“You’re going, alone?” Shao asked.

A few days had passed since I had returned with Shao, and just about everyone but me had remained busy. I tried to get involved, but it seemed that others were handling it. Siti was working on building the traveling guild. Elaya was tending to the dungeon. Xin had taken over soldier training in Lydia’s absence. Faeyna was busy training the new maids. Astria was managing the new fairy spring, which would be in the courtyard of what would one day be a castle. Within castle walls was arguably the safest place to have such a thing anyway.

Celeste was training the newly evolved fairies. Originally, the fairies around my fairy spring had been of the common variety. They were dumb things. As long as a queen or superior was present, they worked on autopilot, sort of like bee drones. When pulled out of a fairy colony, they gained enough free will to be house pets, but they were rarely much better than a commodity.

That had changed when Astria had started pumping them full of mana. The fairies had evolved, and as they evolved, so did their intelligence. Each day, they were growing more obstinate and less willing to listen to anything Astria told them. Like Celeste, they were freeing themselves from the hive. That could lead to a lot of trouble, especially since they lived around humans. So, Celeste had taken it upon herself to properly train them. It felt a bit like the blind leading the blind, but Astria was more interested in protecting the fairy spring than worrying about a bunch of rogue fairies.

Then, there was Miki, who had seemingly started helping the foxkin settle in. I still didn’t know how I felt about them. I worried that they might be once again taking advantage of Miki’s goodwill. It seemed that she was still suffering from guilt over the people she had killed and tortured during her time as lady death. She was trying to use the foxkin as some kind of redemption. I didn’t think it was healthy, but I also knew that she needed some time and I couldn’t force her. That had only been a week or two ago.

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Even Shao had decided to focus on her demon abilities. She worked her way through the dungeon. This was helping Elaya calibrate the difficulty and try out some of the new lore, but it was also helping Shao gain better control of her dark powers and her demon lord form. She had finally unlocked the job Assassin, something she was quite excited about. I knew she had been jealous of Raissa having that job for some time.

Thus, it seemed like everyone had become busy except for me. All I was doing was waiting for the girls to get back. I didn’t want to move on Alerith until I had Terra and Lydia back. At the very least, I needed Terra so we could start using her printer. Garnet’s blacksmithing wouldn’t hurt either. So, with some time to kill, I decided another journey was in order.

“I’m not planning on going far,” I explained. “My soul world is always accessible to you girls. You can stop by any time. Furthermore, we can speak with Slave Communication. Elaya showed you how to ding me if you need me to open the channel?”

“Y-yes… she did.” Shao coughed. “It’s just… you leaving alone, I don’t like it.”

“Especially if you’re going there.” Miki nodded in agreement.

“It’ll be fine.”

“That’s exactly the thing Master always says when things don’t go fine!” Celeste cried.

“Master needs to stop raising flags.” Shao declared.

“What’s the worst-”

“If you say ‘what’s the worst that will happen, I’ll bite you!” Miki growled.

It seemed like the girls had been paying too close attention to my clichéd lines. They no longer worked.