“Sigrid, just a question, do you feel any different about Kaliella?”

Ranchi asked, testing Sigrid.

To avoid hurting Sigrid, he decided to fully commit to playing Kaliella for these twenty-one days alongside Talia.

Talia possessed exceptional lie detection and weak mind-reading abilities.

If there were any flaws, she could notice and adjust them immediately.

“No.”

Sigrid looked at Ranchi and replied.

She even sniffed the gray-haired demon’s neck.

It was Kaliella, the scent hadn't changed at all; it was her mother’s smell.

“Hiss…”

Ranchi raised his hand to cover his surprised mouth, saying nothing more.

Sigrid couldn't even taste the difference between an eight-hundred-year-old vintage and a thousand-year-old one.

Was he the only one who thought the eight-hundred-year-old vintage was more exciting?

“Hmph.”

Talia glanced coldly at Ranchi, ignoring his damnable thoughts.

She felt healed in front of Sigrid and didn’t want to bother with Ranchi.

Sigrid hugged the gray-haired demoness for a long time before reluctantly letting go.

She looked at Ranchi.

“Your… Your Holiness the Pope, what brings you here this time?”

Sigrid’s words stumbled, almost slipping up.

Her Holy Son completely failed to recognize her as Sigrid, instead regarding her as Sigrid from the Shadow World.

Since that was the case, she was happy to continue acting along with him.

If she were a little girl, she could unreservedly act spoiled with him.

“I need to go to the Demon Realm again, and I need to pass through the Eternal Night of Winter. Could I trouble you to take me there?”

Ranchi sincerely asked Sigrid.

This time, the main stage of the Shadow World was probably actually in the Demon Realm. Besides him, Talia, and the Cat Boss, the other six challengers, based on experience, were likely also in the Demon Realm.

The next goal was only one thing.

That was to reach the Demon Realm smoothly as soon as possible.

“Ah, uh, no problem.”

Sigrid avoided his gaze, scratching the back of her head as she agreed.

Even though she had dreamed about how to travel to and from the Eternal Night.

But she wasn’t sure if she could make it through smoothly in one go if she traveled there again.

“Wouldn’t it be too much for Sigrid?”

Talia noticed some of Sigrid’s nervousness.

Asking a weak nun to drive them through the extreme cold storm for several days to take them to the Demon Realm was simply inhumane.

“She’s an expert navigator.”

Ranchi pointed at Sigrid, assuring Talia.

It wasn't him boasting, but he was stunned last time when Sigrid, this eleven-year-old child, drove him through the Eternal Night without any bumps.

Now that Sigrid was in her twenties, she couldn't have regressed, right?

“That’s right, I’m an expert navigator.”

Hearing this, Sigrid proudly puffed out her chest, placing her hands on her hips and nodding in satisfaction.

“Then wait for me to change my clothes, and we can set off soon.”

Sigrid said to the two of them, impatiently running out of the chapel and heading towards her residence.

“…”

Seeing Sigrid's sudden confidence, Talia decided to trust her.

Someone like Ranchi, who was uneasy without a local map at all times, praised her so highly, so her professional ability must be fine.

“Then summon me quickly to the northern border of Saint Polent. I’m going to rest first.”

Talia waved her hand, bid farewell to Ranchi, and then turned into orange starlight, dissipating and returning to his body.

There might be ferocious magical beasts on the snowfield outside the city-state. As long as she, a great demon, was sitting in the car, no magical beast would dare to approach.

Later, she only needed to explain to Sigrid that Kaliella had set off first and would meet them outside the border later.

“Master, you’ve become gentler. You know that Sigrid would feel uneasy if she didn't see Kaliella for too long, even though you could have said, ‘See you in the Demon Realm.’”

Ranchi chuckled softly in his heart.

“Who told me to be Kaliella now? The thing Kaliella likes to do most is to help others fulfill their dreams. Even if it’s just a false, decadent, and gentle land, she wants to help others have a beautiful dream as much as possible.”

Talia immersed herself in the role of this ancient great demon.

After a few minutes, Sigrid reappeared.

As soon as she returned to the chapel, she looked around, her expression becoming nervous.

She was afraid that Kaliella would disappear out of thin air again like in that sharply turning nightmare, confirming the ominous premonition in her heart.

“Kaliella will be waiting for us at the border.”

Ranchi took off his mask, tied it around his waist, and said to Sigrid.

At the same time, his appearance changed, turning into the Rocky he had been when he first stepped onto the snowfield.

The Pope of Saint Polent running around might be too scary.

It was better to use the identity of Rocky, the brown-haired, green-eyed royal craftsman.

“Phew, that’s great.”

Sigrid covered her chest, her heartbeat finally settling down.

Sure enough, this was the Shadow World, not a nightmarishly absurd world.

“How is it? Am I like I was when I took you to the Eternal Night last time?”

Sigrid smiled and turned around, letting Ranchi take a good look at her.

A completely different style from her nun attire.

She had changed into an outfit that was easier to travel in and more boyish, wearing a beret with her hair tied up and hidden inside the hat, with a few strands of light hair falling naturally from her temples.

“Now you can tell she’s a girl.”

Ranchi replied with a smile.

The first time he saw Sigrid, she had a feeling of an androgynous wild child.

At that time, he also told his secretary, Elm, that he needed a more experienced bodyguard and public relations person who could take him secretly and smoothly through the Eternal Night and handle any troublesome problems that might be encountered, but Sigrid looked too young.

As a result, one sentence made Sigrid unhappy, and she stiffly waved her hand and left on the spot, unwilling to endure grievances for a little money during wartime.

“So you didn’t realize it last time?”

Sigrid wasn’t angry because of Ranchi’s evaluation of her, because she was very confident that even if she was a boy, the Holy Son should like her. The bond between them had already transcended gender.

“Twelve years ago, I didn’t like people wasting my time. Of course, more than that, I didn’t like your contemptuous attitude. If it weren’t for the high price, I wouldn’t have come all the way through several introductions to see a big client like you, Lord Rocky—”

Sigrid confessed to Ranchi what she was thinking at the time, dragging her voice out long and old.

“If you had known I was the Prime Minister at that time, would you still have been so rude to me?”

Ranchi talked about the old days and couldn’t help but chat more with Sigrid.

After these twenty-one days, maybe they would never see each other again.

Sigrid after more than ten years had become a little different, but she was still very interesting.

“The same. Why should I live like a beggar? I won’t be humble to anyone, unless—no unless.”

Sigrid folded her arms in a powerful manner and said exceptionally proudly.

She didn’t finish the second half of her sentence, as if this situation didn’t exist at all.

“I can see that you have no reverence for me, the Pope.”

Ranchi sighed and shook his head.

When he was the Prime Minister of the Polent Empire, Sigrid could treat him casually without any courtesy.

Now that he had become the Pope of the Saint Polent Church, it was still about the same.

“Do you know what I like most about you?”

Sigrid suddenly asked.

“What?”

Ranchi asked Sigrid.

“When you were in a high position, you weren’t aloof like those big shots. Instead, you could mingle with me and get along with me as an equal at any time, like another self.”

Sigrid revealed the answer.

“So, who are we? Do we need to talk about those rules and regulations?”

She grinned, leaned over, bumped Ranchi with her shoulder, and then quickly ran away, signaling him to follow and set off.

Ranchi touched his shoulder, tilted his head, and then followed.

…

That night.

A few hours' journey passed in an instant.

On this snowfield under the black night in the northern part of the Polent Empire, a girl wearing a beret drove a sleigh, her figure calm and capable, merging with the beauty of this cold world.

In front of the sleigh, three Snowfield Nether Deer galloped across the snow, their hooves stirring up patches of snow mist on the thick snow, like drawing a natural roadmap on the snowfield.

After Sigrid set off with Ranchi in the afternoon, she quickly came to the northernmost part of the Church Kingdom through the Saint Polent Church’s air route.

Everything was familiar.

The northern border had changed a lot compared to twelve years ago.

But the two of them once again embarked on the same journey, feeling like they knew the road well, as if it wasn't just the second time they had traveled together.

After renting the magical beasts that could travel the fastest in the Eternal Night, Sigrid left the Saint Polent Church’s border with Ranchi and Kaliella, who was waiting for them as promised.

Sigrid remained calm in the cold wind, the deer-driving whip in her hand gently waving, emitting intermittent sounds.

Behind her, Ranchi and Talia sat quietly in the back seat.

Talia had fallen asleep on the back of the chair after eating the hamburger that Ranchi had bought for her.

Ranchi, by the moonlight, focused intently on the new edition of the small manual map in his hand.

The map was blown by the wind, and the corners of the book gently swayed, unable to affect Ranchi's thinking about the road ahead.

With the grown-up Sigrid and the long-grown-up Talia, he didn’t need to worry about the night trip in the Eternal Night being unsafe.

“We need to go to the Demon Realm as soon as possible. Since the departure time is already very late, we probably won’t reach the first stop, Little Stone City, until tomorrow morning. When we get to Little Stone City, the first thing we need to do is stay in the same old place.”

Ranchi’s brown hair fluttered slightly in the cold wind, his face full of anticipation for Pasquale of Purgatory City.

He had dreamed countless times of being able to return to that place again.

Not only that, but every scenic spot on the way from the Polent Empire to the Demon Realm was also full of memories.

“Are we still going to buy ingredients and then have the Little Black Cat cook?”

Sigrid turned her head and asked.

Practice makes perfect.

This was considered the third or fourth time she had stepped into the snowfield with the Holy Son.

“Yes, but it’s possible that the Little Black Cat has been optimized now.”

Ranchi looked at the shadow under his feet and replied.

“Who’s been optimized, meow! This divine beast has just reached the corresponding rank. Have you ever seen an eighth-order divine beast cooking personally!”

The Cat Boss jumped out of the shadows unhappily, scurrying onto Ranchi’s knees and arguing with him.

“Ah? It’s eighth-order?”

Before Ranchi could reply, Sigrid had already turned around in surprise.

She had noticed that the Little Black Cat had become a tiny bit stronger, but she didn’t expect it to be eighth-order.

“Meow…”

The Cat Boss lowered its head dejectedly and jumped back into Ranchi’s shadow.

Perhaps only when it became a Cat Lun would it be regarded as eighth-order by others.

In other cases, its improvement from seventh-order to eighth-order was, in Sigrid's view, so small that it could be ignored.

The sleigh left a clear track in the snowy field of night, accompanied by the sound of the Nether Deer running and the slight sliding of the sleigh, with only the lights built by the Saint Polent Church pointing the way forward.

“Uh.”

Sigrid put one hand on the backrest and turned back to look at Ranchi.

She seemed to have made the Little Black Cat depressed.

She didn’t mean to.

“It’s okay, it’ll cheer up in a while.”

Ranchi replied.

The Cat Boss only performed simple memory storage.

“But can I still ask you to hold the reins tightly with both hands and look at the road ahead? It’s night now.”

He pointed to the front.

“Oh, that’s good.”

Hearing this, Sigrid temporarily turned her head halfway back, placing her eyes on Ranchi.

As a top martial artist, she could actually perceive more clearly with her mind’s eye than with her naked eyes, so it didn’t matter if she didn’t look at the road.

“You need to change your driving habits. It’s against the traffic rules.”

Ranchi was a little helpless. After so many years, she still hadn’t changed her bad habits. She felt uneasy if she didn’t chat with passengers while driving.

The only thing that made him gratified was that Sigrid wouldn't swear anymore.

“And look at this road, is it…”

He kept looking up, repeatedly comparing the map with the height of the mountains, always feeling a little wrong.

“Don’t be afraid, honey, with me here, there won’t be any accidents.”

Sigrid still didn’t focus on the road ahead, saying to Ranchi.

She taught Ranchi how to speed through the Eternal Night.

“Um…”

Ranchi thought for a while, always feeling that Sigrid’s address for him was a little strange.

“Wait, Sigrid, do you want to look at the map?”

He still leaned forward, showing the map to Sigrid in the front row, indicating to her what he thought was the problem with the map.

“Look, the latitude line in this place is obviously different from where we are. We should be traveling in the northwest direction, instead of continuing straight, otherwise we will fall off a cliff…”

Ranchi’s voice became more and more hesitant, because he felt that Sigrid didn’t seem to be listening to him.

Looking up again, he met Sigrid’s purple eyes as bright as night pearls, and found that Sigrid had never cared about the map, but had been observing his face.

“What’s wrong with my face?”

Ranchi touched his cheeks, feeling that there was no snow, and asked Sigrid.

“Sure enough, at the moment our eyes met…”

Sigrid slowly moved her gaze to the map, muttering to herself.

She had to restrain herself.

“…”

Ranchi looked at Sigrid’s absent-minded appearance looking at the map. He didn’t understand what Sigrid meant by this sentence.

He also looked at the distance.

An ominous premonition rose in Ranchi’s heart.

First of all, in the past twelve years, the terrain of the Eternal Night had changed a lot.

Secondly, Sigrid had been taken to the Demon Realm for a few years of study and had worked in the church in Polent for a few years, so she hadn’t worked as a guide in the Eternal Night for a long time.

“I’ve always wanted to try driving a Snowfield Nether Deer sleigh. How about this, you sit in the back and rest, and I’ll drive for a while.”

Ranchi spoke to Sigrid in a very polite tone.

“… Okay, if you want to help me work, I have no objection.”

Sigrid didn’t insist either.

What's not to love about a sucker boss willing to be a driver?

As soon as she arrived in South Mantina today, she heard that there was a sucker young master from the Wilford Chamber of Commerce who was always making losses in business and had almost ruined the family's chamber of commerce.

“Are you thinking something impolite?”

Ranchi looked at Sigrid’s smiling expression and asked her.

“How could I be?”

Sigrid tightened the reins, answering him insincerely.

It was also good to be a prodigal Holy Son.

When his family’s business was ruined, he might have to marry into another family.

(End of this chapter)