“Now to let the ink dry, I guess.” Dia stowed the freshly written letter, preventing it from blotting through a nifty application of mana, and then checked her items. There wasn’t much to talk about their vault visit; the count had nothing impressive, and she had seen more impressive vaults anyway. If she had been sneaking into the vault to pilfer it, it would have been a more memorable experience, but…

“Meh.” Dia eyed the impressive collection of lifestones — the count had been very enthusiastic in paying them, in the hopes that he could lure them over to Daybreak County. While quite sincere, Dia preferred Moon Mansion; it had been her home for over six months.

Popping one pure-ranked lifestone into her mouth, she shivered at the delightful taste and then headed out of her room. Risti, ever the hyper-efficient intelligence gatherer, had already packed her stuff and left some time ago to gather more information about this place, giving Dia the time and space she needed to write a letter or too. As for Nero, he was spending their last hours here packing up some local booze for his favourite bartender.

That abstinence thing Risti had suggested before they set out for Daybreak County was going to be back in full force. In fact, Nero had no intention to guzzle down the local booze — he had more than enough of that during their stay here — he wanted to trade the local drinks for Schwarz’s special brews.

Like Pure Water Plus Ultra.

Dia hummed as she draped her trusty cloak around her shoulders and left the room. Once everyone returned back to Licencia, she would send a letter to her family and let them know that she was safe. For some reason, she looked forward to sending that letter, and—

“You look relaxed.” Risti smiled at her. “Like someone who remembered about a promise and just fulfilled it.”

Risti’s words were rather close to the truth, but Dia wasn’t going to show it on her face. Considering the conversations that had gone on not too long ago, agreeing might reveal a few things here and there.

“I’m just overjoyed that we get to go back home.” Dia looked at the palace. “This place is positively open, compared to our super-safe safehouse. I’m not sure if I said this before, but Claud really knew what he was doing with that dome and booth.”

“Right?”

The two laughed, before Risti cleared her throat. “More to the point, though, are you worried about your mistress?”

Dia eyed her. “Well, no one’s heard about Princess Dia for some time.”

“Evasive as usual…” Risti shrugged. “But she is doing a Moondamned job of hiding. I’ve mobilised lots of people to look for her — I was thinking of offering her sanctuary in Moon Mansion, with the others’ agreement of course — but no one’s seen anything at all. Even the fellows with tracking skills all agree that the trail’s gone real cold.”

Worry crept on her face. “Maybe something happened to her. Like a sick nobleman who wanted to enjoy her and keep her to himself…”

Dia felt her face twitch once, and decided to put a foot down before Risti could produce the foundations of a well-narrated nightmare for her. “That’s not going to happen, alright?”

“But there are fanatics of the princess who would love nothing more than to vent their beastly desires on her,” Risti replied.

“Enough.” Dia looked at Risti. “Have faith in your idol, alright? For all you know, she’s already close to being a tri-folder. There’s no way someone like that would be captured.”

Besides, the real deal was talking to her…

After spending ten minutes to assure Risti that Princess Dia was fine and dandy, Dia’s own mood had plummeted. It was nice to have someone care about her, but like Risti herself had said, that was still a behaviour of a fanatic. At this point, she was beginning to worry that Risti and the others would distance themselves from her if Dia ever revealed her true identity.

They had placed the person in their minds on too high a pedestal, after all.

Letting out a sigh, she led the way out to the palace gates, where Count Daybreak and Nero were already waiting.

“Didn’t keep you two waiting, I hope,” said Dia.

“It’s fine. We were talking about booze,” Nero replied. “I wonder if it’s a good idea to invite Count Daybreak over to Licencia for a good drink, though. No one should miss out on the bottle-sized containers of pure bliss and intoxication that Schwarz creates.”

“There are all sorts of problems with that,” Dia replied, “but the first one I’m thinking of is an assault by the fiancé and fiancée duo who currently rule that place. This perp literally hired assassins and other people to harass the count. I’m not even sure if Count Nightfall is going to accept our explanation about how this guy has been screwed over.”

“Yeah.” Risti folded her arms. “Why not we just bring him back with us and let Count Nightfall deal with him?”

“Eh? Eh?” Count Daybreak looked at them. “Wait, what?”

“That’s actually a pretty good idea,” said Nero. “Should we just kidnap him? I’m sure it’s going to be a rather fun trip. How did I not think of that? We get to avoid harming innocents, and we get to complete our mission at the same time. It’s a really efficient solution!”

“This way, he won’t tell us to go back either.”

The trio looked at each other, and then at the sad count, who had come to the astute realisation that any plea would just backfire on them. Furthermore, the presence of Nero, a tetra-folder, was probably more than enough to deter him from doing anything.

“But I guess it’s a bit nasty for us to do that,” Risti muttered.

“And if the Red God’s Bearer of Destiny is still in this place, I might have an excuse to come back for some revenge,” Nero replied.

“Revenge…”

“What, you think I wasn’t going to get revenge for my retainers?” Nero snorted. “I thought it was just the Third scheming against me, but it seems that the Red God’s Bearer of Destiny was having fun too! It’s a grudge that I’m not going to put down for some time.”

He paused. “It’s been nice staying with you guys. No need to scheme. Every day’s a blast, and I love it. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to avenge my people.”

“Don’t worry,” said Risti. “If you have such an attitude to your retainers, you’ll definitely avenge us if we get killed for some stupid reason too.”

Nero looked at her, and then grinned. “Yeah.”

“Heartwarming as all this is,” said Dia, “I think we need to return to our main topic. What should we tell Count Nightfall? Now that I think about it, our initial excuse is really bad. But we don’t want to screw this place over by kidnapping their ruler either.”

Nero laughed. “I think Nightfall just wants an apology.”

“An…apology?” Dia blinked. “I was not expecting that answer, to be honest. I was thinking of, you know, getting Daybreak here to hand half the contents in his vault over or something.”

The Holy Son of the Black God looked at Count Daybreak. “Just a question. A really quick one. Do you guys…share a childhood? Like, I don’t know, friends in the same noble school or something?”

“Most nobles are educated in their own domains, so—”

“I did a few terms in Nightfall County before.” The count sighed. “We were friends. If only for those few delightful years. Most nobles have the habit of having children at around the same time period to foster interactions within nobles of similar age and station. As part of that, I went to Nightfall and studied there.”

“Oh.”

“Well, we’re still as poor as ever, and no one really wants to invest in education here. Most of it comes out-of-pocket, and there’s been a constant flight of talent and resources…”

Dia began to feel a bit bad for demanding payment of their services — even if payment was an expected part of the due process — as Count Daybreak talked about his territory’s lacking funds and other things.

That wasn’t going to stop her from bringing back lifestones though.

“…jealousy. I suppose.”

“You spent money to hire killers…money that could have been better spent to better your county?”

“Not killers,” Count Daybreak replied. “Just troublemakers. They were actually people who were leaving Daybreak, and I paid them a bit more to cause some trouble there. From my point of view, stirring trouble in other counties is the fastest way of retaining talents here.”

“…Who’s to judge?” Risti shook her head. “Well, maybe you should pen an apology. That’ll make our lives easier too.”

“An apology, huh.” Count Daybreak heaved a sigh. “I suppose you guys are going to knock me out and bring me there if I refuse, right?”

“Maybe.”

“…Let’s go back in for a moment, then. My study still has some paper for me to write on.”