"Good evening."

Shanks greeted the guardsmen with a smile as every member of their group entered the light.

"...!"

The old guard quickly glanced at all of them and his eyes widened the moment he laid them upon the massive blue griffin with violet eyes and golden beak.

"I hope we're not causing you any trouble. Since it's so late I bet that you put away the scanning artifact, I assure you that none of us has the ruthless title, but it is understandable if you want to check anyway. If that will be faster, we are willing to pay for the appraiser to check us too."

Shanks declared, showing off the goodwill and readiness for cooperation but...

"Ah! No, no, no...! We can't possibly waste the precious time of your lordships...!"

The guard became pale as a sheet and got onto one knee and bowed his head showing off his neck, completely surprising the rat-faced man who expected the exact opposite kind of behavior.

"..."

Shanks flinched and looked back at his no less confused companions.

"Your lordships friends are already waiting in our lowly city's best inn, please, we cant' allow to make them wait...!"

A clear fear and desperation echoed in the guard's voice as he hurriedly stood up...

"What are you waiting for?! Can't you see it's the group the young ladies are waiting for?!"

...and shouted at the other guards who started hurriedly operating the gate.

"...young ladies...?"

Shanks repeated after him and glanced back at the others...

"..."

Literally everyone, including Blueberry, was making a shocked expression.

Because... they flew here...

They took the shortest way across every possible terrain that could have slow them down.

There were basically no monsters in the skies that could pose even the smallest threat to the massive emperor griffin, while on the ground it wasn't hard to stumble across something, anything, that would require talking at least a bit of time to deal with it...!

There was simply no chance that the young ladies the guard was talking about were...!

"...oh, system damn it...! How?!"

As the Dandelions, Ti, and Blueberry all came through the gate opened specially for them, they could take in the first view of the busy city life.

Brightly light lanterns illuminating the fronts of still opened shops and restaurants, people laughing and enjoying themselves...

...the large crater in the middle of the road with imprints of the soles of boots on high heels in the very middle - that a group of workers was doing their best to fix as soon as possible...

"Skwee?!"

The blue emperor griffin screeched in disbelief and spread her wings in full the moment she saw the crater.

"...that only confirms it... how in the system name did they get here earlier than us?!"

Shanks groaned and covered his eyes with his hand, causing more than just a few bystanders to went silent and stare at him.

"Excuse me, sir, where is the inn that you've mentioned?"

Uresha turned around and asked the old guard who was fearfully peeking at them from his spot behind the gate.

"A-ah...! I-it's called King's apple - it's a beautiful building right by the main square. If the royal family is visiting our territory, they would always stay there. J-just go straight down this road - you can't miss it...!"

The man hurriedly explained and even added some trivia.

"Thank you, have a nice day."

Uresha bowed politely to the guard and their group moved forward, carefully walking around the crater.

"I was sure that whatever the fuck they have in mind they will try to be fucking stealthy about it, just like in the fucking north...! What the fuck are they thinking?!"

Lairs complained and started massaging her forehead with both hands as they walked and each and every person they walked past was staring at them fearfully.

"Let's just be grateful that there are no signs of civilians getting decimated..."

Shanks pointed out.

"That might be because the guards organized a team of cleaners to deal with that first."

Rotte pointed out with a heavy sigh.

"Wait. No way. Those two would actually do something like that in the middle of the city, right...?!"

Ti flinched and hurriedly looked between the Dandelions hoping that someone would admit that she's right.

"..."

"...you do know that young lady Pride challenged a group of adventurers called the Brave Swords on a duel and then killed them off together with Zombie, right? They did it in front of the adventurers guild in the kingdom's capital. I don't have anything against the Wrath territory, but if they did that in Salmagundi, what's stopping them from blowing up this whole city?"

Shanks sighed making a defeated expression and shrugged his shoulders at the horrified Ti.

"I...! I need to...!"

The copper-eyed woman fidgeted nervously.

"Don't. You've seen how the guards acted - they were scared but more of in an I-don't-want-to-get-beaten up sense and not everyone-is-going-to-die sense - so we can safely assume that no one was killed. Yet. So try to relax. It should be okay."

Shanks waved his hand dismissively.

"...!"

But that only made the bodyguard tremble.

"Shanks, you aren't calming her down at all."

Uresha sighed and lightly brushed against her husband.

"Well, that's because I didn't want to lie."

The rat-faced man shrugged his shoulder.

"Oh! Look, that must be the place!"

Rotte's words ended up finishing the conversation.

And indeed, their group arrived at a large expensive-looking inn with a masterfully painted sign of a red apple in crown above the door.

But there was something disturbing about the place...

Even though all the other restaurants and shops were full of people, there was literally no one sitting by the tables put outside for the guests.

As if no one dared to approach the place.

"..."

"Skwee!"

Out of everyone, Blueberry was the one to confidently trot towards the suspiciously looking inn, and since no one from the group could understand her, no one could be sure why was she so happy.

It could have been because she was just happy that she will see the pair that she considers her parents...

Or maybe she might be excited because she smells the blood of the people slaughtered by the very same pair, for making some inappropriate remarks.

"...only one way to find out..."

The rat-faced man breathed out and clenched his fists.

Without further ado, he stepped forward towards the main door and opened one wing of the large door - large enough for the Blueberry to walk in without instantly hitting her head against the ceiling once inside.

"...?"

The inside was definitely that of a high-class inn, the only problem was, it was almost empty.

The only exception of that was the best table at the very center of the whole room by which the four very familiar silhouettes were sitting nonchalantly.

"Ha! Took you long enough!"

The red-haired Cranberry breathed out and waved her hand towards the entering group.

"Skwee! (Mommy! Daddy!)"

The blue emperor griffin ran towards the table, clacking her talons on the broken hardwood floor.

"Hello sweetie. How are you do...? Ha...?"

Cranberry welcomed the griffin but then she suddenly flinched as she was looking at the people behind the griffin.

"One is missing... haa... don't tell me, you took so long because you lost that bodyguard woman and tried to retrieve her but were unable to?"

She asked in a worried voice.

"...eh...?!"

Everyone flinched and gasped especially Lairs, and only then did they realized that the copper-eyed bodyguard wasn't with them anymore!