Yolonda brought over the brats. And they looked worse then they had after the battle. They also all walked funny like their butts were numb. For some reason they seemed to be very afraid.

“We.. we’re sorry. We didn’t mean it!” Said the dualist kid. He seemed far more hesitant, meek even now.

“We, we just wanted to give it our all! We only wanted to do our best!” Said pink hair.

“Yeah! It wasn’t anythin’ so it means nothin’ right?” Said the big sword kid aggressively. He immediately regretted it though. Because both his teammates stared [Death] at him, and they meant it. He quickly became meek after sneaking a peek at Yolanda. She ‘seemed’ not to notice any of it, but Micky both knew better, and not. She might not be paying attention to the happenings, might be glossing over it, or might be tabulating it in an invisible abacus. Which, even Micky probably would never know. “I mean, I… We’re sorry!” Said big sword after rethinking things and bowing his head.

Micky didn’t believe a single word of it. He could see the little gears inside their heads turning like a dwarven machine. But they were just that, little gears. People would grow up, and when they did things would change. By the time they were ready and able to do things to even the status quo, the status quo would have changed. So he left it up to his girls to decide what to do.

“Death!” They screamed at the same time with their thumbs pointed down. Then they laughed and punched the two boys in the gut. They went down without a word, and his girls absconded with pink hair. To who knows where, doing who knows what? Micky didn’t know. But it seemed to be a friendly kind of kidnapping?

Well Squishy didn’t seem to mind as she picked the two boys up and placed them on her significantly increased gearth, belly first. She rolled around and played with the other kids, picking them up and spinning them around. Quickly she became a crowd favorite.

Micky was even able to trade Asneldean a tendril slime, transforming and transferring it into a tentacle slime. The two both different and interchangeable. She seemed to have Ideas, ideas that Micky did not want to know about. Was he now complicit in a crime? He wasn’t sure, and wasn’t about to find out.

But all things had to come to an end. The two boys continued to appologize to no end, but the girl seemed almost reluctant to let his girls, and Micky meant all of his girls go. She seemed to have made a tentative bond there. Which was good, since they were all part of the ever growing clan, he guessed.

And soon it was time to make his way to the capital of Aene, the city state it was named after. Everything was arranged already. And nobody would dare to touch the carriage under the direct escort of a noble family. Whose? Nobody knows, it was flying a flag that basically said, it’s protected by nobles, but I’m traveling incognito. Which was also like wearing bright colors at a funeral, it stands out. But bandits wouldn’t bother it, and it was indiscriminate. That didn’t mean that nobody would dare bother it though. Impersonating nobility is an offense punishable by the [Death] of yourself, and everybody you know adjacent. Meaning even your neighbors families could be implicated. Basically it was very terrifying.

So obviously each and every patrolling squad of soldiers had to see who was being transported and all the proper paperwork, and that wasn’t including the mess it was at the gates of every town, village, or other kind of civilization they came across. Each and every guard had to see his paperwork. It could have been washed over had he been a ‘true’ nobility. But Micky was not, he was simply a ‘messenger boy’ for the true nobles. Or at least that was his best excuse to what his real purpose was, the one the guards accepted the most anyway.

So Micky, while hastled the whole way, made good time in relative comfort. And relative, meant painful. He almost rathered the saddle of Cerus. He knew that Caspers saddle was much nicer, the land lizard was too large to simply mount, so instead you would sit on a saddle on top of a saddle. This saddle was also heavily padded, so the gentle swaying of the beast was a comfort.

On the other hand, the monstrosity that Micky and the girls were riding was horrifyingly uncomfortable, even with all the padding. The carriage was downright painful. Maymay, who they had picked up along the way, and while still convalescing some mild saquoli, was in top form at least. She was also riding comfortably in a spirit caravan. It was a quasi spirit of the road, and wandered endlessly along the kingdom of Aene and beyond, on behalf of the spirit queens. If was also notably more comfortable. Micky would have loved to move over, but she seemed to be uninterested in sharing her ride, giving several excuses. Some quasi-retainer she seemed to be, not knightly at all. The fact that she had blushed horribly in shame, and that there was a significant sound of clatter every time she moved in or out of the caravan did not dissuade Micky at all.

So with All of his people, his girls, Prin, Kux, and Maymay he marched on slowly. Mrs. Dodderson stayed behind, it was a mutual decision. But his girls were now highly rated in [Housework] proficiency and could more than take care of things for now.

They were also all highly outfitted, since Micky made out like a bandit, including several things he especially needed, like a guide to raising item spirits. His was becoming a house spirit, in spite or inhabiting a weapon. This was simply because of what he used it for, and because he was not a frontline fighter. But at least it seemed to be attached to his lineage, more than accepting the ‘house’ part of house spirit.

But soon enough they were facing the city of Aene. Micky could see the city from a long way off. The walls were tall, taller than he had ever seen. There were also countless spires that rose up, so many that they were basically indistinguishable from the wall. No, maybe it should be said that the spires themselves were the wall? And they all glintened like gold and diamonds in the distance.

Micky soon questioned why they weren’t seeming to be moving any closer to the city even though it was visible. And his guards had simply told him that they were a long way off. But Micky hadn’t come to realize just how long that way off actually was.

It took a week for the spires to even change dimensions. By then he was starting to realize just how long ‘a long way off’ was. Soon he realized that there actually wasn’t a wall, at least that he could see, just more, shorter, spires. These were made from different materials however. When asked, the guards simply replied that they weren’t actually a part of the city, not slums, not truly, but not part of the city. When asked they simply replied, you’ll see.

Now when he was getting closer he saw that the spires were indeed made of surreal materials. Golden tipped spires of crystal were just some of them. But they all trinkled in their own way. Some twinkled like cut diamond. Others like an unsheathed blade. Still more twinkled in uncountable ways. All this and he was still ‘a long way off’.

Soon, finally, Micky could see that they were approaching the city. It was the first [City] that Micky had ever seen, and know he knew why they were cities and not something slightly larger than the baron’s town. Just the small ‘wall’ like buildings were enough to house the entire town and then some. But no, the larger spires obviously housed more, much more. Now that he was close he could see a true wall at the foot of all the massive buildings. This wall was severely dwarfed by the buildings it surrounded, to the point of not mentioning. But it was still the most impressive wall he had ever seen.

As for why? Well they still received monster attacks, so the capital couldn’t invest in a smaller less impressive wall then anything else right? But it was still nothing compared to the giant sky scraping buildings it protected.

Of course, from what the guards told him, the wall itself was basically pointless though...