Farah’s brows furrowed up as the skill unfurled before her, and Dia found herself curious. For some reason, she had the impression that Farah was struggling to use the Boundary Crossing skillstick, which didn’t quite make sense. After all, for teleportation-type skillsticks, one just needed to imprint an image in their mind and—

“Done,” Farah said, cutting off Dia’s thoughts. At the same time, a vast scroll, one that showed the interior of Moon Mansion, unfurled before her. The activation of Boundary Crossing had, in this instant, linked two areas together spatially, and it was through this scroll that they could return to Licencia with a single step. “Let’s go, before something stupid happens.”

“Alright.” Nodding, Dia and Lloyd followed Farah through the scroll, but instead of stepping over to the other side, the three of them had paused in an expanse of darkness. Wind howled a moment later, and a nebulous force rippled through the dark passageway they were in.

Before any of them could react, the dark passageway came apart, and the three of them found themselves directly outside Moon Mansion. Bells clanged madly a second later, and the other Moon Lords rushed out, along with a harried-looking Nero.

“Intruders!”

The Moon Guards and the lower-level members of the Moon Lords flooded out of Moon Street at that cry, and Dia found herself yelling for everyone to calm the heck down. Bedlam ensued, as all shouts of yells and battle cries rang out, and for a moment, Dia thought she was in a battlefield.

With a dull explosion, a small sun lit up the skies above Moon Mansion, and everyone fell silent. Claud wormed his way out of the crowd, stared at Dia and Farah, and hollered, “False alarm! Go back! Claim drinks from Triple-D later!”

As the tide of people surged back to wherever they had been, Claud turned to look at Farah and Dia herself, his eyes full of resignation. Lily appeared behind him a moment later, took a look at the three of them, and then slapped her forehead.

“That just about sums my feelings up, yes.” Claud took a deep breath. “You guys tried to use some spatial method to return back to Moon Mansion, right? What made you think that would work, when up against me?”

“…You even had defences against spatial skills?” Farah asked.

“I did not put up this nice dome just for people to pop inside randomly,” Claud replied. “There’s a bunch of artefacts preventing spatial travel from working. After all, things like Teleport and Ground Shrink exist, right?”

“You…are crazy prepared, buddy,” Dia muttered. “Oh hi, everyone else. We’re back.”

She looked at the others, who were all armed and defended by a bunch of artefacts. “I see an alarm also went off when we tried to use Boundary Crossing, huh?”

“Yeah,” Schwarz replied, lowering his weapon. “It’s called Boundary Crossing, eh? What does it exactly do?”

“It links two areas together, acting as a doorway of sorts,” Farah replied, before gesturing at Lloyd. “My butler brought the skillstick as an emergency measure. Right. This is Lloyd, my butler. He’ll be staying with us for the time being…is that fine?”

“No problem there,” said Schwarz.

Claud nodded, and Lily, who was sticking close to him, said, “I knew we were lacking someone!”

Risti chuckled. “So, why the use of a spatial skillstick?”

Farah nodded at her, before the smile on her face faded away. “Yesterday, nearly every single county was attacked by fanatics of the Moons. It happened here too, right?”

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“Yeah,” said Claud. “Me, Lily and Blake of the city guard were at the scene. We stopped the bugger from killing enough people, which allowed the ritual to summon the Moon Emissary to be disrupted by Caroline.”

Dia had a sneaking suspicion that the whole thing had involved their local paranoid expert, Claud, when she heard about how the Moon Emissary failed to descend, and she couldn’t help but feel rather chuffed at how she had seen it coming.

“Dia?” Farah asked, waving her hand in front of her eyes. “Something wrong?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing. Just thinking about something, that’s all,” said Dia.

“Well, you had this really odd grin on your face,” Farah replied. “I thought some mental skill hit you or something.”

“Aren’t you going to ask if I’m fine or something?”

“I don’t think Boundary Crossing was the reason behind that odd face of yours,” Farah replied, before turning to the others. “Anyway, can we go in first? We’ve been out in the field for three days, and I really want a shower.”

“Me too,” said Dia.

“If it’s not too much, I too would like to wash up,” Lloyd added.

“Alright, alright.” Schwarz clapped his hands. “Come on, let’s go. It’s still morning, so I suppose we’ll hold the welcome back feast for lunch instead. Phew. You guys stink.”

Everyone glanced at him.

“You do know that you’re the only person who hasn’t travelled out of Licencia ever since the Moon Lords were created, right?” Claud asked. “You’re not entitled to say those words.”

“Bah. I’ve no reason to travel, and do you really want to take over what I’m doing? I don’t mind, really.”

Claud clammed up at those words.

Laughing, Lily said, “Why don’t you give it a try, Claud? It’ll be fun, I think.”

“No.”

“What if I were to help you out with it? Besides, if you’re handling the little issues that Schwarz usually handles, you might be able to improve security or something. Wouldn’t that be nice?” Lily pressed on.

“Urgh!” Claud locked eyes with Lily, and for a moment, Dia wondered if it was lightning or hearts that were connecting the two. It didn’t sound like bad-natured teasing; it was closer to the kind she associated with romance books. Was there something going on between the two of them?

She appraised the situation, and then shook her head. These two hadn’t quite gotten there yet, but within the next few months…

It was none of her business, though.

“Anyway, Farah, you haven’t quite answered our question yet,” Risti reminded quietly. “I don’t think the appearance of the Moon Emissaries are enough to send you into a flutter.”

“You’d be a bit wrong about that,” Farah replied. “I was travelling with Lloyd, who had purchased the Boundary Crossing skillstick with his own money. He’s old, and well, didn’t the great Dark create darkened monsters? We didn’t want to run the risk of moonlit monsters or whatever adjective we want to append on them showing up.”

Risti considered her words slowly, and nodded. “That’s a fair judgement.”

“Yeah. Anyway, the Moon Emissaries are headed towards the sovereignty capital right now,” said Farah. “Things are about to get spicy there, and fast.”

She sniffed twice. “Alright, we’re going in. Claud, Lily, if you’d move to the side…”

Lily, who had been tempting Claud with the promise of being able to make some reforms to ensure the security of the city, had to stop, and Dia rolled her eyes when she saw Lily’s pouty face. Claud, who was staring at that face dumbly, just made the scene even more comical, and Dia had to hide a laugh.

Fortunately, Farah was already leading the way inside, walking at a pace that only someone who had been out in the field and looking forward to a nice long bath would have. It was something Dia fervently felt too, but more importantly, under the nice, comforting dome of Moon Mansion…

She felt safe.

“We’re back,” Dia muttered.

“Yeah. One can’t look down on the feeling of being truly secure,” Farah replied, her words equally quiet. “It’s indeed nice to be back. No darkened monsters, no pesky rulers trying to make their will known to their social inferiors…just a bunch of misfits in a very safe home.”

Farah took in a really deep breath, and then gagged. “Man, I stink.”

“Yeah, you do. Too bad my Refresher only works once every twenty-four hours,” Dia replied. “Come on, let’s go and wash up as quickly as possible. The two of you don’t smell good, and I really want a change of clothes.”

“We’re all germaphobes on this day,” Farah noted, amusement in her words. “Lloyd, don’t stand around waiting for us ladies to poke fun at each other. Get washed up, and we’ll settle you in later.”

“Very well, milady. I’ll leave my baggage here, then.”

“You do that. The others will help you settle into a room or something,” Farah replied. “Don’t worry about it. We’re all equals here.”

“Even you, milady?”

“Yeah. Don’t look at me like that; even the Holy Son of the Black Church has a guest room, and we all do the same chores.” Farah paused. “I think.”

“That is…rather reassuring, I guess.”

“Anyway, enough talk already. I’m going back to my room. You two should hurry up and wash up too, before we stink up the whole house.”

Dia rolled her eyes at Farah’s departing figure, before heading back to her own room.