The way out of the labyrinth was much more straightforward, since the area bosses just let them through. Of course, the personalized recommendations bombardment never let up.

Lockefeldt removed the magic barricade he'd placed on the door when they'd entered. The reason for that barricade, unfortunately, was still on the other side.

"Master! Master! Please forgive me this time! It'll be the last, I swear!"

Such a sob voice moaned in grief from the other side.

The class tensed up.

"Remember, all of you," Lockefeldt said, "He is after me, not you. When I open the door—"

"Master! Not like this!" Zanderfon begged. He got between Lockefeldt and the door. "I will fight alongside you!"

In truth, the valiant Zanderfon just needed a bit of stress relief after being avoided by Miki. Not that she hated him, but the girl herself didn't really know what was causing herself to avoid him.

"Fight? Another fight?!" a certain princess exclaimed with glee.

XML cocked his gun's hammer to the fun position, sharing a knowing and hyped look with Lilian. Arnor was off in the back muttering "Food or free live testing, w-what a frightening choice..."

"You all..." Lockefeldt shed a tear, "Idiots! You haven't even eaten lunch yet! The discount period is about to expire!"

Casa and Larissa were shocked.

It was around 12:30 in the afternoon. From the Great Lobby, it would take a 25-minute walk to get to the cafeteria on the other side of the school's grounds.

5 minutes to spare. They had a hair's width of leeway.

"Sir, we will honor your sacrifice!" Casa saluted. Larissa saluted after her. Lockefeldt saluted back. "I knew you would understand..." he muttered.

"As for the rest of you."

He looked back towards Zanderfon, XML, Lilian, and Arnor in a most dramatic fashion.

"We dine in Helle's."

The cafeteria stopped serving by 1:30PM to prepare for a huge batch of food for the students in the dormitories. Anyone who just missed the closing time would have had to make do with the stall outside the canteen, owned by Ms. Helle, a nice lady unfortunately stuck with a repertoire of basic foods and dishes.

Well, oatmeal for lunch was fine sometimes, anyway.

The barricade went down, and Lockefeldt kicked open the door. Arnor rushed to front and invoked his black armor, covering him from head to toe, expecting Vrostroy's flying kick to come.

The man zoomed in at ballistic speeds with a "FORGIVE ME MASTEEER" with tears and snot all the way until his glistening abs. He struck Arnor's armor. There should have been a crater of gore, but the armor absorbed most of the impact, blowing Arnor 3 meters back.

Before Arnor could be blown away any farther, Lilian opened up with a percussion spell behind him that killed the incoming attack's momentum. Normally, you wouldn't do this with an ally in front of you, but that ally was Arnor, who could possibly be tossed into a blender dimension and come out fine.

Arnor stopped 5 meters from his original position.

"RECAST!" Lilian shouted. She didn't relent, and recast the percussion spell. Arnor took her shout as a cue to anchor himself to the ground.

The force shook the air and blew away Vrostroy. Arnor felt something brush against his back, but that was it.

Even with this amount of power that could blow away a platoon of knights, Vrostry was only blown away by 5 meters. He landed upright, but then promptly collapsed on his knees.

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"MASTEEER"

There he goes again.

"FORGIVE MEEEE"

He raised his hands and brought them down, prostrating, but also shattering the ground. The damages would later be deducted from his pay.

Lockefeldt looked back and called out:

"Quick! The rest of you! Escape while you still can!"

At this, Casa, Larissa, Miki, and Ruan all dashed out of the way, towards one of the corridors.

Stray debris from Lilian and Arnor's fight with Vrostroy flew at lethal velocities. Such pieces of shrapnelized gravel were about to hit Miki.

Clang!

Letterknives flew and deflected the debris. Miki was shaken, but she managed to steal a glance of Zanderfon in his most dashing knife-throwing form.

Their gazes met. The look in his eyes were of a tiger claiming his bride.

Miki blushed for a split second. That split second wasn't lost on Zanderfon.

As Casa and co. fled, there was a resounding "AAAAAA" like someone was getting a power boost. Miki snickered.

Drenched in sweat, the four reached the cafeteria in time and managed to claim the discounts. The cafeteria staff were just a tad shocked, but it wasn't the first time that there were students desperate for the discount.

The amount of energy they expended just to get here, however, forced them to buy much more food than usual, completely offsetting whatever they would've saved with the discount.

Well. Whatever.

"I'm... So tired..." "No... No more..."

Casa and Larissa sighed.

All four of them let gravity bring their butts to their seats. Casa was seated beside Larissa, while Miki was seated with Ruan.

The brother in question couldn't help but to keep his eyes on his food. Casa and Larissa thought "Yeah, that's all I can think of now, too," but Miki felt otherwise. Stupid brother hiding feelings.

"...Ru..." she muttered, leaning towards Ruan.

"Ahaaa ha ha ha, Miki! Such a tiring day, huh?"

Miki stared at him for a moment, her eyes piercing his. Her squinting power levels were reaching the heavens, increasing Ruan's subjugation meter for every second that passed.

"...mm, I see."

Casa and Larissa perked up. The way Miki spoke changed for a bit on the end there.

"Miki, what do your elf eyes see?!" Larissa remarked, leaning over the table.

Casa observed how Miki observed Ruan, then thought back to the events of the day.

—Miki attacked me, then we settled down, then everyone got their books, then... Where was Ruan? Hmm, he looked pretty down when he came back with... the princess and... ah.

Casa and Miki met eyes. They nodded, then looked to Ruan.

The guy wasn't feeling entirely enthusiastic about being visually interrogated by two girls, one of them being his adorable younger sister.

"...Ruan."

"Yes?! I mean—y-yeah?"

"...Feelings?"

He made some incomprehensible sound like Guagh?! which elicited snorts from Casa and Larissa.

"...about Princess?"

Ruan took 30 damage.

"...Shh..."

Miki stood up and gently patted Ruan's head, delivering the death blow.

They somehow managed to begin eating their lunch. Casa was ecstatic about feeding Miki, while Miki was satisfied with feeding Ruan. Ruan was taking all the damage, while Larissa was yearning to be fed as well.

"Hmm. How about Ruan feed Larissa?" Casa suggested, eliciting strange looks.

It somehow made Ruan feel better about being pampered by his own sister. He wouldn't show it, though.

Seeing Ruan's expression quietly soften, Miki took another nibble from Casa's spoon. A tear involuntarily leaked from her eye.

"Oh? Miki?" Casa asked, her eyes wide and her happiness displaced by curiosity.

"...sorry... I'm sorry..."

Miki wiped her eyes. Casa took out a handkerchief and helped her with it.

Seeing this, Larissa somewhat figured out what happened. She couldn't forget the image of Miki crying, pressing a bandage against Casa's wound. It was a little bit conflicting to think that, if it were really Miki who had injured Casa, the two were now merrily being like this.

Did she also need to stab someone to get emotionally close with them? Was being stabbed the better end of the deal? Curious.

Meanwhile, Ruan had no idea what was going on. All he knew was that Miki ran off, then Larissa and Casa took off after her. Since Lord Lockefeldt didn't say anything about it, there shouldn't be a problem with it anymore.

Clearly, though, something was going on here.

This was his own sister. He had the right to know.

Damn, though. This was going to be the first time in his whole life that he would talk with her seriously.

"H-Hey, Miki..."

She tilted her head.

"W-What happened? Between you and... Casa, was it?"

Casa nodded, then looked to Miki. The shy girl was internally debating about whether she should say. Her brothers had been eternally insistent about nosing into her business, despite only ever really being in her life since the past few years.

She looked to Casa. Casa nodded. She looked to Larissa. Larissa nodded, though she didn't know what was going on.

She looked to Ruan.

"...jealous... hurt Casa..." ---was all she said.

Ruan's face froze with a faraway squint. He was clearly processing things.

It was just three words from Miki. It sounded pretty darn important, being the heart of the matter, but it had no detail to go about, so he had to do some creative mental gymnastics to make things fit in.

---Hm? Hurt Casa? Wow, um, but, okay, I get that, but jealous? She ran away because she was jealous? Unclear.

He was stuck in his squinting-processing face even while he was eating lunch. It got to the point that Miki was concerned that maybe he hated her now, so she poked him.

Mindlessly, he poked her back. It made her happy in a strange way, but then she just became concerned since it looked like Ruan was stuck in mental auto-pilot.

She didn't want to have more than one person in her life with a talent for mental auto-pilot, magically-induced or not.

She flicked him in the head.

"Ow! What---"

The moment Ruan saw Miki's concerned puppy eyes, he ruffled her hair, and that was that.