CH 160

It was a day before they were to meet up with Duke Marsfield, so Ellis and the others were preparing for their departure.

Their goal this time was to secure an audience with the King. And then on the spot they’d confront the royal palace’s Guardian Dragon and confirm the true identity of this Nightmare Dragon.

“This time we’re just confirming the situation.”

Sir Chaffee had reported that the kidnapping incident with Mebett was treated as the robbery/murder of a noble family in Skycastle. Demon corpses whither and turn to dust after a certain amount of time passes, so there was no trace of them anywhere in the mansion by the time the authorities arrived. The bodies of the attacked aristocrats were never discovered either, probably devoured by the demons. However because of that the incident had an indefinite conclusion and remained on the lips of the Skycastle populace.

“I don’t want to get involved with anything that’s going to be too troublesome.”

To be honest, Ellis didn’t really care about Skycastle. She’d much rather be playing over at the Western Fishing Village(temporary name).

From Ellis’s back, Ra-chin spoke up.

“Well don’t say that. Just knowing there is a third power outside of the Demon King and Hero factions is going to shake things up.”

Knowing what he said was right, Ellis sighed yet relented.

While the girls were busy getting everything ready, Bizon came over from the annex and walked over to Claire.

“Claire, you have a visitor.”

“Okay, I’ll head over now.”

Dropping what she was doing, Claire walked over to the annex’s front entrance to greet her guests. And then raised a surprised voice when she saw who had arrived.

“Father, Mother! How did you know I was here?”

Ares and Izerina were standing at the entrance to the annex and greeted their daughter with a smile.

“Ah, we stopped by the Adventurer’s Guild and heard about this place from Theseus. By the way, I’m not going any further than this,” Ares said with a laugh.

“You’re fine coming into this building. But be careful. Men are forbidden near Lily Garden–father’s included. If you aren’t careful, you might end up naked and hung out to dry!”

Ares was given a warning about something terrifying from his cute, smiling daughter. After being invited in, Ares and Izerina were introduced to Bizon and Gurre. By that time all the rest of the girls had dropped what they were doing and ventured over to the annex as well.

Bizon and Gurre, mindful of the situation, left after a few minutes, saying they were going out for tea together and would be at the Tea Room. And so all that remained in the room were the members of the Jewelry Box, the married couple, and Mebett.

“Ellis, and everyone, it’s been a while.”

After another greeting from Izerina, Ellis invited the couple further inside to the living room.

The reason for their visit to Warren was originally to teach Claire some new magic, but on the way, they heard a lot of worrying stories, so this trip would also be for setting up countermeasures. One such story was about the rapid deterioration of security in Skycastle. Also while the frequent attacks by demons on the surrounding towns and villages has stopped, there were now frequent cases of adventurers suddenly going missing inside labyrinths.

A couple of things came to the girls’ minds at the news. The fact that demons had stopped attacking towns and villages meant everything had gone exactly as they planned there, but the news that demons were sticking around in labyrinths to attack adventurers was outside of their expectations.

“What will Father and Mother be doing in the future?”

Claire asked her parents clearly worried, and Izerina answered with a gentle smile only a mother could make.

“To start we are going to set base in Warren again. By analyzing the {Runaway Dungeon} spell you gave to us before, we’re finally able to understand the structure behind Ring of Return and can now teleport from a dungeon to a specified magic circle.

Ring of Return are sets of rings and scrolls that were discovered early on during labyrinth exploration, and while it was discovered fairly quickly that you could use the Ring of Return to teleport to a magic circle made by the discovered scrolls, nobody knew how to set up the magic circle. But that was before Izerina got her hands on the {Runaway Dungeon} spell which allows somebody to teleport to just outside the labyrinth during exploration.

“Here it is”

Izerina set out a few rings and scrolls out on the table in front of her.

“It takes 8MP to fix this scroll into a magic circle at the target location, but once it is set, your whole party can teleport back to the magic circle for just 1MP. We will be setting one of these up in Warren. The spell for this is {Return}, but otherwise a normal Ring of Return would work just as well.

Then Ares picked up a specific ring that looked different from the others.

“And this is a specialization of the barrier magic I designed suited for demons. You can use either the spell {Isolation}, or this new Isolation ring I developed. Once used, any demon-type monsters will be repelled from the user. However it requires 7MP to use, so it’s not something that can be used repeatedly.”

All sorts of thoughts were running through the girls’ heads at this new spell and tools. Since Ellis and the other girls can ride their dragons, the time saved with the new {Return} spell would be less than others, but they definitely wanted it for their families. Grandpa Fel would be especially pleased. But would it be enough for Ellis be the only one with an Isolation ring and just have Claire learn the spell? As everyone continued doing the math in their head, Izerina let out a small cough to gain their attention again. For a moment, the inside of the room calmed down.

“Well then, on to the main subject. Claire, what are those finger puppets you have hanging around your waist?”

The faces of the Jewelry Box girls all turned an instant shade of blue. Mebett was the only one who didn’t understand what was going on and was still sitting there happily swinging her legs back and forth.

“Oh, uh, this is……….”

“Also Claire, I see you’re wearing three rings. What is with those?”

Claire didn’t know how to respond to Izerina’s questions. So Ares hopped in from the side.

“You’ve never been one for jewelry before Claire. So then…….Ellis. During my research, I found records describing a type of documentary ability. So Ellis, have you ever heard about the Copy ability?”

The girls suddenly grouped up together, performing a group huddle where Ares and Izerina couldn’t see them.

But Ares and Izerina followed after them, popping into their little huddle while grinning.

“It’s fine, we’ll keep your secret.”

“I do have mixed feelings about having the stuffed doll that takes a whole day for me to make being so easily replicated though.”

Izerina started going on about her frustrations, but she was still smiling as she did it and gave Ellis a little wink.

And so Ellis started to think. At this point it would be very hard for her to convince them she didn’t have the ability to copy magic tools. But in order to prevent her more dangerous ability, the one that allowed her to use any magic tool without expending any MP, from leaking out, she decided to confess just a little of the truth.

“Yes………..I woke up with this ability one day when I turned eight years old………..”

“Mother………these are Grand Magic, Awakening, and Spirit rings………….”

Ares and Izerina were convinced by the face Claire was making. And they nodded. They could understand why the girls were hiding this ability.

It would be easy to imagine that Ellis’s life would be in danger if this kind of ability were to be made public. Plus, the ability was almost useless on its own. If danger were to rear its head, she wouldn’t be able to just copy her way out of it.

“That’s what we thought. So, go ahead and copy as many of these Isolation rings and Rings of Return as you need.”

“Afterwards Claire, I’ll teach you the transfixing magic technique I developed. As long as it’s beginner level magic, you should be able to create your own magic tools, so try it out later with Ellis.”

Ares and Izerina’s words were unexpected for the girls, albeit very appreciated.

“Why though? Is it really all right to just give away something so important?”

While Ellis was grateful for the two’s kindness, she still needed to confirm their intentions. But Izerina happily replied.

“We took a walk around Warren before coming to visit you, and we immediately noticed how much more developed this place was since we were last here. We heard this is all because of your hard work, so we think it would be good to have some faith in your knowledge and abilities.”

The girls were still a little nervous, but the friendliness behind Izerina’s kind words broke them down. They decided to trust Claire’s parents just as they were trusting them and gave their thanks.

After that Ellis duplicated two Grand Magic rings and two Spirit rings for them to use. The couple graciously accepted.

In addition, Ares suddenly noticed the pendant sized Mechanized Dragon Ka-kun Mebett was wearing over her heart and immediately asked her to activate the golem in the backyard. Mebett did as she was told and activated Ka-kun, and for a moment, Ares fell completely silent. And then,

“What is this material!? How much MP did {Create Golem} use up to make a golem like this!?”

“Father, I made it out of Dark Mithril. And as for the MP, I was only able to pull it off by using Grand Magic, Awakening, and Spirit rings all at once.”

After seeing the legendary metal up close, Ares went into full academic mode. Ares started asking all sorts of questions, and Claire did her best in answering all of them. Just like that the man and his daughter entered their own little word based on magical engineering.

Behind them, Izerina whispered into Ellis’s ear.

“Who else knows about your special ability?”

“Just Baltis from the Thieves’ Guild.”

“I understand. It’s a little too important to have Theseus leak it out.”

When it was time for Ares and Izerina to leave, they were to head over to the Magicians’ Guild building which at this point was an empty shell of what it used to be. Now that the couple was allowed to leave Wisdom whenever they wanted, they were going to make bases in both Wisdom and Warren. It was decided by the Magicians’ Guild Headquarters in Wisdom that Izerina would be appointed as the new guildmaster for Warren’s Magicians’ Guild. For the record, Ares is already the vice guildmaster for the headquarters in Wisdom, so he refrained from taking a position in Warren.

When the two had arrived at their new home, they opened the parcel Claire had given them before they left. After ripping away the paper, they found four small bags and a note from Claire.

“Father, Mother, these are a gift from all of us. Use them to help you move.”

They were all Adventurer’s Bags.

“These’ll certainly make moving easier.”

“I’ve had enough surprises today to last me a lifetime.”

Ares and Izerina recalled the five extraordinary girls once again before giving each other a smile and laughing together.