“Is it me,” Dia whispered, “or are the people here a bit odd?”

She looked around the tavern, her eyes taking in the people around here. They were giving off an odd chilly air that Dia found familiar, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint where that particular memory came from. In addition, she could spot some odd, wooden movements here and there, like moving puppets, but whenever she tried to look for the source, there was nothing to look at.

“You noticed too?” Risti sipped at her drink. “That said, only some of the people here are indeed a bit weird, but they’re blending in well enough that we’re ascribing the odd atmosphere to everyone present instead. You must be careful not to generalise a bit too hard here.”

Dia grunted.

“For instance,” Risti continued, “the shopkeeper isn’t behaving oddly. It would draw eyes, after all, if his movements were stiff. Whatever power is affecting people here is being very selective with their choice of target.”

“Not sure what to think about that,” Dia replied, sinking a fork into a nice helping of meat, “but it…might not be an issue to our mission.”

“We’re supposed to annoy Count Daybreak, after all. And if he’s busy sending assassins to Nightfall, I’m sure he’d have done the same to other people,” Risti replied. “Maybe this is just his comeuppance or something.”

“But I don’t like how this might potentially result in the loss of life,” Dia replied. “And those people that are moving oddly…they’re pawns. To be discarded once their purpose is spent. It’s deplorable. I don’t like it. In fact, I hate it. No one should be turned into something like that.”

Risti looked at her for an entire minute, and then smiled gently. “You’ve grown somewhat, I guess.”

“Huh?”

“Hehe. When we first went out, your convictions weren’t this firm,” Risti replied. “It seems that the events at Nachtville and the mess that never ended has toughened your character.”

“Eh?” Dia thought about it for a moment, and then shook her head. “Really doesn’t feel like it.”

“That’s what you think. Your common sense has improved by leaps and bounds too,” Risti added.

“That’s only because you saw me trying to stop those idiots from kidnapping Moon babies and bringing them back home,” Dia replied. “Those idiots don’t really think too hard about what they’re doing…or they were influenced for some reason.”

After categorically shutting down Risti’s assertion of growth, Dia pondered on her future. Now that Grandis had been split by huge barriers, Dia knew that she could return home anytime, and no one would probably stop her. The person that could — Ruler Istrel — was still a tetra-folder, and he didn’t have a penta-folder trump card lying around.

If she returned now, Aunt Lumine would definitely protect Dia with her full might, and her father would do the same thing too. The original charge would be reinvestigated and everything, since the Istrel Sovereignty couldn’t abuse the Emperor’s authority. The charge she was on would be washed away…and to be honest, no one would care about that at all in the current climate.

She sipped from her glass and smiled. For now, however, she was content with her current life. Lustre wasn’t in any danger now or anything, and all three dukedoms were roughly the same distance away from the battlefront between the Dark and the Moons. And…this was the first time she’d made real friends.

Dia didn’t want to give up everything she had wrought with the others.

“Dia?” Risti poked her cheeks. “You have this serious look on your face. Is everything fine?”

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“I’m fine,” Dia replied. “Just thinking about a few things, that’s all.”

She paused for a moment. “My mistress, in particular. She can probably return home now, and nothing would happen. No one would care about a crime of implication in such troubled times, especially when the person involved has a tetra-folder duke as her father.”

“Princess Dia, huh?” Risti smiled. “She’ll probably return soon, I guess. Family’s important. I also want to return to Grandia and find my old man for a hug. I wonder if I can convince him to retire and come back here, though.”

“Convince him to retire?” Dia asked, curious. “He’s the Association President, right? Wouldn’t the Emperor be mad if he retires to join a two-bit half-criminal group?”

“The Emperor can bite my ass,” Risti replied. “He hasn’t shown his face ever since the Dark and the Moons started to shake their rear ends around the place. I doubt he’s going to go after my father.”

“Okay, but how are you going to convince him?”

“Crying?” Risti asked. “I’ll force a tear or two, and with quivering shiny eyes, ask him to come with me to meet my friends.”

She paused. “’Dad, come with me! Please protect my friends and my hard work!’ Something like that. His heart would melt from that.”

Dia wondered if she could do the same to her father, before saying, “Well, it’s definitely a good place to retire in. Look at Nero; most of the time, he’s like a retired old man with nothing to do most of the time. Just asking for drinks or sharing stories about his own life…although he’s younger than everyone present.”

Risti laughed. “True, true. I’ll convince my father to retire when the barrier opens up. Maybe he might find a new love in Licencia too, and before I know it, there might be a younger sibling to hug and coddle.”

“…How strong is your father?”

“Right, good point.”

As a rule of thumb, the higher one’s mana circuits, the harder it was to pop out kids. Dia knew that very well; her parents had been trying for years before Dia and her brother were born.

Brother…heh. I wonder how he’s doing now, come to think of it.

She hadn’t thought much about her brother ever since that great escape, but again, they didn’t have the chance to interact much. Her brother was slated for greatness for young; he had the skillsets for governing and was therefore groomed appropriately. Dia, on the other hand, was groomed as the sword of the Lustre Dukedom; their conflicting education meant that they rarely came into contact with each other.

She could vaguely remember her brother trying to carry her when she was really, really young though…although she only remembered that instance because her brother tripped over on the way to the cot.

“Ah well.” Risti shrugged. “Anyway, what about you? When your mistress returns…”

“I might go back for a visit, but only when she returns,” Dia replied. “Not too sure, really. This is the first time in my life I’ve gotten to do something on my own terms, of my own choice. I don’t really want to throw all this away just yet.”

Risti looked at her once, and then nodded. “It’s a shame for your mistress, though. Well, if she comes back, maybe you can return a few days later and introduce us all.”

“If she comes back…” Dia bit back a laugh. There was no conceivable way Princess Dia would show up at the Lustre Dukedom before her, since they were the one and the same.

“Dia?”

“Ahem. Just thinking of something funny, that’s all.” Dia smiled brightly for a moment, and then returned her attention to the surroundings. By now, Nero was probably scaring the living moonlights out of everyone in a select mine, all while the two of them were eating and showing their faces at the ground floor. Most of the normal people here had taken note of the two twins here — Risti was looking like her, but Dia had stopped caring about that long ago — especially since they were good-looking and…

Dia decided to cease her mental self-praise before she became too conceited from it. “Anyway, let’s get back to eating. I don’t want to stay here under the public eye for too long; there’s this…eerie, familiar chill I can’t quite pinpoint for some reason.”

“Chill?” Risti shivered. “Yeah, there’s a chill indeed. And it’s indeed quite familiar too…”

“You also can’t remember it?” Dia asked, concerned.

“I feel like I should,” Risti replied. “Just one more push, but…I can’t seem to nail it either.”

She fell silent. “Maybe something big is brewing here.”

Dia let out a sigh. “Of course something big has to be brewing here. Since when was there never anything big brewing for the past year or so? I’m sure there are conspiracies and dark, evil plans being hatched throughout the continent. And I’m…”

A thought ran through her mind at this moment, and Dia smiled weakly. “Of course. The agents of the great Dark. How could I have forgotten?”

Risti breathed in sharply, and then nodded, her eyes flashing the whole time. “It seems that the enemy has sent in a few spies to wreak havoc in here. What should we do? Should we ignore it and everything?”

“I’m not sure who’s the good guy and bad guy in this primordial squabble,” Dia replied, “but it might affect us, right?”

“You know what? Let’s just discuss it with our resident expert after this,” Risti replied. “Done.”

Dia nodded in agreement. “That’s probably for the best, really…”