[Humanize (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Mhmm! Oooohh, drown yourself in booze, until you feel so loose, then the hammer falls, and you’d forget it all! ♫”

“Cheers! The smiths and artisans roar, as their flames burn and die. All the miners can show are their prayers to the Goddess for more. The mines are empty and dead, oh the longbeards will complain!”

“Damn, lad! I’ll whip ya ass for that damn song!” A white-haired dwarf with a beard long enough to reach his thighs interrupted the singing inside a tavern with a thunderous roar. He banged his tankard twice on his table, furrowing his brows like some grumpy grandpa. “We shabba’lockus ain’t gonna cry around, ya twerp! We go mining and look for another vein! Pesterin’ the damn Goddess for a blessing, ya lads and lasses are weak!”

“Hahahahaha! Cheers, old man! Cheers, everybody!”

“Cheers!” Women and men, from young adults to old men with overgrown beards drank their beers empty, before banging it on the table with loud, satisfied moans.

You would think they were celebrating something, but from the few seconds I observed them, they were all there separately for their own reasons. However, the fact they were so friendly with each other told me they all knew each other. Which made sense, since this dwarven hold was apparently about the size of a town. People just knew each other.

Strangely, this wasn’t the only occurrence of spontaneous singing, as other taverns were equally as jubilant inside. I looked up, noticing a giant metal clock attached to a castle-like building in the distance; most likely that was the hold king’s palace. Now, this clock——miner’s clock, to be precise—slowly ticked up in numbers like a digital clock, until it reached 3SS. The moment it did, it emitted a ringing sound like a church bell or those old grandfather clocks.

Miner’s Clock: A creation from the Goddess Chihiro using dungeon core pieces to accurately display Peolynca’s time. Using the System as an assistant, the clock will show the time of the current location according to the positioning of the sun or moon. DS means “Dawning Sun” and lasts until noon, before switching to SS, “Setting Sun,” until midnight

To be underground meant managing your time, as you didn’t have the sun to determine when to wake up or sleep. It was surprising to me that there was a digital-like clock in this place, but I guess it made sense the Revolution Queen would invent something like this. It did make me wonder from which year she was born back on Earth.

Of course, I didn’t miss the fact that this was the first actual clock I’d seen in this world. Up until now, I always had to determine the time by looking either into the sky or listening to the ringing of a church bell. I understood it needed a dungeon core to work, but I thought Estralia, a dwarven-made city wealthy enough to afford whatever manatech they wanted, would have had one. I guess it made sense why it was called “miner’s clock” and not “general-usage clock.”

I nodded before switching my attention to a small noodle stall. It was exactly as what you would imagine from an Asian street stall, really. The stall itself and the owner behind it cooked the noodles while the patrons waited for their aromatic soups sitting on stools. The moment they got it, these dwarves would noisily slurp up their noodles and broth, wetting their long beards or cheeks, for the women, in that savory, yellowish soup.

The surroundings were still the same as before—pretty much like a little Tokyo placed inside an underground city. However, a major difference between the district we were just in was the fact there were less city guards in this area; instead, more dwarves equipped in decorated armor walked around. Of course, there were guards, but most of them were here casually for lunch or just merriment.

Of the former, the ones in the decorated armor all had a uniform emblem painted on their breastplates and shields—that of an iron bearded mask colored bronze surrounded by a cave’s entrance with pickaxes on it. Kazumi and Kohaku told me that was the emblem of the Luedbrumdar clan. Grimnir never showed me his, so this was my first time seeing it.

In other words, we were in the correct place.

And in the middle of this district, there were two dwarves dressed in dusters coats and pieces of metal armor. They were sipping their noodle broth while speaking with each other. Every now and then, I caught a glimpse of the blue runic tattoos on their faces. They weren’t slave marks, they were simple empowering ones, some kind of stat-boosting runes. None had the Luedbrumdar emblem.

“Phhah!” One of the pair, an orange-haired dwarf, finished his bowl of noodles. He then turned to the stall’s owner and bowed his head in respect. “Thank you for the food as always, Master. Delicious.”

The stall owner gave him a boisterous laugh, nearly burning his beard on his stove weren’t it for his rather long rock hair. With the flame and the neon lights around him, you could see how unkempt and dirty his beard was, almost as if this man had dedicated himself only to his craft. He was clearly enjoying the praise, after all.

Once he gave his thanks, the orange-haired man turned to his companion, a scarred man with a single working eye, and began speaking. It was a bit hard to hear anything from my distance. With the bustling crowds and the attention-grabbing tavern parties, I could only rely on [Idol]’s enhanced hearing to eavesdrop from inside this dark alleyway.

“Ya hear it?” the tattooed man started.

His one-eyed eating companion nodded. “Yeah. Give me a moment to finish this and then we’ll go. Can’t believe they caught one of the gang leads.”

“The boss won’t be happy. Heard from the people who chased the girl that those kids’ reinforcements have arrived … That means we’re really in big trouble now.” The orange guy took his mug and poured the alcoholic contents right into his mouth, guzzling it all down as if he was on time. “Crustacia’s chest, we’re fucking dead. Why’d the boss accept the job?!”

“Shut it!” The scarred one banged his fist on the table, prompting the stall owner to chide him for it. Once he apologized with a deep bow, he turned back to his companion. “Honor, you idiot. Honor. We might be criminals, but at least we work on honor. The boss is a blood brother of the Luedbrumdar clan leader, which makes all of us family. We protect our family … Makes our death worth a shite.”

“Oi!”

The orange-haired guy now began whispering into the other’s ears, forcing me to use [Aerokinesis] to amplify the sound coming from there. This was quite hard, since the skill worked best controlling the air within arm's length. In fact, trying to isolate the sounds around them or funnel everything to me was literally impossible. Meaning, I couldn’t hear their whispers with all the ruckus drowning it out.

“You think it’ll work?” Once they were done mumbling under their breaths, the orange-haired one raised an eyebrow.

“That's all that we can do. If we go down, they go down. That’s a fact.” The scarred man then finished his drink and soup, giving thanks to the shop owner just like his companion. He then prepared himself to stand up.

The orange guy shook his head in dismay, clearly stressed out. “This ain’t honor. We treated those kids badly, now we’re reaping our due.”

“Come on. At least let us die with blades in hand in protecting our boss’s honor. We’re just footmen, but we can do that, at least.” The scarred man reached his hand out.

And the orange-haired accepted it. “… For the boss.”

“Hello.” However, before any of them could stand, a man in shadowy armor laid his hands on the two, greeting them in a distorted voice. “The Aurora sends her regards.”

The two dwarves snapped their heads around, already unsheathing their weapons, but before they could retaliate, the armored person gripped their shoulders and threw both of those bulky dwarves right onto the ground. In the process, the gauntlets around his arms broke apart, dissipating like mana, causing him to grunt before they reformed around him.

Before the dwarves could stand up, that armored person roared out, causing his helmet to deform into a wolf’s mouth. He then clapped his hands, causing his armor to separate from his body like sticky gum. The levitating armor pieces then surrounded the flabbergasted dwarves, before they reformed themselves into a pitch-black barrier.

“What in Crustacia’s locks?!”

“A fight! Damn, a fight today?”

“Argggik!” Under the loud gawking of the bystanders, the armored man revealed himself to be Kyouya. He fell onto the ground, looking in pain as his skin reddened.

This was one of the after effects of his unique skill.

Shadowed Martyr: A defensive skill used by defenders to shield their allies with veils of shadows and darkness, scorning the sun as they control the battlefield as a shadow knight. At the cost of a percentage of the user’s current Health, they may invoke their shadow to wrap themselves in the defensive version of [Shadow Armament]. Although losing its offensive and mobility effects, the armament is sturdier and is able to reform itself into shields and armor. Once activated, your attacks will leech Health, but reduce all outside healing sources by 50%. Costs and effect: 25% for limbs and weapon, 50% for full armor and weaponry, 75% to assume knight form

A very high-risk skill that allowed Kyouya to gain shadow armor like Saori’s, only that he couldn’t use it as flexibly as Saori’s. While my friend could use something like “umbrakinesis”—darkness manipulation—in her armor, Kyouya couldn’t. In fact, even if he learned [Dark Magic] and [Shadow Dash], he couldn’t bring people into the shadow realm with him.

It did seem weird. His armor lost the most interesting part about the dark element, and that was its trickery and ability to adapt to every situation. However, Kyouya’s skill was fully defensive, to the point it harmed him with every cast! In addition, he couldn’t even take his armor off unless he used it offensively, like just now. So, what made it worthy of being a unique skill? What made it better than his one, the one the demonkins gave him?

The fact that, with a dedicated healer, his armor was like a secondary Health pool. It only consumed Health, not Mana. After he tested it himself, his armor actually inherited all his sacrificed Health, meaning if he healed up, you had to break through two Health pools to kill him. As long as he had Health, he could continue activating it. Of course, the more injured he was, the less useful it would become.

This wasn’t a problem with me around.

A magic circle tattoo on his neck suddenly shone white, releasing white flames all around his body to heal him. [Sanctified Blaze], my first self-made custom spell, was still useful despite its superior [Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration] form. This way, I didn’t have to stick close to heal him.

Once his Health was full, he cried out, “Tatsuya!” before resummoning his shadow armor but leaving the barrier intact. As you could hear the dwarves hammering on the barrier, Kyouya dug his hands into it, prying it open for a moment. He couldn’t control shadows in general, but he could still manipulate the armor he created.

In that same second, something looking like a werewolf dropped from the roofs and dashed into the barrier alongside Kyouya. You could hear the dwarves crying out in surprise when that happened, only for their voices to be muffled at the howl of a giant wolf.

Fighting then ensued, with the dwarves coordinating their fighting for the most part, only for two wolves to howl out. Moments later, you could hear deep, pained voices escape the barrier, all while the crowd around it went into panic. In fact, some of the ordinary, looking citizens pulled out whatever weapons they had and intended to break the shadow barrier down. Were dwarves natural samaritans amongst their kind, or did they really know these gangsters?

However, before they could do anything, the shadow barrier burst open, sacrificing itself to disrupt the dwarven crowd’s vigilante intentions. Fortunately, none of them were hurt as both Kyouya and werewolf Tatsuya escaped the scene with the two gangster dwarves.

I nodded in satisfaction and began walking through the streets, taking in the chaos those three had left behind and watching the vigilantes running after them. I could hear insults being slung after them, cursing them for disrupting the peace and using magic. Imagine that, a Peolyncian city forbidding mana usage, unless you had permission from the government or if it was done by some manatech.

It certainly reminded me how dwarves couldn’t cast spells or expel mana without their tools. Such was civilization. Rules were there for the local’s benefits.

After walking a bit through the streets, witnessing how everybody was going along with their lives, it was finally time for this area to be engulfed in chaos. Not the boys, they had their part to do; no, it was somebody else.

“Oi, assholes!” A voice came from above.

Jumping from the roof, I noticed a black-haired girl with red tints touching a red rune on her sword, setting it on fire as she landed on the ground, behind some more dwarven gangster. She then slashed at one of the Taz. Undoubtedly, this girl was Kohaku.

The dwarf she attacked groaned in pain, unable to activate his defensive runes in time. This naturally caught the attention of his two companions, two female dwarves, prompting her to touch a green rune on her blade. With her ponytail swinging around, the chuuni girl shouted, “Fly, fly!” before blasting the dwarves away with a tornado sword. Even better, her strike was accurate enough that she didn’t hurt any onlookers or caused collateral damage.

“Where the hell are my friends! Give me back my damn friends, you traitors!” Kohaku shouted from the top of her voice, animating around with her hands as if she was in some drama play or anime. Shedding some crocodile tears, she wiped it away in such a flamboyant manner, she caught the attention of the people around them. “We thought you were our friends! You backstabbed us!”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Grak! Fuck you, you flat stick!” the injured Taz growled before his face reddened, until he unleashed a fire breath, forcing Kohaku to sprint away, causing another chase to ensue.

With the commotion from the attacked dwarves and Kohaku’s loud accusation, it naturally attracted the attention of the passersby.

“What in Crustacia’s locks?! Were those Edgesworns?”

“What did that human lass mean by ‘backstab?’ They’re honorable, they work with the Luedbrumdars!”

Just as I eavesdropped on those two gangsters, I couldn’t help but pick up more gossip from the crowd around me. It really seemed like these “Edgesworns” and the Luedbrumdar clan were pretty popular around here. Jadhund didn’t kid around. Now it made me feel bad that I was allowing this chaos, but then again, we were making sure not to draw the locals into our beef.

[“Hesti-chan.”]

I looked up to the rooftops, where I saw Kazumi in her [Beastialize (Moderate)] form, dragging that dwarf boss we had captured before. He was awake and struggling, trying his best to free himself from Saori’s mana threads, but—and this was her quote, but I always wanted to say this myself—as long as Kazumi poured mana through them, he couldn’t break through them.

It also helped we removed his armor and disabled his runic tattoo—slicing them up, disrupting the mana paths on his skin was what was needed. He was stubborn, but we managed to learn how his friends acted and what they were planning by stroking his pride. Then, all we needed to do was to watch how the locals acted around people, and we would know if they were part of those “Edgesworns” or the Luedbrumdar clan. The latter showed off their clan emblem, so we knew who to target.

Now, like the katzune form she was taking on, Kazumi was sneaking around on the rooftops while dragging the guy around, seeing his expression whenever we attacked somebody. If he was agitated, we knew we hit the spot and could execute what we planned. It wasn’t the most elegant plan since we had figured it out in a couple of minutes after using Haruka’s directions to the gang’s base.

[“The boys are moving west, slightly north. I’m sending Kohaku-chan up north, too,”] Kazumi reported, keeping me informed since I was currently in my human disguise. Outside of my crimson eyes, my appearance, especially my black hair, reminded me a bit of my past life, which surprised the students quite a bit.

… Tatsuya did act a bit weird, though. Am I that more attractive with black hair?

Well, it was a useless thought.

[“No, send her west, then have her U-turn to the east. Have Shay and Beth cover for her.”]

Kazumi approved of my plan before casting [Shadow Clone], creating an identical duplicate. She then sent the clone off to inform my people of the plan, while she kept shadowing me as I walked through the streets, moving towards the designated spot. On the way, the commotion increased even further as Luedbrumdar guards and gangsters rushed about, asking anybody for information on the latest attacks.

Two interrogated me in fact, but couldn’t identify me without a sketch of my face. Being a human and having black hair made it far harder to scrutinize everybody, even if they guessed that I had [Humanize]. They were in a rush; there was no time to waste on every single person, even if elves, humans, and beastmen were attracting the guards’ and gangsters’ attention.

“Hold on, akongs, umskongs, and yfleis. If it’s a young woman, kindly ask them to come with us!” One of the guard captains suddenly ordered, shouting out “humans, beastmen, and elves” in dwarvish. I froze up for a moment before melting back into the crowd with my stealth skills.

Me and my big mouth! I just had to jinx it!

Regardless, chaos was what we wanted, and the guards would help with that, even if some of the women would be unfairly treated. Well, I have it all on record now! In my brain at least, but I heard that captain order it! If they were to treat them badly, and in an unjustifiable manner, I will lodge a complaint!

Nevertheless, this chaos train couldn’t be stopped. After moving through more crowds and dodging even more guards, a pair of pale-skinned elves caught my attention. One was a tall and lanky man with a rather sour expression, while the other one was a hyper-energetic woman about an eye-level shorter than him. Both had white-blue hair and looked exactly like twins.

They were talking with one of the guards. The woman was hysterical, over-describing how a black armored man and a werewolf had hit them in a run.

“That giant thing just came out of nowhere, hit us and ran away without even saying sorry! What is wrong with this city?!” the woman complained, throwing her arms around like some drama queen.

“M-Miss, we can—” the guard tried to respond, but the elf continued.

“Stop can’t-ing and do more can dos! Catch them! Go! Go that way!” the woman pointed northwest from here, towards the hold’s castle, causing the guard’s eyes to widen.

“The castle?! Dammit, they really want to bring war for what happened!” the guard spouted before running off, shouting at his fellow guards to follow him. They had to bring the information to their captain.

With all of them moving away from the south, where the Luedbrumdar district and Edgesworns’ base were, I gave the twins a thumbs up. Shay looked at me and bowed a bit, while his sister grinned mischievously and stuck her tongue out. That was Beth, and just like Shay, her personality had become more pronounced now that she had a elvenoid form.

Now, of course, why was she here? Wasn’t she supposed to be guarding Mom, considering how Shay was a stickler to proper conduct? Well, she was, until I thought “Why not bring more allies into the mix?” So I went into my subspace to potentially recruit some helpers from Elyonda. However, according to Svena, not only were they all in a dungeon right now, even Tasianna hadn’t returned yet!

Well, that sucked, right? I thought I had a good plan there. It would have been awesome to bring the full might of Aurora and friends on this plan, but, no. The only combatant inside when I was there was Beth, who was elated she could help out. I could understand Shay was worried about Mom being unguarded, but no one could enter my subspace without my permission. Well, no one who couldn’t tear through space and time, of course. I was pretty sure since the Divine System worked inside it, that the Origin Gods could do something if they wanted to.

In any case, Beth made fun of Shay’s elven form, of course, causing the stoic wyvern to flush in embarrassment. Although not exactly needed, Beth decided to follow along the plan by leveling up her [Elvenize]. The twins’ role in this was to help the students confuse the guards by sending them all around the place.

Elves and dwarves were allies, after all, and while a lot of dwarves did call them by slangs like “sharp ears” or “twigs,” they never did it maliciously, but more as nicknames. Due to the alliance between the races, the dwarves were just acting friendly in their way. Similar to how Grimnir would sometimes just omit our names and just call us by our features like “lass,” “wolf,” or “braids.”

So, we used this method to make the dwarves trust them. Sure, they were looking out for female humans, elves, and beastmen, but Shay being with Beth all the time seemed to have quelled any distrust. They didn’t expect Shay to be the wyvern who fought with me.

Technically, Beth was all that was needed for this plan. Shay wasn’t talkative at all, but I guess him being there was insurance for Beth to act however she wanted. In a way, Beth didn’t regret spending her SP, but Shay sure did. They did earn it fair and square during the war. It did make me feel bad for the dude … maybe a freshly baked cake would cheer him up.

So, that was the plan, and it would be repeated over and over again across the city. Tatsuya and Kyouya would take out lone groups of dwarves, while Kohaku would act as a distraction on the other end to draw some towards her. The twins would run around, bewildering the guards and gangsters with their correct and false directions, while Kazumi helped guide them through this undermountain city from the roofs.

Me? Well, my role was quite important after it reached its boiling point.

… Speaking of which.

“Send in the damn samurai and earthquakers!”

If this were a crime-based video game, I would describe the current situation as five stars. We had police and SWAT teams come in already, so now it was time for the military. And, by the military, I meant the city guards decked out in fat armor and equipped with well-crafted weapons.

“Shabba’locku,” a respectful term to describe dwarves with long beards going down to their hips. The longer a beard, the older, wiser and more experienced the dwarf was. Dwarves had a strong “respect your elders” culture, and as result, expected as the majority of the “military spawns” were old, greyed guys with lots of levels.

Earthquakers seemed like fortified tanks on two feet, so heavy it could shake the very ground. From the amount of glowing blue seams running through their whole armor, they probably needed runes and other stuff to even move in that armor.

On the other hand, we had samurai. Yes, samurai. That was the exact word I heard from their mouths. Non-altered by the Peolyncian accent. They even looked like Japanese daimyos with those exaggerated demon and kabuto helmets. They wielded long polearms and had something like katanas on their hips.

Was the Revolution Queen a weeb? Wait, she was Japanese, so maybe otaku was a better word?

Oh, oh, time to dip.

The earthquakers acted like riot cops while the samurai were the fast and hard hitting shocktroopers. Poor Kyouya and Tatsuya were being hunted down by these ultra fast dwarves—fast, at least, by dwarven standards—while Kohaku was being led around by the former.

It really got to the point where we nearly had to execute the second stage… but before they forced our hands, loud brazen music began playing during this chase.

“Down, down, down! You fooooorrrrrced us! Down, down, down! You’re bringin’ down society! Wraaaahhaaaaaaha! ♫”

Rosserto!

That iconic scream coupled with that manner of singing was too easy to recognize. I had only met him for a moment, but I instantly knew it was him when I heard that hard rock music echo throughout this city. It was so loud, I had to close my ears, and even then, I could still hear his voice clearly!

“The guilds have the lords in their grasp! Filling gold right into their guts! Smiling and laughing, all while we’re forging and mining! Greedy corpo scum, bringing down our hoooold! ♫”

Droves of dwarves in exaggerated and aggravating outfits appeared from side and alleyways, screaming and shouting along the songs their rockstar was blasting. Their over-the-top hairstyles and belligerent attitudes quickly caught the onlookers’ attention. Almost immediately, the road before me was being blocked off, stopping the guards from advancing.

Even better, I could hear more singing and shouting coming from other directions. Rosserto was screaming his lungs out in front of me, but it seemed either the rest of his band or his fans were doing the same for the other places. When I said he would help, I didn’t think he would do something like this! We had just met!

“Oi, get the fuc—” the guards wanted to kick them out, but the fans only bellowed out even louder to drown their voices out.

“THE HOLD KING IS CORRUPT! WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO PROTEST! THE KING SHOULD BE A NEUTRAL FORCE IN BETWEEN THE CLANS AND GUILDS!”

“DOWN, DOWN, DOWN! YOU FOOOOOORCCCED US! CHIHIRO LOOKS DOWN IN SHAME! SHE DIDN’T BRING OUT A TECH REVOLUTION FOR YOUR CORPORATE ASSES TO STOP US!”

It was insanity. It was a riot. And the military didn’t give one F about their reasons for being there, as they quickly neutralized anybody in the way. I wanted to step in, but Kazumi stopped me. I then could only look in pain as I saw Rosserto raise his hand up in the air, showing the devil sign as guards began to beat him up, stopping his voice from reaching anybody else.

Verdammt, Rosserto! I won’t let your sacrifice be in vain!

I turned my head away and followed Kazumi’s direction, running away from the scene to go south. South from all the commotion. Once I was far enough away, Kazumi went back to execute the second phase. On my end, I reunited with Beth and Shay and looked at the tall, two floor stone building. It wasn’t anything impressive, but it did have a few neon lights here and there to fit with the rest of the city’s aesthetics.

It had a fence surrounding it, separating itself from a bunch of workshops and industries. The base of the gangsters was located right in the middle of the artisan district of the Luedbrumdar clan’s territory. Apparently, there were other clans with their own locations in this place, so each had their own artisan, merchant, and residential districts. Unlike human cities, there weren’t any noble districts, as the clans lived right with everybody else. It was pretty humble.

“Ready?”

“Yes, my lady!” both wyverns answered, eyes flaring up for a fight.

With all the chaos we’ve created, it did mean their base would be the least defended right now. Even if there were any, we would still have the upper hand in strength, and all we needed to do was to finish this before the rest came back and noticed our attack. Of course, we wouldn’t be doing this all by ourselves and leave the others to be captured.

I opened my subspace after a couple of minutes and entered it, where I saw Kyouya, Tatsuya—in his human form—and Kohaku drinking water and eating some small sandwiches to fill up their energy. They all showed me a thumbs up, telling me they managed to sneak away without being detected.

This would mean the guards and gangsters would still be looking for them, and due to Rosserto’s distraction, they had a wonderful smokescreen to disappear completely, leaving everybody befuddled. They entered the subspace through their [Room] runes, and left the collection to Kazumi, who was probably on her way back right now. Even without Saori, we had a ninja with us.

Once the three students were done, we headed out. During our initial arrival, we had already scouted the place as best as we could. There was a mana barrier around the place like the one in Elyonda and Griffonpeak. So, either it only warned people in it of our arrival, or it could protect them like a shield. Regardless, it didn’t matter.

“Let’s go, Beth!”

“Yes, Brother!”

Both elvenized wyverns charged at the entrance of the place as mana mist spread from thier body. Dwarven craftsmen took notice of this, but it was too late for them to say anything as the twins roared out, peeking their long, snow-white heads out of the mist.

Flash freezing the moisture around their wings, they created a blanket of ice around them, before using them like blades to slash at the barrier. Seeing their attacks reflected with a loud boing sound, the two roared again, attacking it again and again, before finishing it off with an ice breath.

Like shattering glass, the barrier broke down with the loud cries of the onlookers and the few guards rushing out of the buildings. They cried out, only for the twins to take up flight and pounce upon any enemies with their talons. More and more gangsters flooded out of the buildings equipped with weapons now that the barrier broke, prompting the three students to charge in.

Kyouya began the fight by shouting “Taunt!” attracting everybody’s attention from the wyvern. With his shadow armor and shield, he fearlessly charged into the mix while Kohaku began her assault. Tatsuya, on the other hand, took out a piece of fulinoe leaf and placed it in his mouth, fulfillingthe activation requirement of his unique Skill; curiously, instead of using it now, he turned back into a werefolk with his druidic powers and attacked the dwarves with his spear. He probably was saving the charge for an unexpected moment.

So, what did I do?

… Well, I just snuck in. I mean, somebody had to save the others, otherwise this wouldn’t be much of a distraction. They were all enough, so all I had to do was get to the others fast enough and, once we freed them, flee back into the subspace.

So, during this conflict, I activated my stealth skills and just … walked in the building. Slipped through the dwarven reinforcement and used [Detection Sensor] to find the perfect timing to slip past. Once inside, the rather orderly and well-decorated rooms made me nod my head. They might be our enemies, but they at least had some nice decoration sense.

<[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]>

Of course, trying to be inconspicuous at this point was redundant. I couldn’t transform into a dwarf, so being a human inside a dwarven gangster’s lair made me stand out too much. So I turned back into my moderate form without my wings. Instead of worrying about sneaking too much, I decided to just use my Agility. Minor would have been faster, but it made me a bit too bulky to hide behind furniture and such.

In any case, finding the basement was a bit hard since there were still quite a few gangsters inside. I entered it and walked down the stairs, noticing how much it smelled like an old cave and rusted iron. It was also quite dark, but with [Night Vision], there weren't any problems.

Once I was at the bottom, I looked around, noticing some iron bars. My eyes widened and I frowned as I found Tamae and Misaki in rags, sitting on the floor, supporting the heads of Nishio and Daichi. While the girls looked a bit pale like Haruka, the boys were completely bloodied and beat up. It looked like they had a ton of wounds, both new and old.

“Guys!” I shouted.

Tamae snapped her head around, smiling widely with glistening eyes, almost like somebody finding hope once again. “I knew it. I knew those sounds were you guys. Misa-chan, look. Its Hestia-chan.”

“Wooo …” Misaki next to her sighed. “Bit embarrassing to have you see us this way.”

They had those mana-suppressing shackles on them, explaining why Tamae couldn’t just heal the two boys. Using my scale-dust, I blasted the jail cell open and quickly tore the shackles off them before beginning my treatment. Once they were all healed up, I opened my subspace and had Svena and Josine bring them in, where they would be cared for.

I told them I had to get the others out and teach our enemies not to mess with us. Not to mention, we still had Grimnir and Ellaine to rescue. I would hear everything later once Daichi woke up.

Once I had returned to the jail and closed the subspace, I walked up the stairs only to stop my steps once I noticed a few signals in front of me. They weren’t moving, so that meant people were waiting for me outside the basement.

Buffs up.

[Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Girls, take care of my heat management, okay? No core means we can’t fight for too long. Ready [Battle Frenzy] and [Magmakammer] if needed.

Once I gave my parallel minds that order, I pulled out my glaive and summoned [Unheilige Engel] and [Halo of Consecration]. I then opened the door, where I was confronted by two samurai-looking dwarves along with a bunch of heavily armored shielders.

“Princess Hestia …” The samurai guy in the middle stepped up. He had his hand on the katana oin his hips and the large battle axe he placed on the ground. “You seem to be intruding. My na—”

“I don’t fucking care who you are,” I spat out, interrupting the man before glancing at him and the samurai. “But, I know what you are. Enemies.”

“…” The dwarves went silent.

Despite the chaos and the loud roars from outside, the awkward quietness inside this room drowned out everything else. We all knew what this would lead into.

“At least the Luedbrumdar sent you help with that person next to you. At least they weren’t complete assholes and abandoned you the moment everything was getting out of hand. Sadly, you took on the wrong job. The people here love you, I respect that. You are honorable, they say … but you deserved this,” I scoffed at him at the very last moment, baring my fangs.

“… Enough talk.”

They unsheathed their weapons.

“We will bring you in. Princess or not, you will be tried here before being sent back to your home! We might have an alliance with Kargryx, but this is still a diplomatic violation!”

“… You started it, you better finish it. Magmakammer!”

Humanize, Panzer, Mana Eyes!

Kriffiek kllk gaaung. Battle Frenzy!