Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 543: Are You Being Secretly Surveilled?
In the evening, the dusk was dim, and the bloody setting sun spread over the woods and mountains, like a layer of bright red tide that stained the island. Metien, Shemi and Leticia, who had played outside for the whole afternoon, should go back for dinner. If they didn't go back early, they would be scolded.

Metien and Shemi were busy cleaning up the traces left by their picnic, while Leticia walked to the shore and looked up at the sea in the distance. The blue sky and sea at dusk seemed particularly peaceful, without even a wave. The setting sun refracted through the sapphire, casting a hazy light, quite like a colorful oil painting. At the end of the sight, a few unknown seabirds were spreading their wings, flying across the horizon, and flying in this direction. I don't know if they mistook the sky island for a real island and wanted to rest here for a night.

Everything was very calm, and nothing unusual could be seen with the naked eye, but Leticia always felt that something was not right, as if someone was secretly watching Sky Island from this calm sea, monitoring its every move. This gaze seemed to come from any direction, but when you looked carefully, you could not find it, which made Leticia a little anxious, not knowing whether to believe this intuition or regard it as an illusion.

At this time, Metien and Shemi had already cleaned up the traces on the ground and were waving at her with a picnic basket in hand: "Hey, Leticia! Let's go, we should go back!"

The vampire girl bit her lower lip lightly. The oncoming sea breeze blew up a few messy silver hairs on her forehead. A hint of hesitation flashed across her pure red eyes, but in the end she said nothing and turned around to shout to her friends, "Okay, I'm coming!"

So, the three of them left here along the path they came from and returned to the hotel. The rest was a normal process: the landlady noticed the grass leaves on their clothes and asked them in a chillingly gentle tone where they had been playing today; because they did not dare to give a direct answer, they chose to fool them with hesitant explanations; fortunately, the landlady was in a good mood and did not bother with them, but just sent them to take a shower; after washing their dirty bodies, it was just dinner time, and because a bad boy who only loved to eat meat was missing, they had sour pear stewed fish, fruit salad and vegetable soup tonight, and Shemi was very happy; after dinner, Metien went back to make up for his homework, and because Shemi forgot to clean the house, his second sister ordered him to make up for it and accompany the rabbit gentlemen to wash the dishes... During the whole process, Leticia behaved very normally and did not mention her illusion just now.

but.

She didn't think it was just an illusion, for a simple reason. In the long years, she had to face the pursuit of the cult and some ambitious people who were seeking immortality almost every day. Over time, she gradually developed a keen intuition and had an almost instinctive ability to predict danger. Sometimes, she would rather believe in her intuition than the calmness she saw with her naked eyes, because the naked eye might deceive people, but instinct and intuition would not.

She had kept silent before, because she thought it was useless to tell Metien and Shemi about this matter, which would only cause them to panic. And if she told other people about it, they were not so trusting of her, so in the end, she decided to tell this matter only to the people closest to her and let them decide what to do.

That is her grandmother, Nevile.

Of course this is not praise, on the contrary, it is hatred.

After dinner, Leticia sneaked out of the hotel and went to the primrose field to look for her grandmother. At the edge of the flower field, near the forest where the hotel was located, there was an open space. Originally, it was a dense forest, but later Saint Shalia decided to build a classroom at this location to carry forward her education for Leticia, so the trees were cut down, and the tree stumps were fixed as natural seats by the proprietress Shesta with fairy magic, and the cut tree trunks were processed into building materials, which can be said to have dedicated all their value to the cause of education.

When Leticia arrived at the construction site, she saw the tireless stone guards, under the command of her grandmother, working tirelessly to carry stones and wood, adding bricks and tiles to this great construction project. Behind them, the foundation of the classroom had been laid, and it was shining brightly under the illumination of dozens of kerosene lamps.

Saint Shallia drew the blueprint of the classroom based on what she had seen and heard during her past travels, and also referred to the style of Tianxin Church in some decorations. She did not know much about architecture, so the structure was bound to have some mistakes and omissions, but it didn't matter, with the magical fairy magic, no matter how unreasonable the architectural design was, it would eventually become a reality. So before Saint Shallia went to the city of Lotdana, she entrusted the relevant work to Nevi'er and asked her to supervise the construction progress on her behalf. Considering that this was a classroom built for her granddaughter after all, it would be embarrassing if she did not contribute at all, so the countess readily agreed.

Her legs were shaking and for a moment she had difficulty taking a step.

Leticia's throat gurgled and she stopped in fear. She felt that she was not walking towards a construction site, but towards a tragic grave in her life. She was destined to endure inhuman torture there for the rest of her life, which was even more miserable than being hunted down by those humans and aliens with ulterior motives.

These stone spirit guards can not only be gardeners, but also plasterers and bricklayers. How versatile are they! ? Without them, how long would it take to build this classroom! ?

But it doesn't matter. Nevill had already noticed her granddaughter's arrival. She gestured to the stone guards who were working hard, saying that today's work was over and they should go back and rest. Then she flew in that direction and landed in front of her granddaughter, wondering, "Leticia, why are you here?"

"Grandma, I am... eh?" Leticia looked up and saw that her grandmother was wearing a rustic helmet. The searchlight on the top shone a beam of white light into her eyes. She immediately looked embarrassed: "Grandma, what are you doing?"

"Oh, this." Nevile adjusted the khaki safety helmet on her head and said, "Alice insisted that I wear it. She said something about construction safety, and that all humans wear this on construction sites. If you don't wear it, the safety officer will be dragged to be sacrificed... It seemed very serious, so I wore it." In fact, if the stone elf guards were not so thick-skinned and it was not possible to find safety helmets that met their specifications, Alice would have wanted them to wear them as well.

It turns out that Alice was behind this again!
She must be jealous of grandma's beauty, so she thought of using such a despicable method to lower grandma's temperament!

Leticia silently took note of the golden-haired maid and vowed to settle the score with her in the future.

Nevile herself didn't think she looked ugly in the helmet, or maybe at her age, she no longer cared about superficial things like beauty or ugliness. She asked Leticia again about her purpose, and the girl remembered that she had something important to talk about, so she quickly told her grandmother about the feeling of being spied on when she was playing at the beach.

After listening to this, Nevile showed a thoughtful expression: "So you think we are being monitored?"

"Yes, that must be the case!" Leticia nodded earnestly, then she remembered something and quickly added, "Maybe it's a mermaid?"

Nevile: “…”

Even if there are mermaids under the sea, there are no princes on their island.

The countess patted her granddaughter's head and said in a funny tone, "Mermaids are just a fairy tale. I think it's probably some alien creatures living in the sea who think we have invaded their territory, so they are hesitating whether to take any measures."

Take measures?

"Are they going to attack us?" In Leticia's simple mind, there were only two words: attack and kill.

"Not necessarily." Nevile shook her head. "It depends on the other party's level of civilization. If they are intelligent and have developed a civilized form, there may be a possibility of peaceful negotiations. After all, we are only staying here temporarily and will not stay here for long... Anyway, you don't need to worry about this matter. I will go to discuss it with Miss Shesta. As for you, go back to bed quickly. Children should not stay up late, it will hurt their health."

"Oh." Leticia nodded honestly. She did not refute the child's statement, nor did she feel unwilling, because she also felt that leaving things to her grandmother was the best option.

"That's right, Leticia."

"Ah, anything else, Grandma?"

"Before going to bed, remember to review yesterday's homework."

"..."

　Give me some meow
　　
　
(End of this chapter)