Millennium Witch.

Chapter 11 - Night of the Aurora
A few days later, in the heart of Ish, through a curtain of steel and weeds, Yvette found a woodland and decided to transform it into her own estate.

This place used to be a park or something similar, so there are relatively few remaining architectural ruins, but there's also a pretty little lake. If you could build a house here, it could at least be considered a lakeside property.

Of course, building a manor is a massive undertaking, involving many fields such as architectural planning. Even as a master of magic, Yvette would still need a long time and a wealth of knowledge to realize this idea. Therefore, her primary focus in her farming life remains collecting all sorts of finely bound books and absorbing the technological legacy left by the ancient civilization.

Yvette often thought that her appearance had nothing to do with Black Tower Pharmaceuticals—after all, Black Tower Pharmaceuticals itself had been destroyed—in fact, the gods needed someone to witness and record the existence of the origin civilization, which is why she traveled through time and was immortal (and never starved).

And so, more than a decade passed by as they lived a life of collecting knowledge, building manors, and cultivating fields.

During this time, Yvette traveled to all three cities on Ish Island, from the capital "Ish City" to "Grey Harbor City" in the southwest, and then to "Luya City" in the far north. She marked some dangerous areas that were suspected to be aberration nests that could not be approached, and visited the ruins of many towns and villages, but as expected, she did not see any living people.

But she didn't care, and was even somewhat numb. She simply enjoyed the scenery along the way in solitude, and only occasionally, when she received a finely bound book that carried the technological heritage of the origin of civilization, would her heart be stirred.

Sometimes she would think that maybe it was just that Ish Island was too remote, which was why she couldn't see anyone. Perhaps there was a human settlement on one of the three continents that had already sounded the horn of counterattack against the mutated creatures.

This gave her some motivation, prompting her to begin studying magical engineering and pondering whether she could repair some magical equipment herself, or even handcraft some rough and primitive magical circuits. If she succeeded, she would be able to use some medium to large-scale spells with higher rune specifications, such as those with tens of thousands of runes, or even hundreds of thousands of runes.

but……

The thought of the terrifying sheer number and strength of the mutants in the sea made Yvette feel her hope suddenly fade away.

"It's impossible to cross the sea," she thought to herself, shaking her head. "There's no way I could ever cross the sea in my lifetime."

This wasn't because she was cowardly, but because she had personally witnessed a serpentine sea monster swimming on the distant horizon. Its terrifying form, several kilometers long, was still incredibly awe-inspiring even from tens of kilometers away, as if a myth had descended upon the world.

What's even more astonishing is that the sea monster wasn't a carbon-based creature like the usual mutants. Its body was covered in scales, and the small parts of exposed flesh were actually steel skeletons left over from centuries ago!

Yes, by this time, Yvette already knew that the mysterious factor that had caused biological mutations could infect not only carbon-based life forms, but also AI-controlled mechanical puppets and magical mechs, some of which would be infected and parasitized by them, fusing into a crazy form that was half mechanical and half biological.

No wonder the Origin Civilization perished.

Even machines can't escape infection, how can humans possibly resist?

So Yvette silently named the sea monster "Iron Seadragon" and sincerely hoped that it would roll as far away as possible and preferably never come near Ish Island.

……

That night, the aurora borealis appeared in the sky, a rare occurrence.

Nearly 300 years after her time travel, this was the first time Yvette had ever seen the aurora borealis in the night sky.

She moved her small stool over and sat on the top floor of the three-story wooden house in the manor, quietly enjoying the view. Behind her, the interior and some of the tree branches in the manor were brightly lit, all powered by a simple magic energy generator that Yvette had repaired some time ago.

Just as she was immersed in this tranquility, suddenly, an extremely abrupt scream came from the forest city outside the manor.

"ah--!!!"

In an instant, Yvette's pupils dilated in shock. Her first reaction wasn't to rush to the rescue, but rather that she had seen a ghost. She had been exploring Ish Island for so many years and was absolutely certain there was no one there. How could a clear human female voice suddenly be heard?!
Coming from the sea? Impossible. The sea is full of mutated creatures; how could anyone possibly cross it under such conditions?
It came from the sky? That's more likely, but how could she not have noticed at all?

Could it be a mutated organism?
Has a humanoid mutant awakened its memories and is now able to speak?

Soon, intense curiosity overcame her vigilance, and Yvette flipped over and leaped down from the third floor. Stepping on a whirlwind, she flew directly towards the direction of the shout. Four fire dragons emerged from the runic ring and swept outwards from her, illuminating all directions with their flames.

All the mutated creatures drawn from the darkness, whether humanoid or non-humanoid, were reduced to ashes in the engulfing flames.

A minute later, on a highway at the end of the darkness, on the roof of a vehicle that was reduced to a skeleton, Yvette saw the source of the voice. It was indeed a human being, even a blonde, blue-eyed human girl, probably not even 10 years old, wearing an exquisite classical dress, her pretty little face filled with panic.

"Σ(⊙▽⊙"a%!~zxcvb&*!!"

Upon seeing Yvette, she waved excitedly and uttered a string of unfamiliar words that Yvette could not understand at all.

It's not Black Tide language... Is this Jade language? Or Silver Mirror language?

Yvette's mind raced. She had only learned the Black Tide language in the dream mist. Now that the language was different, her first reaction was that the other person was a survivor from either Emerald Continent or Silver Mirror Continent.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" After landing on the road in front of the other person, she looked at the little girl who jumped down from the roof of the car in a panic and decided to try speaking in Black Tide Language first.

But the girl immediately looked confused, clearly not understanding what Yvette was saying.

This is a bit troublesome... no, it's alright, at least she doesn't seem to be a mutant, but a genuine human being. We'll deal with the language issue later...

With that in mind, Yvette stopped talking and instead gestured, guiding her toward the manor.

……

A few minutes later, back at the large estate in the city center, Yvette settled the little girl in her three-story wooden villa.

When she built the house, she didn't consider that there would be a second tenant, so she had to give up the only bedroom to her and sleep on the sofa herself.

At the same time, she took out some meat and vegetables from her homemade mini-fridge and made some simple magical barbecue to soothe the girl's emotions.

However, the girl was surprisingly well-mannered. Although she looked extremely hungry, she did not lose her composure when faced with freshly grilled meat and fruit.

At the table, she first bowed slightly to Yvette to express her gratitude. Only after Yvette nodded did she sit down, put her hands together in a prayer gesture, and finally picked up her knife and fork to eat small bites.

Of course, despite this, it was clear that the girl was quite wary. While eating, she was also carefully observing the environment inside the room, and every now and then she would steal a few glances at Yvette with a look of awe, and before their eyes met, she would quickly look away as if she had been electrocuted, pretending that nothing had happened.

Seeing this, a hint of gentleness appeared in Yvette's calm eyes, like a river that had been frozen for hundreds of years quietly melting away.

She thought that life from now on wouldn't be as boring as before.

(End of this chapter)