Soph was now awake, though her eyes were dreary and a bit of drool was leaking out of her mouth as she held Lone's hand.

Very quickly though, her eyes lip up with excitement when she saw a nervous foxkin with two blue tails apprehensively looking at the entrance to headmaster Erion's Tower like some sort of lost puppy.

Lone tightened his grip on the girl's hand so she wouldn't use all of her power to assault the girl. 'My tails are lonely, y'know? You floofaholic...'

Soph pouted as she happily accepted the bright golden tail that had snaked its way into her arms. 'I can hold back! I can do it with Rachel, so I can do it here!' she said telepathically more to convince herself than to refute Lone.

"Ah, uh, Lone... And, em, Sophi- em Soph?" Seeing the human girl nod as she buried her face in golden locks of fluffy goodness, Luu breathed out in relief.

"You need us for something?" Lone asked. "By the way, it's good to see you. It's been over a week, right? How're you doing? No one's bullying you for associating with me, are they?"

Shaking her head, the cute little creature that was the two-tailed Aqua Foxkin answered, "N-No! Everyone's too scared to, um, bother demis or humans after the h-headmaster's announcement. But, em, that's why I needed to see you... I was, uh, told to give you this..."

Lone accepted the slip of paper from the girl's trembling hands and then petted her head subconsciously. "You don't need to be so timid. You're the grandniece of the Aqua Foxkin Clan's current matriarch. Plus, you're amazing at water magic, so you don't need to be so scared of everything."

His eyes were on the sheet of paper and his mouth had a mind of its own, but his words still reached the young foxkin's ears. "Uh, um... I-I'll try..." She really wasn't used to compliments.

Even if Lone said she was great at her main school of magic, water magic, she still only got average grades and barely had enough potential to be accepted into The Academy 3-year ago, so she couldn't take his kind and genuine sentiments to heart, even despite his Charm, Charisma, Persuasion skill, and his natural magnetism as a soul oracle.

"Good," Lone said in that teacherly tone of his. Very quickly though, his patented arrogant smile surfaced on his face. "Idiots."

"Mmm?" Soph was confused. Who were idiots?

"Looks like the humans have rallied up a force of over 200 students to challenge me all at once. Half of them want your hand in marriage, Soph, the other half demand that I be put in my place. Honestly, it's a very rude letter of challenge," Lone joked as he tossed the comical sheet of paper into his Dimensional Storage.

Luu's eyes widened like saucers. "W-Where did the letter go?" she asked very faintly and quite obviously rhetorically.

She wanted to know the answer, but she didn't dare try to actually force it out of a man she so dearly respected and feared all at once.

Soph frowned adorably. "Ah. You're right, they're idiots... I'll never marry anyone but Lone..."

That comment made him feel a bit bad about expressing his attraction towards Eolande, but while he loved Soph and Sophie wholeheartedly, he was still a man. His attraction to beautiful women hadn't suddenly vanished when the two - technically three - of them had become lovers.

Lone held his neck and wore an annoyed expression. "I really can't be fucked fighting over 200 people. I might actually lose if I have to try my best to not kill them. I doubt they'll be holding back like I'll have to as well."

"Potty mouth..." Soph muttered. "Um, why do you have to hold back, Lone? If they want to kill you, then, um, isn't it fair for you to kill them back?"

"I wish. They're just stupid kids with crushes on you or with rage-boners for me 'cause I'm a demi, 'cause I'm Erion's personal disciple, 'cause I almost killed Professor Fredley and that worthless earth magic teacher, or, any other petty reason. Misguidance isn't justification for death," Lone sighed.

He ran his fingers through his hair then added, "Maybe if they legit try to assassinate me or something then I'd get a bit angry, but they're playing by the rules. Erion specifically said that they didn't have to hold back when challenging us and that they can come with as many people as they like."

Soph, while still cuddling Lone's tails, held her chin in thought as her eyes scrunched up. "Can't I help you? I could, uh, protect you from dangerous spells with my barriers while you take out each student one by one while slowly getting their skills."

"That'd be great, but they'd have to allow that. We have no power when it comes to the challenges. It sucks, but that's why it's for venting interspecial tensions. If we could just reject or alter the rules every fight, then it'd be pointless and bullying between demis and humans would resume," Lone explained.

"Uh, um, L-Lord Ninetails-"

Lone stopped Luu right there with a raised palm. "Lone is fine. 'Lord Ninetails' is not my name."

"Uh... I-I was told to be respectful to you by my c-clan's matriarch," Luu said in a bit of a panic as she squeezed her tails.

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In response, Soph tightened her own grip on Lone's tails to prevent herself from attacking the adorable Aqua Foxkin.

Lone scrunched up his face in mild discomfort. Physical Pain Resistance, as always, while it reduced all physical pain by 60%, the remaining 40% was very hard to ignore when it was unexpected, for example, when a certain someone suddenly began strangulating his well-groomed and exceedingly fluffy tails.

Soph immediately noticed her floof kingdom tense up, so she loosened her grip and kissed them while nuzzled her face into them as an apology.

"Anyway..." Lone heaved a sigh of relief at his pain fading away before saying, "You wanted to say something, Luu?"

"Eh?" She looked confused but quickly pulled herself back together. Her mind was in a weird place after seeing Soph and Lone's affectionate display.

"U-Um, L-Lone, another group of demis want to challenge Soph... They, uh, heard about her beating Barry Brownpad and the 50 beastkin, so they want to, uh, use her as a measuring stick to see if they're more powerful than 'the demis blessed by the Primals'. Uh, their words, not mine..." she shyly detailed before reaching into her robe's front pocket.

She retrieved another letter and passed it over to Lone.

Lone opened the letter and gave its contents a cursory glance. It was exactly as Luu had said, but he was curious about something else. "Why're you their gofer? Can't they, like, send representatives of their own to challenge us?"

"Gofer?" Both Luu and Soph said in confusion.

"That doesn't translate well? It means directly 'go for', and, indirectly, a person who does errands for others. Why're you the one delivering the letters, basically?" Lone asked.

Soph nodded in understanding while Luu's cheeks turned red and she answered, "Um, because they asked?"

Lone unconsciously petted the girl for a second time, making her exclaim in shock and panic a bit. He quickly retracted his hand and smiled awkwardly. "Sorry. Habit. I do that to cute things that say or do, well, cute things."

Soph closed her eyes and nodded fervently. "He does."

"Anyway," Lone said, "Don't just let people do what they want with you. If you don't wanna deliver letters, then tell them to fuck off. What'll they do? Look at you funny?"

"Potty mouth," Soph muttered.

Luu frowned as she hugged her tails a bit more closely to her lacking chest. "T-That would be rude... I don't want to upset anyone..."

Lone shrugged. "If they're just using you to run errands then who gives a flying fuck? As far as I'm concerned, they've lost some respect for not having the nuts to give me these letters themselves. For Christ's sake, they have hundreds of challengers and I'm just one innocent foxkin."

Soph pouted slightly at the mention of the son of her long-dead archenemy, but the remark flew right over Luu's head for obvious reasons.

"Innocent? That's the lie of the millennium, Young Mageling," a jovial and familiar voice teased.

Behind Lone and Soph, a shimmering transparent portal had been opened in the courtyard that surrounded Erion's tower. Archon Milos stepped out of it as he used his staff to support his step.

Lone's eyes practically turned into stars when he saw the magical portal. He couldn't acquire Alisa's unique skill, Rift Tear, but this peculiar mirror-like gateway, now that, that he could learn and master.

"Archon Milos! Good to see you. I remember you saying you'd teach me magic, right? Care to cast that spell another dozen or so times?" Lone asked with a big smile on his face.

"Of course, Young Mageling, though whether I cast it in front of or near you is a different question entirely," Archon Milos said with a short chuckle. "Anyhoo, I'm glad to see you again. I see that you've grown considerably since our last meeting."

Lone nodded, though a bit sadly due to his request being casually brushed aside. "Yeah, I have. It's also nice to see you too."

"Hello to you as well, Second Young Mageling," the archon said to Soph as he wore a grandfatherly smile.

The girl wasn't much interested in him. He seemed a bit like a schemer, so that was an immediately red-flag for Soph. She just politely nodded back without saying or mumbling any words to him.

Archon Milos took no offence. "I happen to be aware of your little challenge issue. I must say that it's an ingenious strategy to help you grow, though not so ingenious to defuse interspecial tensions. If anything, letting the humans get outclassed by you will only enrage them more. Perhaps it will be even worse with the Second Young Mageling. Demis are somewhat conceited as a rule of thumb. Low in numbers, high in strength and whatnot."

'Is he really going to call Soph Second Young Mageling? That's a horrendous nickname...' Lone privately thought before he shrugged. "I'm not too interested in Erion's angle. Like you said, it's great for helping me grow, but a lot of them challenged me all at once, and that's not so great when I could die but can't put my all into fighting back."

Archon Milos stroked his lengthy beard and said, "Indeed. Quite the pickle, hmm? I could always help you. I can apply a space magic spell to you that will warp your skills if they contain enough force to kill their targets. The target will be knocked out instead of dying which is ideal, however, you shan't gain any skill levels from the skill usage. It's a bit of a trade-off as most of the tribunal magic skills typically are."

Tribunal magic. That was the common term for the big three; space, time, and gravity magic. It was their class grouping, so to speak.

'A trade-off, huh? Well, if that's true, then that puts space magic as the most burdensome of the three. Gravity magic seems to have weak restrictions while, from what I've seen, time magic seems to just have a massive MP cost to cast its spells, though, to be fair, Forget The Present is the only time magic skill I've seen and this is the only space magic skill restriction I'm hearing of, so they could be exceptions, not examples,' Lone thought.

"No, thanks. I actually thought of a good idea to fix this issue, but I'll definitely need Erion's approval for it. If you approve it publicly as well then that'll help. You're a greatly respected mage, right?" Lone asked.

"Hmm? Indeed, I am. However, asking a favour of me so immediately..." Archon Milos appeared hesitant, but Lone saw the falseness in his tone.

"I stopped your empire from going to war. Also, I fully intend to learn under you, as does Soph. We've talked about it and we want you to teach us space magic. So, yeah, do this for me, would you? It'll be fun," Lone tempted with a grin.

"Ah, to be full of youth and creativity. Why not? Whatever you suggest, I'll agree. Consider it a gift for becoming my disciples," the archon said as his wrinkles moved to form a gleeful smile.

A few moments later when Lone had detailed out his plan, the old man's face became one of shock. "That's rather... brutal. I agreed to support the idea, so I shall, but you have a somewhat evil side to you, now don't you, Young Mageling?"

"I, too, agree to the idea and shall allow the rules to be bent for this one occasion considering the circumstances." Erion's magically-projected voice was calm. It was as if he had expected this outcome.

"Well, I've got some work to do then," Lone said with a massive smirk on his face.

Luu just cuddled her tails nervously. 'So many powerful people... I-I'm scared...'