As Elena and Dred got closer to the city, they saw huge pieces of the city wall on the ground, a few of them reaching a length of ten meters if not more. The interior didn’t look any better as there were very few buildings which were still standing and even less that had taken no damage.

“It seems like they’ve had their rest-time,” Elena said, seeing many people walking around in the city, cleaning up the debris.

“Mhm. But it’s no wonder. We took our sweet time before returning,” Dred replied. The appearance of a huge black panther drew everyone’s attention, but most of the people knew they helped in the battle and after a few seconds, they turned back to doing their own job.

“They don’t seem to be too happy,” Dred remarked.

“Mhm. But that was to be expected after a war. They probably lost their friends or family members. I see only a few people smile, who were probably luckier than most.”

“I think so, but we could have died too, you know?”

“I know, Dred. But I’m not afraid of death. Hahaha, while I’m at killing ‘bad’ people, I should start with myself. But I am a selfish and arrogant woman-”

“Oh, god. Elena, you are talking too much sometimes. Don’t tell me things I already know about you. Tell me about the things I don’t know. Of course, if you feel like it, I’ll be always there to listen to your concerns and troubles.”

He felt her lean over his back and give a small kiss on the top of his head. “What’s the meaning of this?” he couldn’t help but ask.

“Nothing, yet everything. Find out if you want to know,” she stuck out her tongue. “You are so clever anyway.”

“...That sounded rather sarcastic.”

“It was.”

“Are you trying to pick a fight with me? I can bite you, even if we are a couple now.”

“Haha, I was just kidding. But no, I don’t need that kind of bite. Not anymore…” she mumbled her last words.

They soon reached the library, which was still in one piece, except for Atelon’s statue, which was beheaded and some kids used magic to carve stupid drawings in it. Going further, they found Sally, who was moving around large pieces of rocks with her monstrous strength. Seeing her serious face, Elena tried to lighten her mood with some playfulness.

“Hey, Freckles! What’s up?”

“I don’t think that she would be happy after hearing her new nickname,” Dred remarked in a low voice.

Throwing the rock on the top of the pile, Sally looked their way and furrowed her brows. A smirk formed on her face as she shouted back, “If it isn’t the baby princess?”

“See? She got my point,” Elena’s voice resounded in Dred’s mind directly.

“This new spell will be really useful.”

“You think so? Your points are usually better in a solo fight, while my abilities are good for our whole group,” Elena said through her spell proudly. “But at least we have a damned good sneaky panther, don’t we?”

“If you say so,” his neutral voice returned, but Elena knew that he felt happy about her compliment. After all, he said it himself that he was happy when she complimented him.

“Now that I think about it, we are talking much more quickly this way,” Elena added with interest.

“Of course, our brains are much quicker than our lips and mouth. We don’t have to articulate and form letters and words. The quicker our brains will be, the quicker we will be able to communicate with your spell. At least, when you are around.”

“I’ll be always around.”

“We are almost done. Identifying the deceased and gathering the corpses into one pile took more time than the clean-up of the city. We will just throw most of it in one pile and then make it disappear with Magic. There are many people who can build houses, so that won’t take long either. Where have you been? I haven’t seen you after the battle,” Sally interrupted their silent twaddle.

“Indeed, these parts have much less debris. Maybe one hour and the city will be clean once again. I’m sorry for the dead-”

“As if you would be sorry.”

“Shh, Dred.”

“I didn’t say anything intentionally. You had just read my thoughts.”

“*cough* We left for the forest and took a short rest. There were also some changes in our little team, but now we are back on track again,” Elena replied with a smile on her face.

“Good changes?”

“What?”

“In your team.”

“Oh, yeah. Very good changes.”

“You are much stronger… But I’m not going to intrude on your privacy. Still, your progression speed is ridiculous. Last time I could have squashed you like an ant and now I’d probably have a good match against you,” Sally furrowed her brows.

“I have my ways. By the way, do you think Caleb would have some time to spend with us?”

“For what?” Sally tilted her head to the side.

“Some training, maybe?”

“Hmm- I don’t think so. When the city is rebuilt, Bethor wants to celebrate it with a party and then we will have to plan ahead and take defensive measures against the other kingdoms,” Sally shook her head, showing some worry.

“Did you lose that many people?” Elena raised a brow.

“It’s not past the critical point, but our military force has greatly decreased since Atelon’s idiotic rush cost many people’s lives. If we killed the young ‘geniuses’, we would be done for. And the worst is that they know this too. They are used to these kinds of situations and are working together to demand freedom and their old rights from Bethor.” Sighing loudly, Sally added, “They are a real bother.”

“Oh?”

“What’s with that evil grin on your face? Are you planning something?”

Crossing her arms in front of her chest, Elena said “Well, they might be used to shameless tactics, but I’m not someone from this city. In fact, if you think about it, I’m a complete outsider. I could just not care about the state of this kingdom and go around killing anyone who disobeys. For a limited time, but it could help Bethor in stabilizing his authority. I’m quite sure that it wouldn’t cost you more than the lives of a few geniuses and they would become tame sheep.”

“All you’d have to do would be to take them under your wing and ‘not allow’ me to kill them. They would definitely turn more obedient and after some time passed by, they would get used to being controlled. If not, then just chop them in half!”

“I feel rather sad about the fact that your idea sounds like exactly what we need. An outsider who doesn’t care about the kingdom, can terrorize these idiots, is strong enough, and is in a good relationship with us. We must keep up a good relationship in public,” Sally muttered to herself as she imagined Elena’s plan. “It could work. I wouldn’t agree with something like this, but seeing how many of us they killed, I’d gladly take your place and kill those geniuses myself.”

“See? It’s great to be me,” Elena stuck out her chest.

“Haa- sure, miss mighty baby princess.”

“Why does my nickname keep turning longer and longer?”

“No particular reason?” Sally shrugged her shoulders. After looking around, she said “Well, I must be going now or we will never finish this. I assume you were going to meet Bethor, right?”

“Mhm.”

“Then go towards the middle of the city. You will find his mansion and he should be in his office. I think that your father, Hector is there too.”

“My what? Ah, nothing. Haha,” Elena laughed awkwardly, almost slipping. It would be bad if he turned into a target because of false rumors. “You are mistaken. He isn’t my father. I was an orphan, am an orphan, and will always be an orphan. That’s never going to change. I just happened to be talented and come in handy. Don’t misunderstand me, Hector is a good guy, but we aren’t close.”

“That’s sad.”

“No, it isn’t. I prefer my freedom. Once we are done, I’ll probably leave the kingdom and roam the world. My friends are quite like a family to me and now I’ve got one member really close to me,” she patted Dred’s back.

Sally’s face turned ashen as she looked back and forth between Dred and Elena. “Don’t tell me you are…”

“Hell no, you idiot! He has a human form…”

“Ah, right. Of course…” Sally turned silent in her embarrassment.

“Really,” Elena still shook her head.

“It just came to mind, okay? So are you together with him or what?”

“She is,” Dred replied as he transformed into his demon form and embraced Elena’s back.

“Right. I’m back to work…” she averted her eyes and quickly left.

“What’s their problem with me?” Dred asked in a bad mood.

“Uhm, it’s because of your race. I look like a human at the moment, but you are a demon. They are higher being and although fewer in number, more powerful. One of the level ten empires is also a demon empire, but seeing that we haven’t met even a single demon yet, it’s probably strange to see one and having a relationship with you may be even weirder to her.”

“So is it just my race?”

“That’s what I think. I know that your Cosmological Constant reached the sixtieth level and that you could look like a human too, but it would be pointless after all this time. Maybe in the next region,” she patted his shoulder.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Looking at him, she saw his horns disappearing and his forehead turn smooth. His claws turned into simple nails and his scales, long canine teeth disappeared too. After making a thoughtful face, he hid his tail instead of making it disappear. “I’m too used to it. I wouldn’t be able to live without a tail.”

“Well, you’ve got another one,” Elena remarked.

“Aren’t you flirting? Just you wait, I’ll take good care of you,” Dred furrowed his brows. They continued their playful bantering until reaching Bethor’s mansion. The guards soon let them in and led them towards Bethor’s office. She found Bethor, Caleb, Salem, and Hector, in the middle of a serious conversation.

After some restrictions, Bethor agreed to train the soldiers of the Drung Kingdom. Hector was happy imagining the future where he would have thousands of magicians and warriors at his disposal. On the Dink planet, everyone wanted to become a Magician, since be it spells or the super strength of the warriors, both were highly respectable and valuable. There was no sane soldier who would refuse a possibility to train with a real Magician.

The restrictions were very simple. Both Hector and Bethor had to take an oath, stating that they wouldn’t use their armies against each other. On Dunk, Bethor would be in full control of the army, while on Dink, it would be Hector. Holding back the army from helping the other side wasn’t allowed either and breaking the oath would result in death as per their statement. Bethor also watched out for loopholes, like sending their generals as the commander of their forces.

Hector was supposed to use his forces to get in control of Dink and hide the gate connecting the two planets. It would be a secret source of strength for their newly formed Thivalon Kingdom. Since Bethor didn’t want to keep calling it the Atelon Kingdom and they united as well, they thought of a new name for the united kingdoms together.

After laying down the basics, the conference advanced quickly since both sides benefited from it. Although Elena was there, she didn’t even have to say a word since Hector planned out everything beforehand.

When they finished, Elena told Bethor her idea and Bethor quickly agreed with her. It took only two days for the city to return to its former glory and Bethor held a competition to ‘measure up the strength of the remaining geniuses’ as he said. Of course, Dred, who was the strongest alone, joined the competition and beat a few of the geniuses into a bloody mess. He declared that he would do the same with the rest because they tried to kill him.

At first, the geniuses laughed at him, but when one person started disappearing one after the other day by day, they realized that Dred wasn’t joking. When Bethor announced that he would protect those who obeyed him, it took only a few more days before everyone turned into ‘obedient children’. Bethor appointed a few trainers to the soldiers of the Drung Kingdom, who were happy to start training. They hid the gate connecting the planets with Earth Magic and sent a few guards to watch it.

A month later, when things turned stable and the strength of their army started to increase as well, Bethor announced a celebration, where every important member was invited. As a ‘princess’, Elena and her friends were obliged to go, along with the twelve selectors of the Drung Kingdom, their children, and many nobles of both Kingdoms.

As the day of the celebration neared, many people felt happy to see their kingdom gaining strength, while some were sad remembering the deceased. But everyone wanted to see the new kings of their Kingdom.