The sound of birds chirping startled Claud awake, and he got up instantly. Blue light danced around him as he looked around for shadowy figures made from clumps of dust, covering the blanket-covered bundle to his left. It took him three seconds to realise that those things that had been living rent-free in this holiday home of theirs were a thing of the recent past now, and he exhaled in relief.

Lily stirred awake a moment later. She seemed to have realised something, since the first thing she did was to also conjure a barrier of blue light.

“Relax.” Claud flicked her forehead lightly. “Nothing wrong.”

He wasn’t going to tell her that he’d done the exact same thing just seconds ago, though.

“It’s just creepy.” Lily shivered. “What the heck was that?”

“A ghost of dark dust?” Claud shook his head. “Forget it. Let’s never mention this again. I’m getting creeped out too. Yuck.”

Lily nodded, and then flopped back down on the bed. Rolling left and right a few times, she kicked her feet in a manner that reminded him of a baby, and then said, “Are we going to enter Liquet today?”

“You want to delay?”

“Just feels a bit odd living in our little holiday home for a single night and then buzzing right off afterwards,” Lily replied. “But we don’t really have food here, do we?”

“Nope.”

“Never mind.” Lily slipped off the bed and approached the windows gingerly. The few cracks of sunlight that were streaming in expanded slightly as she pulled the curtains apart somewhat. “Yeap, looks like they’re still there.”

“What’s the point of posting some troops here, though? The Dark isn’t going to care about this little town anyway.” Claud shook his head. Last night, when they touched down in Monsville, the Moonlit troops had forced him to expend yet another instance of Presence Nullification. Of course, he could have just registered his presence here, but he hadn’t forgotten that the Moons were definitely going to conscript the two of them if they found out.

It was, put simply, a major pain in the posterior.

The two of them exchanged long-suffering looks, before washing up for the remainder of their trip. With the sheer might of Presence Nullification, Claud was quite certain that he could sneak into Istrel, but that would pose a new set of problems in and of itself. The two of them would have to move under Presence Nullification the whole time, for instance. Second, and more crucially, if the Moon Lords really had been conscripted, it would be impossible to find them without making their own presence known.

There really wasn’t much of a choice.

After heating up some rations that they had pulled out of Claud’s storage ring, the two of them checked their equipment once more, before stepping out of the house. This time, however, Claud didn’t use his Presence Nullification, and the effects were…rather startling.

The patrols looked at them as they stepped out immediately, but Claud and Lily had already worked out a suitable plan of action in response.

All they had to do was to act normally — holding hands, flirting and other couple things. The two of them had learned that both the Moonlit Ones and the Shadowed Ones were not that different from humans; they were not immaculate creations of the divnities, made to serve faithfully. Rather, they were lifeforms too, and therefore fallible.

Claud could sense a few discreet gazes — the ones with surprise had turned away when Lily started to nibble his neck for some ticklish reason — but no one stopped them as they walked out of the village with their luggage and all.

“We’ll be back!” Lily whispered, glancing once at the wooden gates.

“Yeah, we’ll be back!”

The gate responded with a dignified silence, and the two of them laughed. Whatever gazes that had been directed at them were clearly not acted on, and the two of them proceeded south, towards the border that divided one dukedom from another.

Now that they had revealed themselves, Claud deemed it prudent to not use Flight. For once, it would be a good idea to keep it to themselves as a trump card, and secondly, he wanted to savour more of his dwindling private time with Lily. Once the two of them returned, he could foresee days of people — like Dia, who would be screaming bloody murder at how he influenced Lily’s way of fighting — trying to steal Lily away from him.

Going back was still a must, though.

A supple warmth wrapped around his arm, and Claud patted Lily’s head. “Yeah, I know.”

“Meep!”

The backpack Claud was wearing also chimed in with their own thoughts. Unfortunately for them, Claud wasn’t going to let the others know about Crown, Throne and Sceptre; there was no way he could weave a good enough lie to account for these little fellows.

“Sorry,” Claud replied. “But the others…”

“Meep…”

“Can’t we find a way to let these guys come into contact with the others?” Lily asked. “I mean, we can definitely think of a cover story, right? It can’t be that hard.”

Claud made a noise in his throat.

“And besides, those little fellows are too used to being free,” Lily pressed on. “Wouldn’t it be cruel to keep them in your room and everything? And I’m sure the others will love them too.”

“Yeah, well, maybe they’ll love them a bit too much,” Claud replied.

“Your own love is quite possessive,” Lily noted. “But I still stand by what I said. We should come up with a cover story for these little guys and let the others know them. Why do you have reservations?”

Claud rubbed his nose.

“Or is it…” Lily’s face turned serious. “Is it something your instincts are telling you?”

“No, definitely not,” Claud replied. “I trust them, and they don’t raise any flags either. It’s just that these guys will definitely go wild over the little ones. But…you do have a very good point. Let’s come up with a cover story for these fellows.”

“Yay!”

“Meep!”

The three little fellows jiggled happily at the same time, and Claud couldn’t help but feel that he’d done the right thing. Of course, he wasn’t going to let the others know about Crown’s special ability, especially since it might just give a few games away.

“Somehow, I feel like I lost an argument or something,” Claud muttered.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lily replied with a sunny smile. “I mean, when you think about it, if those guys are occupied by three adorable little fellows, we’ll have more time for each other, right? I also need some time to myself too; I came up with some good ideas when we were dealing with that thing yesterday.”

“What ideas?” Claud asked.

“Explosive dummies,” Lily replied. “It seems that most people would go after guards, right? And they end up killing them, yeah?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What if we make fake guards that blow up when enough force is applied to it?” Lily asked. “I’m sure we can make them move on their own and everything too, with a few nice tricks. We can post them around Moon Mansion, and then claim legitimate self-defence if those Moonlit Ones decided to do something.”

“Would anyone fall for that?” Claud asked. “Actually, speaking of that, I actually have an idea for explosive defences. Is it possible to make some armour that would detonate outwards if struck by a weapon?”

“Oh, it won’t work?”

“Not without testing, that’s for sure,” Claud replied. “Anyway, about that armour…”

“It sounds like you’re getting the wearer to strap explosives on themselves, though,” Lily muttered. “That’s dangerous. You’ll end up cracking a rib.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I tried it on a wall, and the wall broke. Unless you’re harder than a wall, don’t even think of trying that.” Lily shook her head. “My explosive feint guard is definitely a better idea.”

“Bleh.” Claud pulled out the map and checked their current location. “Alright, I suppose we can start mana-walking now, given that we’re out of sight and everything. We’ll need to be careful, though. The main Moonlit base isn’t too far off from us.”

“Patrols?”

“Yeah.” Claud slowed down slightly. “I don’t know if the way we’re approaching them is correct, though. It’s troubling. We have no established patterns for contact, and the other party might just be hostile.”

“Well, we could sneak in, but…”

The two of them exchanged gazes. After a while, Claud said, “Either way, we should at least be careful when approaching. There’s definitely going to be a patrol or two. We can’t present ourselves as a threat, and—what the heck is that?”

Claud squinted at the sky, where a red light was rapidly approaching them, and with instincts born from his old trade, he channelled mana into his legs and scooped Lily into his arms. Leaving behind afterimages as he jumped backwards, he retreated to the closest tree, before sheltering him and Lily behind it.

The ground shook a moment later.