“I’m not sure to say about all this, but you’re a genius, I suppose.” Lily looked out of the window. The sky was changing, and the sun was going to rise soon. People would soon awaken to the fact that the Thief of Time, the Fourth Bearer of Destiny, the adversary so desired by the Dark and the Moons, had defeated the three sovereigns of the world.

Well, it wasn’t exactly that way, but that was how people were going to interpret it as.

“A desperate genius,” Claud replied. “The Frozen Emperor screwed up lots of things. If I’m to overcome the perils that are coming after us, I must do the opposite of what he did.”

“Meaning…”

“I’m going to use all my Aeon Folds on my skills.” Claud let out a small breath. “Divinity Aspirant is probably what my final goal is. However, I probably won’t live long enough to use it if I save those Aeon Folds. Minimally, I’ll need to obtain Will of Solitude.”

“Sounds awesome.”

“I faintly remember its effects are indeed very awesome. However, it took me nearly a day to upgrade it completely…”

“Do you need to mediate or something?” Lily asked.

“No. It’s already upgrading, in fact. The moment I got the Aeon Folds, I tossed another four Aeon Folds into Presence Nullification. Henceforth, I’ll be able to truly free myself from the pursuit of the enemy,” Claud replied. “Probably, anyway. However, there’s actually another problem.”

“Another problem?”

“I recently learned that the Red God is the God of Precision. Some call it lucky coincidence. It’s completely different from things like fate and karma. In a sense, if he goes after me, it’ll end up becoming a coin toss. He can’t detect me, but he can definitely show up in random places around me.” Claud frowned. “I suppose this is a massive weakness of Will of Solitude.”

“Yeah, it’s like those annoying people knocking at your door and offering to sell mana oil or whatever shady products they’re pushing,” Lily replied. “I get what you mean. You can be alone, but there’s no stopping people from thinking your house looks nice…”

The sky turned orange, and the two of them admired the sunrise. At the same time, shadows flitted from point to point, and Claud’s dynamic vision captured the beautiful scenery of what seemed to be covert agents rushing towards their masters.

“Seems like the information’s going to spread soon…a dukedom capital doesn’t use town criers, after all.” Lily rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet.

“Spread? Aren’t those fellows rushing to their masters?”

“They’re rushing to the news agencies in the capital,” Lily replied. “The nobles’ covert operatives don’t need to do such things to find out what’s about to be public knowledge. They’re more focused on the actual secrets.”

She squished his face for the tenth time in the past six hours, and then giggled. “Those three fellows are still asleep, though. Like me, they missed you a lot.”

Claud nodded. “I missed you too. And those three.”

Lily rubbed his cheeks. “Well, we should go down for breakfast too…but we can do that after the three of them wake up, right? Or do you want to pop them in your pocket instead?”

“I’ll pop them in my pocket,” Claud replied. “I kinda miss the sensation.”

The three little shapes were making quiet meeps as they lay around the small room Claud had made for them. Particularly adorable was little Sceptre, who was spinning on a point really, really slowly as it meeped in and out regularly.

“Meep?” Crown stirred once, and the little box did a little jiggle as it assessed the surroundings. “Meep!”

Crown noticed his fingers, and then rushed towards it. Nuzzling his fingers twice, Crown made a few loud meeps, and before Claud knew it, the three little fellows had woken up to climb all over him. Within one minute, his hair had turned into a nest — Claud, fortunately, had taken a nice bath an hour after he returned — and three baby birds meeped away happily.

“Alright, calm down.” Lily plucked out the spherical Throne and placed the little guy on her head instead. “Anyway, like I said, he came back. He was just busy earlier. Now, we’re going down for breakfast, so the three of you will need to enter his pockets.”

“Meep!”

Claud’s pocket promptly filled up with the little fellows, and he smiled. “Sorry about that. They must have pestered you the whole time.”

“Well, they were very worried,” Lily replied. “But they also cheered me up.”

Claud lowered his eyes. In that moment, the memory of a frozen throne filled his eyes. That throne, in the Second Tutorial, had the corpses of the three little fellows sealed inside. Without a doubt, Claud knew that they had probably sacrificed themselves to buy time for Lily, and…

He shook his head. All that had happened in a different reality.

“Claud?” Lily touched his fingers, holding them gently. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m just reminded of some unpleasant things,” Claud replied, before hugging her. “I’ll protect everyone. Without fail.”

Lily patted his back, before separating from him. The faint light in her eyes carried hints of both warmth and pity.

She knew what he was thinking about, as always, and he nodded at her once. Fluffing himself up, Claud injected some cheer into his words and said, “Let’s get some breakfast. I haven’t eaten a proper meal for a whole month. I’m so glad I’m a mana-user, or I’ll be groaning about constipation now.”

“Hah! That would be a sight indeed.”

The inn’s first floor was filled with customers pouring over newspapers while nibbling away at luxurious breakfasts like toasted, buttered sandwiches with soup, as well as scrambled eggs with bacon slices.

“You’re drooling.”

“Sorry. Can’t help it.” Claud swallowed audibly, and the little shapes in his pocket jiggled happily. “Dried and salted meat, while nice, isn’t really what I would call a good meal. And there wasn’t time to cook much at all, so you can’t make a broth with it.”

Lily patted his shoulder. “It’s all over now, though.”

“Yeah. I’m not sure what’s going to happen next, but we should be seeing new developments come nightfall,” Claud replied. “That should be enough time to see what changes the five grand skies are going to enact soon.”

“I can guess, though…”

Lily waved a hand, and one of the waiters doing nothing ambled order. After ordering two breakfast sets and a newspaper, the two of them huddled together and poured over the piece of paper that had cost one silver.

It was expensive for the raw materials, strictly speaking, but cheap in terms of quality and accuracy…probably.

Claud looked at the headlines once, and then felt a weird urge to just cackle rise up from his belly. Indeed, the news had reported the end of the Trial of Aeons, but the headlines had put it…such that it seemed like the legendary folk hero, the Thief of Time, had beaten everyone else into a pulp and walked away with incredible power.

Of course, this rather uplifting headline was immediately followed by what could only be described as a declaration of war, as a continent-wide hunt for the Thief of Time was announced by Emperor Grandis. In fact, it would seem that Supreme Saran and First Lady Cecily had also mobilised, and were currently leading crack troops to join in the hunt. Every single noble in Grandis had also been put on high alert, and there were campaigns to seek out the Thief of Time underway…

“That’s quite the reaction,” Lily whispered.

A soldier walked into the inn a moment later, before slapping a wanted poster of someone, except that there was no picture on that poster. The crimes listed on the poster was numerous, though, ranging from the contempt of royalty to things like robbery and petty theft.

Lily chuckled, and then flipped to the next page. Emperor Grandis had pardoned everyone affected by the Thief of Time, and the most eyecatching detail on the list was naturally Princess Dia of the Lustre Dukedom.

“…She’s going to return home soon, I suppose.” Claud pointed at the list of pardons. “Dia the bodyguard. Well, she better tell me where the princess hid, because I get the feeling that’s going to improve my own skills.”

“I’ll miss here. Or maybe we can go along with her!” Lily looked at Claud. “You’re improving that skill, right? We should be able to return to Moon territory now.”

Claud paused, and then nodded thoughtfully. “Yes. That’s possible. With Will of Solitude, I should be able to do a lot more things now. It’s really useful.”

“That’s why you chose it.”

“Well, I never had the chance of learning that other skill to begin with. I’ll need to off a few more targets first,” Claud replied. “It’s best to do what the Frozen Emperor didn’t. That should get us to a good position, or at least a better one.”

Lily nodded. “And your first priority…”

“Yeap. The Third Tutorial.” Claud flipped the page and glanced at the many articles written about the Thief of Time. “Whew.”