That same evening, just before dinner, Leran had just finished a shower and quickly dressed himself for the dinner Sae had prepared. As he arrived in the dining room after some time spent exploring the unbelievably huge house that lied in the cottage which seemed so small from the outside, he saw the white-haired girl who was already sitting at her chair, in front of a set table with no food on it, reading an old book.

"What's that?" The demon asked, having never seen a book with a face on its cover and all but a few pages either partially damaged or straight up unreadable. But the Ice Mage, completely engrossed in reading, couldn't answer until she concluded it a few seconds later. It was then that her gaze roamed to the demon king's freshly washed white hair for a second, then immediately to his eyes.

"This is a spell book. It contains one of the most useful spells that I didn't create, 'Cerulean Eyes.'" Sae explained to him. "It's very simple but very smart. It allows you to see through the eyes of familiars." She said, to which the demon nodded. "So, do you want to see through the eyes of the birds if anyone dies tonight?" He asked, to which the white-haired girl nodded. "Not only that, but I'll check what Jerome does sometimes to make sure you can't read my private stuff." Sae said, still a bit angry about how she was lied to.

"It's not my fault I want to read about your tastes in men." Leran explained, laughing. The white-haired girl now knew that he hadn't read a book that talked about handsome men, but the demon king now knew that such a book actually existed and didn't plan on forgetting it. "Plus, I bet that book is outdated since I'm not in it and I'm the most handsome man you've met." Leran then said, again as a joke, then smiled charmingly. The white-haired sorcerer, though, had an immediate answer: "I never said you weren't in it. I don't like keeping books outdated."

"What?" Asked the demon king a first time, his expression flabbergasted. Seeing no answer, still extremely surprised, he asked again for an answer to the amused face of the Ice Mage. "Yep. And if we catch the culprit of the murders, I'm going to let you read it." Sae said with a smile of her own. But what she didn't really expect was a look of determination on Leran's eyes that far outclassed the motivation he previously had, which made her laugh out loud.

"Do you want to boost your ego this bad?" She just asked in an amused tone before taking her leave to get the food she had cooked. But there was no answer from the side of the demon king. He himself didn't know why he cared this much about a measly diary that described people and even thought that it might all be a lie to get him to perform better in the investigation. Yet, whenever he heard Sae talk about the book he felt pride and a tinge of jealousy for some reason. It wasn't love -- that he knew well, he had already loved once before after all -- yet, he still cared.

Immediately after dinner the white-haired mage graced Leran with her presence one last time -- at least, that's what she would say -- and then yawned and said: "that's my cue to sleep." She then took slow steps towards the upper floor, the same floor in which a guest room was for Leran to sleep in. Yet, because it was still very early in the evening and the demon king was now the only person in the cottage that was awake, he decided that he needed to know more about different things and headed towards the library.

"There are too many secrets to uncover." He commented harshly to himself as he reached the city-looking place full of books. "And they are also on a scale of importance. There's the secret about the old man in the village which I'm sure I could live without knowing, but there's also the mystery behind Sae's divergence between emotions and actions, which I don't think I can answer to if I'm not allowed to read her books. And then there's the mystery of the murders that have happened in this zone, but I already know this place doesn't explain that secret." He thought to himself after reaching the huge library.

Then, Leran looked around for Jerome's presence, but as he didn't see it he kept walking in the enormous room full of books. It was then that he remembered something, a sentence from that creepy white and blue owl: "If you look for something, you'll easily find it." Like a lamp, the mind of the demon lit up as he now knew what he'd do that night.

During that same time, Sae casted Cerulean Eyes in her room, lying on her blue bed in prone position. The 'Cerulean Eyes' spell was one that she had already known for a long time -- its effect was very simple: it changed the eyes you were seeing through. Because familiars' eyes counted as yours as they had the same mana, you'd be able to see through them. The reason why a proficient mage that already knew this spell by heart went to look for its spell book in the library was much more complicated than the spell itself. It was a reason that she wouldn't reveal to Leran -- she wanted to help him, after all, but she didn't want him to be grateful. She wanted to be hated.

"Alright then." She murmured in her own body after casting the spell as she started seeing through the eyes of a cute little blue and white bird. The bird had already arrived to the village and was watching the villagers talk to each other during the evening, before they'd inevitably go inside their houses.

This reaction had a motive behind it: after the village of Altea there were no more inhabited lands for a very, very long stretch of land. This meant that the person behind the murders would either walk through that land and arrive to the capital or stay to kill more people in that same village, before taking the same path it had taken, just in a reverse line. Having contemplated both choices, Sae put a bird spy in every village and some in the lands that no people lived in, just to make sure the murderer wasn't planning to run away.

But for now, before the time of the attacks began, there was something she wanted to see with her own azure eyes or well, through the ones of the bird which were of the same color. As such, she took control of her familiar bird in the village of Altea and started flying to no destination. There was just a person that she needed to find, not the old man but someone else entirely, who she was quite sure didn't live with him anymore.

It didn't take long for her to find it: these birds could easily smell similar scents to ones they already knew and recognize them. When the bird arrived, it saw two people talking; this was exactly what Sae wanted to hear and she was indeed curious about how the conversation would've played out.

"Listen, Zey. I'm sure we will get through it. I know this war has been tough for you, but it has not been easy for me either. Elia's death..." The old man that was talking to the much younger but quite similar version of himself sighed for a second, before continuing: "I know it's been tough for you to handle. You two were great friends. But there's nothing we can do to bring back the dead. And for him, we must continue to fight and make his sacrifice worthwhile." He concluded with tears flowing from his green eyes. But there was another pair of green eyes crying in the other side of the room, the ones of a slim and sleep deprived boy that had become a man.

"It hurts, dad. It really hurts. I-- I'm sorry for having underestimated your time in the war. I-- I-- I really believed it was i-impossible for a person to have t-trauma for so l-long... but I feel you know." He whispered those final words, crying. "The w-worst thing is t-that I'm g-grateful it w-was him and not me. What kind of friend am I?!" Zey then started screaming, scolding himself, but Neitar's answer was clear.

"Do you know how many people I've seen die when I was fighting with the army? Do you know how many times I felt sad because their families would never see them again? Yet not even once, not even a single time did I ever say I wanted to be in their place. W-when you have something worthwhile to live for, those sorts of thoughts never come. Because you value your time too highly." Explained Neitar, with tears now like waterfalls coming out from his eyes yet with the same determined look he had had when he climbed the mountain to meet the Ice Mage.

"Something that's worthwhile..." thought Sae in her mind, while the bird was  admiring the beautifully tragic view in front of it through an open window to Zey's house. "Do I even have that?" The white-haired sorcerer started thinking about it, distracting herself from . "I haven't had such a thing for a long time." That was the conclusion she had come to. "But I guess I have one now. I want to see him happy -- no, I want to see them all happy. That's worthwhile enough." She finished her train of thought and left a tear with it, sharing the sadness and beauty of life with them.

In these cases it didn't matter she was immortal. Despite not being scared by her own death, Sae knew that she died a bit every day. With every person she cared about that she lost, with every time her trust was broken, it was like she who was an immortal had died more than the people that weren't. 

While she was engrossed in those thoughts, the bird that she was using as a spy was suddenly seen by Neitar while Zey was crying and hugging him. It was then that the old man smiled, as if he understood who that bird was from the unforgettable color of its eyes. The head of the village's smile was like a "thank you", which Sae knew she couldn't accept. As such, she immediately decided to fly away from this house and look for other clues, while trying to defend the village from a possible murder.

Yet, just as the bird started to rest on a nearby tree, her focus was interrupted by someone entering the room without knocking. She cancelled 'Cerulean Eyes', sighed and watched behind her, seeing how Leran had entered the room with a grim look on his face.

"What's going on?" She simply asked, worried because his actions were quite unusual. She hadn't known him for long but knew that he wasn't one to interrupt something important just to have small talk.

The demon king answered Sae's question. "I knew you weren't going to sleep, you came in this room to check through the birds' eyes." Sae nodded, not surprised by such a guess. "Indeed. Tell me something else I know." The Ice Mage said with a cold tone. What she really didn't expect, though, was that he was waiting for such an answer.

"Something else you know... that you like books. Why do you like books? Maybe because they're always the same, they don't lie and they give you a sense of security? Maybe it's not only because you're bored alone, maybe they represent something else." Leran didn't try to guess that answer, he had already realized that part of the appeal of the books was the same appeal Sae found in people who hated her. But the white-haired sorcerer's face, already pale, paled even more as she realize the mistake she made by leaving the library open for him.

"I've read many things about you today. And, while not perfectly, I'm now pretty convinced I know what happened to you five hundred years ago.

And I'll help you, that you want it or not."

The demon announced smiling widely in front of a terrified Sae as he repeated the words that she had said to him.