All kinds of equipment had been set up around the landing zones for the Guardian Barracks, but those artefacts began to emit smoke as Gaius landed. Screams and shouts split the air as those artefacts spontaneously combusted seconds after he landed.

Gaius blinked thrice. “Oops?”

“Oops my ass!” Isabelle yanked his arm. “Get out of here before they notice it’s you!”

Pulling him away from the landing zone and into a door, which looked like a disaster zone now, the two of them ended up in some stairway landing. By now, alarms were ringing, and Gaius could hear shouts and orders as soldiers mobilised to address the threat. To the people who didn’t know what was going on, it probably sounded like the demon forces were marching on them with incredible numbers or something.

“Oh dear.” Gaius looked at the contingents of soldiers that were now taking up defensive positions all around the Heaven-cleaving Fortress. From the looks of it, they didn’t know the nature of the threat. The alarm was probably a general one, one that was rung when something abnormal happened in the Heaven-cleaving Fortress.

It was fortunate that those artefacts set up at the landing zones weren’t manned, but Gaius had a hunch that no alarms had rang when they were in the air precisely because the measuring artefacts used then were manned by people. Clearly, the monitoring and security team forgot about the existence of measuring artefacts installed around the landing zones…

“Just saying ‘Oh dear’ isn’t going to help anything,” Isabelle replied, poking her head through the door. “The security teams have arrived…and they look very confused.”

“I’d also be confused if something like this happened to me…why am I so unlucky?” Gaius shook his head. “I’ll avoid stepping in front of measuring artefacts from now on. If they blow up on me again, I’m going to blow my top.”

Isabelle placed her hands on his shoulders. “Let’s just return to the others before they catch us. If they want to subject us to another bout of who’s who, we’ll be getting back at night.”

“Good point.”

The two scurried off, leaving behind the disaster scene. The fortress was still mobilising as they left, but for some very odd reason, Gaius found the whole sight rather familiar.

As if he did something similar before.

“Ah!” Gaius clapped his hands. “I know why all this feels familiar!”

“Huh?” Isabelle, who was looking out for patrols proactively, paused to look at him. “You’ve done something like this before? Really?”

Gaius cleared his throat. “It was a long, long time ago. Back when I first came here, when I was in Ark City. Nakama and I had just entered some small refugee camp, and Aziz — the colonel we dumped our supplies on a few days back — was teaching us about cultivation back then. I accidentally overdid it, and the resulting phenomenon scared the entire refugee camp.”

“You…” Isabelle broke down into laughter. “As expected of you, I suppose?”

“Hey! Stop laughing!” Covering her mouth with his hands, Gaius fumed as they returned to their room. “You’ll give us away! Sheesh! I’m never telling you these things again.”

“Oh, come on…”

It didn’t take long for the two of them to enter their room. Given that Isabelle was wearing the Formless Pauldrons, while Gaius’ clothes were actually condensed from the purest of energies, there really wasn’t a reason to change, especially since they were dustproof.

Laying down their backpacks, which was now empty of food, the two headed out in concert to enter Xanadu’s room. Xanadu’s room, as the centre for La-Ti and Nakama’s fun, was naturally emitting lots of noise, which only intensified as Isabelle opened the door.

“Eleven people now…”

“Eleven?” Gaius wanted to ask how one room could fit so many people playing boardgames at once, but the answer came as he poked his head into the room.

There were also other children there. Kids sitting on the laps of their older siblings. Gaius didn’t know that there were other Guardians who had actually brought their younger relatives along, but it was good that he was no longer the special case.

“What a cute scene,” Isabelle murmured.

Gaius nodded along. It did somewhat make sense. There were probably Knights who were hoping to gain achievements, but had the same thoughts as Gaius. They didn’t dare to leave their siblings behind, so they brought them here, hoping that if they died on the battlefield, someone would take care of them.

Knights who only had one or two to call family.

There were people like him, probably. Gaius wasn’t dumb enough to assume that of the few thousand odd Knights in the Five Lands, he was the only one with that specific situation.

At any rate, it was good that Nakama and La-Ti were making even more friends, friends who could sympathise and understand what the others were going through right now. Deep down, he knew that his constant absence, as well as that of Isabelle’s, was probably making Nakama worried and up at night. She was old enough to know what exactly he was getting himself into.

The scene froze as Gaius entered the door, and with a delighted shriek, a small cannonball slammed into his torso. Power rippled out of him, cushioning him and preventing him from falling backwards.

“That’s the first time you caught her without actually falling over or something,” Isabelle noted.

“Hey, progress has got to be made somehow, right?” Gaius replied, rubbing his little sister’s head. “I’m back, Nakama. Have you been a good girl?”

“Yes!”

La-Ti rolled over a second later, stopping right behind Nakama. Although he didn’t say anything, the little fellow had an expectant expression on his face, which prompted Gaius to rub his head too.

“Nakama!” a little kid, around eight or nine, toddled along. “Is that your big brother?”

“Yes,” Nakama replied, puffing out her chest. “He’s great, isn’t he? He can do anything!”

“Anything?”

Before Gaius knew it, he was soon involved in creating little things and showing off his powers to the kids. He didn’t mind that, however. It was a better use of his power than say, killing with it.

For the next few hours, the only things that could heard from Xanadu’s room were laughter and joy. In such a state, Gaius found himself ignoring the troubles that were weighing down on his mind, even for a few hours.

Considering his objective, however, a corner of his mind couldn’t help but feel that this small break itself was an inexcusable lapse of duty. There were so many things he had to do, and yet…