"Miss Daly?"
Angel was somewhat puzzled. Last night Daly had also appeared in her home in this form, but at that time the living room still had eerie green flames, as if in a nightmare woven by a "Nightmare."
At this moment, that "Nightmare" was even still outside the door, not having had time to drive away!
The semi-transparent face didn't answer, but opened its lips, revealing a bright red tongue. The tongue was covered with irregular sharp teeth, the tip had five slender fingers like a human hand, holding a folded letter in the hand.
A letter... this is a messenger? Daly's messenger?
Angel understood. She looked back at Dunn who was preparing to drive away on the street, closed the door properly, then reached out to receive the letter.
Mission completed, the messenger's five fingers waved happily several times, as if saying goodbye, then along with the entire tongue retracted into the mouth, drifting and merging into the wall. Accompanied by semi-transparent water ripple fluctuations, it disappeared from the living room.
Mm, not waiting for my reply?
She looked puzzledly toward the direction the messenger left, canceled spirit vision, and the living room glowing white in her vision returned to normal colors.
Worried about causing fire, not daring to light the gas lamp, Angel could only rely on moonlight and her own night vision ability to open the folded letter on the sofa by the bay window, reading the letter sent by that magical spiritualist.
"If you can see this letter, it means tonight's operation should have gone smoothly, and you also successfully survived, which makes me very relieved, after all I no longer need to play the 'Corpse Collector.'"
The first sentence made Angel frown.
Really a terrible way of expressing concern... indeed still that sharp-tongued Miss Daly.
And how did she guess I would participate in the operation, rather than staying on standby at headquarters?
With curiosity, Angel continued reading.
"I hope you can tell me the details of this operation. If it involves private parts, you can skip them. I can use this to assess Dunn's potion digestion degree and judge whether he has risk of losing control."
Assessing potion digestion... is this expressing concern for the captain?
Angel's mouth curved into a smile.
"The second matter is, if you weren't seriously injured in the operation, please submit special advancement applications with Klein as soon as possible."
"Currently a relatively communicative high-ranking deacon is stationed in Backlund. Your submitted special applications will be examined by him. This is an opportunity not to be missed—I assume you've already completed digestion of this stage's potion."
"Some rumors I heard in Backlund indicate that some high-ranking deacons deliberately make things difficult for Nighthawks seeking advancement. Your luck is very good."
Reading this, Angel ignored the remaining half of the content, folded the letter, and closed her eyes to contemplate.
She and Klein had originally agreed to find an opportunity to submit applications at the end of this month, then perhaps welcome Church internal examination in early September. This way they would both openly take about two months to digest potions, which, although unusual, wouldn't be too exaggerated for Extraordinaries who mastered the acting method.
But according to Daly's words, even if they applied early, exposing their shorter digestion time, they should seize the opportunity to pass examination under this "communicative" high-ranking deacon.
Was it due to some special reason? Or just Daly's own opinion?
Should she and Klein follow the original plan to wait until month's end or even next month, or submit applications as soon as possible within this week?
Angel thought for a moment, temporarily unable to reach an answer, so she reopened the letter to continue reading.
"Finally, I'll teach you the method to summon the little cutie that just delivered your letter. This is a simple ritual magic. After summoning the messenger, you give it the letter, and it will accurately deliver it to my hands. The messenger's speed can't match telegrams, but is faster than steam trains. A round trip from Backlund to Tingen only takes one afternoon."
The end of the letter contained the preparation method and incantation for the ritual magic.
Compared to the ritual magic the Fool taught to Tarot Club members, this messenger summoning ritual was much simpler. Angel only needed to select herbs related to death and night domains, light the candle symbolizing herself...
Candle...
Angel pursed her lips, continued reading, reciting the incantation to deepen memory.
First was ancient Hermes for "I."
Then switching to Hermes for "I summon in my name."
The third part pointed to the specific summoned object: "Spirit wandering in vanity, upper realm creature driven by humans, messenger belonging solely to Daly Simone."
As she recited the incantation line by line, the room seemed to become as cold as when she first returned home. Wind blew through from somewhere, making "whooshing" sounds.
Hmm? Could the incantation be taking effect? But I haven't performed the complete ritual yet...
Angel opened spirit vision and found the previous semi-transparent face-shaped messenger had emerged through the wall again, slowly floating before her, extending its hand... tongue-shaped hand, five fingers repeatedly opening and clenching, as if demanding something.
So it never left, waiting for my reply?
Angel felt somewhat embarrassed. If she had prepared to bathe before reading the letter, or even read it the next day, would this dutiful messenger have waited all night?
Watching the spiritual realm creature that had waited long without receiving a letter, dejectedly retracting its tongue, Angel apologetically said "wait a moment," went to the study to get paper and pen, returned to the living room and began writing a reply in front of the messenger.
"Miss Daly, I'm very happy to receive your letter. You seem to no longer conceal your concern for Captain Dunn. I hope you can have an honest talk with him soon, otherwise I might not be able to resist loneliness and make a move on him—this time you won't have a chance to light the chandelier to frighten me."
After smilingly counterattacking Daly, she began detailing tonight's battle preparations, process and aftermath with "Shepherd" Lady D, including Klein's divination and suspicions about Lanrvus.
These were all contents of the battle record the "Red Gloves" were about to submit, which would be distributed to various parishes as case studies of fighting the "Aurora Order" after Church review, so they weren't classified, therefore she didn't consider concealing them.
Then she talked about the "special application" matter.
"...Regarding the special application, you guessed correctly. Both Klein and I have completed potion digestion. I'll discuss with him first before deciding whether to submit applications immediately. Perhaps choosing a suitable high-ranking deacon is not as good as staying in this sequence longer to make us less conspicuous."
She didn't blindly trust Daly's judgment, after all the other party could only make guesses based on intelligence she obtained, and she also couldn't make decisions for Klein.
Originally the letter would have ended here, but Angel suddenly remembered she still hadn't secured the main ingredients for her "Witch" advancement potion. Perhaps Miss Justice could find materials through her channels, but previously to conceal the potion formula, to disperse risk, she only requested Justice search for "complete blood of Black Abyss Demon Fish." The other half of materials, "Onyx Peacock's Egg," could only rely on herself.
Unfortunately, despite multiple visits to the underground market at the Evil Dragon Bar, Angel found no such potion materials, not even anyone who had heard of it.
This gave reason to suspect that underground Extraordinaries in Tingen City could hardly access "mid-sequence" potions.
Or perhaps these advancement materials were tightly controlled by the "Witch Sect." Previously when Cor Granger advanced to Sequence 7, the potion's main ingredients were provided by Mrs. Sharon.
Regardless, wanting to obtain potion materials in Tingen City probably required help from people in other regions. Perhaps cities like Enmat Port with loose management and large population flows could buy them, but she no longer had acquaintances there.
Thinking of this, Angel added several sentences at the end of the letter.
"Finally, please help me search for an 'Onyx Peacock's Egg' in Backlund's mystical item trading markets. This mystical material's price might be between 500 to 800 pounds. If the price is suitable, I hope you can purchase it on my behalf, or inform me of the channel."
Putting down the steel pen, she looked again at the verbal sparring at the letter's beginning, quite having an impulse to cross it out.
In the end, Angel abandoned this idea, folded the letter properly, handed it to the messenger whose fingers had already twisted together from boredom, watching it swallow the letter and disappear into the wall corner.