The next day at dusk, the family finally arrived in the city. Their driver unusually late. So, they ordered at a nearby bar: Dwarf Haven.

Yukino got the first order: orange juice. Haruto tried to treat Tokino but to no avail. “I would like–” he said. No matter what, nearby customers had laughed and brayed. He kept asking again, only to become louder.

The bartender suggested some preferred choices handpicked by his most frequent customers. He agreed.

The laughter stopped, replaced by equally loud storytelling among their friends. Then, it continued. As they humored themselves more, they banged their table and threw bottles around the bar. Some flew near the bartender, and eventually, near Tokino.

Haruto had enough and stood up to them. “Would you stop that!” He walked closer.

One smirked. “Oooooh! Some rando here told us to ‘stop.’ By the Gods… repentance shan’t make do anymore!” He fainted mockingly, hand over forehead. They laughed once more.

Moments later, another raised a hand. “Hey hey hey, guys. Guys! Wait a minute. I know that boy right there. That’s the asshole who shoved me at the mall!” He pointed at Haruto.

The man slowly walked toward the archmage. His build was bulky, muscular, and showcased a beer gut. He even had hair down to his neck. His towering height complemented it all. At 190 cm, one might wonder if their forehead got bruised many times.

His voice was very hoarse, like he smoked ever since adolescence. He grinned and decided to humiliate Haruto further. “Ayo, dipshit. Das my seat, now. You owe me dat.” He pushed his shoulder.

He kept a stern look and drank his Champaign. “I don’t owe you anything.”

The man chuckled. “And why’s that?”

He turned and glared sharply. “Because I believe you were the one who shoved me first.”

“Hahahahahahaha! Really, now? You ain’t gon’ like what imma do next, asshole.” He drank from his bottle.

“I’ll take my chance—” Haruto interrupted himself as the man sprayed a mouthful of alcohol on him. The others pointed and laughed.

The foul beer dripped from his head. Even with such a stench, Haruto did not waver. He wiped his hair, face, and clothing dry. Meanwhile, the man drank again.

“As I was saying… I’ll take my chance—”

He now said nothing to the rude customer and dried himself once more His family had worried, and his words only made the braying louder.

“Hahahahahahahaha! Ya see dis, bros? What an absolute pussy! With those fancy swords he got, I thought he was gon’ shank me. But nope! All the usual for fuck boys like him!” The man pointed with his thumb.

Haruto clenched his fists on the bar table; he could not hold his rage any longer. Tokino wanted to tell her husband to ignore them—that they should stay in another place. Before she could, Yukino got off her chair and ran to the customers.

“Leave Papa alone! What’s he ever done to you!” Unfortunately, the laughing was endless.

The grinning man looked down at her. “Uh oh… Looks like I’ve hurt poor widdle Tiffany’s feelings! What’s next? You gon’ protect him with your noodle arms? Hey, brat—think fast!” He threw his bottle to her face.

Yukino gasped and closed her eyes in reflex. Luckily, Haruto caught the bottle at the last second. His tipping point had now burst. He tolerated the humiliation before his family. To harm his princess was the red line. He drew his swords.

The man smirked. “Ooooooooh… So now you gon’ shank me. Huh, bitch!? Too bad your girlfriend will stop ya. Hahahahahahaha!”

“No, I won’t do that at all.” Tokino expressed a calm rage, far more intense than Haruto’s. She held Yukino in her arms as she gave a death glare. “You harassed my husband and tried hurting my daughter. You deserve this. Tenfold.”

He turned around. “Hahahahahaha! I deserve this? Then I think daddy here deserves a can of ass-whoopin’, das what!” He beat his chest with both fists simultaneously. “You wanna fucking go, boy! Come get some!”

“Yeah! Go get ‘em, Alfonso!” a friend cheered. “Throw his ass to hell and back!”

The man towered over Haruto, the latter being 172 cm. His wife was an inch shorter. The former threw a straight punch with glee. However, it only went through an afterimage.

Haruto prepared an downward slash from behind. Time slowed to a crawl when he neared his sword to the man’s back.

Only Tokino foresaw the outcome. Her innate ability gave her a mental image of her enraged husband standing in victory. However, the unexpected ocurred within the said image. It changed and slowly merged with another.

This phenomenon felt familiar to her, but failed to recall it. Either way, what she now foresaw was terrifying. It showed the man quickly turning to look at Haruto with a toothy grin. It confused her so much she could not warn him.

In a thousandth of a second, the man disappeared. Haruto never hit him. The wooden floorboards had splintered from his blade. “Hey! Those don’t come cheap, monsieur!” The bartender complained.

“What…? What the hell happened? I was sure that I—” He heard a voice behind. It was the tune of “Danny Boy” by Frederic Weatherly. Not being familiar with it, he stood confused even further.

The voice came from the same man he swung his sword at before. This time, he sounded completely different. His look also slowly changed; only height stayed the same.

As the man sang, he released a very overwhelming pressure. It startled Haruto and frightened Yukino behind Tokino. The latter went on the offensive, drawing her rapier. The whole family reacted on pure survival instinct. Even the man’s buddies now had a different feel—like they were hardened veterans.

“This… doesn’t feel like magic, at all!” Haruto felt the weight of the pressure growing. He fell to his knees.

The man stood and chuckled. “Boy… you’re way too predictable.” He showed a wide, toothy grin.

As this story went, fate actually blessed Haruto from that moment.

Hours before the Minagawa family arrived, the great city of Coelestis had an unusual invasion. Hordes of black ink dwellbeasts sprawled. No one ever observed them in groups. The monsters fought against six imperial and two archmages.

Brigade mages evacuated every citizen to underground bunkers. The passageways were only accessible via runes only they knew to cast. No casualties occurred.

Unlike Vetus’ brigade, their official uniform was far laxer—red cape and beret. They bore Coelestis’ emblem: a golden twelve-pointed star surrounded by smaller ones, all within an oval ring.

At the northside, one of the archmages present was the twenty-eight-year-old Feuer Glatteis, Novus representative. He killed scores of dwellbeasts alone, but the horde did not stagnate.

Two imperial mages stepped in. “We’ll handle this for ya, man. Go!” one exclaimed.

Feuer nodded stoically. He followed his archmage comrade, Danielle Elfman, to the westside.

A mass of the dark creatures formed a flood at a distance. Their bodies had fused together.

“The imperial mages retreated from here.” Danielle pointed. “Too much for them to handle. Somehow, they’re pouring up here and not anywhere else.”

She slicked her long, wavy crown from the wind. Blonde and brunette—a divine mix. Even a frilly red gown became dimmer.

“Have you seen Hokori anywhere?” Feuer swayed his cape.

“Hell if I know…” she rolled her green eyes, looking away disappointed.

Feuer sighed in frustration. “Then I shall bring Hell itself to that man after I bring the filth theirs.”

He prepared his innate ability: Pompeiian Rhapsody. A massive wave of magma appeared in front of the dwellbeasts, covering the entire westside. Then, all disappeared into thin air. Usually, he would let it linger.

Danielle raised an eyebrow. “Man… if you didn’t have that perk—you could have killed us all faster than these things.”

“Be quiet. They still come in droves—like a sink turned on. It is beyond unnatural. I shall mitigate their numbers here. Assist the other lot.” He walked past her.

She raised another. “Shouldn’t they be the ones to help you out here?”

“I’ve not said that over some heroic resolve, old friend. I needn’t any of your hands for I have many. Stay keen elsewhere.” He showed a cold, stoic stare at his enemies.

Danielle shrugged. “Suit yourself. Once Hokori steps in, it would be as if he destroyed our city first.”

She flew to the eastside on a floating piano. Imperial mages had left the area to protect north and south. Now, only three stayed.

She landed from behind. “I’ll take it from here, folks. Gotta nip this fiasco in the bud before the human calamity shows up.”

Birds of Symphonia made her create and control musical instruments of any size down to a microscopic scale.

She used a technique merely called “Eh…?”. Ant-sized flutes had materialized inside the monsters’ canals. It let out literal ear-piercing sounds much louder than the real thing.

The drums of every dwellbeast in the area ruptured beyond repair. They howled and wobbled aimlessly. Meanwhile, her comrades heard nothing. As luck would have it, she controlled the oscillations.

It did not affect dwellbeasts farther away. They decided to transform into giant arms to perform their infamous thunderclaps. However, Danielle used another technique called “Echo Chamber.” A massive tuba absorbed the sounds to the point not even they heard it.

The accumulated noise redirected toward them. Now, they had heard. Skyscrapers turned into coarse rubble and broken glass. The shockwave did not stop until it reached the city’s walled borders.

With few monsters left, Danielle used one last technique called “Piano Wire.” Her unusual transport opened its lid and shredded all to ribbons.

She wiped her forehead. “Believe me, this kind of property damage is nothing compared to what Hokori can do.” She flew away to the southside.

One imperial mage had his mouth drop over the unrecognizable city block. “Why do they take that as pride?” He turned to his comrades with squinted eyes.

At the westside, Feuer still battled the endless flood. He noticed they had dwindled slowly.“So there is a limit to this fiasco. I’ve to finish this once and for—”

The dwellbeasts began shooting sharp tendrils at him. He protected himself via cladding his body parts in cooled magma. Now, they could barely scratch him.

He jumped on top of concrete rubble. “To attack me this way, I shall return the favor with interest!” He shot out tendrils of his own, far more numerous than what they could produce.

The magma attack punched holes through the city walls. To think Palladium was not indestructible as advertised.

The city’s center—the home of Coelestis’ mages and only royalty: king Harald Pompilius MXXV.

Surrounded by a wide sea-deep moat, the stone structure was four colossal arms encircling another with open palms up high. Vegetation grew on said arms. Coelestian steel-feathered cranes flew and nested; a murder condor instigated a chase.

Citizens rumored the first Harald issued such a marvel to reach the Gods higher. However, the current Harald laughed at the notion every time. His ancestor was obsessed with luxury, he told.

Curiously, he was not ashamed of his expenses. He issued a home between the hand statues. Perhaps some had a taste for black obelisks with a bronze spheroid on top. As for its rings rotating randomly, nobody got a clue. All he ever told them was the purpose of the miniscule runes inscribed on each.

Sadly, this meant no mage could even contact him. To end his red cheeks, he had placed runic circles on each palm of the hand statues. Now, anyone short of an average joe could visit. Teleportation needed time to get used to.

The king’s home was more mansion than palace. He expressed lavishness in a different way. One time, he thanked an earthly show about aristocrats in bed.

Aria Viento, Feuer’s comrade representative, walked up the grand staircase. She took three steps each like no one else—literally. Somehow, she had the courtesy to fix her straight black crown. It did not stop her to kick the double doors at the end like a police raid.

The throne room had a long rectangular table with twelve chairs. She never had a favorite spot, preferring the carpet. “Heaven…” she rolled briefly.

Each wall and corner had solid gold statues of previous archmages in place. Purple banners showing Coelestis’ emblem hung between each. At the end of the room was the throne itself. She threw an empty wine bottle at it.

She kneeled with closed eyes. “Your majesty, the dwellbeasts number by the thousands. If this goes on, the walking garbage might become overwhelmed. May I suggest we dispatch more of our deadweights into the battlefield?”

Harald had looked at a holographic screen that surveilled the whole city. He turned his chair around. “That won’t be necessary even after ninety lifetimes, Ms. Viento.” He walked past her, hands tied behind.

“What do you mean, your majesty?” She followed behind.

He stopped and chuckled. “Madame… one archmage can cull an entire populace. They’re only treading carefully not to annihilate our home. Hence why they need my six royal guards. Still, I can’t stop our champion doing whatever he wants. But we’re lucky I can fix it all in the end. Unlike last time.”

“Understood, your majesty…” she bowed. “However, the Worm Emperor has not shown up at all. I am confused.”

The king chuckled again. “Oh, he will. He’s just taking his time savoring the moment. Ensuring that he’ll always have the last laugh.” He looked through another screen.