The Labyrinth City, Orario.
Night had already fallen.
Yet this bustling city built around a massive dungeon still blazed with light.
Taverns and the Adventurers' Guild were alive with noise and chatter.
The Loki Familia's evening feast had long since broken up.
After the din, the streets felt a touch quieter.
Riveria—Royal-Blooded Elf and the mage hailed as the city's strongest—walked gracefully along the slightly empty street.
She hadn't returned with the rest of the familia.
Instead, she slowed her pace, waiting for Ais, who was trailing alone behind, clearly preoccupied.
"Ais."
Riveria's voice was as gentle as water,
yet carried that cool, unmistakable elven concern.
She closed the distance to the blonde girl with ease.
"I've noticed you've been unsettled ever since we were at the Hostess of Fertility."
"You were quiet at dinner too, barely touched your food."
"Did something happen?"
"If you can, would you tell me?"
Her emerald eyes shimmered with wise, soft light in the moon glow, watching Ais quietly as if she could see straight through to every worry.
Ais was called back from deep thought.
She lifted those crystal-clear eyes—so calm they showed almost no ripples of emotion—and met Riveria's worried gaze.
She checked again: the faint group-chat window floating at the edge of her vision that only she could see, and the bizarre, incredible conversations inside about a "group owner," "other worlds," "prices for trades," "saving a little sister," and more.
All of it seemed undeniably real—and impossible to share with anyone else.
She parted her lips, instinctively wanting to tell everything to Riveria, the person she trusted most, who guided and protected her like a mother.
That being who claimed to connect countless worlds; those unheard-of systems of power; and that… that method that might let her get stronger—faster and faster—strong enough to catch up to that "silhouette"…
But the moment she tried to form the words, an unseen, overwhelming force clamped down on her voice.
Some absolute rule woven into the group chat itself stopped her from revealing anything specific.
She realized she couldn't say the words "group chat," "Rei Ao," "other worlds," or "system."
Any attempt to describe its concrete details, functions, or the members would twist and blur at the last moment, warping into meaningless sounds—
or vanish from her mind altogether.
The feeling was stifling and uncanny.
She had a powerful urge to confide—especially to Riveria—
but the rule stood like an invisible wall, sealing her mouth shut.
"…It's nothing."
In the end, Ais could only shake her head, almost imperceptibly.
She forced all those words rising to her throat back down into her heart.
It wasn't that she didn't trust Riveria.
The nature of the rule made it impossible to speak.
A rare flicker crossed her eyes—confusion, urgency, and a hard-to-name longing, all mixed together.
"Is that so?"
Riveria murmured softly.
As a powerful adventurer and an elf, her keen insight told her clearly that Ais wasn't telling the truth.
This child had definitely run into something that defied normal understanding.
But she didn't press.
She chose patience and forbearance.
Gracefully, she changed the subject; her questions had only been affectionate concern.
"If it's nothing, then let's head back."
"That idiot Loki is probably dead drunk again. Finn and Gareth should've gone ahead to handle familia business."
"Mm."
Ais nodded and walked beside Riveria in silence.
A sliver of distance lay between them.
Moonlight poured over Orario's stone-paved streets, stretching the slim, strong silhouettes of the two women far behind them.
Each was lost in her own thoughts, and the silence thickened in the air.
Ais's mind had already flown back to that mysterious group chat that offered a "way to get stronger."
She replayed Rei Ao's words, turning over what a "trade" really meant.
A price… What could she offer as the price?
Her sword?
Her talent?
Or… something even more important?
"As long as I can get stronger…"
Riveria, meanwhile, quietly resolved to observe Ais far more closely from tonight on, in subtler ways.
She would wait, patiently, and probe little by little—
using her wisdom and experience to figure out what Ais had run into, and what was disturbing that simple, straightforward heart.
Protecting the children of the familia—especially Ais, the one who tugged at her heart the most—was a responsibility she bore as their "mom."
In the moonlight, Riveria's profile looked both tender and steadfast.
…
Disboard.
Night in the human city was peaceful and serene, a stark contrast to Orario's clamor.
Starlight took the place of magestone lamps.
The air was fresh, tinged with the scent of grass and trees.
Inside Rei Ao's spacious home—a cross-dimensional blend of styles from many worlds—the long-running commotion was finally dying down.
In one corner of the room, the blue data streams that had been cascading like a waterfall in the eyes of the Ex-Machina girl, Schwi, had slowed noticeably, settling into a low-power standby, as if she'd entered a deep sleep.
Her petite body was curled in a wide chair, like a delicate doll.
Across the room, the human girl Couronne had already slumped into a plush sofa, hugging a pillow as her breathing deepened into steady sleep.
There was even a silly little smile at the corner of her mouth.
Jibril and Azril slept in an exhausted embrace.
And Kanna, the dragon from another world, was curled up on the soft, fur-covered rug, fast asleep.
Her small body rose and fell with each breath.
Silver-white hair spilled across the blanket, and a tiny smear of cream clung to the corner of her lips from the snacks earlier.
Her satisfied, peaceful sleeping face was pure and innocent, as if all the world's troubles had nothing to do with her.
Of them, the one carrying the heaviest worries was Michiru.