Such brazenly overt flirtatiousness was, in truth, a mere amusement that neither of them took seriously. When it came down to real tension between them and its release, words and double entendre weren’t exactly necessary.

Of the three who had arrived, all but Collier’s messenger wished to speak in private. The messenger simply handed over a missive, which read as follows: “I’ll be there with you to put the stonebound zipperhead back to sleep.”

Bherad, nervous and twitchy as he was, spilled what he wished to say quickly: “I uh, it’s about the you-know-what event. I might not look the part, but I was a B-Plus Ranked Slayer, once upon a time. Though I loathe to take up the sword and I’ve not trained properly in some time, I would rather not have to flee my home.”

The mustachioed, manly chef spoke succinctly: “Governor’s people talked to me. I source my own meat - I can help chop up a genocidal westerner.”

The sun dawned on Tuesday. Several hours later, as the clock neared one in the afternoon, Zelsys woke. She felt great despite only having slept barely five hours, and the heaviness of what she had done to herself in struggling against Arnys and the exhaustion of the preceding night were both gone, in no small thanks to Ozmir’s cooking and her own consumption of Liquid Vigor - the volume of which would threaten the livers of normal people within a few weeks. Only, Zefaris had somehow gotten out of bed first, and without her noticing at that. Going through her morning routine, Zel wondered where the blonde had gone, and why. Her questions were assuaged when she saw Zef sitting in the mess hall, reading a newspaper with a steaming mug in hand.

Her eye flicked upward when Zel entered and she put down the newspaper. They exchanged casual greetings as if Zel hadn’t spent the better part of last night rearranging Zef’s insides, and only when the former got her breakfast from Ozmir and sat down did the latter say what she truly had on her mind.

“There’s something you need to take a look at once you’re done eating,” she said. At the raising of Zel’s brow as she chewed a mouthful of meat and greens, she elucidated: “Some occultist’s been walking around town making the city’s statues get up and march out into the fields outside the northern gate, dozens and dozens of them. The town militia is guarding them telling people to keep away, talking about how the statues are a defense system and dangerous.”

“Now that’s something I have to see,” she said after swallowing her mouthful, half to Zef and half to herself. Zel scarfed down the remainder of her breakfast in the span of a few scant minutes, intentionally triggering her digestion the moment she was done as to avoid an undue feeling of fullness. Moments later they were out of the sect building, and indeed, it was as the blonde had said - few and far inbetween though they were, stone representations of men and beasts alike stomped through the sect’s very street, each marked with a glowing seal reminiscent of those Zel had seen on the Guardian Golem.

After observing the procession for a few moments, she decided she wanted to see it up close, remarking, “Kanbu did as he promised, then.”

“...That robed figure was Kanbu?” Zef asked, bewildered.

“Well, he said something along the lines of “the stones will walk again”, so it was either him or at least partially his doing. Think I’ll go take a look for my morning run…” she said, before looking over to Zef and glancing down at the gun on her hip. “Once you show me how that monster works, properly this time.”

“We did get sidetracked yesterday, didn’t we?” the blonde smirked, turning on a bootheel and walking back towards the sect courtyard gate. The moment she was through the gate, she whipped the gun out of its holster, its front end swinging up and locking into place. Zel had seen it fire a few times the preceding day, but the aforementioned sidetracking somewhat prevented her from learning of the gun’s more particular details, such as the reservoir of its ammunition, or its “slam-fire” function that allowed Zefaris to hold down the trigger and have the gun fire the moment she loaded another shell.

Despite her possession of an arguably more advanced firearm, Tempesta came across as a far more elegant weapon than her own gaunt-cannon, even in its current, much prettier incarnation. The shotgun’s cyclic rate, firepower, even the fact she could clearly tell that it had been meticulously converted from Zef’s original sparklock to the fullest degree - none of those things left as much of an impression as what Zefaris did with it after only owning it for such a short while.

Already, she was able to transfer Aether directly into Tempesta’s operating mechanism, circumventing the relatively lesser conductivity by expelling a long trail of Fog from the Philosopher’s Eye, which entered into the brass-plated core block of the gun with such apparent speed and force it could easily be mistaken for a beam. The action crackled with the subtlest of sparks, at which point Zef raised her gun and fired.

A half-second later, Zel glanced at the target block and saw that the shot had drawn out a perfect diamond shape. She had known that Zef had been trying to gain better control of the Philosopher’s Eye and using it for longer periods of time, and she had even seen her creating projections with the eye, even ones so complex as a cow’s shape rotating in place half a meter in front of her. Still, it hadn’t entirely translated in her mind to feats such as this.

“...Can you just enchant coins with the eye now?” Zel raised an eyebrow, to which Zef grinned and nodded, fishing around in her pocket for a handful of wooden coins.