Zulcrestus let out a slightly amused chuckle, as he watched a levitating airship descend. The air-ship has the appearance of an air carrier mixed with a jet. The airship has a large silver-coloured crystal hemisphere located on the bottom of the airship and around the centre, it also had four wings that each had three smaller silver-coloured crystal hemispheres. Zulcrestus watched the airship's loading door open and recognised the individual who had opened it.

The girl was a super short individual with super pale skin, had super long purple hair, that was roughly around double the length of her height, with pale green gradient tips, and was wearing golden steampunk-themed goggles. She had purple fox ears and matching coloured foxtail. The girl was wearing an oversized lab coat, with the Zelkio Empire insignia on it (a golden sun with a silver crescent moon inside it and a silver diamond inside the arch of the crescent moon), an oversized black t-shirt that went down to her knees, black leggings and sandals.

She lazily waved at Zulcrestus, who just stared up at her before he picked up a crate and just seemingly disappeared. The girl's fingers bent a little as Zulcrestus landed next to her.

"Not even a hello, Zuzu? You couldn've, at least, waved back." the girl asked while slightly yawning.

"I suppose I could've, but my hands were full.". Some Zelkio knights walked over to Zulcrestus and offered to take the crate. He handed the crate to the knight while warning them that it was heavy. They understood and five of them grabbed onto the crate before Zulcrestus let go. The crate went down by about a millimetre before the knights slowly moved over towards the storage hanger. The girl then pressed a glowing button that triggered the loading door to close.

"I'm surprised you're heading to the capital as well, Callie. You hardly ever leave that cave of yours, if you did you wouldn't need those goggles." Zulcrestus remarked. Callie pouted in response.

"First of all rude, second of all it's not a cave, thirdly I do leave my lab occasionally to buy jam-filled doughnuts and finally I don't need these goggles when I go outside!". Callie then demonstrated her lack of necessity for the goggles by taking them off, revealing her black-coloured right eye and grey left eye which both had a luminescent white ring around the iris'. The girl tried to keep her baggy eyes open but she slowly started to reluctantly close her eyes. She fell to her knees and tears started to flow from her eyes.

"It burns!" Callie yelled while rolling around on the floor.

"You're being pedantic," Zulcrestus replied. Callie stopped rolling around and looked up at him with a slightly annoyed expression.

"And so what if I am?". Zulcrestus just sighed in response.

"You otherworlders are so weird.". Zulcrestus started to walk off which caused Callie to hurry after him while trying to put her goggles on her forehead. As the two were walking through the corridors of the airship, Callie managed to catch up with Zulcrstus.

"I wonder why the emperor is summoning us to the capital, It was so sudden I barely had enough time to get dressed," Callie remarked. Zulcrestus quickly glanced at Callie's attire.

"That's not hard to believe.".

"Hey! I at least remembered to wear panties this time, they're my red ones." She said smugly.

"I... didn't need to know that...,". Zulcrestus was left at a loss for words. The two just silently walked for a few seconds before Callie looked up at Zulcrestus.

"You wanna see them?". Zulcrestus let out an annoyed sigh.

"Are all otherworlders really this weird or is it just you?". Callie was about to respond but she noticed that Zulcrestus was walking away while her movement had stopped, even though she was still walking. She looked down and noticed that she was being lifted by Zulcrestus' telekinesis, due to her body being surrounded by a cyan aura.

"Dammit, Zulcrestus get back here!" Callie yelled while flailing her arms and legs. However the moment Zulcrestus was out of her view, the glowing suddenly stopped and Callie fell to the ground. She landed on her butt, causing her to rub it while in slight pain. She angerly ran after Zulcrestus but when she turned the corner he was gone. She tried to sense him with mana sense but couldn't find him.

"Curse you Zuzu and your cool ninja skills.". Callie sulkily walked off towards her room.

Later at around sunset and on the outskirts of the forest, Lola lifted her face out of Zalroth's hair and let out a yawn. She let out a yawn and slightly opened her eyes. She sleepily looked around while rubbing her left eye.

Scarlett and Snow were resting their heads on Akari's lap, and were fast asleep, with a bedsheet over all of them. Zalroth was still asleep and the two angels had fallen asleep. Lola looked behind herself, noticing that Sophia was looking out the back of the wagon, through a gap in the back drapes, and wondering what she was looking at. She considered going over to check it out herself but didn't feel like it, and just the thought of standing up made her yawn again.

Lola faced forwards again and rested her head on top of Zalroth's head before closing her eyes. Sophia watched Lola cross her arms on top of Zalroth's head and covered her eyes with her arms. Sophia rubbed her eyes as she looked back through the gap. She managed to respot the thing she was previously looking at. She watched as rows of hundreds of bright pure white lights marched in a freakishly straight line, on the other side of the giant river. She squinted her eyes at the lights to try and see any of the individuals holding the light sources.

"What do you see, Sophia?" Akari asked.

"Not sure but given the amount of them, it's probably an army of some sort.". Sophia fixed the drapes so the gap was gone before facing forwards.

"An army, Isn't it standard protocol for an army to stop moving during the night?".

"I've heard it depends on the nation but what I found odd was how they're all walking, and are keeping their lanterns, well I assume that's what they're all holding given the size of the lights, are staying perfectly still.".

"That sounds sort of freaky, if the lights were white they might be death reapers". Sophia sweated a little at hearing the word reaper which caused her to get an awkward expression, forcing her to look away from Akari.

"A... death reaper?" Sophia asked.

"Oh you don't need to worry, it's just a creature from a fairytale, plus you said there were multiple lanterns right? so it can't be that since I remember, the story mentioning, there was only one death reaper.". Akari apologised to Sophia worrying she scared her, on account of Sophia sweating.

"Don't worry about it, I'm just not the biggest fan of fairytales.". Sophia let out a yawn.

"Yeah, I guess we should probably call it for today and get some sleep are selves." Akari joked.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Sophia replied. Sophia crossed her arms on top of the barrel next to her before resting her head on said arms. She closed her eyes and went to sleep.

Meanwhile, on Callie's airship, Callie entered the ship's bridge and sat on the captain's chair. She let out an even more tired yawn, compared to her previous one, as one of the Zelkio knights approached her.

"What..." Callie let out another yawn, "...is it?". The knight handed her a purple and silver can of an energy soda, called Fizz It.

"Lady Calloukus, the scanners have detected a large collection of mutant soul reapers about a day ahead of us, ma'am.". Callie took a sip from her soda and rubbed her eyes with her free hand.

"And what suggests they're mutated?" Callie asked. Callie continued to drink the soda as the knight explained that the magic signatures coming off the monsters are similar to a soul reaper but are different in subtle ways.

"I see.". Callie went to take another sip.

"Mutant monsters? It's been a while since any of those have appeared." Zulcrestus remarked while seeming to appear out of nowhere next to Callie's chair. Zulcrestus' sudden appearance scared Callie, along with confusing the knight who was literally looking at the spot where Zulcrestus was now standing, and she accidentally tossed her soda can into the air. Luckily, Zulcrestus caught it mid-air with his left hand before any of the soda spilt out.

"Don't do that! You scared the shi...shibijibies out of me, though it was kinda cool how you suddenly appeared.". Zulcrestus handed Callie the soda back and she continued to drink it, though slightly faster than before. Zulcrestus asked the knight if he could continue.

"O-of course, sir. It also appears that the monsters are heading in a roughly southwest direction, so we'll eventually cross paths with them.". Callie wasn't really paying attention to the finer details of what the knight was saying as she started to yawn. She placed the empty can on the arm of the chair before curling up in her chair and trying to fall asleep. The knight wasn't sure how to respond to Callie's response.

"Erm... ma'am?". She waved her right hand in Zulcrestus' general direction.

"You deal with it, it's your favourite thing to... do." Callie managed to get out before completely falling asleep. The knight looked a little disappointed as he turned to Zulcrestus.

"So, how should we deal with it, sir?". Zulcrestus was looking straight at Callie before using his telekinesis to lift her into the air, and keeping her in the same position she was in while she was on the chair.

"I'll deal with it by myself when we get closer." The knight nodded before picking up the empty can, disposing of it and heading back to his post. Zulcrestus lowered Callie into his arms before leaving the bridge.