Birds chirped in seeming enjoyment as Dia supervised Schwarz, Risti and Farah, who were practicing their forms and drilling basic movements. In her right hand was a training sword — whose weight had been doubled — and an apple sat at the tip of the blade, wobbling every so often. The air around her sword warped every now and then, a product of her mana.

Nero, who had adamantly refused to practice the sword and other forms of fighting, was busy toasting bread with mana. Dia had a feeling that the others would prefer such a way of training, but unfortunately for them, Dia wanted those lazy bums to improve their fitness. As people who spent hours sitting down at the desk, it was easy to not only experience a drop in combat ability, but in general fitness levels too.

It would suck if they were panting after running for a hundred metres, and it would be a death sentence if they ran out of stamina when things inevitably collapsed into a mess.

Dia lowered her right foot, and then lifted her left. Bringing it up to a right angle, she felt her abdominal muscles contract once more. The apple, which had been perched on the point of her training sword, wobbled twice, only to steady itself once another pulse of mana straightened her swaying blade.

Beads of sweat ran down her neck and into the clothes, but Dia didn’t change her stance until five minutes went by. As the others moved on to repeating sets of overhead slashes, she placed her left foot down, a half-step behind her right, and in a slow, graceful manner, executed a slow, forward stab.

The apple split apart as her stab extended, releasing two crossed waves of azure light that dissipated moments later. Catching the apple slices with some mana, Dia lowered her sword and stabbed it into the ground.

“We’re done for the day,” Dia announced, and the others promptly lowered their weapons. To her satisfaction, none of the trio had dropped their blade or anything; they either placed it down nicely or stabbed it into the ground like she did.

“So,” said Nero, “what’s the point of all that training?”

“To give us a fighting chance if we run out of mana,” Dia replied. “Those Moon Emissaries have a huge army. I’d prefer it if we can still fight well after we inevitably run out of mana.”

“We’re really going down hard on the invasion thing, aren’t we?” Risti noted.

“All the clues gathered so far point that way,” Schwarz replied. “And in times like this, it’s best to have a little Claud in everyone’s hearts, reminding us to be ever-vigilant and paranoid. Disasters may fall from the sky, but a prepared person would have dug holes in the ground.”

“Did he say that?” Dia asked, curious.

“Nope, I did. He’s not the really poetic type, unless you catch him in the gardens when the light of Plota is shining down,” Schwarz replied. “But that applies to nearly everyone, so…eh. Anyway, now that we’re done, I’m going to wash up and get my breakfast.”

Dia watched as the others followed Schwarz in, before picking up the training swords. The others weren’t as strong as her, physically speaking, and they had been drained from doing all these practices over and over.

Storing the training swords away, she went to wash up too.

The others were already scoffing down a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs when she went down, and to no one’s surprise, Caroline was already at their table.

“Morning, Caroline.” Dia slipped into an empty seat. “When’s the boss coming back?”

“Aran? Today,” Caroline replied. “I came here to invite you guys over, but from how you guys are moaning over your arms…”

“That’s Dia’s fault. She insists on having us train every two days,” Farah. “Do I look like a warrior to you? I’m more interested in numbers and graphs. Swords? Bah.”

“I think she has a point,” Caroline replied. “You must have heard about it already, but the Moon Emissaries are currently in negotiations with Ruler Istrel. Unfortunately for us, Ruler Istrel is still a tetra-folder. He hasn’t received the resources necessary to grow, since a giant barrier popped up and stopped the shipment and mentors that would have pushed him to complete his fifth mana circuit.”

“Eh?” Farah froze. “What does that mean?”

“Unless the Chromatic Lord that killed the Moon Emissary appears, we’re probably going to bow down to the Moons. Ruler Istrel would likely yield control of the Terra Jewel to the Emissaries. Of course, most of us are probably going to resist a bit first, which pretty much means war for the time being. Enemies made of moonlight would charge at our cities and attempt to take control of the smaller, subordinate jewels too.”

“The Terra Jewel…” Dia recalled the small explanation Nero had given them, and then shivered. “It’s still in your possession, right?”

“Aran handed it over to me when he left. I’ll be returning it to him today,” Caroline replied. “Unfortunately, I can’t go home or anything, since there’s a huge barrier blocking the way. I’m stuck here until it breaks.”

Schwarz looked at her. “Your family…”

“They’ll be worried, but I’m sure there’s something nasty going on in Nihila too,” Caroline replied. “And besides, the penta-folders of the Schwa and Lustre Dukedoms have tried their hand at breaking it, only to fail. Maybe the Emperor himself would have to pay a visit for this war to come down.”

She played with some scrambled egg, and then scattered some pepper over them. Her actions, however, emanated a deep sorrow, and Dia wondered if there was anything she could do to help.

Her mind helpfully informed her a moment later that there was nothing she could do, so Dia focused on her scrambled egg instead.

Breakfast carried on after that little interlude, and before Dia knew it, everyone was sitting around a table and lounging around a barrel. Somehow, a tap had been installed at the very bottom, and Schwarz was busy pouring out Claud’s barrel of over-priced bubbly fizz for everyone.

“Is it really a good idea to steal from his house?” Caroline muttered, as she downed her fifth cup of drink. “I feel bad doing it.”

“Your hands tell me a different story, though,” Schwarz noted. “Anyway, my arms are too tired to write and flip through papers today, so let’s go welcome your fiancé back home. I’ll also take this chance to bill him for a whole bunch of costs.”

“He’s coming back home and the first thing you do is to bill him?” Caroline eyed him. “What are you, a monster?”

“That net Claud put up cost eighty platinum in terms of manpower and production costs alone. Thankfully, we’ve been claiming the maintenance funds from you guys directly, but the Moon Lords need those funds back,” Schwarz replied. “Ask Farah, if you don’t believe me.”

“Urgh.” Caroline shook her head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t think the count would allow anyone to approve transactions this huge,” Schwarz replied.

“True.” Caroline frowned. “And it’s not like the net is useless. There’s always an infiltrator or two who tries to hop over the wall every week or so.”

“Right? In terms of preventing illegal entry, it’s very successful,” Schwarz replied. “I still don’t get why they don’t want to go through the main gates, though. I mean, if they really wanted to infiltrate the place—”

“It’s kinda a secret, but we do have professionals in the guardhouses looking out for suspicious people,” said Caroline. “We’ve identified a lot of suspicious people, and my people catch them on the spot whenever they do anything problematic.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“Well, the biggest tells are freshly-appointed knights that don’t have an actual reason to be here. These people are flagged immediately,” Caroline explained. “After that, we look for odd behaviours and other tell-tale signs of fear and nerves. We send a pair of people to conduct surveillance on them for the next three weeks, and they usually get caught at that point.”

“This meticulous?”

“The city guards are professionally trained,” Caroline replied.

“They have to be,” said Risti. “The honorary principal of the Guards’ Academy is Emperor Grandis himself. He visits the Guards’ Academy every year during the intake.”

Dia blinked. “Wait, what?”

She wasn’t alone in this either. Just about everyone else had turned to Risti at this unexpected revelation, and Risti herself chuckled. “Surprising, right? It’s not really well-known, and the city guards tend to keep it quiet out of some odd pride, but if you ask around…”

“I’ll make a point to ask Captain Blake about this,” Caroline muttered. “Damn, the Emperor? Whew. Aran’s going to have a fever when he hears this. Ahem. So, are you guys going to come with me? He should be arriving soon, and while the people haven’t been told, I saw a small crowd already gathering at the northern gate.”

She paused. “All kinds of food stalls have been set up there too.”

“What are we waiting for, then?” Schwarz asked. “Besides, I don’t feel like doing work today. Day off, guys! Let’s get some good food and bask in a festive spirit!”

Caroline grimaced. “It’s just Aran returning home…”