Dia bustled around the room, picking up every single skillstick and skillstrip she’d produced in the last few days. She had gotten into the habit of imbuing skills after that close shave with death against the Shadows of Grandis, and the habit had only doubled down when the Moon Lords became the second defenders of Licencia.

It would be foolishness to assume that her life would be a peaceful one from now on, but everything was secondary to survival.

“Tch. I’m thinking like Claud now, aren’t I?” Dia spoke to herself. “I must be insane.”

Checking that all the artefacts she’d brought at Artisan’s Adherence were on her, she stuffed a week’s worth of clothes into her backpack, compressing them with liberal use of mana to make lots of space for other things. It didn’t take all that long before a great deal of her belongings was now crammed into her backpack, and she began to pull on a sensible combat outfit.

Metal armour at the joints, at the forearms, at the shins, and at the torso. With this much, only mana-powered arrows would be able to injure the more vulnerable bits of her body. For a moment, she pondered on the feasibility of wearing a helmet, but she didn’t like the feeling of it.

“Never mind,” said Dia. “Besides, for me, being unimpeded is more conducive to my survival than heavy armour, right?”

The silent air seemed to agree, and the princess of Lustre buckled four swords to her belt. Sword Roar, as a skill, was incredibly devastating, but the cost of doing so was equally prohibitive as well. It would destroy her sword, no matter what, which meant that carrying spares was better.

Granted, the hilt her mother gave to her as a present was the only thing that mattered. That said, Dia would use other swords first — it was the principle of the thing.

With that, her preparations were done. After one last customary check, she headed down into Moon Mansion’s living room, where all kinds of provisions had been laid out for them.

“What’s that?” Risti, who had emerged at the same time, pointed at a stack of small bars.

“High energy, large portion servings,” Schwarz, who was placing a small bar down on the table, replied. “HELPS, for short.”

“Did you come up with that?” Risti asked.

“Nah, that was all Claud. Bugger likes to play with acronyms,” the bartender replied. “Anyway, the name’s quite self-explanatory. These foods are emergency rations. They’re designed to give you energy and nutrients when you can’t find any.”

“That useful?”

“I don’t recommend eating them all at once, though.” Schwarz made a rueful grin. “There’s a reason why the body prefers high volumes of low-energy food, over small bars chock-full of nutrients. Eat this for more than three days in a row, and you’re going to end up with constipation.”

“Noted,” Dia replied.

“We’ll try not to eat too much, then,” Risti replied. “How do they taste, though?”

“They’re very sweet. Kids will love them, as an example. If you’re feeling sad, a bite or two might just cheer you up in a way no other foods can.” Schwarz gave a thumbs-up. “Other than that, here’s some portable mushroom soup for Risti — just add hot water — and a flask of my best apple juice for you, Dia.”

After taking the offerings from him, Dia exchanged a glance with Risti, and then headed out of Moon Mansion. Slipping on the Band of Duplicity at the entrance booths, Dia made use of Farah’s identification factors as a template and changed her lifeforce and mana signature.

“Alright, I’m done,” said Dia.

Risti nodded. “Let’s go earn our keep, shall we?”

Waving goodbye to the two in Moon Mansion, Dia and Risti proceeded down the streets of Licencia. All kinds of construction crews thronged the streets — the city was in the middle of restoration in terms of infrastructure, but Dia could tell that Licencia’s spirit had recovered.

All kinds of streetside stalls had popped up, especially around the streets that were undergoing the most repairs.

“Wow,” Risti murmured.

“Wow indeed.” Dia resisted the urge to visit one of the many alluring stalls and steered Risti towards the city gates. “But we have a job to do, so wipe that drool off, okay?”

“I wanted a skewer, though.” Risti sniffed miserably.

“What are you, a kid? Listen, real adults can walk down a street full of delicacies and make it out without spending a dime,” Dia replied. “That’s just not how you’re supposed to behave, you know?”

Risti made a sad little sound, but to her credit, she didn’t deviate from her route. Forging onwards to Licencia’s city gates, the two fought against tantalising aromas and delectable scents, and by the time Dia arrived at the city gates, the corner of her lips was really wet.

Licking the drool away, Dia forced herself to join the lines leading out, Risti in tow.

“See?” Dia said, her hand shifting upwards to wipe away any traces of her own saliva. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Says the person wiping her mouth,” Risti replied. From there, they devolved into a minor squabble, which only ended when the two of them stepped out of the city gates.

There was a reason for this. A city was considered the protected territory of Emperor Grandis; anything that happened in there could be easily construed as an affront to the supreme ruler of the continent himself. Unprovoked murder on the streets fell into that particular category, which was probably why Count Nightfall had to send some people there to at least show his attitude.

Unfortunately, minor crimes didn’t exactly count as that, but again, if it did, the Emperor and his administration would probably be handing out severe punishments all the time.

“You ready?” Dia asked, her hands activating a persistent defensive artefact, which would create a barrier that protected the user at all times until they were destroyed. They were great for protecting against surprise attacks, since no one could take the user by surprise if they had such defences.

That said, they provided less protection than their activated counterparts. A strong enough arrow could probably penetrate the barrier, which was a rather reasonable trade-off.

Incidentally, Dia had a feeling that Claud had persistent defensive artefacts activated at all times, to the point that it was second nature to him. The fact that he never spared much thought to his safety when walking around the city seemed counterintuitive…unless, of course, he had been using such defences the whole time.

“Done,” Risti replied. “I have top-down vision of the area around us now. We’re in the clear.”

“Good. Let’s go, then.” Mana began to course through her body as she broke into a light jog, and the two of them began to mana-walk towards Nachtville. Fortunately, there was already an established footpath, albeit an informal one, and the two made good progress. Tree after tree flashed by as the sun continued to rise, but before it could reach the peak, Dia made a signal to stop.

Veering off the footpath, the two of them entered the shade of a particularly large tree, panting lightly. Leaning on the bark, Dia looked up and let out a slow sigh. “Let’s wait out the afternoon. Want to have some lun—”

Risti placed a finger on her lips, and Dia fell silent immediately. Sliding over to her side, Dia whispered, “What’s wrong?”

“There’s someone within three hundred metres of us,” Risti replied. “Heavily protected with very thick barriers. We should move.”

Dia blinked, but obeyed Risti’s words anyway. Inching away from their current position slowly, the two soon repositioned themselves on the other side of the footpath, far away from the place Risti was cautious about.

After ten or so minutes, the two found a small clearing, and Risti let out a long breath. “We should be good here.”

“What’s wrong?” Dia asked, confused.

“Well, according to Claud, people who have lots of defences up while they’re resting are rather dangerous people,” Risti replied. “Other than those defences, he also said that there are likely to be many traps around the area, so it’s better to avoid being in the vicinity where possible.”

“Is that so?” Dia rubbed her nose, and then sat down. “Well, we should be fine here, then. We’ll wait out the noon sun and get some food into our tummies while we’re at it.”

“That sounds great. I’m starving.” Risti rubbed some sweat off her forehead. “Still, to think there’s someone who would throw out so many defences just for a break…I suppose that’s living proof that there are other people like Claud out there.”

Dia nodded. “The world’s quite a dangerous place, isn’t it?”

“Now, why would you say that?” Risti asked. “People like Claud probably won’t do things like murders and whatnot. That’s too dangerous for them, right?”

“True.” Shaking her head, Dia pondered on their lunch. “What should we have for lunch? Do we go with one of those…uh, pre-packed meals?”

“That’s one of his new inventions, right?” Risti asked. “It should be fine.”

She produced one such pre-packed meal and glanced at the instructions on it. “Huh. I don’t even need to start a fire, eh?”

“No cooking needed? Well, that’s a first…”