"Hi, Greed, I missed you too," Lone said in a joyful tone as the tiny albino snake slithered up his leg and his torso before coiling around his bicep.

Scott shivered. "That's really creepy."

Emma looked at him funny. "Are you scared of snakes?"

"No, I'm scared of creepy things," Scott countered.

George looked confused. "But it's kinda cute."

"It's powerful is what it is," Hazel said. As a B-ranker, she could easily feel the waves of raw strength rolling off of the tiny creature and it genuinely unnerved her how much latent energy was inside of such a tiny creature.

Alisa smiled under her massive witch's hat. "So Scott's scared of snakes? That's kinda adorable..."

"Hohoho, that's a surprise," the incredibly rotund middle-aged man who'd shown up with Greed said. "I didn't believe Sloth when she first told me that Greed actually saw somebody as more than a potential snack for once, but it's actually very pleasing to see that she's not just an insatiable monster. One Gluttony is enough, thank you very much."

Soph cocked her head to the side. "You aren't Gluttony?"

"Hohoho, I get that a lot. No, I'm not. I'm Lust," the middle-aged man claimed.

Lone bopped Soph on her head lightly. "They're named after their unique skills, not their appearances. Were you expecting a busty broad caked in make-up or something?"

"I was," Scott admitted, resulting in a kick to his shin from Alisa.

Soph smiled apologetically. "Sorry... I was preparing for a potential rival..."

"I take no offence whatsoever. It's been over 10,000 years since I was summoned, so I'm somewhat immunized to being judged by my cover. In fact, people usually never dare to offend me since I'm so powerful. It's actually a bit refreshing to see some honest and innocent judgement for once," Lust admitted with a smile on his bearded face.

"You're good people," Lone said to him, he then leered at Wrath. "Unlike a hotheaded certain someone."

"Oi! Take that back, you nine-tailed freak of nature! Go explode, you Primal hoarder!" Wrath shouted.

Lone smiled wryly. "See what I mean?"

Lust laughed. "Wrath is a good child. He's still young for an Archfire Spirit. Even in his old world, he was only 20,000-years-old before his summoning. Despite his grand lineage, that's still incredibly young for a spirit. his world has no wars and all spirits are immortal by nature, so he's a bit happy to enter confrontation of any type since it's a new concept for him. I'm sure you already know this, but killing one is just about as difficult as killing little Miss Soph here, so he's a little bit immune to the concepts of fear and self-restraint, ohohoho."

"Haha, I see," Lone replied. 'What a scary power... He can see all skills and abilities of a person, system-related or not, and he can even copy them perfectly and store them if he sees them used enough times... Thankfully, he's not a supervillain or anything. I guess his skill has restrictions... Well, Sloth never mentioned them but I'm sure he has them. Lusting after skills though... Creative usage of that sin.'

"Hey! Don't talk about me like I'm not here if you wouldn't mind," Wrath complained.

Greed looked at him and hissed a bit, making him flinch.

"Well, I'd best be off," Lust said. "I've other matters to attend to. Wrath, I trust you will bring Greed back home once you're finished with this quest?"

Wrath nodded. "Sure."

"Lovely. Well then, Lone, Soph, children, it was lovely meeting you all," he said with a respectful bow. "Until we next me-"

"Wait!" George suddenly called out, drawing all eyes onto him. "Um, can I get an autograph?"

"I didn't know you were a big fan of powerful adventurers, George," Emma said as she held her hands behind her head and started whistling.

Holding the piece of parchment that Lust had happily signed, George nodded shyly. "I've always admired adventurers even back when I was just an ignorant noble."

"Hey! Hey! Do you want my autograph too?" Wrath asked excitedly. "I can sign it with living flames if you want."

"Could you?!" George jumped at the proposal.

Almost instantly, the young former duke's son became a close friend of Wrath's, arguably the sin with the most individual firepower and the one with the worst temper.

A few days of travel passed. Lone had made a point to not use The Glade and Soph's teleportation for a change. He wanted to let Swind and Rachel be alone as much as possible to maintain a safe and quiet space for Rachel to recover.

Infa barely moved and just slept peacefully as he slowly grew, and, of course, the baby girls, Garadia and Kyuubi were both incredibly smart. One chose to sleep all the time while the other only spoke in cute and soothing noises, so they weren't a bother.

In regards to their travels, every town that they passed were dealing with their own little problems outside of the SS-ranked quest that Lone's group was tasked with completing. Some adventurers turned bandits here, petty monster attacks there. No matter the issue, Lone got the kids to deal with them since such things were beyond trivial to himself, Soph, Greed and Wrath.

Convincing Wrath to not wipe out the issues or outright ignore them had been more of a challenge than Lone had first expected, but the Archfire Spirit finally relented and agreed to stay put while the teens worked after Greed had threatened to eat him with a very menacing hiss.

Unfortunately, regardless of them being in the same group as six other humans, the people out in the countryside were incredibly wary of both Lone and Wrath.

It was clear that unlike in Milindo where specism was far more centralised to the cities, here in Falron, the effects of the many demi rebellions over the past million years had left their scars.

For the common folk who never managed to expand their lifespans via ranking up, they had left behind tales of the savagery of the demis who indiscriminately killed humans during the wars, and these tales had mutated and gotten more and more brutal as they were passed from one generation to the next.

That was, however, a deep-seated issue and not one that Lone was in any position to fix.

Lone tapped his finger on the coffee table in the living room of his self-made fort that he usually kept away in his Dimensional Storage as he frowned. "This is so weird."

Wrath shrugged. The Archfire Spirit was lying in a tub of magical lava that Lone had made for him to allow him to feel more comfortable. "That's why it's an SS-ranked quest. It's pretty rare for quests to go past A-rank, and they usually only do if there's a mystery connected to them or if too many people have died completing them thus far."

Lone nodded. "I understand that but who on Earth would need over 5,000 commoners at G-rank or lower? It makes no sense. I thought we were dealing with a ring of slavers, but now? I'm not so sure... Almost every village we've visited has a few hundred people missing while the towns have had their slums almost entirely wiped clean."

"Could be sacrifices for necromantic rituals. Could also be a rogue soul oracle master. You don't happen to know any of those that've gone missing recently, do you?" Wrath asked.

Lone shook his head. "Nope. I'm new to this whole soul oracle business."

"Well, you're basically the same age as my sperm, so I should have known that," Wrath quipped.

Lone shot him a disgusted look before he just sighed helplessly. "I've got no idea how we can track them down. We've been near this village for over a day already, but ever since we arrived, not a single person has gone missing. They must have someone with a skill similar to Soph's Mana Sensing, though probably on a lesser scale."

"Probably, yeah," Wrath agreed.

Lone tapped his chin thoughtfully for a moment before he sighed again. "They only target G-rankers or weaker, but our weakest members are C-rankers... How the hell are we meant to catch them?"

"I have a plan if you can't think one up," Wrath offered.

Lone raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Really? I'm all ears."

"Your ears are huge and full of fluff, so of course you're all ears," Wrath snapped sarcastically.

"It's a saying, you stupid spirit," Lone said.

Wrath stuck out his fiery and forked tongue. "I know."

"Well? What's your plan?" Lone asked.

Wrath smirked. "I win. I knew I would."

"Win what?" Lone was confused.

"I've had a solution ever since we started this quest. I made a bet with Sarah over if you'd find an answer yourself since you're so damned amazing supposedly, and it looks like I won," Wrath boasted.

"I really couldn't care less," Lone said. "People are disappearing every day and here you are being petty? Have you no shame? Fucking spit out your solution, you jackass."

"Fine." Wrath felt a little bit guilty now. "You didn't have to be mean. I have a racial skill that lets me suppress people's true strength."

"Oh? How does that work?" Lone asked, suddenly very intrigued in what the Archfire Spirit was saying.

"it regresses you to the point that you became whatever rank I choose. I can only regress you to a rank lower than your current rank, duh, and it only lasts for 24-hours. Also, I can only regress up to 3 people at any one time." Wrath scratched his head. "It's hard to explain... You know how you have a soul inside of you?"

"Yeah?" Lone answered.

"Well, there's also a fire in you," Wrath claimed. "I can see everyone's fire and I can squeeze it, pretty much. But like a freshly squeezed sponge, it'll go back to its original shape on its own soon enough. Hence the 24-hour time limit."

"That's insane. Can't you beat Divines with that? Just regress them then burn them to cinders," Lone suggested.

Wrath laughed mockingly. "If only. Divines have a different colour of fire. Theirs is orange, people under Divine have yellow fires like you or me. I can't even come close to affecting a Divine's fire. Maybe I can when I reach that realm one day."

"Ah, that's a shame. Well, you can still beat anyone under Divine-rank, right?" Lone questioned.

Wrath shook his head and wore a bitter expression. "Nah. It only works if I have consent. I can forcefully suppress any fire that belongs to a C-ranker or lower, but once a person breaks the B-rank barrier and becomes able to sense strength, their fire can feel my meddling and it'll protect itself. What I do is very spiritual, so if it's on guard, I don't stand a chance, hence the need for consent."

"Huh... Still, that's a very useful racial skill. All I've got are tails that can become extremely sharp," Lone said with a shrug. "Anyway, I guess all that's left now is who to pick to regress? The only way we're cracking this case and resolving the quest is by posing as beggars or something and letting ourselves get snatched."

"I agree," Wrath replied. "I can't go thanks to my appearance. You probably have the same issue?"

"Actually, I need to go. I can protect the other two from any uncertain events while we're regressed," Lone claimed.

"How?" Wrath asked doubtfully. "Ah, that skill that insta-kills people? Sloth mentioned something about that. Said it was dangerous even to her."

Lone nodded. "Yup. I can just cut eight of my tails off and forcefully stop myself from healing. I dunno if you already know, but I passively heal, and I passively heal fuckin' fast, but if I try, I can probably stop it for 24-hours. Your racial skill doesn't affect skills, right?"

Wrath answered, "Yup. Just rank and stats. Your MP, SP and HP will take a nosedive, obviously, but yeah, your skills will still be as powerful as they are right now and they won't have their levels lowered. Skills are a soul thing, not a fire thing."

"That's great," Lone said. "Well, now I just need to make some hair-dye to hide my golden fur then I'm good to go."

"Who else'll go?" Wrath asked curiously.

"Hazel, without a doubt," Lone replied. 'Her mind-reading will definitely speed things up to find the main culprit. there's no way the people doing the groundwork, A.K.A, the kidnapping, are actually the masterminds. Not on this grand of a scale.'

"Hiss!" the cute little snake that had silently been listening from Lone's arm suddenly pitched in.

"And there's our third. Her unique skill should be pretty helpful too, so it's decided," Lone declared.

In the master bedroom of Lone's fort, Soph suddenly woke up from her afternoon nap.

A big frown was on her face as she gathered the still-sleeping Kyuubi and Garadia into her arms. She squeezed the two and whispered, "The floof is in danger..."