Chapter 328: Wait, This Isn't Right!

"Ouch!"

"We are currently in a state of Invisibility, no need to crouch while walking."

After Lita bumped her nose against Yun Mu's backside for the third time, she spoke up with some helplessness.

"Invisibility doesn't mean there's no sound; w-walking like this is safer," Lita argued back, feeling a bit embarrassed.

In reality, she was just subconsciously lowering her center of gravity, but because she couldn't see her teammate at all, it resulted in her constantly bumping into Yun Mu.

"No one will notice us here, hurry up and walk, we'll be at the warehouse location soon," Brenna urged in a low voice.

"W-won't we be discovered?" Iliyasi said, feeling somewhat nervous: "Won't someone notice if the warehouse door is opened?"

"Oh, those people are all attending the banquet, no one will notice this place at all," Yun Mu waved her hand, saying with an indifferent air.

It was just that because of the Invisibility, no one saw her action at all.

"We're almost there."

The group groped their way to the front of the abandoned warehouse's large door, only to see a rusty iron lock hanging on the heavy iron door.

It seems that even in a Federation where Magic Energy is rampant, the locks on these old warehouses are still of such a simple structure.

Perhaps that is precisely why this warehouse was abandoned by people?

Yun Mu did not ponder this question too much; she just raised her palm and lightly touched the iron lock.

【Touch of Unlocking!】

"Click."

After the mechanism inside the iron lock wriggled slightly, it snapped back to its original state with a pop.

Ah, this, it actually failed.

Yun Mu's eyebrows arched upward; she hadn't expected that the rusty iron lock, which looked unremarkable, would actually be a tough nut to crack.

Although Touch of Unlocking was inherently a trait that relied on probability.

But one had to know, she hadn't even failed once when she used this trait to unlock magic locks previously!

She didn't expect the first failure to be taken by this iron lock.

There was no help for it; since the effect of Touch of Unlocking could not be used on the same lock twice in a short period, she could only manually pick it open herself.

With a somewhat complex expression, Yun Mu took out a lockpick from her bosom, then groped to insert it into the interior of the iron lock.

"Whew."

Inserting the lockpick was only the first step, but as long as this step was completed, the remaining operations were nothing more than child's play for her.

Time shifts forward slightly.

On the second-floor balcony of the Fire Weaver Bird Family mansion, a Young Girl who looked very similar to Iliyasi walked out from the room.

She leaned over the railing and let out a soft sigh.

"Whew, finally escaped."

The cold Wind whistled and whipped against Xiliya's face, which made her feel very refreshed.

Today was her 16th birthday, and it also counted as the day she officially became an adult.

The birthday party held by the family invited quite a few people; she had to maintain etiquette throughout the entire time and also deal with those who came to strike up a conversation.

For a Young Girl who had just reached adulthood, this was truly troublesome enough.

"Miss Xiliya, so you are here." The voice that suddenly came to her ear made the Young Girl sigh imperceptibly.

Why again? She had already run to the balcony, how could there still be blind fellows coming to disturb her.

"Sorry, I'm feeling a bit unwell, can you let me stay alone for a while?"

After confirming that she had no impression of the young man in front of her, Xiliya said softly.

To prevent that fellow from seeing her current expression, Xiliya could only look toward the outside of the balcony.

Hmm? What is that? A somewhat discordant scene seemed to appear in her line of sight; as a bird Beastkin, Xiliya's vision was very good.

She clearly saw the door lock of her family's abandoned warehouse fall off the door, and then, very eerily, the large door opened automatically and then closed back.

Was her vision blurred?

Xiliya blinked subconsciously; that abandoned warehouse was still as quiet as it was in the past... the hell it is, the lock on the door has already disappeared!

Excluding the possibility that she had fallen into a Hallucination after drinking too much, there is only one truth! A thief took advantage of her birthday party to sneak into the Fire Weaver Bird Family mansion, preparing to steal things!

Although it was an abandoned warehouse, there were indeed quite a few valuable items inside.

Of course, even if all those things were lost, it actually wouldn't matter.

The important thing was that it stored many items related to her aunt! Although the head of the Fire Weaver Bird Family, who was her grandfather, often put on an appearance of not caring about that aunt.

But in fact, those who were familiar with him knew clearly that it was just a superficial lack of concern.

Thinking back to when she was still small, she was playing near the abandoned warehouse and ended up almost setting the entire abandoned warehouse on fire.

At that time, she was fiercely scolded, and she still remembered what happened that day even now.

In her memory, it seemed she had never seen her grandfather so angry before.

It was conceivable what kind of punishment those thieves would receive if they were discovered.

"Really can't just leave it alone."

Xiliya flipped over to the other side of the railing and smiled lightly at the somewhat dazed young man: "This is a little secret that belongs only to the two of us, absolutely, absolutely not allowed to tell anyone~"

As soon as the words fell, she let go and jumped down from the balcony.

Hmph, those young men who tried to get on her good side were simply the easiest to fool.

As long as she used this kind of rhetoric, even if it couldn't make him keep the secret forever, at least he shouldn't leak it in the short term.

Before that, she would go and meet those thieves herself.

"Cough cough... eh?"

Pushing open the warehouse door, Yun Mu had intended to cough lightly twice to show respect, and then discovered that the interior of this warehouse was not as covered in dust as she had imagined. It could be seen that people often came here to clean.

If that's the case, why is the lock on the main Gate rusted?

Could that rusty-looking iron lock really be something very powerful?

Yun Mu couldn't help but feel suspicious of the door lock she had just tossed aside casually.

"Come to think of it, this should be the thing Iliyasi was looking for."

Casually dispelling the spell covering the group, Yun Mu pointed to a photo frame hanging on a metal rack beside her.

The photo frame contained a picture of a human man and a female Beastkin who looked eighty percent like Iliyasi.

Behind the two was a plum tree; because the photo was in color, the season could be determined, and judging by the color of the leaves, it must have been taken during the autumn Harvest Season.

This reminded Yun Mu of what Iliyasi had said earlier.

Her mother hoped to be buried under the plum tree at the Old Residence.

But when they were observing the area around the residence earlier, they didn't see any plum tree.

Moreover, the Fire Weaver Bird Family Old Residence, while it could be considered an old house, felt like something was not quite right.

"The person in the photo is indeed my mother!" Iliyasi nodded happily.

She hadn't expected things to go unexpectedly smoothly, finding the item she was looking for all at once.

"These things look like they've been here for quite some years," Brenna said, observing the other items on the shelf.

"Could these all be your mother's belongings?" she asked.

Iliyasi shook her head: "I don't know, Mother only told me about the photo, but—"

Her gaze scanned the shelf: "That doll, and those toys, should be Mother's things."

Seeing the group looking at her, Iliyasi explained: "Mother told me many things about her childhood, so I judge that those items should be Mother's."

"I see."

"Is this thing also your mother's?" Just then, Yun Mu suddenly felt a slight palpitation, as if something were calling out to her.

She found a wooden box and discovered that it was covered in dust, as if it hadn't been cleaned for a long time.

But this didn't make much sense, because it was clear that someone often came to clean the abandoned warehouse.

How could everything else be cleaned, yet only this wooden box be covered in dust?

It couldn't be that they just didn't see it every time.

Yun Mu reached out to take the wooden box down, but at that moment, the door of the abandoned warehouse was suddenly pushed open, and Xiliya, who had orange-red bird feathers on her back, shouted immediately upon seeing Yun Mu's action: "Don't touch that wooden box!"

Yun Mu's fingers stopped instantly, her gaze turning to the Young Girl standing outside the door.

Oh no, she had been so distracted by that wooden box that she hadn't noticed someone coming.

And that feeling of palpitation, for some reason, disappeared completely the moment the Young Girl appeared.

"You guys just want money, right? Since that's the case, then—wait, who are you?"

Xiliya was only halfway through her sentence when she noticed Iliyasi, who looked very similar to her, and she froze for a moment.

"I mean, you guys really went to such lengths to sneak in..." she said, looking very helpless.

She clearly hadn't expected that Iliyasi was her aunt's daughter.

After all, by the time she was born, Iliyasi's mother—her aunt—had already left the Orc Federation.

Having not seen each other for so many years, how could she have thought of that possibility right away?

More likely, it was just a disguise Yun Mu and the others had specifically made to sneak in.

As for why they used Invisibility if they were already disguised like this? Sorry, Xiliya hadn't thought that far.

"Wait, this isn't a disguise!"

Yun Mu's eyes narrowed; the Young Girl in front of her looked so much like Iliyasi that, combined with the information she had obtained earlier, there was only one possibility.

She was the protagonist of today's banquet at the Fire Weaver Bird Old Residence, the "young lady" those two guards had mentioned! Those guards didn't know much, so it would be difficult to communicate with them, but this Young Girl in front of her should be different.

Since she had met someone she could talk to, she should naturally explain things clearly.

In that case, their actions shouldn't be obstructed.

Thinking this, Yun Mu explained quickly: "Her name is Iliyasi, and she only came here to retrieve her mother's belongings. As for why we entered this way, it was completely out of necessity—"

"Wait, wait a minute, you said those things are her mother's belongings?"

Xiliya reacted at this point too. She looked at Iliyasi with some disbelief and said in an incredulous tone: "This, this is impossible, unless you tell me what your mother's name is."

Although she said that, she actually already believed it for the most part.

After all, if they didn't know something, how would they dare to say whose items those were?

Besides that, Iliyasi's appearance really looked just like her.

Although the light in the warehouse wasn't very good, she could now be certain that those feathers shouldn't be a deliberate disguise.

"Xiliya, my mother's name is Xiliya!" Hearing Xiliya's question, Iliyasi said without hesitation.

"..." Xiliya was silent for a moment, then completely let down her guard: "Fine, I'll temporarily admit you aren't thieves."

That's right, Iliyasi's mother's name was the same as Xiliya's.

As for why that was, she didn't know herself.

Because her name was chosen by the clan leader, her grandfather, and he was likely the only one who knew why it was named that way.

Now it seemed that her aunt's daughter had really come, which meant... "You, are you my sister?" She leaned close to Iliyasi, watching her with some curiosity.

To be precise, it should be cousin, but that didn't matter.

"Si, sister?" Iliyasi was confused by the other's form of address.

But soon, she realized that her mother had an older brother, so this young lady in front of her was her younger cousin?

(End of chapter)