“If he’s cared for her for so long, he can’t be that bad, right?”

“I told you already, Major Degurechaff only selects the good humans. Just take a look at his secretary!”

“It does feel unfair to treat him like a normal human, now that I think about it.”

“Maybe he isn’t a normal human?”

Hey, I take offence to the last one. Also, don’t you guys swap positions way too easily? Gaius complained inwardly. At any rate, Nakama’s intervention had prevented the worst-case scenario of him being driven out from occurring. But there were new questions to consider now.

Like this one.

“Girl, what family did you come from?” Nalus, ignoring the chatter all around him, asked.

“The both of us are orphans. We don’t know.”

“…Fine. As for you,” said Nalus, his gaze turning towards Gaius, “You’re off the hook for now. But we’ll be watching you. Closely.”

Gaius shivered imperceptibly. It wasn’t that he was scared, but he was suddenly reminded of some less-than savoury activities he most likely did on Earth, as an assassin-for-hire. Of course, he hadn’t been on the receiving side then…

But now that Nakama had drawn their attention, for reasons he wasn’t too sure about, Gaius suspected that people wouldn’t be too blasé about the notion of privacy for the two specifically.

The crowd began to break up as Nalus stalked off. Gaius had the feeling that this wasn’t going to be the last time such blatant discrimination would happen here, but there was nothing he could do about it. Gaius made a mental note to avoid the others if he ever came across them in Heritage. The last thing he wanted was a fanatic rushing him in such a dangerous place.

Patting Nakama’s head, Gaius and the others went back into the tent. “Thanks, Nakama. You saved me out there.”

“They’re all baddies! Humph, if they dare to bully you again, I’ll kick them!”

Gaius coughed awkwardly. “No, don’t do that. You’ll hurt yourself, and I’ll get worried.”

“…okay,” Nakama replied, the wind clearly taken out of her sails. “But they bullied you!”

“Erm…” A small voice piped up at the entrance of the tent.

“Ah!” Nakama exclaimed cutely. “A bully!”

“Bully?!” The rabbit girl repeated in a fluster. “I-I’m not!”

The little girl turned her nose up at the rabbit-eared teenager, and sniffed loudly.

“For what purpose did you come here, Mai?” asked Lieutenant Ornielle.

The girl — Mai — flinched at the lieutenant’s formal tone, before replying, “I wanted to apologise for causing such a mess with my words.”

“Apology accepted,” said Gaius, before the lieutenant could say anything. “I know what you want to say, Ma’am, but a confrontation was inevitable. If anything, it was a good thing that you were by my side when that happened.”

“I would like to clarify one thing, though,” said Mai. “By no means am I biased against humans…it’s just that I was surprised that a male other than the Major was actually allowed in close proximity to Lieutenant Ornielle.”

“That’s—”

“—I’m honoured, ma’am.” Gaius interrupted Lieutenant Ornielle again, his mouth twitching as he tried to suppress his laughter. “It seems that I’m your first?”

“You’re just eleven years old, don’t think too highly of yourself,” replied the Lieutenant. “And what do you mean when you say you’re my first?”

“Oh, just some local slang, Ma’am,” Gaius replied smoothly. It seemed that certain cultural practices and words weren’t brought over by the Cardinal Champions, so that was that. “You should consider acquainting yourself with other men, though, if Mai here thinks it’s a problem.”

“It’s none of your business as to how I approach my love life,” the lieutenant said huffily. “Anyway, I just wanted to remind you to continue your cultivation, before the others begin to look down on you. I know you just started yesterday.”

“Question, ma’am.”

“I just learnt about breathing exercises before I became a Harvester, so how do I continue?”

“Just follow the mnemonic your instructor gave you. The first step, flood the throat with the energies of the heavens, requires you to exhale slowly, instead of exhaling everything at once when you do your breathing exercises,” answered Lieutenant Ornielle. “Try your best to contain that chilly energy as long as possible, before you do the releasing stage. It’ll help your throat absorb a greater quantity at a faster pace.”

Gaius listened quietly and nodded. “Ma’am, what’s the theoretical time limit for holding in that energy?”

“Longest record we know of? An hour. When that person finally breathed out, the wall at the opposite side of the room was nearly destroyed.” The lieutenant rubbed her nose. “Well, if you were to release it according to the mnemonic, famous scholars have hypothesised that two hours is the limit for anyone wishing to advance their cultivation. Beyond that, it’s a weapon.”

“Like a cannon?”

“A cannon?” Lieutenant Ornielle blinked. “How did you know about that? Our intelligence agencies just heard about the new weapons that the Northern Continent recently invented.”

“Oh, I heard the word being thrown around when I was walking around Ark City with Nakama. I think she heard it too,” Gaius replied innocently, even as he threw Ark City’s intelligence services under the bus.

Of course, he didn’t know what would result in him saying these words nonchalantly, nor did he care. But a certain group of people would care very much come daybreak…

“Is that so?” She mulled on some thoughts for a moment. “Well, I’ll make a note of it to the major. Maybe he can clean them up a bit. Now, where was I?”

“On the topic of weapons, Ma’am.”

“Right. The record holder’s exhalation was an attack on the level of a Knight’s full-powered strike. It looks like a usuable weapon on first glance, but…” The lieutenant ran her fingers through her hair. “Well, it’s impractical, unless you were forewarned about a battle beforehand. You could try it though. It’s worth a shot.”

“Most of us can hold in the energy for twenty minutes, tops,” Mai said, entering the conversation. “I’m pretty sure it can work as a sneak attack, although its use would be restricted to a fight’s opening moves.”

Gaius nodded in thanks. Nakama, who evidently interpreted the nod as another message all together, ran over to Gaius and hid beside him. Mai looked at the two helplessly and sighed.

“If you need anything,” she said, “I’ll be willing to help. Treat it as my way of making it up to you.”

She glanced at the duo once more, clearly unsure as to how to treat them, and then left the tent.

“Look,” said Lieutenant Ornielle, “Mai isn’t a bad person. I hope that you’ll find it in your heart to forgive her.”

“Already done, Ma’am.”

“Really?” She looked at the tent entrance. “I’ll believe you then. Now, please pardon me. I need to catch up to Mai.”

“Goodnight then, Ma’am.”

“Goodnight, pretty sister!”

“Goodnight, the two of you.” The lieutenant got up. “Sleep well.”

She left the tent, living the two alone.

Nakama and Gaius exchanged glances, and broke out in laughter together.