Lena said nothing, but gestured for me to follow. As I was walking out of the door, I looked back at Asayo, who was currently curled up on a bench fast asleep, much like a cat. I found the scene amusing but also slightly strange.

Following Lena down the street, we took a left and kept walking. Suddenly, we were interrupted by a loud noise. What happened next was completely baffling. Out of nowhere, a stunningly gorgeous kitsune in an elegant set of robes crashed through a window, after being blasted by a pillar of water.

Looking towards the source of the water, I saw a young girl with pale, almost light blue skin, long white hair, cyan eyes and a glistening blue dress. Floating out of the window, the girl, who was clearly a naiad, went in for another attack on the kitsune, however, was interrupted when a large wall of fire blocked her water.

“Zahra, what the hell are you doing? This eight-tailed bitch just ordered fish in front of me with no empathy at all!” The naiad screamed at a new figure who jumped out of the window.

“Whoa, whoa, Althaia, I didn’t know that your lack of eating fish dictated whether or not I was able to eat some. Because let me tell you, fish is delicious and there is nothing that you can do to change my opinion or get me to stop.” The kitsune said as she stood up with elegance.

“This isn’t fun anymore, Zahra just wanted to eat Mr. Richard’s food, but now Zahra doubts we’ll be let back in…” The new figure cried out in an almost childish voice, while speaking in third-person.

Looking closely at the figure, who I assumed was Zahra, I saw a petite girl with tan skin, fiery crimson hair and large wings of fire. However, her most discerning aspect was her skimpy outfit, which was far too revealing and made me slightly uncomfortable.

“Oh stop bitching, you can get in anywhere with that “charm” of yours!” Althaia, the naiad, replied in a mean-spirited and haughty demeanor.

“That's so insensitive, you know Zahra’s trying to get away from that life, that's why she decided to join the party!” The kitsune appeared to be outraged.

Zahra’s flame wings began to fade along with the large wall of fire. Dropping to the floor, tears began to well up in Zahra’s eyes after being yelled at. Her appearance was small and pitiful.

“Oh look at that, you made Zahra cry, you insufferable piece of shit!” Another new voice outroared from the broken window.

Looking up, I saw a female oni with deep red eyes, black hair, and fair red skin. The aura she radiated was completely terrifying and I could feel her bloodlust from here. Jumping down from the window, she aimed her large naginata at Althaia. However, as soon as the blade reached the naiad, it completely passed right through her like a solid moving through liquid. The oni, who missed her attack, fell to the ground but recovered with a natural roll.

Spinning around, the oni glared at Althaia with a furious expression, “Arghaaaaa, why do you always do that? Fight me like a real woman and stop using your cheap tricks to avoid conflict!”

Looking back at Lena with a hesitant expression, I couldn’t help but come to the horrible realization that these were probably my party members. As if she heard my thoughts, Lena simply nodded before yelling out loud to gather their attention. Her thought process for putting this team together was completely incomprehensible to me.

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“ALL OF YOU STOP!” Lena partially transformed into her true form and let out an aura far superior to the oni or even the Necromancer that I had encountered previously.

The four girls immediately backed down and stopped the commotion like children who just got scolded by their parents. A cold sweat ran down the back of my neck from her presence.

“Now girls, play nice and introduce yourselves to our new party leader, while I go fix this mess of yours.” Reverting back to a humanoid form and retracting her aura, Lena then walked through the front door of the restaurant.

My attention finally returned to the unruly group that would be my new party members. After an awkward moment of silence one of them eventually spoke up.

“Heeey Leone, my name's Ichika, your resident kitsune, and pleasure seeker.” Ichika approached me with alluring poise.

I was able to get a closer look at her now. She had silky dirty blonde hair, beautiful silver eyes with sharp fox-like pupils and an extremely gorgeous face with smooth, slightly sunkissed skin. Her body was also undeniably attractive, not possessing too much or too little, however, her most eye-catching feature was the eight large kitsune tails.

I don’t know why, but I began stumbling over my words trying to give a response. Eventually though, I managed to find something to say, “I see. Well my name is Leone Anlett. It's nice to be working with you.”

After speaking, Ichika suddenly leaned in close to my ear and whispered, “Don’t… you… mean… it’s… a… PLEASURE… to… be… working with me?”

Immediately, I felt my face grow hot as she returned to her original position and let out a faint snicker. I tried to change the subject as quickly as possible.

“Well anyways how about you three.” I turned to look at the others.

Althaia looked at me scornfully, “Well there’s nothing that needs to be said here about me. This is just a temporary arrangement until I'm able to get into Shyvielle’s squad.”

“Wait Shyvielle? You know my friend?” I asked, genuinely surprised.

At the mention of Shyvielle, her face turned red and her stare became more intense by the second. It was very clear, to me at least, that she had a crush on my childhood friend. Seeing her like this was honestly quite cute and made me want to tease her. I would soon regret this decision.

“Hmmm, I see, so you're in love with Shyvielle huh?” As soon as I finished my words, a large orb of water blasted me in the face.

“How do you know about that? You better promise me that you won’t tell anyone!” She threatened me.

“Well I didn’t even know what you were talking about until about ten seconds ago, but the way you reacted pretty much just revealed it to everyone.” I responded in irritation.

Again I had made another mistake. Was it because I was stupid? Quite possibly. But at that moment I just couldn’t help myself from pointing out the obvious.

A large pillar of water suddenly crashed into me, knocking my dumbass onto the ground. The naiad’s attack sent the oni girl into a frenzy as she charged at Althaia, resuming their fight from earlier. However, just like before, the oni’s attacks passed right through her.

“Why are you like this? You need to get a hold of yourself, you insufferable bitch! Stop getting so fumed up for no reason!” The oni growled as she amped up the ferocity of her attacks.

Despite her ruthlessness, the oni’s display of moves also contained great finesse and power, not to mention speed, that genuinely impressed me. In spite of all this, the naiad still managed to evade her while counter-attacking with overwhelming water magic.

“You’re one to talk, all I ever see you be is angry. Anytime I do anything you just get pissed off immediately!” Althaia responded, sending a devastating wave of water forward.

“Maybe because everything you do is just so annoying! You’re always whining, if you would just shut up sometimes then maybe you would see how calm I can really be!” The oni retorted as she dodged the attack and countered with a vicious strike of her naginata.

Watching this scene unfold before me while on the floor, I couldn’t help but sigh once again. I had a suspicious feeling that this sort of thing would not be a one off occurrence. The realization left me with a sensation of dread.

‘How am I supposed to be in a party with these people, let alone as their leader?’ I wondered.