one path available: to hone her practical combat skills and enhance her levels of fighting.

Conveniently, if the Spider Woman was stationed in Cookes for the long term, she could serve as a great sparring partner for Yvette.

…

In the coming months, Yvette ventured out every two to three months for deeper explorations of Cookes.

Of course, she wasn’t focusing on the area where the Spider Woman patrolled every single time; she explored from various directions and confirmed several key pieces of information.

First, the mutants in Cookes had received special enhancements, making their power far surpass that of normal stages, so their combat levels could only be assessed by the stage corresponding to their fighting strength, rather than their true stage.

This was why, when Yvette asked the Spider Woman if she was a five-stage mutant, her response was ambiguously “about that.”

Second, in the central area of Cookes, there were two other “lords” with strength akin to that of the Spider Woman.

One was a burly male humanoid covered in scales, bearing a fearsome visage resembling a Fish Man, primarily engaging in close combat and using water magic for assistance.

The other was a gigantic Mountain Whale. Unlike other Mountain Whales, this one was far more powerful, possessing a density of eyeballs all over its body and capable of utilizing various bizarre spells.

After some brief encounters with these two “lords,” Yvette found the Spider Woman to be relatively easier to communicate with, as she would occasionally answer Yvette’s questions, unlike the Mountain Whale and Fish Man—where the former didn’t talk, and the latter shared Yvette’s taciturn nature. These interactions yielded little useful information.

Finally, Yvette managed to glean through conversation with the Spider Woman that above the three lords, there was a “Commander” loyal to a “Sovereign,” which was a six-stage mutant and also her direct superior.

Yvette was unclear about the Commander’s whereabouts but reasoned cautiously that the Commander resided in the city center. Therefore, after harassing the Spider Woman for a while and exhausting about half of her mana, she would swiftly retreat—both to prevent the Fish Man and Mountain Whale’s reinforcements from arriving and because she didn’t want to attract the attention of the six-stage Commanders.

…

Time flew by, and half a year passed. The climate shifted from cold to warm as July arrived.

As a snowy region in the northern part of the Black Tide Continent, the area surrounding Cookes was quite similar to Northern Europe in her past life.

Once the snow melted, the rocky layers were exposed, glimmering with a cold iron-gray hue. The grass spread forth, mingling with the moss-covered remnants of human civilization. Further away, the white glaciers on the mountain peaks remained unmelted year-round, piercing the blue sky like an ice blade.

Late one morning, upon returning from another exploration of Cookes, Yvette saw some dolls studying how to herd sheep.

The sheep they were herding were fluffy white ones caught from the mountains, appearing large like cotton candy on the meadows.

The reason for herding was twofold: to provide a more stable food source for a certain fierce beast and, spurred on by Ice Rain, many local dolls also thought that playing the role of shepherd was a good approach to get closer to a certain historical period of humanity, thereby improving their “cultivation.”

“I’m tired of eating lamb every day,” Dugrabi complained, showing no gratitude as he noticed Yvette approaching.

Over the past four years, this black dragon had also autonomously gleaned the meanings of many terms in the Black Tide language, but he was quite reserved, almost never speaking. He consistently played the role of a ferocious dragon, so, aside from the little doll Jasmine, no other dolls had noticed this; even Ice Rain was unaware.

Part of the reason was that, in his view, these alchemical beings were less than human and had no right to befriend a noble dragon like himself. Only the Silver Witch, an obscure third-rate god, had the qualification to stand alongside the dragon race.

Yvette merely responded with an “oh,” feeling no need to comment on his pretentiousness.

After all, she hadn’t eaten for many years and was quite hungry; Dugrabi, of course, could manage just fine since he maintained his life through magical energy, but he simply preferred not to.

“Witch,” Dugrabi called again.

“What is it?”

“Jasmine found a large-scale ruin of ancient human civilization. Do you want to come along?”

“What kind of ruins?”

“I don’t know; the little brats said something about a launch site.”

“A launch site?” Yvette pondered for a moment and pulled out the electronic map she had obtained before the apocalypse. Based on the location of the gorge, she was able to pinpoint the position of the launch site. “Northwest?”

“You know it?”

“Yeah.” Yvette glanced at the information on the electronic map, thinking that the launch site seemed quite historical. Before the Origin Civilization had entered the cyber stage dominated by the eight major corporations, in the twenty-first century, that launch site had sent numerous spacecraft and probes into the cosmos, aiding humanity’s understanding of the Origin Star System.

She then realized that the Origin Star System, as a stellar system, only contained the living planet of Origin Star and a few barren, lifeless low-magic stone planets, devoid of resources—greatly limiting the civilization’s desire to expand into space.

While it’s known that the mutations had begun in the seas as per the gloom and doom conditions, from where did the mysterious “Divine Metamorphosis” and “Corrupted Seeds” come?

Yvette thought that perhaps they had originated from space.

So, if she had the chance, she intended to investigate the history of the Origin Civilization’s space exploration during her next foray into the dream world.

Of course, that would only be a superficial investigation, as her top priority in dreaming would still be securing resources, with the second being uncovering the experiences of the original owner to gain better insight into herself.

Exploring the truth behind the apocalypse could reluctantly be placed third—important but not essential.

On the other hand, noticing that the witch showed no interest in the launch site adventure, Dugrabi merely pouted and ceased to say anything further.

His invitation for the witch to accompany him wasn’t merely for fun; he was mainly afraid of encountering a Mountain Whale during their explorations. Over the past few years, he had witnessed many scenes of Mountain Whales passing through and remained terrified of these sky beasts that were many times larger than him.

Though he wasn’t necessarily at a disadvantage in a fight, he was indeed afraid; after all, while he could barely take on mutated beings without incurring any injuries, fearing contamination, the opposing creatures could attack him without restraint, which placed him at a significant disadvantage.

Yet, in front of children, especially before the younger ones, he had to maintain his fierce demeanor. If danger ever arose, he would likely push himself forward; after all, it was a matter of pride and dignity for the dragon lineage.

With unwavering pride, a warrior may die, but never endure humiliation—that is the way of the dragons!

Pulling a cart didn’t count.