"Thank you, Mr Immortus," Swind said in a quiet voice.

Lone just nodded in response. There was no point in making a bigger deal out of such a small incident in his opinion.

Thankfully, no one else started any trouble with Lone's group as they waited in line. Twenty minutes passed before it was finally their turn to get registered with Felron. Just before they entered the border gate's registry office, Alisa pulled on Lone's sleeve.

"Hmm?" He looked at her curiously.

"Em... There's a tax to enter and it's bigger for demis. Depending on the guards on shift, they, um, might be racists so they might say some nasty things or increase the tax. Don't give them an excuse to arrest you, please?" she asked in a pleading tone.

Lone raised an eyebrow. "Even the guards can be racists?"

George didn't look happy about it, but he took it upon himself to explain. "The guards belong to the national army, which, in turn, belongs to the crown. The only reason demis are even allowed to walk freely in Felron is because the grand guildmaster of The Adventurer's Guild and Headmaster Erion of The Academy - especially the headmaster - advocated for equality. The royal family are heavily in favour of slavery, but they allow free demis in their country since the pressure from those two is too great to ignore. It's been like that for just under a million years if the history books can be trusted."

"So slaves are legal too?" Lone asked. After seeing that Ele'hunda had ruled over the eastern world tree for millions of years as well, a human family doing the same for a country didn't sound so far-fetched to him.

George had a sad and somewhat awkward look on his face. "Yes, but only entering ones. It is illegal to purchase a slave in Felron and it's also illegal to capture demis here."

"Got it. I'll try to control my temper if anyone tries to start anything," Lone said.

"T-Thanks." Alisa was still worried, but she'd at least warned Lone. The lives of the guards now rested entirely in their own hands.

"Next!" the guard to the left of the door leading into the border gate yelled.

Lone walked forwards and said, "We're a group, so can we go in together?"

The guard shrugged and picked his nose. "Sure. The limit per group is ten people."

Lone smiled. "Thanks. There's only seven of us."

"In ya go then," the guard said as he pushed the door open for Lone. "By the way, the cap'n on duty is a bit of a dick to non-humans, but he's a good bloke, so don't take it personally, 'kay?"

'This guy is surprisingly honest, huh?' Lone thought. He then took a silver coin out of his pocket and passed it to the man. "Thanks for the warning. I appreciate it."

The guard to the right of the door clicked his tongue and was upset that he hadn't taken the initiative to warn the foxkin. Of course he was rich considering his fancy clothes and the weird floating orb that was circling his head. The guard wanted to slap himself for his stupidity.

The Wanderers all entered the building and found themselves to be a large open room with a long table in it. Seated on one side was a thin man with a dashing moustache and he had a bald head. He was wearing a breastplate, but apart from that piece of armour, he was in regular clothing. On the other side of the table, there were ten empty chairs. In the centre of it, there were two orbs on pedestals; one red, one blue.

Lining the walls of the room were guards that Lone could tell were all C-ranked at least while the man at the table - presumably the guard captain - was an A-ranker.

He frowned deeply as he looked at Lone's group. "You're a powerful lot of demis," was what he said. He gestured towards the chairs. "Sit. All of you. I guess you can keep carrying the baby, Nine-tails."

Lone gave the man an inquisitive glance as he took one of the two centremost chairs. Once his companions had found their own seats, he opened his mouth. "You're far more polite than I expected for someone who's supposedly racist against demis."

The guards all frowned and readied their weapons at Lone's rude words, but with the captain raising his hand, they stood down. "I have my predispositions, but I'm not suicidal. I'd rather we dealt with this peacefully. I know how full of themselves demis can get when they're given a chance to grow."

Eolande covered her mouth and laughed. "You have no idea."

The bald man ignored the seemingly most powerful person in Lone's group as he asked, "What business do you lot have in Felron?"

Lone shrugged. "Headmaster Erion of The Academy wants to make me and my fiancée his personal disciples, or so I'm told. I also want to learn more about magic. At the same time, we plan to raise our adventurer group's rank and gain some fame. Spead our name, you know?"

The captain nodded. "I've heard that Headmaster Erion was looking for a nine-tailed foxkin along with a human child. Your other reasons are perfectly plausible too. Normally, I would ask a lot more questions, but like I said, I'd rather be done with you lot as soon as I can be."

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"Understandable." Even if this man disliked demis, Lone liked his frank attitude. Perhaps things would have been different if no one in their group was above B-rank since logically that would mean this man would be able to beat them all at once, but right now, so long as he was being at least somewhat respectful, then Lone was happy.

"All I need to say is that you should avoid causing trouble in Felron to the best of your ability. I'm only a guard captain, but as you can tell, I'm an A-ranker. Even with a double-X-ranker at your side, be careful. Any excuse is all that's needed for the law to descend on a group of demis, especially if you have a human companion. It's all too easy to make the citizens think that you kidnapped her or did something just as horrible to her," the captain threatened in a very stern tone.

"Well..." Lone scratched his neck. "If someone really tried to start something with me or my friends, then don't blame me if it leads to your country collapsing. I have some pretty powerful friends."

'There's Lipsilk, Darkness, Radiance, Sky - who I still need to talk to properly - and apparently, Headmaster Erion has the hots for me too. Not like I need any of their help most of the time, but I pity my future enemies,' he thought as he failed to hide a chuckle.

The guard captain's face twitched a bit. "I'm sure you do. Anyway, I'll need each of you to touch the red orb with your hand. It'll register the name on your status as well as tell us if you've committed any crimes in Felron before or if you're an internationally wanted criminal. If you have or are, then you'll be charged a fine that's equal to your crimes. Either that or you'll be imprisoned. Do that, then we'll move onto the blue orb."

Lone's group did as they were told. Thankfully, no one had any recorded crimes it would seem.

Lone was worried about himself, Soph and Eolande initially. Himself and Soph due to what he had done in Milindo, and Eolande because of the Mad King.

In regards to himself and Soph, he had three theories as to why they had no crimes. One, King Ralph hadn't reported their crimes on the international level before his death; two, he had reported them but someone had already paid the fee - probably Headmaster Erion, if anyone; three, The Adventurer's Guild's grand guildmaster has cleared them of their charges after learning about her branch headmaster, Gilbert's survival.

When it came to Eolande, he likewise had three theories. One, the Mad King considered her dead, so never made her an internationally wanted criminal; two, too much time had passed, so the charges had expired; three, the Mad King didn't deal with the laws of any country but his own.

Of course, there were numerous other possibilities, but Lone found these ones to be the most likely.

"Well, that's a bit relieving," the guard captain mumbled. "Anyway, if you guys aren't adventurers, you need to touch the blue orb too to register as temporary citizens of Falron. It'll cost five silvers per head. If you are adventurers, touch your plates against it. It'll check if you have authentic plates or not. The adventurer tax is twenty coppers per head."

Lone nodded and took his gold-silver-plate out from underneath his shirt and unhooked the alterion chain, removing it from his neck.

"Heh... A gold-silver-plate. And that chain's made of alterion? You must be pretty good, huh? Rich too," the guard captain whistled. Of course, he was greedy for Lone's money and would have no doubt tried to shaft him financially were he and his friends not so powerful.

Lone placed his plate on the blue orb, making it shine brightly. A sign that the plate was real. "I am probably the richest man on the continent," he said in a joking tone despite how serious his claim actually was.

"Hah! Unless your name's 'Malcolm Deposit', then I doubt it," the captain mocked.

As the rest of the Wanderer's were having their plates checked, Lone asked, "Is he in Felron? Malcolm?"

The captain laughed. "No way! He lives in Leytograndia."

'The magic and clockwork underground city? I guess I'll have to pay that place a visit eventually,' Lone noted before he said, "I see. Such a shame. I admire his work in space magic."

The guard captain grinned. "Everyone does."

It took a couple of minutes, but soon everyone had their plates checked, Rachel included. The only one left to go was Kyuubi. "Does she have a plate too, or will she be registering as a temporary citizen?" the captain asked.

Lone pulled Kyuubi's wooden-plate out from his Dimensional Storage when he shoved one of his hands into his coat pocket. "She chews on it in her sleep, so I had to take it away from her."

"I see. Well, put it on the blue orb, please," the captain replied with disinterest.

Lone raised an eyebrow and asked a question as he placed the piece of wood on the sphere. "You don't seem surprised that a baby is an adventurer. Is it normal for a child to have a plate?"

The moustached man just shrugged. "Loads of people do it. You're not a special snowflake, Ninetails."

"Ah. I see." Lone scratched Kyuubi's chin after he had put her plate back into his Dimensional Storage safely. She purred like a kitten even in her sleep.

'Gao!' A sad cry rang out in both Lone and Soph's heads.

Lone smiled wryly. 'I'll stroke your chin a lot too once we leave this place, 'kay?' 

'Me too, Gara,' Soph said. Of course, just like her 'Kyuu' for Kyuubi, the girl had chosen an equally suitable nickname for their dragon daughter.

'Gao!' The happy little fluffball issued back in response.

"She's a cute one. Be careful. The second you let go of her, someone's bound to kidnap her and sell her off," the captain claimed with a bored yawn.

"I thought slavery was illegal in Felron?" Lone questioned.

The bald man sighed. "So's thieving and raping, but that doesn't mean it suddenly doesn't happen, yeah?"

Lone nodded. "I suppose so. Anyway, are we done here?"

The captain shook his head. "Seven heads equals one silver and forty coppers," he said as he held his hand out.

"Right. The tax." Lone fumbled about in his pocket once more and fished out three gold coins before he placed them in the guard captain's hand. "One for you, the second and the change from the third to the rest of the guards."

The men lining the walls all gulped and couldn't help but smirk and look at Lone in a far brighter light. The guard captain checked the coins for their authenticity, even going so far as to bite them before he grinned widely. "Would ya look at that. Not all demis are worthless scum, eh? Glad to meet you. I'm happy to throw away my personal views any day if it means I get a nice little bonus."

Lone got up from his chair and said, "The next group, they're friends of mine. Five kids. Don't grill them too hard, okay? I want to get to Mystopolis as soon as possible. A group of demis lingering around might lead to some trouble. I'd rather not leave a mess for you to clean up. Sound good?"

"Sound good?" The captain frowned for a moment before his grin returned. "Sounds fuckin' great, Buddy."