Yuzuha: [This is bad! Lucia is missing!]
Geno: [What happened? How could Lucia suddenly disappear?]
Yuzuha:[I don't know either. We were out playing all day, and when we came back, she said she was a little tired and went back to rest first. By the time I went to look for her, she was already gone.]
Seeing this, Geno furrowed his brows and looked up at the sky outside the window, which had already grown completely dark.
Could it be that the girl's sleepwalking acted up, and she wandered into a Hollow?
At this thought, Geno could no longer sit still. He hurriedly wanted to go search for Lucia's trail, but was suddenly grabbed by the hem of his shirt by a small hand.
"It's so late, where are you going?"
Looking at Alice's worried gaze, Geno remembered that he was currently tasked with the duty of protecting this young miss.
However, out of concern for his friend, he couldn't just sit back and do nothing.
"Alice, my friend accidentally entered a Hollow. I need to go bring her back."
"I will go with you!"
Hearing Geno say this, Alice's expression immediately turned serious, and she promptly requested to enter the Hollow together with him.
"This is no joke, Young Miss. It is very dangerous inside a Hollow."
"I have Ether Aptitude, and I also have combat abilities. I won't hold you back."
Saying this, Alice drew her rapier and brandished it a couple of times.
Her swordsmanship was passed down in her family. As a scholar of Hollow science, mastering a necessary self-defense skill was a mandatory requirement.
Seeing Alice's forceful demand to go with him, Geno only felt his headache growing.
"I just promised your grandfather during the day that I would protect you. If something happens to you in the Hollow, how am I supposed to explain it to him?"
"I-I..."
Seeing Alice hesitate, Geno said no more and turned around, walking toward the direction of the main gates.
He had to find Lucia and bring her back as soon as possible.
Jogging all the way, Geno soon arrived at the manor's main gates.
To be honest, this courtyard was ridiculously huge.
Just as he wanted to take advantage of the lack of people to use his blink skill to travel, the roar of an engine sounded from behind him.
"Waaahhhh!"
Screech—!
The sound of tires rubbing against the ground echoed as a convertible sports car swerved wildly toward Geno.
He hastily dodged, and the sports car scraped past him before coming to a halt right in front of him.
"Alice?? What are you doing? Even if I don't take you with me, you don't have to run me over, do you?"
How did this easily startled little rabbit suddenly get so bold as to dare hit someone with a sports car?
In response, Alice, who hadn't yet recovered from the thrill of her street-racing stunt, merely panted continuously, her hands gripping the steering wheel trembling slightly.
"I-I just wanted to go with you."
After Geno left, Alice thought for a moment and still made up her mind.
She wanted to go to the Hollow with Geno.
Subsequently, she went to the garage, picked a random car from inside, slammed on the gas pedal, and rushed over.
Along the way, she even crushed quite a few flowers and plants, pointlessly adding a lot of extra work for the gardeners.
"No, seriously, sis, aren't you being a bit too wild?"
"What? Wild? As the eldest daughter of the Timefield family, maintaining the etiquette of a lady at all times is a basic standard!"
Having retorted subconsciously, Alice immediately recalled what she had just done, and that burst of tough bravado vanished in an instant.
"Anyway, I have already decided to go with you. I will not take no for an answer."
At this moment, Alice resembled one of those willful and privileged rich misses, showing a bit more of a spoiled and capricious attitude.
Although, she was a young miss to begin with.
And just as Geno was about to say something, another commotion reached his ears.
"Young Miss! You cannot do this! That car is the Master's absolute favorite!"
Hearing the butler's voice from behind, Alice jumped in fright. She subconsciously stepped on the gas pedal, causing the engine to instantly roar before the car shot forward, crashing right into Geno.
"Gah!"
"Waaahhhh >m
And just like that, Alice drove the sports car, carrying Geno (on the hood), and charged out of the Timefield residence.
Watching Alice make her escape, Butler Arnold also wore a look of helplessness.
"At least switch to a different car before leaving..."
Hopefully, this sports car could still return in one piece.
"Ugh, my dear Young Miss, do you know that if it were anyone else, that hit would've put them in the hospital with severe injuries?!"
Geno drove the car with one hand while clutching his stomach with the other, heading in the direction of the Lemurian Hollow.
If he let this young miss continue driving, he feared they would be dead before they even reached the Hollow.
At the same time, he had already notified Yuzuha to wait peacefully at home, telling her he had already gone to the Hollow to look for Lucia.
"I-I'm sorry. This is my first time officially driving; I had only practiced on the training grounds before this."
The little rabbit's ears drooped at this moment, her face full of apology for hitting Geno.
As a high school student, she was far from the age where she could get a driver's license. Therefore, her grandfather, Old Tai, hadn't been in too much of a hurry to make her master driving skills.
After all, she had a chauffeur whenever she went out, so she had no need for it.
As a result, it was Geno who suffered the disaster, and he truly had nowhere to complain.
"So, why exactly must you insist on going to the Hollow with me?"
Geno was genuinely curious. Why exactly did this somewhat naive and timid young miss insist on following him to a dangerous place like a Hollow?
She didn't seem to have any mandatory reason to go there.
"I... I just wanted to help you. Because we are friends, aren't we?"
Alice looked weakly at Geno. She felt a bit nervous right now, terrified that Geno might deny their relationship.
As the sole heir to the Timefield family, Alice had received an elite education since childhood.
Because of this, she lacked much of the childhood and friendships that normal girls should have.
Although she wasn't completely without social interactions at school, those were merely ordinary classmate relationships.
As for friends she could truly converse with and confide in, she didn't have a single one.
But after spending a day together, Alice believed that she and Geno could already be considered true friends.
Even though all of this was built upon her grandfather's arrangements, Alice had already acknowledged Geno as a friend—the very first true friend in her life.
"But..."
Geno was just about to speak, but was interrupted by Alice.
"I know my grandfather just wants you to pretend to be my fiancé to protect me, but I want to prove that I don't need protection. I am not a flower raised in a greenhouse; I am the heir of the Timefield family, Alice Timefield."
She wanted to prove that she wasn't just a pretty vase that was good for nothing else. At the same time, she genuinely viewed Geno as her friend.
"No, that's not what I mean. I was trying to say, didn't we forget to tell Butler Arnold and the others what we were going to do? In their eyes, don't we kind of look like we're eloping right now?"
"?"
____
👻🔥Heey! Walnut-chan for more chapters!🔥👻
🔥 New history: Group chat of the Dead
✅ Unlock a 40-chapter backlog for ALL my series.
✅ Receive exclusive content and regular updates!
Help us reach these goals:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 universal bonus chapter
🚀 140 MEMBERS = +5 extra chapters for ALL STORIES!
👻 P - Walnut-chan