Putting down Lecia’s photograph, he then turned over the furthest photo on the right of the row. Thus, standing at the entrance of Galina Manor’s grand house, wearing a black-and-white maid uniform, Tifa, with her hands folded in front of her, slightly bowing forward, appeared in the photo.

His hand continued reaching for the middle row of photos, but his eyes remained fixed on the shadow before him. No matter where Shard placed his hand, the shadow made no movement. He asked "her" in his heart for her opinion, but "she" only smiled and didn’t answer.

Shard trusted his own feelings and finally stopped his hand at the very center of the nine photos. When he turned the photo over, he saw Iluna, leaning against the outside of No. 6, Saint Delan Square’s door, looking at the world beyond the photograph with a somewhat sorrowful expression for some reason.

Shard also put down Iluna’s photo. The three photos that he had turned over merged with the three photos of monsters taken by the shadow, and the girls in the photos moved together with the three monsters.

Shard prepared himself to flip the table at any moment, but it seemed he underestimated those girls.

In the photo, Lecia was the first to act, using her Low Ring Ascension Words from the start to put the most dangerous dragon to sleep. Tifa and Iluna then worked together to deal with the Evil Spirit and the speedy Werewolf.

Next, the Head Maid, who specialized in summoning and sealing skills, used dozens of heavy metal rune chains that extended from the void in the photo, locking the Sleeping Dragon. As it awoke and immediately broke at least half of the chains, Iluna leaped up and threw the "Power of the Earth: Earth Energy Cannon" in midair.

The scene in the merged huge photo turned all white. When the light faded, although the dragon did not die immediately, it was already at a disadvantage. Then, the three girls cooperated seamlessly and soon completely resolved this tricky enemy.

Finally, they held hands, with Iluna in the middle, and the three of them slightly bowed towards Shard outside the photo, like actors taking a bow after a performance. The photo froze at this scene, and then everything within it disappeared.

The shadow pushed three coins to Shard on the other side of the table, but Shard did not immediately take them. Instead, he asked:

"What exactly do you want to say to me?"

The shadow handed over a crumpled note, which, when opened, had a short sentence written on it:

[Why can’t you just trust their own abilities?]

Shard frowned at the shadow in front of him, swept the three coins into his palm, and then stood up to leave.

The fireball continued to guide Shard forward, but his mood at this moment was completely different from before he entered the carriage. Whether the shadow had understood his heart or completely knew what would happen in the future, it did not matter. What mattered was that he was being accused of not trusting the girls around him and their own abilities.

The Outlander admitted that he sometimes cared too much about them, so much so that he didn’t want them to encounter any danger. This attitude, of course, had its drawbacks, but Shard also believed he could always protect them, just as he once swore.

"Last time you tempted me with the ’Fate’s Pedestal,’ and this time you’re accusing me, right?"

With these thoughts in his heart, he watched the fireball in front of him drifting, feeling quite complicated.

As he continued forward, the torch’s glimmer became increasingly faint, and even though the fireball clearly emitted light, it had no ability to dispel the black mist. The surrounding coldness was not simply a drop in physical temperature. That kind of cold, that numbed even the soul, was the greatest malice the entire camp held against Shard, this foreigner.

Shortly after leaving the carriage, another camp activity that Shard had to participate in appeared ahead. It was a small area fenced by crooked wooden stakes, where, on the small clearing shrouded in black mist, the shadow stood next to three roughly-made strawmen.

The faces of the strawmen were all covered with burlap bags. Black ink painted simple eyes and noses on the bags. These scarecrows, with their humorous and terrifying contrast, were the most frightening.

He was not allowed to simply walk away from here either. When Shard came before the shadow and the three strawmen, the shadow handed him a rusty dagger, whose sharpness, compared to a real weapon, was such that Shard believed it might not even be more lethal than Mia’s claws.

The wager this time was still three coins, and when Shard accepted the dagger, the leftmost strawman transformed violently.

The body and limbs did not change, only the head transformed into Miss Galina’s appearance. The red-haired head looked at Shard and then reproached:

"I trust you so much, yet you hide so much from me. Am I not enough for you? Haven’t I given enough for you? Why do you still think of other girls? Shard Hamilton, do you really not know how much I love you? I gave you my whole heart, yet you return only a tenth, a twentieth—do you really understand what love is?"

Then the scarecrow in the middle also began to shake violently, and the burlap head turned into the likeness of Ciris. The Golden-haired Girl did not rebuke Shard, but looked at him with sadness in her eyes:

"After my father left, I thought all I had left to rely on was Vanessa, but fate arranged for you to appear before me. Shard, I am willing to accompany you with Vanessa, and I ask that you divert your gaze, even if just for a moment, away from Luviya Dorothy. Look at me, look at us carefully, okay? If you are unwilling to love more, why make promises; if your eyes only see those violet eyes, why, why give us those kisses?"

The scarecrow on the far right indeed shook violently as well, and this time the burlap head turned into the likeness of Audrey and Megan. The brown-haired girl looked at Shard, questioning him:

"Since you knew from the beginning that we were the Council’s witches, why watch as we step by step fall into your heart? You’ve set a trap of love for us, you already knew we would eventually be smitten with you, and you enjoy this process. You heart-stealing liar, why do you entice so many girls and still want to come and entice us? Have you made us into stamps you collect, or is it just the enjoyment of being loved?"

The heads on the three scarecrows simultaneously asked Shard:

"Do you really understand what love is?"

"Do you really comprehend others’ love for you?"

"Do you really still have love for others?"

Shard looked at the shadow, which made a motion of thrusting the mist forward. Amidst the angry questioning and cursing from the three heads, Shard looked at the rusty dagger in his hand; he was not yet unable to discern what was true or false, but he also understood that the one who set this game here was not entirely nonsense either.

He himself indeed bore guilt, something he had long realized. The Outlander would never fail to admit the grave mistakes he made in his relationships with the girls, but he was unwilling to let go, he knew he was greedy, and he knew he had the ability to bear it.

Looking at the three heads on the scarecrow, Shard took three of his five coins, and along with the rusty dagger, handed them to the shadow:

"I lost this game, I truly wronged them, I know that."

The shadow received what he handed over; the shadow naturally lacked detailed features, so it was impossible to decipher the expression of the shadow.

He shook his head, dispelling the strange thoughts within himself. Then, raising his hand and flinging it, the pitch-black chains continuously pierced into the bodies of the three scarecrows, the six Great Sin Runes shimmering with a ghostly light paused momentarily, then the chains were retrieved by Shard.

With the pierce wound at the center, the three scarecrows and their heads transformed into pink crystals, then shattered into fragments. The "Love God’s Sting" bestowed upon the Moonlight Greatsword, Thunder Spear, and Great Sin Chains’ pink soul crystal attack actually had very poor effect on things without life and soul, but these three scarecrows were not merely simple objects.

"I wronged them, so I won’t use the dagger to harm the ones who utter these words, but that doesn’t mean I can tolerate you disguising yourself as them... What I hate most is others turning into the girls around me to deceive me."

Speaking, Shard moved to leave by following the fireball that resumed its flight. Suddenly hearing an unusual sound behind him, he instinctively turned, but only saw a wad of paper being tossed over. When he opened it, there was still just one line:

[Is this really their doubt of you, or is it your own inner guilt?]

Shard crushed the wad of paper in his palm, looking coldly and silently at the shadow on the small clearing as he left.

Though his mood could not be considered terrible, it was certainly not jubilant at this moment. He couldn’t understand why the special events he encountered alone in the camp this time were all so targeted at him, though he’s not the kind of person to become mentally unstable from a couple of comments, Shard acknowledged that the previous photos and scarecrow indeed affected him.

Reflecting, he continued forward with the fireball, and shortly afterward, the torch in his hand, its firelight having become extremely faint, managed to faintly illuminate something very large in the distant black mist.

Shard originally thought it was a giant’s corpse, or perhaps a monster with enormous form like "Calamity Card: Mrs. Lemaire the Merman". As he moved closer, he realized the path guided by the fireball had reached its end, and at that end stood a high tower.

Shard still doesn’t know how vast the Black Mist Camp is, likewise, because of the concealment of the mist, even though he’s ventured deep into the camp for the third time, he could never have imagined there was a black stone high tower amidst the camp’s shabby stalls.

Like most of the objects in the camp, this tower also appeared dilapidated. Due to the torchlight in his hand being nearly extinguished, Shard couldn’t clearly discern how tall the tower actually was.