Hexed Zalroth(with Lola, Kusana, Scarlett, Snow, Minia and Star all sleeping in her tails; with pink dust floating out from the tails as the kids moved around), along with Sophia and the kunoichis, walked through a collection of festivalstands themed around the upcoming Maxicannion Tournament. Hexed Zalroth glanced over at a sweet roll stand and had to cover her mouth to stop herself from drooling.

"Man, I really wanna buy some sweets but I'll probably get fat again," Ruby said sadly.

"I'd say you were more chubby than fat, Ruby" Charlotte mentioned, much to Ruby's dismay as she embarrassingly and sheepishly waved her arms around. As Ruby continued to embarrassingly wave her arms around, Hexed Zalroth suddenly darted her eyes up before quickly wiping the drool off her face, spinning around and getting the group's attention.

"Alright gals, if you really want to check out the festival stands, I deal with taking the monster loot to the adventurers guild by myself," Hexed Zalroth stated as she grabbed Minia by the forehead and Hexed Zalroth pulled Minia out from her tails.

"Are you sure that's ok?" Charlotte asked with an unsure tone.

"Of course, I wouldn't have offered if I wasn't," Hexed Zalroth jokingly remarked as Charlotte handed her magic storage pouch to Hex Zalroth. Hexed Zalroth bidded the group farewell before hurrying off into the crowd.

Sophia shook her head as she noticed Ruby was looking at a flyer, she had picked up from the stand next to her and became super excited.

"Fifi, look it says here that they're selling sweets themed around all the heavenly heroes; come on let's go together," Ruby requested as she grabbed a hold of Sophia's hand; Ruby led a slightly blushing, but not reluctant, Sophia through the crowd. Charlotte sighed in disbelief as she watched Ruby and Sophia disappear into the crowd.

“Well, that was unsurprising,” Elizabeth said in a joking manner while lightly chuckling. Alex lightly tapped Charlotte on the shoulder making Charlotte glance over at her; Charlotte looked into Alex’s unamused eye and sighed.

“Fine you can go back to the campsite,” Charlotte said with a tinge of annoyance in her voice.

“Thanks, Charlotte, I’ll just be a sec,” Alex apologetically said before leaping onto the roof of a nearby building and hurrying off.

“And now there were five,” Heather joked as she pushed up her glasses and onto her forehead. Charlotte sighed as she defeatedly covered her eyes and shook her head.

Meanwhile, Xinia, Fei and Mei(sitting on top of Fei's tail) arrived at the front of the queue for the non-adventurer id checkpoint to enter Talkia.

"Man, that was a close one; if I hadn't pulled an all-nighter and carried you two here, we wouldn't have arrived in time," Xinia joked tiredly as she rubbed her baggy eyes and handed the checkpoint guard their IDs(one adult id and two kid ids).

"You know sis, we could have just teleported here," Fei remarked as he crossed his arms. Xinia smugly, but with a tired expression, wagged her finger while making tsk noises.

"That would ruin the festive experience and besides you rely on it too much, plus for you to teleport you need to have one of your pellet things at the place you want to teleport to, Fei-Ku," Xinia explained before turning around and conversing with the gate guard.

Mei lazily watched multiple groups of adventurers go through Tila’s checkpoint and even watched Alex leave the city from the set of exit checkpoints. Mei yawned as she layed down and began to doze off until she heard a familiar-sounding voice.

"Are you sure we can just walk through?" Vivo asked as Nola, floating next to him, coaxed him to move faster.

"Of course; you said it yourself, b-dad's already been here so it's not like you don't know what to do," Nola snarked as the two arrived at the adventurer checkpoint.

"Hello there... sir?" Tila confusedly said when she got a good look at Vivo.

"Is something wrong?" Vivo asked as he presented his SSSSS adventurer plate and Nola presented her silver SS adventurer plate. Tila nervously shook her head as she took the two adventurer plates.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"N-no, sir, it's just... your hair threw me off is... all," Tila awkwardly remarked as she inspected the plates and seemed to relax as she read Vivo's plate, causing her to mime an oh face. Tila finished checking the plates before handing them back and thanking the two for their patience, with the two thanking her for her service.

As Vivo and Nola were walking into Talkia, Mei watched them but took particular interest in Vivo's hair as it reminded her of Zalroth; The moment the guard said that they were all clear to go, Mei instantly leapt off of Fei's tail and quickly floated after Vivo.

"M- Mei-La, wait up," Fei pleaded as he sat on his tail and floated after Mei; Xinia exhaustedly chuckled as took back the ids and jogged after Fei and Mei.

"Are you sure I can't help you with..." Nola managed to ask before she and Vivo heard Mei's calls.

"Mr Hero" Mei happily cheered as she floated over to the duo, with Fei close behind her, and landed behind them. Vivo turned around allowing Mei to get a better look at him and became confused; Vivo looked almost identical to Zalroth aside from not having any kitsune tails/ears and having lime eyes and hair tips instead of cyan.

Mei perplexedly looked at Vivo as she tried to figure out whether Vivo was Zalroth or not while scratching one of her miruku tendrils; Nola abruptly chuckled and caused Mei to embarrassedly blush, believing she was being laughed at for mistaking Vivo for Zalroth.

"Well, you're half right, Mei," Vivo remarked as he gave Mei a peace sign. Mei and Fei, who just caught up with what Mei was even going on about, excitedly hopped on the spot as they basically found their hero again, in a way.

"So, are you like Mr hero's familiar or something?" Fei asked as Xinia finally caught up with the group. Vivo was about to answer but stopped himself before thinking it over.

"I suppose in a sense but the more accurate answer would probably make your heads explode," Vivo joked.

"I doubt that; I'm pretty smart," Fei proudly stated as he smugly crossed his arms. Vivo shrugged as he asked the duo if they were ok with an analogy since he isn't actually allowed to directly tell anyone what he actually is. The siblings confidently nodded their heads before Vivo started to explain using nuclear physics as his analogy.

Vivo didn't even get halfway through be he stopped his explanation when he realised the siblings were completely lost and even appeared to have steam coming out of their ears as they slowly sat down on the ground.

"You really need to get better analogies," Nola snarked before she started to float off. Vivo glanced over at Xinia and rubbed the back of his head.

"Sorry about frying your... sisters' brains,".

"Don't worry about it this way they'll be less of a hassle for a bit," Xinia joked. The two bidded each other a good day before Vivo dashed over to Nola in a flash, appearing to have teleported. Xinia blinked a few times at Vivo as she picked Mei and Fei up.

"Pretty sure that was an extreme speed azure ability," Xinia thought to herself before getting distracted when she remembered she needed to check in at the inn she booked and hurried off.

Meanwhile, a fancy and highly furnished train leisurely chugged down the train track as it was close to entering a tunnel. Lady fox slouched back in her red chair and let out a loud groan.

"I can't believe they were able to figure out it was me with just one brat," Lady Fox whined. Lady Fox ordered the maid standing behind her to go fetch a wine bottle; the maid, a demi-human with snake-like features(crimson red eyes with snake-like pupils, slightly scaly skin with crimson red scaled hands, crimson red snake tail, snake fangs) and long red hair tied into to hair buns, bowed before walking out of the train carriage, right as the train entered the tunnel and the train carriage Lady fox was in went almost completely pitch black.

Lady Fox glanced over at the empty chair directly in front of her with an intent stare. She kept her gaze fixed on the chair for what felt like an eternity to her until she eventually relented. She closed her eyes and relievedly sighed as the train fully entered the tunnel.

"Is something troubling you, Lady Fox?" a regal but slightly distorted voice monotony asked. Lady Fox's eyes sprung open and were met by a pair of glowing crimson eyes, with moving white dots in the iris, from a shrouded figure. Lady Fox fumbly sat up straight in her seat and frantically shook her head.

"O-of course not, s- sir," Lady Fox stated as confidently as she could but failing.

"I see... so your recent setback from the raid on your previous place of residence issued by the Zelkio empire, only happened because you were double-crossed by the Majin?" the figure calmly asked.

"I... honestly don't know if she did or not since none of my men returned," Lady Fox explained.

"I see, just know... if this happens again..." the figure said with an ever-increasing callous tone, which caused Lady Fox to lean as far back into her seat as she could.

"I'll discontinue your sector's funding and have you transferred to another project," the figure stated with his normal distorted voice. Lady Fox relievedly sighed as she slumped down into her chair.

"For a second there, I thought you were going to say, you'd kill me," Lady Fox awkwardly said as she began to chuckle as she closed her eyes. A few seconds went by without a response from the figure which made Lady Fox begin to sweat. She slowly began to open her eyes despite her body yelling at her not to.

"Your Wine, My Lady!" Lady Fox's maid shouted. The maid's sudden shouting startled Lady Fox and made her instantly sit up. Lady fox glanced over at her maid, who was staring at her before sticking her snake-like tongue out for a few seconds.

"T-thank you, Samantha," Lady Fox stated as Samantha poured her a cup of wine.