Once the [Rainbow Guild] came into view most in the vehicle released a collective sigh of relief. Once it became clear that the crowd in front was deliberately trying to attract our attention, we recognized them as the medical team meant to assist us, the defensive team meant to stop any nasties that might have followed us, and the small group meant to question us, which I only recognized because Merglobth, Doris, and Rubicon were among the scholarly looking group of people.

For the first time, I really got to see how I was part of a [Guild], where multiple people, with different qualifications, came together to accomplish one job.

Well, I was used to dealing with someone who helped me do what I could do, namely our [Handler] right now, together with a [Guild Master], but these many people waiting for us did make it more real, at least from a personal point of view.

Still, we had a few minutes to kill before we reached our new destination, so I decided to unshelve a conversation that should be weird enough to make the others forget about their tension.

“So… you go around and save strapping young [Adventurers] while flashing them your lacy black underwear?” I asked, looking back at the surprised, but amused, witch.

“What?”

“Are you serious? Again!?”

“Huh?”

“Goodness gracious”

“Oh my!”

Everyone, once more, erupted with different exclamations of surprise and confusion.

“Darwin, really?” Merga was doing all she could to not erupt into a fit of laughter.

“What? I think it’s exactly what one would think you’d wear, and it's kind of weird that you actually do”, I replied defensively.

“Since when have you been thinking about what kind of lingerie I might wear?” She mischievously asked.

My eyes jumped to Sheeno for a moment, and time stopped for me for that instant: My mate was not amused, not at all, and it was clear that she wanted me to drop the discussion as quickly as I should have already done.

“Well, it’s not that I’ve been thinking about it… I just thought they fit your personality?” I tried to dig myself out of the hole I had created.

“Really? And what kind of personality is that?” She rested her hand on her open palm, with the elbow of said arm resting on top of her knee.

“The troublesome kind”, I drily replied.

“Darwin, really, why did you have to bring up Lady Merga’s undergarments again?” A confused Undine shot me an awkward look.

“I was just trying to distract all of you, and the discussion wasn’t meant to evolve exactly this way: Merga is messing with us again!” I glare back at her, but the witch just smugly took it all in.

And then someone chuckled, others joined in, and suddenly most in the car were full-on laughing to tears.

“My mother is never going to believe me when I tell her that I spoke to the [Depth Witch] about her panties, not once, but twice!” Sheeno managed to get amidst her laughter, all four of her hands holding onto her sides.

“Your mother? How am I supposed to approach the subject with mine!? ‘Oh, by the way, mother, I have met the famously dangerous [Witch] and ended up in a discussion about her lingerie’, because that’s not weird at all!”, Undine responded with her panicked answer, that still didn’t keep her from laughing her ass off.

“Nobody is going to believe us!” Cherry simply said through a gasping laugh. She was probably the one who had the most deranged laugh out of all of us.

Even the triplets were giggling in a huddle.

Me? I was just chuckling at the absurdity of the situation while paying close attention with my [Aura] to the witch in question, who was sporting an all too kind smile for this exact situation not being part of her design. ‘Laughter is the best medicine’, they often say, and Merga seems quite involved in trying to make us feel better.

I had this thought the first time that she had been introduced to me as ‘dangerous’, but she’s seriously far too caring, kind, and ‘motherly’ for some of the stories I have been told. I mean, if she naturally reacts this way to help us in our moment of distress, can she really be as scary as the paint-

Merga immediately starts staring at the back of my head and gives me the most obvious wink I have ever seen from anyone, ever.

…ok, maybe she’s a bit scary.

* * *

“Here we are, [Rainbow Guild], population: Way too many people, apparently”, I said, while moving the cloud-hummer to land in front of the crowd waiting for us.

As soon as we landed, Rubicon started barking order- or howling, I guess, since he’s a monkey- and the firsts to make their way toward us was what I had identified as the medic team, obvious by their yellow and green garbs with a white-winged staff emblazoned as their symbol on their chests.

“Is anyone still in need of [Healing]? Anyone with [critical] values?” Some kind of [Goat Kebunu] asked us as soon as we opened the doors and started streaming out of the not-car, his perfectly manicured mustaches giving him an authoritative feel… if one were to ignore the square-pupilled eyes looking in two different directions.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“We have need of [Regrow Limb], or similar, on two people, for a total of three limbs; all of us are exhausted both magically and physically, so we’ll need energizing tonics for what looks like is going to be a long day ahead of us; other shallow wounds can be dealt with an [Area Heal], they are still there simply because we were conserving resources until we were safe”, Undine surprisingly took charge, explaining our condition and asking for specific cures as if she was used to it.

And, since she was a [High Priestess] focused on [Support], she very well might be.

Just as we were out of the car multiple people rushed our way and started talking over one another, but their training quickly kicked in and a sort of order established itself: And, obviously, the medic team was the one that got priority over the others.

They didn’t even need to ask, if Undine’s words weren’t clear enough, a look at mine and the Elf’s condition made it clear enough that we were the ones who actually had a need for them. And, if I had to be honest, I didn’t have in me to argue or protest, so I complied easily enough when they started helping us on some kind of stretchers.

It didn’t take long for me and Cherry to be recognized as the only harmed party in need of specialized healing, and we were ushered with emergency on two floating cushioned tables that brought us away, with which I had no problem because that meant I could finally stop any magic I was working, relax, and embrace the pain that was supposed to soon fly away.

“Damn, my lessons with Grog just weren’t enough to truly desensitize me to getting hurt, but I guess that’s understandable.”

“You kids doing fine-? Yeah, dumb question.”

[Guild Master] Rubicon had approached us with a worried expression, but a glare from me at the word ‘kid’ clued him in on the fact that I wasn’t fine and that I didn’t like how he was referring to me; still, it was surprising seeing him act so openly publicly, and it made me think that something else was happening in the background.

Fortunately, these distractions weren’t meant to last, and rapidly enough we resumed being escorted towards the infirmary, a balming [Spell] washing over me and making me feel ‘loopy’ again, but this time in a good way, almost better of that one time a friend from university offered me a couple of good pulls from some quality weed.

“Man, I need to find to find the equivalent for some magical ADHD meds, or something else that’ll help with keeping me calm and collected… I guess magical cush works too, if I can find some and it’s legal to both acquire and consume.”

While I was thinking about drugs, Sheeno and the other fit members of our group were accosted and consequently bombarded with questions from those scholarly dudes I had identified from before, and we soon found ourselves separated, to my growing frustration.

“Young man, there’s no need to be sad: You’ll be reunited with your friends soon enough”, an [Healer] on my left said amiably enough, patting the stretchers while making sure that he wasn’t touching me yet, probably so that he wouldn’t accidentally touch something that hurt.

Which was fair enough: After all the healing I was still feeling like a whole army of [Rattons] had marched over my already battered body, and I didn’t mean pain-wise, but I was speaking more precisely about the bone-deep sense of exhaustion that I have been feeling since we had successfully escaped from the Giant=Spider duo, thanks in no small part to Merga; which still stung a bit, but the more time passed the more I was coming to terms with it.

“Also, did that man make a reference to the ‘gay song’?”

* * *

(SHEENO’S POV)

The [Banished Princess] looked on while her mate was carted away with all the care and attention that she wanted to shower him with, but that the chaotic situation forced her to attend to other duties.

Duties she was forced into because she, and the people with her, her companions, had been too weak.

She had been too weak.

Sheeno immediately shook away that thought: Those were the type of things that she normally wanted to either punch or fuck out of her ‘boy-friend’s’ brain.

“So… I hear there was a [Demon] involved?” A troubled growl reached her ears, but it was muttered so harshly that if she hadn’t inherited [Roayl Tongue] as a [Trait] it would have been completely incomprehensible.

Differently from how it was worded, [Royal Tongue] could be used with both ears and mouth, even on small movements of the body that would normally be ignored: After all, a [King] is supposed to understand other’s true intentions even from the smallest of hints.

It was only after remembering fondly about the times she managed to escape her [Teachers] from instructing her to use said [Trait] beyond the face value it provided, preferring instead going out to train with the few [Knights] that didn’t look at her as only being ‘different’, that she noticed that Rubicon’s earnest question was in fact directed at her.

She momentarily hypothesized if Darwin’s airheadedness could be infectious, but she knew that was just embarrassment talking: She had just genuinely gotten used to Darwin being the center of attention, and with the [Depth Witch] standing so close she had thought as a given that any relevant and import questions would be asked to her.

Unfortunately, even the [Guild Master] seemed like he didn’t want to acknowledge the [Witch]’s existence; and, to be fair, if she didn’t have [Royal Blood], or she wasn’t Darwin’s friend, she might have liked to do the same.

As things were, she was pretty sure only she and Undine had said anything to Miss Merga.

“Yes: a [High Demon] to be exact, and our quarry, the [Bone Giant], revealed itself as some kind of [Evolved] experiment of its, something Darwin identified as a [Mausoleum Giant], an [Undead] monstrosity far beyond the scope and [Abilities] the [Guild]’s [Scouts] had reported”, She snapped into her ‘professional mode’, giving a brief yet accurate description of what had happened.

The [Guild Master] made a noise of displeasure at her words publicly throwing shade on his [Scouts], but there was no way to refute that some of the people he had employed shared part of the blame for the misinformation.

“I quite believe that could have turned catastrophically for the worst if Miss Merga didn’t just so happen to [Teleport] into my office just at the right time”, Merglobth slithered in from the side, providing a time-table of events previously unknown to her.

Sheeno had to suppress an unfair spike of distrustfulness that she momentarily felt for the [Handler], concentrating instead on the tidbit that they had just shared: Merga was capable of [Teleportation]. Probably [Long-range Teleportation] to boot.

In a place as dimensionally fluctuating as the [Nexus], Sheeno could count on one hand the number of people through history that could [Teleport] over [Isles] without being ripped to shreds by some spatial anomaly, and with the [Depth Witch] the number still fit on one, five-fingered, hand.

“Oh, please Rudy, don’t start acting all coy now: Everyone still able to hear us knows precisely what you’re talking about in that roundabout way”, the [Depth Witch] condescendingly patted the [Scimian Kebunu] on the elbow, while also making eye contact with her.

Both Sheeno and River fist flinched, but while the [Anomalous Heliokan] did so because of the unwanted attention, she couldn’t figure out if the [Guild Master] did the same either because of the unwarranted physical contact or because of the cute nickname she used.

Whatever the case, Sheeno promised herself that she wouldn’t tell Darwin about the name… Unless he desperately needed a new arrow in his quiver, that is.

Thinking about Darwin made her think back to the [High Demon] appearance: It might have been a coincidence, but knowing his [Patron], something had to have deliberately been done to orchestrate the appearance of one in spider-like form.

Exactly the type that Darwin would have the most trouble with.