[Lifespan Remaining: 30 days, 9 hours, 30 minutes.]
Instead of responding, she pulled her baby brother into a tight hug.
Tears started flowing freely as Noct struggled to escape her grasp.
“Hic…! Sniff… Hic…!”
“Noct…I can’t believe—” Stella started, but didn’t manage to finish her sentence as tears choked the words down.
His hands remained suspended awkwardly beside her.
This wasn’t the reaction of someone who had come to kill him?
Either Stella was a far better actress than he remembered…Or she had no idea what she was about to do.
But from what Noct remembered of her character in the original game, Stella de Arcadia was one of the most strait-laced people in the entire story—perhaps second only to Aurora.
Deception simply wasn’t in her nature.
‘It’s definitely the latter.
It has to be.’
Maintaining his ignorance, Noct gently pried his older sister away and held her at arm’s length.
“Sis, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be down at the party?”
“Screw the party!” Stella exclaimed, wiping the tears from her face.
“You know it’s nothing more than one of Vivienne’s schemes. Her people have spent the entire evening cornering me with pointless formalities.”
“I was afraid I wouldn’t reach you in time…”
At those words, Stella drew a shaky breath and straightened.
The grief in her expression suddenly changed to determination as she stared directly into her brother’s eyes.
“Noct…I’ve found a way,” she said, hands tightening around his arms.
“You can live, I know you can.”
There it was.
The promise that had condemned the Noct de Arcadia in the game.
From this perspective, it had all made sense.
It wasn’t an enemy faction or someone with ill will who wanted to tempt the original Noct himself.
Rather, they went through Stella, convincing her of a cure to make sure if anything went wrong…
It won’t be traced back to them, no matter what.
‘Tch…whoever planned this was thorough.
I’ll give them that.’
“Before you say anything, I investigated it properly,” she said.
“I first heard about the treatment months ago. Since then, I’ve encountered the same story through four unrelated sources.”
“One from a winter dance, another from a business meeting, a third from one of my partners, and the last from a wedding gift.” Stella counted each instance with her fingers.
“Stories travel,” Noct sighed into his palm.
“How can you trust them?”
“Which is precisely why I didn’t trust them.” She then produced a narrow case from under her coat.
“I traced the supplier from said stories, obtained a sample, and had three alchemists examine it independently. None of them knew the others were involved, and none were told who it was meant for.”
“And?”
“Their conclusions were nearly identical. It’s a composition that restores depleted life force.”
Whoever the perpetrator was knew that she wasn’t a careless woman.
Which meant…it had to have been someone either close to her, or close enough to know what her personality was like.
Though right now, that didn’t help narrow the suspects, as she worked in the Royal Capital, where all types of people were.
Still, he would put a pin on it for now.
First, Noct had to ensure history didn’t repeat itself.
With a simple action, he had changed his destined fate.
He simply took the case and threw it straight to the ground.
CRASH—!
The contents splattered everywhere as glass and wood alike split into hundreds of pieces.
A red liquid now stained the floor, hissing as steam released from the wreckage.
‘Sheesh…even the contents looked evil.’
Stella stared at the mess in horror.
“What?! Noct, what are you—?!”
“Stella, I’m not going to die today.”
She looked back and forth from him to the shattered case on the floor, completely disbelieving.
“Do you have any idea what you just did?!”
“Prevented a massacre.”
Stella froze in place.
“What are you talking about?”
“Never mind that for now.” Noct gripped his sister’s shoulders, forcing her to look at him.
“You only need to trust me for another thirty minutes. But first, I need you to do something.”
He pointed north, toward the main gate of the Arcadia estate.
“If everything has gone according to plan, a Rosenthal carriage should arrive within the next half hour.”
His sister’s brow furrowed.
“The Rosenthals? Why would they—”
“Noelle is with them,” Noct interrupted.
“And Aurora should be carrying the key to my victory.”
“…”
“Go to the northern gate,” he continued.
“Make sure no one from Vivienne’s faction delays them or turns them away. Then bring Aurora directly to the grand hall before midnight.”
“Noct…”
“Can you do that?”
Yet as he continued to explain, her eyes widened, finally understanding the implications of his plan.
These were not the final wishes of someone preparing to die…
But the opening moves of someone who intended to live.
“Fine,” her expression hardened.
“But after midnight, you’re going to explain what you meant. Every bit of it.”
“After midnight,” Noct agreed, raising his smallest finger.
“Pinky promise, I’ll tell you everything.”
Stella turned toward the balcony doors, only to stop a few steps into the corridor and looked back.
“Make sure you’re still alive to do it.”
Noct decided to simply nod instead of answering.
Maybe someone was crazy desperate enough to fly out of the crowd to finish the job once they saw him alive.
‘Well, that’s a problem for Noct thirty minutes from now.’
Right now, what he needed to do was something else.
Someone had to have been at this party to cast a teleport spell, taking demonic Noct away from Arcadia.
And he intended to find out who it was immediately.
Fortunately, he knew where to start.
Once Stella disappeared around the corner, Noct turned back toward the shattered case.
Red liquid continued to hiss beneath the moonlight.
At first, he assumed it was merely evaporating.
Upon closer inspection, however, he noticed something strange.
A breeze swept across the balcony, yet the resulting vapors never traveled with it.
Noct crouched beside one of the broken vials.
Only then did he understand how it had deceived Stella.
‘Yeah, there was no way those alchemists would be able to find mana this faint.
Not without extraordinary mana sensitivity.’
Concealed under the restorative properties that were mentioned, there was something far quieter.
A nearly invisible thread rose from the spilled liquid, passing through the open balcony doors and into the corridor…
The same direction as those vapors.
Had Noct consumed the treatment, the thread would have attached itself to him.
Whoever possessed the anchor at the other end could then follow his location—and, once he transformed, extract him from Arcadia.
Unfortunately for them, magical connections ran both ways.
Whoever had devised this plan had been so certain it would work that they had left a trail leading directly back to themselves.
And that same arrogance…was going to be their downfall.
Noct stood up and followed the vapor along, grinning from ear to ear.
“Got you, rat.”