After checking them through, Dia brought them to a small house. “We asked for one, and the people up there decided to listen.”

“That easily?” Claud asked, looking at the door. “Well…”

He exchanged glances with Lily, who looked at the door ruefully too. The two of them stood in front of the house, unwilling to push it open or anything, and Dia let out an audible sigh.

“You two…fine. You’re nervous. Sheesh. If I didn’t spot you two, I bet you guys would have been standing outside Moon Mansion for hours and hours, wondering whether going in was a good idea.” Dia twisted the knob. “Come on in!”

“Isn’t she taking this a bit too lightly?” Claud grumbled.

Lily nodded, and then pulled him in yesterday. In awkward silence, the two of them followed behind Dia docilely, and after a short passage, the two of them were forced to halt.

“Guys!” Dia shouted. “Guess who’s back!”

Claud took the chance to look at the living room and immediately recognised everyone. Schwarz was standing behind what looked like a dining table, leaning against a wall as he poured a drink from cup to cup to froth it up. Farah was reading a book, while Risti was chatting with Nero about something.

Dia’s words, however, made everyone look at her, just as Lily’s head popped right next to him. There was a stunned silence for a moment, before bedlam broke loose and everyone flooded over to the two of them, shouting his and Lily’s names.

After a minute or so of indiscernible shouts, Claud and Lily had been surrounded by the others, who were poking…well, him, and giving Lily a little distance.

“Stop poking me!” Claud retreated to the nearby wall, before touching his face. “Yeowch. Yes, I’m back. Kinda. This isn’t Moon Mansion, after all. And we’re all outside Istrel…”

“Oh, so you know to bring that up, huh?” Schwarz poked his chest. “You two. You two left the sovereignty for a honeymoon? Do you know how dangerous that is?”

“It wasn’t dangerous, though?” Lily tilted her head. “I mean…hmm. Yeah, seriously. We didn’t encounter any danger? We went to Monsville, lived in a small house there for a while, and then went to Lostfon and sat down there for the rest of the time. There weren’t any dangerous things.”

Claud nodded. The only thing that could be called dangerous was their trip to the Celestia Ruins, but he could save that for later, when they had all forgotten about it. “It’s quite safe. No one came to conscript us and we just sat down and did nothing much.”

“Eh?” Risti frowned. “That’s odd. Wasn’t Lostfon captured by the Dark? Most of Nihila was under the control of the Dark before the Moons descended.”

“Yeah, but nothing big happened. Everyone just resumed their daily lives as per normal after a day or two. And we were living it up in an inn and eating good food every day,” Claud replied. “That’s pretty much it.”

“…Now I feel like I should have tagged along after all,” Nero muttered, and Risti nodded fervently. To Claud’s surprise, Dia also had a rueful face, and for a moment, he had the feeling that the three of them had tagged along for the same collective experience.

“Oh, you three...” Farah rolled her eyes.

“What happened to them?” Lily asked. “They look like they went through a nightmare or something in the past few months. Was there some huge crime in Licencia or something?”

“I wish,” Dia replied bitterly. “It’s a long story, but the Holy Son of the Red God decided to pull a sacrificial ritual for some stupid reason in Daybreak County, and he ended up losing control. One thing led to another, and he was eventually executed by the gods or something.”

Claud really wanted to ask how the Thief of Time ended up being embroiled in all this, but he had a feeling that prodding them would do. Before he could ask them, however, Lily had said, “So, why did the ritual go wrong?”

“Uhh…” Dia looked around, a shifty glint in her eyes. “You guys remember the Thief of Time, right? Yeah, we think he had a hand in all this.”

Claud looked at her and instantly determined that the three of them definitely had something to do with the ritual going wrong. After all, there was no way he could have disrupted a ritual from an entire dukedom away. In other words, those three buffoons must have framed the most convenient boogeyman for their own sake…but again, there was no way they could have defeated a familiar spirit either.

“I see.” Claud rubbed his nose.

Lily, who was skilfully repressing her mirth, cleared her throat. “You guys have been conscripted, right? Where does that leave us? We don’t particularly want to fight, really.”

“You two don’t want freebies?” Dia asked, raising an eyebrow.

Schwarz retreated back to his table and picked up a bottle. “It’s only because they haven’t seen what the fountain of rewards is like yet. Let me tell you, it’s great.”

“Fountain…”

“…of rewards?”

Dia grinned. “Come on. I have a ten plus one to use anyway. I’ve done my fair share of hard work, after all! Anyone else wants to see eleven rewards fall from the sky?”

“Ooh.” Nero got up. His actions seemed to set something off, and before long, everyone had gathered around Dia. Like a small tide, Claud and Lily found themselves dragged along to the outside, even though they hadn’t set down their baggage yet. Within moments, they had arrived at what looked like a normal water fountain to Claud, and he exchanged odd looks with Lily, who jiggled her shoulders in reply.

“So, uh, what’s this place for?” Claud asked, looking at the pretty fountain that was spewing out water. “To hold picnics?”

He directed his question at Schwarz, who promptly handed him the bottle he was holding. “It’s to watch a nice light show. Anyway, this isn’t alcoholic, so go wild.”

Claud immediately opened the bottle, where a tangy orange scent wafted out. Instead of taking the first sip, though, he passed to Lily, who blinked at him twice before engaging in a silent war of ‘you drink first’.

“Oh, come on.” Schwarz pulled out a second bottle and handed it to Claud. “Happy? Anyway, I’ve come up with a few more brews while you were gone. I’m going to have you sample them.”

“Sure, but I want no pure water inside,” Claud replied. “The flammable kind.”

“Don’t worry, Nero’s covering that side…anyway, don’t stand this close to Dia unless you wanna get smacked on the head by falling items,” Schwarz replied.

“Falling items?”

“Hush.” Schwarz motioned at Dia. “She’s going to do a ten-plus-one…”

As Dia took up her position on a marked spot, Claud couldn’t help but think that their reunion had taken an odd turn. Before he could discuss that feeling with Lily, however, the fountain in front of them burst out in a roar, and eleven lights shot out into the sky.

Nine of them were glowing green, while the tenth and the eleventh were glowing gold for some reason. After arcing into the sky for a while, they came plummeting down, before stopping right above the ground.

“Nine lifestones and two golden bags of something,” Claud observed. “What’s this?”

“The reward mechanism for doing missions,” Schwarz explained. “Do enough missions, accumulate enough chances, and then go make a wish or something. You’ll get ten random rewards.”

“Hmm.” Claud looked at the golden bag. “What’s in those bags?”

“Random stuff. Usually an artefact or some prana jade,” Schwarz replied. “Uh, prana jade is—”

“No worries, we got quite a bit of that,” Claud replied.

Lily nodded. “Got a whole bunch from doing…what did we do again?”

The two of them thought for a moment, and Lily’s eyes lit up. “By looking for lost families, right?”

“Something along those lines, yes.” Claud looked at the sight of Dia opening the bags. “So, this is the reward mechanism, huh? Interesting.”

“Heh.” Schwarz paused. “You know, now that I think about it, we should have shown you this later, right? You two must be tired…”

“Yeah, I was wondering about that.” Claud rolled his eyes. “But hey, it’s nice to go out and watch some lights fall on Dia. Right, speaking of Dia…did you guys find the princess yet? I mean, everyone’s outside the dukedom right now.”

“The Lustre princess?” Schwarz shook his head. “Nope. Unfortunately not. She seems to have vanished completely. Dia’s…surprisingly calm about this, though. She’s been saying how no news is best news, although there is a lonely look in her eyes.”

Farah walked up. “Yeah. Maybe once all this is over, we’ll go and help her look for her mistress. It’s sad watching her look this lonely.”

“Oh, that sounds great!” Lily clapped her hands. “I’m sure we can get Nightfall to help too, right?”

“Daybreak still owes us some favours too…”

Before Nero and Risti, who had overheard their conversation, could join in, Dia came over with her prizes in hands. “There, that’s how the rewards work! Are you interested now?”

“W-we’ll think about it,” Claud replied. “Anyway, even if we don’t join you guys, we have a nice house in Monsville, which is not too far from here. You guys can come over…probably. You know.”

“Someone’s wondering if we’ll spoil his lovey-dovey time, eh? Tut tut.” Schwarz patted his back. “Well, for now, why not join us? We have one last room open, after all.”

Claud judged that it would be rude to refuse, so he and Lily nodded together and followed them back to the house.