“How do you feel?” Leila asked, peering at her son.

Ramon blinked and looked down at himself. The pact-forming ritual was completed without a hitch. Blood filled the grooves, lit up, and evaporated. Afterwards, he felt … no different. “Is it over?” Ramon asked and glanced at his dad. “Why didn’t anything change?”

“The ritual was successful,” Gren said before Grimmy could respond. “Now, you have to learn the summoning spell. Once you do, Kozabokget can be called upon at any time to help you.”

Ramon’s face stiffened. He had to do more learning? Why? It felt like the first wave of learning didn’t even matter!

“Alright,” Grimmy said and picked up Kozabokget. “Back into the seal you go.”

Kozabokget kicked her legs but stopped struggling soon enough. She didn’t struggle lest Grimmy use her movements as an excuse to accidentally squeeze her too hard. Her gaze landed on Vur. Although her plan to use Ramon to recover her strength worked, she couldn’t execute the second phase of her plan because of Vur’s appearance. Still, forming a contract with Ramon was a better outcome than being eaten. She glanced at the holy dragon and waved her leg. “Goodbye, Ramon. It was nice meeting you.”

Ramon blinked. “Wait,” he said and grabbed Grimmy’s tail. “Why do you have to seal her again?”

Grimmy raised an eyebrow, and his neck turned around to look at his son. “There’s plenty of reasons,” he said. He waved Kozabokget around. “Just look at her. What if she tricks someone into attacking you to free herself of the pact? It’ll be much harder for her to do that if she’s sealed.”

Ramon frowned. “Koza wouldn’t do that,” he said. “She’s very friendly, and she said she was going to teach me how to talk to things.”

“Then she tricked you already,” Grimmy said and gazed at the goat in his paw. Kozabokget trembled and closed her eyes. “Anyway, sealing her is the safest thing to do. If she’s outside and happens to get killed, her pact with you will reset, and you’ll have to catch her again when she reappears hundreds of years later. It’ll be a huge hassle.”

“That’s okay,” Ramon said. “I don’t mind. You don’t really have to seal her, right? Can’t I keep her?”

“No.”

Ramon turned to look at his mother. He stared at her with upturned eyes brimming with tears. “Mama, please? Can I keep her, please?”

“You heard your father,” Leila said, tossing all of the blame onto Grimmy.

“But you let Gloria keep Alfonse!” Ramon said, his face crinkling up. “This isn’t fair!”

Leila glanced at Grimmy. “Is it possible?” she asked with her eyes.

Grimmy frowned. “How about this?” he asked. “I’ll find you another goat that looks just like this one. We’ll paint its eyes pink together, and you can keep that as your pet.”

Ramon pursed his lips and shook his head. From his expression, it was easy for his parents to tell he was doing his best not to cry.

“Let him keep her,” Gren said. The three dragons and one goat turned to look at her. Gren cleared her throat. “Raising a pet will teach Ramon about responsibility. If Kozabokget betrays him, he’ll learn a valuable life lesson. If she dies, it’ll be his duty to catch her again when she reappears. Although there’ll be some risks, they’re worth taking to help Ramon grow as a dragon.”

Grimmy narrowed his eyes at his mom. “Since when did you become a big softie? Ramon threatens to cry once, and you can’t help but spoil him?”

Gren snorted and glared at her son. “I’m not doing this out of pity.” She sat on her haunches and placed her front paws on her hips. “When did you become such a responsible cursed dragon? You were fine with breaking dozens of other seals, but you insist on resealing Kozabokget because of safety? I don’t buy it. You’re just too lazy to watch over Kozabokget to make sure your son is safe.”

Grimmy snorted in a manner similar to Gren, and the two cursed dragons glared at each other. Ramon opened his mouth to say something, but Leila pressed down on his snout, shutting him up. He glanced at her, but Leila simply released her paw and sat on her haunches. She patted the ground beside her, indicating for Ramon to take a seat as well. When two dragons were about it fight, it was better to not get in between them.

***

Alice frowned. Skeleton bodies and unconscious humans littered the ground. She went over to one of the unconscious humans and poked them, but they didn’t respond. She stood up and shook her head. According to the skeleton she encountered, Mary had attacked the undead base. Alice went over to a skeleton and poked it with her foot, but it also didn’t respond. She frowned and squatted, placing her hand on the skeleton’s ribcage. She inserted some mana, and the skeleton gasped as if it were a living human who had been submerged for a long time.

“Oh, leader-in-law! Is that you?”

Alice slapped the skeleton’s skull. “Don’t call me that.”

The skeleton’s eye sockets contorted as it blinked. “It is you! Quick, you have to help the leader,” it said. “He’s fighting with that barbaric girl. She attacked us to free the berserkers we locked up thinking we were performing cruel and evil experiments on them! Isn’t that slanderous? Although the experiments were a bit cruel, they weren’t evil; they were all necessary in the process of finding a cure.” The skeleton sat up and looked around. “Wait. How long was I out?” It scratched its skull. “Is the fight already over?”

Before Alice could respond, the skeleton’s eye sockets widened. “You de-berserked the berserkers?” it asked and pointed at one of the unconscious humans. “As expected of the leader-in-law! I knew we needed a sane berserker to defeat the berserkers.”

Alice slapped the skeleton’s skull again, nearly breaking its neck. Then, she glanced at the unconscious human. “I didn’t do that,” she said and shook her head. “He was like that when I got here.”

The skeleton grabbed its skull and twisted, putting it back into the right position. “Is that so?” the skeleton asked. “Something big must’ve happened while I was dead again. Let’s check it out together.”