Zalroth covered his ears as the duo of screaming female teens sat in a big tent, clinging to each other in their onesies.

(the slightly short teen is a sharkling[a humanoid with some shark features]; she has long sharp curly yellow hair, large orange with large pupils, sharp shark teeth, yellow shark tail, and tanned scaley textured skin with a pale yellow belly and a yellow streak running down her back)(she's wearing silver elf onesie)

(the short teen is an elf ice elemental [a being made of ice (cyan) mana with the appearance of an elf]; she has freakishly long spikey white hair with solid-gold tips, silver eyes with ring-shaped pupils, slightly chubby thighs, pointy ears with ring-shaped ends, and silver snow-textured skin)(yellow shark onesie)

"Monster!" the duo exclaimed as they shivered in their boots. The duo's screams eventually died down as they noticed the thing that startled them hadn't attacked. The sharkling slowly opened an eye to peak in front of herself and saw Zalroth glaring unamusedly at the duo.

"Oh... it's just a human dude," the sharkling remarked. The ice elf shot her eyes open and looked around while ignoring Zalroth.

"W-where?" the ice elemental uttered as her ears wobbled from trembling. The sharkling pointed at Zalroth, and the ice elemental squinted her eyes.

"Oh... if you say so," the ice elemental said. Zalroth rubbed the back of his head as the duo whispered to each other about whether Zalroth was a human or not. A golden umbrella with black stars all over it drifted above Zalroth, and he glanced to his side to see the tall teen male holding the umbrella.

(the teen is a demon [humanoids with some demonic features]; he has long rainbow hair that covers his face, silver eyes with clover-shaped pupils, tanned skin, four large hook-shaped horns around his head in the shape of a crown, and four thin white tails with heart, spade, club, and diamond-shaped end respectively)

"So, who might you be, my jumpscaring pal?" the demon teen asked.

"Zalroth.". The sharkling mildly smirked at hearing Zalroth's name while turning to the ice elemental.

"Wow, Nola, you were right about a guy named Zalroth showing up if we hugged," the sharkling remarked, causing the tips of Nola's ears to turn pink. Zalroth tilted his head as he raised an eyebrow.

"You were expecting me?" Zalroth asked.

"It's more Nola had a wouldn't it be neat if so and so thing happened sort of thing; that's just a quirk of she has," the sharkling explained.

"Right...," Zalroth murmured. Zalroth briefly checked his surroundings before mentally sighing at seeing the sphere of light wasn't around anymore. The female duo hopped to their feet.

"I'm Lily Luno, and this here is Nolazir," the sharkling stated as she did jazz hands and wagged her shark tail. A faint rumbling noise echoed nearby, catching the group's attention before the male teen turned towards the origins of the sound.

"And you may call me Malfaroth Prodigious," the male teen stated as the stars on his umbrella glowed yellow. Malfaroth spun his umbrella as the glowing keither swirled to the tip of the umbrella and morphed into a sphere of illuminating light(white) mana. The sphere of light mana floated forward illuminating the ground beneath it until it stopped by a large sinkhole in the ground.

"Glad you told us to move the tent...," Lily remarked as she nervously giggled at seeing the sinkhole. Zalroth silently stared at the sphere of light mana before shaking his head.

"Something wrong, Zalroth?" Lily asked as she floated up to Zalroth's eye level while being coated in a veil of pink keither. Zalroth shook his head again as he glanced at Lily.

"It's nothing, but back on topic I'm fairly sure that sinkhole leads to a magic dungeon and a high-ranking one given the qi, kai, and magical energies it is exuding," Zalroth stated with a hand on his chin before he glanced to his side as he felt a tug on his trouser.

"You can sense spiritual energies?" Nolazir asked as she tugged on Zalroth's trousers.

"Yeah? It's not that difficult," Zalroth said nonchalantly with a perplexed expression. The three were left at a loss for words at Zalroth's remark.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"I mean, you're not wrong... but the only people I know who can do it as you did are people the knight order," Mal remarked as he tapped the stem of his umbrella against the side of his head.

"Knight order?" Zalroth asked.

"It's basically my country's version of the highest rank for the military... it's still a shame the previous head captain resigned out of nowhere after his last operation though," Mal remarked as he continued tapping his head with his umbrella while humming.

"Why'd he do that?" Zalroth asked as he crouched by the sinkhole and glanced at the remainder of the barrier potion in his hand.

"That's something even I wouldn't know since neither his reasoning nor even the operation's objective were made public," Mal explained as he shrugged. Nolazir raised her head, and a spark of wisdom filled her eyes as they flickered red.

"I do," Nolazir stated as she raised a hand and waved it around.

"I mean, we were there, Nola," Lily murmured as she rubbed her forehead.

"So you two and all those kids appearing at my home ages ago did have something to do with his last operation," Mal asked as he inquisitively rubbed his chin. The female duo gave Mal unamused glares as they groaned at him.

"Mal, we've already told you that many times, you just forget since your memory's as-". Before Lily could finish her sentence, the ground trembled, knocking Lily into Nolazir and making Nolazir fall onto Zalroth's back as a cacophony of screeches roared from the sinkhole.

"That's... bad, right?" Nolazir muttered as she clung to Zalroth's back and poked him inspectively. Zalroth sighed and stood up. In the blink of an eye, Zalroth formed one of his kitsune tails, removed Nolazir from his back, placed her on the ground, and dispersed his tail before anyone could visually register the tail.

"Depends on who you're implying the bad is for, doesn't it," Zalroth remarked before he tossed the bottle containing the barrier potion into the air.

"Could you three do me a favour and tell my companions at the motorhome over there what I'm up to?" Zalroth requested.

"Sure," Lily said as she gave Zalroth a thumbs up while Nolazir was puzzled about being on the ground again. Zalroth gave the trio a head nod before he hopped into the sinkhole and fired a wind(green) mana bullet into the air. The wind bullet pierced through the potion bottle before the potion oozed out in every direction as it formed into a net-like shape and landed over the sinkhole.

"So he's one of those jumps into action and then needs his companions to get him out of trouble," Lily mentioned.

"Just like, Kuku?" Nolazir asked.

"Yeah... and now that you mention him, he and Zalroth look...," Lily said before the gears in her brain clicked together, "Wait a minute.". Lily widened her eyes and made an exacerbated ooh as she recalled the events of her watching Zalroth fleeing the helicopter.

"Oh, my lord! He's the helicopter hopper. No wonder Nola could predict where he'd be, given we've met already," Lily blurted out in utter shock.

"That's still a dumb nickname," Nolazir stated poutfully before asserting her nickname was better.

"Come on, I was like five, and it took you a week to come up with yours, so mine just stuck.".

"Is now really the time to be arguing over nickname?" Mal asked. The bickering teens signed at Mal's disinterest in the importance of nicknames but begrudgingly agreed with him nonetheless.

"True, but before that... mind doing something about your commando status?" Lily requested as she wagged a finger at Mal.

"Huh?". Mal looked at the ground.

"It would appear I'm underdressed," Mal stated nonchalantly.

"That would be an understatement," Lily remarked. Mal waved his umbrella between himself and the duo to obscure their vision of him before removing the umbrella to show him fully dressed.

(Mal is wearing a silver fedora with a black trim filled with tiny yellow stars, a silver unbuttoned knee-low business jacket, a black buttonless business shirt, dark silver cotton trousers, and silver tap dancing shoes)

"Better?" Mal asked as he cheekily winked at Lily, to which she unamusedly rolled her eyes at him.

"Anything's better than being a forgetful nudest.".

"Do you perhaps secretly hate me wearing something similar to your favourite musician by chance?" Mal asked.

"I hate you wearing it without the tie," Lily said in a snarky tone.

"I'd prefer we avoid a repeat of last time," Mal remarked as he and Lily recalled the short kid goblin girl (with green skin, red eyes, and black hair) pulling on a kid Mal's tie and choking him; Lily snickered at the recollection why Mal sighed.

"Are we going to go tell Zalroth's friends?" Nolazir asked before she walked into the tent and pulled the hood of her hoodie down while dragging Lily behind her.