(The timeline while Eirene was in Carcaka. A week prior before Cameron's Bounty)
The heavy afternoon heat of the capital beat down on the cobblestones, but beneath the shade of my wide sunhat, my skin felt ice-cold. Two weeks had passed since that revelation in the dining room, and my silver bob-cut hair had already grown an inch longer, framing a face that was twisted with a volatile mix of anxiety and overwhelming hope.
I navigated the bustling, cramped streets of the common sector, my heart hammering against my ribs. I was terrified. I hadn't seen my friend in weeks… weeks where I had actively mourned her, believing she was rotting in a cold grave in Tata. Yet, as the brass numbers on the townhouses ticked closer to House 132, the terror was eclipsed by a fierce, breathless excitement. I had purposely chosen the late afternoon, calculating that a high-profile bounty hunter would likely be returning home from her shift.
When I finally reached the small wooden porch of House 132, my breath hitched. I stood there for a long moment, my hand trembling in the humid air, before I finally forced my knuckles to knock against the heavy oak door.
The wood groaned, and the door swung inward.
The girl who stood in the threshold stole the air straight from my lungs. She looked so much like Roxy, yet the discrepancies immediately began to clash with my memory. Her cascading brown hair no longer faded into silver-haired tips; instead, it was replaced by striking, bioluminescent blue-green tips that faintly glowed in the dim hallway light. Her physical frame had shifted drastically too; the Roxy I knew had possessed a modest C-cup, but the woman standing before me right now had filled out exponentially, her curves commanding a striking F-cup. She was clad in the prestigious Luminous Knight uniform… a sharp, pristine ensemble of white and scarlet… looking as though she had just clocked out from a grueling assignment.
I looked at her face. Her left arm, which had been a mangled ruin when I last saw her, was completely whole, likely the work of an exceptionally high-tier capital healer. And her eyes... they were both a vibrant, deep green. The haunting heterochromia… the one vibrant red eye born and the one green eye… was entirely gone. I figured that her missing eye must have finally been healed by high-level celestial magic, growing back as a normal green eye.
Despite all the changes, the core of her presence was undeniable. It was her. It had to be her.
The dam broke. Hot, stinging tears cascaded down my cheeks, blurring my vision as a sob tore from my throat.
"Roxy… Roxy, is that you?" I choked out, my voice cracking under the weight of two weeks of grief.
Without waiting for an answer, I launched myself forward, throwing my arms around her neck and hugging her with every ounce of strength I possessed. I squeezed her tightly, burying my face into her scarlet-and-white shoulder, letting the relief wash over me. She was warm. She was breathing. My friend was alive.
But the warm reunion I expected never came.
Instead of hugging me back, her body went entirely rigid, hard as stone. With a firm, unyielding pressure, she gripped my shoulders and forcefully tried to push me off her, treating me with the cold, defensive caution one would use on a complete stranger.
I pulled back, blinking through my tears, only to be met by a face that held no warmth, no recognition… only a deep, utterly confused scowl.
She looked down at me, dusting off her white lapels with a sterile, professional detachment.
"Roxy? Who is Roxy? My name is Evelyn." she asked, her voice smooth, completely devoid of the familiar cadence I knew.
I stood there, the wood of the doorframe biting into my fingers as the shock of her words rippled through me.
"Wait, you don't remember me, Roxy? I'm your leader. I'm your guild leader, White!"
Evelyn's green eyes narrowed slightly, her expression shifting from confusion to mild impatience.
"Sorry, I think you got the wrong house. A few blocks ahead, you will meet a girl named Roxy. She lives in house 67."
Before I could process the coordinates, she leaned forward, mistakening me for a delusional stranger, and tried to close the heavy oak door right in my face.
"Please, I need this, Roxy! Don't play with me! You're Roxy! The one who was the vice leader of our guild... the girl who brought joy to the Flower Manor!" I cried, jamming my foot and hand into the gap, stopping the door from closing just in time. The wood slammed against my palm, but I barely felt it.
The girl inside the Luminous Knight uniform let out another deeply confused face, completely dismissing my emotional outburst.
"Sorry, White, or whatever your name is. Please take your hands off the door."
She applied more pressure to the handle, her superior physical strength ready to force the barrier shut. As the gap began to close for the final time, I squeezed my eyes shut, the tears finally spilling over my lashes.
"Please... you have to be joking. You're Eirene! A bounty hunter!"
The moment the name Eirene left my lips, the pressure on the door vanished.
Evelyn froze. She pulled the door wide open again, her green eyes locked onto mine with a sharp, sudden intensity.
"Eirene? That's my older sister. How do you know her?"
I froze, a massive sigh of relief and sudden, burning hope escaping my chest. The pieces instantly fell into place. I had never known that Roxy had a little sister, let alone a twin-like sibling who looked almost exactly like her. It explained everything… the massive F-cup bust size, the uniform, the lack of a blood-red eye, and the glowing blue-green tips in her hair. She wasn't my vice leader; she was her flesh and blood.
"So you're her sister… Can I come in?"
Evelyn looked at my trembling frame, my tear-stained face, and my slightly rumpled layered garments. Thinking that I was just some homeless, grief-stricken girl wandering the royal sector's borders, her expression softened into a look of genuine pity.
"Sure, White, come inside. I have just prepared some tea." she said, stepping aside and gesturing for me to enter the quiet sanctuary of House 132.
I stepped into the house, the door clicking shut behind me to seal out the heavy afternoon heat. Cassius hadn't lied after all; Roxy really did live here. She just lived here with a sister who looked so uncannily like her that my mind immediately spun with the realization that they must be Irish twins… born less than a year apart, sharing the exact same genetic blueprint yet entirely different in the ways that mattered.
Evelyn guided me into a cozy, sunlit living room. We sat down together on a plush fabric sofa, the steam from two freshly poured teacups rising between us. She leaned back, crossing one white-and-scarlet clad leg over the other, and curiously asked about my connection to her sibling.
"Well, back in Town Allure, your sister was the vice leader of our guild, she was our absolute powerhouse... and my dearest friend."
Hearing this, Evelyn smiled warmly at me. As her lips curved up, the bioluminescent blue-green tips of her hair gave a sudden, vibrant pulse of light, casting a faint, eerie glow against the cushions. Watching it, I couldn't help but feel a strange wave of bewilderment. I had known Roxy's bloodline was tied to a dark, visceral Blood Curse, yet here was her sister, radiating a completely different, glowing, slime-like magical essence. It was incredibly weird how two sisters could harbor such drastically contrasting, predatory traits.
"Well, big sister is definitely strong, she saved this entire city, and she's practically the most capable bounty hunter the Bureau has right now."
I leaned forward, the desperation returning to my chest.
"So... where is she? Where is your sister right now?"
Evelyn sighed, looking toward the window as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen across the floorboards. "Well, big sister is probably out hunting down high-tier bounties. She said that she is going to Town Carcaka to claim Don Anthony's head."
An hour slipped away in the quiet comfort of the living room as the afternoon light gradually died, yielding to the long, cool shadows of dusk. Evelyn spent the entire time sharing stories about her big sister, filling the gaps of the weeks I had missed with tales of Roxy's relentless rise through the capital's bounty hunter ranks. Hearing how fiercely Roxy had fought to survive and carve out a place in this city brought a quiet, anchoring comfort to my fractured spirit.
As the darkness completely settled over the common sector, casting the streets in the warm glow of magical streetlamps, I finally stood up from the plush sofa. I adjusted my sunhat, looking down at Evelyn with a profound sense of gratitude.
"Thank you, Evelyn, thank you for the tea, and for letting me know she's out there."
Evelyn offered a warm smile, the blue-green tips of her hair pulsing with a gentle, bioluminescent light in the dimming room.
"Of course, White. If you see her out in the field, just tell her to hurry home. She still owes me for groceries."
With a final nod, I stepped out onto the porch and left the house, the front door clicking shut behind me. Walking back through the bustling night air of the common sector, the crushing weight of my grief felt just a little lighter. Roxy wasn't a ghost in a graveyard, and she wasn't a memory I had to force myself to forget. She was alive, she was fighting, and no matter how many high-tier bounties or neospiders stood in her way, I knew our paths would cross again.