Chapter Thirty-One: Only Twenty-Four Meters

Everyone who received such a list exchanged bewildered glances; even the English portions were difficult to understand, let alone the parts that lacked corresponding translations. Dunn glanced at it a few times, pondered, and then spoke:

“Lily, did Miss Liu the Poetess mention whether she’s an ability user?”

“She did,” Lily replied, tapping the word “guest” on the paper.

Camille looked at the two square characters representing “guest,” unsure how to proceed.

Dunn considered for a few seconds before asking, “Did Miss Liu the Poetess use her abilities to come to our Dunlun City?” Although the dictionary didn’t provide a suitable English equivalent, everyone had at least grasped the basic meaning of “guest.”

That was the basis for Dunn’s current conjecture.

“Miss Liu claims her arrival in Dunlun City was an accident—a significant one for her. She described ‘guest’ as someone who visits of their own accord.”

“I’m getting more confused,” Hugh remarked.

“It is truly puzzling,” Camille agreed, nodding.

“I believe Miss Liu will be staying at the orphanage for quite a while. We can try to establish a good relationship with her first, then figure out more. This might even help us find John,” Lily suggested.

Everyone nodded, preparing to depart.

“I want to discuss something else,” Lily said, showing no intention of ending the meeting. Everyone paused and looked at her.

“What... is it?” Aiden, who had already stood up, sat down again.

“I’d like to ask: when did we—when did our maximum visible distance in the mist become only twenty-four meters?”

“That’s a strange question. Haven’t we only been able to see that far since the day the mist appeared?” Hugh replied, perplexed.

The others nodded, except Dunn, who kept his gaze on Lily, waiting for more.

“Alright then, Hugh, let me ask: in our first exploration, didn’t we find the ‘wall’—the outer edge of the mist tornado?”

“Yes, exactly. We saw that rolling, perpetual wall of mist, so we called it the ‘wall’.”

“And didn’t we also see the vortex at the very top of the sky back then?”

“Yes. Black and purple lightning crisscrossed inside. I’ll never forget it,” Hugh nearly broke into an aria.

“But what does that have to do with our twenty-four meter visibility?” Hugh asked, puzzled.

Lily glanced around at the others, noticing that except for Camille—whose expression had started to change—even Dunn looked confused.

She couldn’t help but take a sharp breath.

She hesitated, wondering whether to expose the issue.

Camille seemed to understand something; perhaps because she’d seen that wide open space with Lily at Waterloo Station, where the mist no longer limited the view to twenty-four meters. Maybe she’d broken free from the cycle of perception.

If I forcefully break this cycle, will anything happen to everyone?

But unlike her intuition about sharing things from that other world—which warned her of potential harm—she felt no such danger now.

At last, Lily resolved to try, but in a gentler manner. If she failed again, she’d give up.

“Hugh, in ‘Two Point Four—A Treatise on Mist,’ it mentions that humans lost the right to roam the skies. Do you remember the altitude limit?”

“Hmm... It’s linked to Roman numerals two and four, right? Two point four meters? No, that’s too low. Two hundred forty meters? That doesn’t seem right...”

“Two point four kilometers,” Dunn supplied.

“Yes, two point four kilometers,” Hugh patted Dunn’s shoulder, as if he’d been about to say that.

“Then, Hugh, the vortex we saw in the sky during that exploration—how high above the ground do you think it was? You don’t have to be precise, just a rough estimate.”

“Hmm... I’m not great at judging distances... Maybe a hundred meters? Anyway, I remember... it was very high.”

“Alright, let’s assume it was a hundred meters. Ladies and gentlemen, with our visibility restricted to twenty-four meters, could we have seen something that far away?”

Lily threw out the central question.

“Of course not—twenty-four meters...” Hugh began to reply but froze mid-sentence.

It was as if realization had dawned. Aiden and Dunn widened their eyes in silence. Lily said nothing more.

Cold sweat began to seep down Hugh’s back.

Camille swallowed with difficulty.

Yes, if everyone’s vision had been limited to twenty-four meters from the start, how did the exploration team see the vortex high above?

Hugh felt her mind was overwhelmed, as one bizarre revelation after another crashed down on her, making it hard to breathe.

Camille recalled the vast open space she and Lily had seen at Waterloo Station—there, she could see further than twenty-four meters.

At the time, she’d been so distracted by the strange arrangement of carriages and Lily’s disappearance that she hadn’t noticed the anomaly right away.

“We... all selectively ignored this problem, and until just now, none of us realized it,” Dunn said, articulating what no one else could.

Lily breathed a sigh of relief.

It seemed she was right.

But fear lingered. If she’d prompted everyone this far and they still didn’t notice anything amiss, she’d certainly want to flee the orphanage.

That would truly be a horror story.

“I’m feeling a bit unwell. I’m going back to my room,” Hugh managed a strained smile and left the third floor common area.

Dunn’s face was pale; from where he sat, he could see the third floor window and the mist outside. He’d never thought much of it before, but now, looking at the fog, he felt nothing but vigilance.

Aiden picked up his dictionary, hugging it tightly and lowering his head, lost in thought.

Camille looked troubled. She wanted to confirm with Lily whether, when they returned to Waterloo Station, the mist no longer limited visibility to twenty-four meters.

But she sensed it wasn’t the right moment to ask, so she held back.