Kevin and Vivian waited until noon, but there was no sign of Lily.
That girl was very punctual, at least when it came to mealtimes. As a husky, she wouldn't leave anyone any chance to steal her food, so she usually should have been home an hour before mealtime. Especially since she'd promised to be home before noon today, Kevin was puzzled by her delay. "This is the first time she's been late for dinner," Vivian said, bringing the food to the table and looking toward the door in surprise. "Something's keeping her up?"
"I'll give her a call," Kevin said, pulling out his phone and dialing Lily's number. After a moment, he shook his head. "No one answered."
Vivian and Kevin stared at each other, and Vivian finally spoke first: "Does she have any other friends or hangouts here?"
"No, she came here alone like you, and she doesn't know anyone here." Kevin slowly stood up, a feeling growing more and more perplexed. "Besides, she never keeps things to herself. If something really happened, she should have called right away. Is she safe?"
"What could possibly happen to her? Her fighting ability isn't just for show," Vivian said casually. "Are you being too nervous?"
"That's true. After all, she's a werewolf... or at least a mastiff." Even as Kevin spoke, the inexplicable unease within him persisted. He had no idea where it came from. Lily had only been out for a few hours, and her phone was simply temporarily unavailable. It wasn't anything to cause panic, but Kevin felt something was amiss. It was as if his long-established sixth sense was stirring again. It was a slightly irritating feeling, yet there was nothing he could do about it.
"I'll send out a few bats to search the nearby streets," Vivian said, noticing Kevin's restlessness. She stood up and conjured up a few black bats. "I think I know where she usually goes. If we can't find her, let's go out and look."
Just as Kevin was about to nod, his phone, resting on the armrest of the sofa next to him, began to buzz like a life-threatening alarm. He quickly picked up the phone, only to see Lily's caller ID on the screen: a white husky. Kevin had changed it last night for some unknown reason, using a screenshot from a video of Lily's transformation from two days prior. "Hello, Lily?" Kevin waved to Vivian, indicating it was Erha calling. "Where are you? Why didn't you come back at noon?"
"Landlord, landlord, I met two psychopaths," Lily said mysteriously, her voice low. "Two foreigners, they said they were my 'parents' and wanted to take me back to my family, and now I'm somewhere."
Kevin's heart immediately jumped up, his face darkening. Vivian, who was standing next to him, immediately leaned over. "What's going on?"
Kevin silenced Vivian with a hand, then asked hurriedly, "Where are you now? What do those two foreigners look like? What did they tell you? Are you safe?" "I don't know where it is," Lily said, her voice still bright and clear, seemingly unharmed, though rather confused. "They're talking in a mysterious way, not explaining anything clearly. Oh, and one of them is really tall, about 1.9 meters tall, and as strong as a bear. The other one is a man about your size, with a hooked nose, and looks sick..."
Lily's rambling account of the situation left Kevin completely baffled. He could only conclude that the idiot had been kidnapped. He immediately became exasperated: "How could you be so stupid? You let yourself be kidnapped so easily by a stranger?"
"I didn't want to go with them!" Lily's voice was filled with anger. "I was taken away by a puff of black smoke! That big guy had magic, and the smoke carried me here. When it cleared, I was in an unfamiliar room. Normally, I'd have defeated such guys, but these two seemed quite formidable. I wasn't sure if I could defeat them, so I didn't dare to attack them... Landlord, please come and save me!" "Vivian and I are leaving now. Just give me a rough outline of what you've seen so I can tell you where you are. By the way, where are the two foreigners who kidnapped you? Will you be discovered if you're calling like that?"
"They went out to get me some food, but one of them hasn't gone far. I can smell him nearby. But at this distance, with the wall blocking the way, he can't hear anything." Lily lowered her voice, barely audible to Kevin. It seemed even a Husky had a brain. "I'm in a shabby-looking room. The paint's peeling off. It looks like an abandoned house. The big guy has sealed the door and windows with black fog, so I can't get out or see what's going on outside. But when they opened the door just now, I peeked out. It looks like a warehouse."
Kevin was stunned. How could he tell what was going on with just this little information? There are so many abandoned warehouses in City T that there are probably at least a dozen that fit the bill...
"Look around the room and see if you can find any landmarks," Kevin said, realizing he couldn't find any valuable information from Lily's clues. He quickly thought of another way. "If it's the warehouse duty room, maybe there's a sign or scrap paper from back then. Look for it."
"Sign..." Lily's voice rustled. "It's a bit rundown here, but those two psychos seem to have cleaned it up. It's spotless and empty... Ah, I found it! There's a scrap metal sign over here. I can't make out the words, but I can see something like 'lucky'... Does it help?"
"Lucky?" Kevin frantically racked his brain, trying to recall any abandoned warehouse in this city that could possibly be associated with the word "lucky." Suddenly, he heard the faint clatter of a metal door slamming from Lily's side, as if the warehouse door was being pushed open. Then, Lily's voice rang out, "They're back. I'm hanging up now." "Be safe!" Kevin only managed to utter one last word. "Try not to fight them; they use magic!"
Lily hummed a nod and hung up.
"What's going on?" Vivian leaned over and asked. Despite her constant clashes with Lily, she was equally worried. "That idiot got kidnapped... It sounds like a kidnapping to me," Kevin said, having calmed down. But he couldn't suppress the feeling of disbelief. "She's so powerful, and yet she got kidnapped... This world is truly dangerous."
Kevin then gave Vivian a brief account of Lily's situation. Vivian, upon hearing it, looked relieved: "Don't worry, that big dog will be fine."
Kevin gave Vivian a strange look, and she reminded him: "Remember that Kasaraiben you met?"
Kevin felt goosebumps rising up on his back: "That mighty faggot?!"
"Why do you only remember the word 'faggot'?" Vivian glared at Kevin. "If I'm right, Lily was taken away by that Kasaraiben. She was discovered by one of her 'kind'."
"One of her 'kind'?" Kevin suddenly realized. "You said that faggot was a werewolf?!"
"The Ebens, if I'm not mistaken, should be them," Vivian exhaled, a hint of regret on her face. "Tsk, I shouldn't have been so careless. It seems these past hundred years of luxury have made me lose my guard. I should have thought of them when I heard the word Eben."
Kevin blinked. "If they're werewolves, why did they kidnap Lily?"
"What else? Bringing back their own kind," Vivian shrugged. "The Ebens are one of the few remaining aberrant families still dreaming of reviving the 'Mythic Age,' and the only werewolf clan to uphold the 'family' spirit. They've been searching the world for their lost kin. Initially, they only gathered their own family members or blood-related collateral relatives, but over the past two hundred years, they've expanded their reach to include the entire werewolf population. Anyone who's a werewolf will be wooed. Lily... unless you see it with your own eyes, who would have guessed she was a husky?"
Kevin: "..."
Clearly, the two unlucky werewolves who "kidnapped" Lily had been tricked.