“Arch-Priestess Sovereignty…” My eyes widened as I gazed on in wonder at the woman who’d just come to our rescue. This was the mythical teacher that had instructed Indena in the ways of magic and martial arts.

  She had such a slim form, draped in a light amount of gold plating over her chest and a detailed silky cloth over the rest. Her sleeves were big and long, held in place by ornate string tied at her elbows. Most striking of all was the golden sun-like headdress she wore that covered half her head, blocking my view of her eyes. A bit of hair stuck out from the back of the crowning article.

  There were some Kanai characters written out on her clothing. 人間 (ningen) on the face of the headdress, and 主権 (shuken) on a bit of cloth coming down her torso.

  I couldn’t stop staring at her. Her outfit was just so pretty and elegant, and she was so powerful and heroic. Not to mention that she had such a kind and inspiring smile that was contagious.

  I want to be like that!

  “Wow…” I looked up at her with stars in my eyes. “You’re so cool!” my voice squealed.

  “Not as cool as you taking out one of those monsters…” she kneeled down and brushed my hair. “How strong have you become since I last saw you?”

  “Last saw me?” I tilted my head, wondering when I’d last seen such a wondrous woman like this.

  “Oh, how rude of me!” she shook her head, then clasped her hands close to her heart. “You were but a little bean sprout rolling in your cradle. Oh, how I adored you, like a baby of my own!”

  So she must have seen me as a baby. That would have been a long time ago… By my standards, since I was seven. To her I’m sure it wasn’t that long.

  “Oi, I helped too!” Indena pointed a thumb to her jealous self.

  Sovereignty stood up and walked over to Indena with an elegant stride. “You’ve been teaching her some things, haven’t you? Those moves were part of the Dragon Style. It’s an honour to know you’re already passing it down to a new generation.”

  “So you were watching us, and didn’t bother to help all that time?” Indena asked.

  “I knew one of those monsters would be a good test of your teamwork,” Sovereignty giggled. “Wasn’t it you who desired more hands off training anyways? Besides, I did help when I saw you were overwhelmed. I would never have let any of my precious babies fall so easily!” she came over to me and picked me up, spinning me around in the air all fun like.

  “Weee!” I cheered while lifted up. She was so much fun!

  “Well, thanks anyways,” Indena said, sincerely. “You really got us out of a jam there. I owe you one.”

  “All any of you owe me is to keep breathing and learning,” she replied.

  “Ehem!” Amanda climbed down from the stands while clearing her throat for attention. “Let us not forget who supported you both with a speed boost. It took a lot of concentration to focus on the two of you at once.”

  Sovereignty put me down and bowed kindly to the queen, paying her respects for helping protect us.

  “I sincerely appreciate your aid, young lady. You are as precious to me as the rest.”

  “Your respect is greatly received,” the queen nodded with a pleased little smirk. “But despite that, your sudden appearance does warrant an explanation.”

  Sovereignty did just kinda come out of the blue. Why was she here?

  “I suppose I should explain myself,” she threw out her arms. “Indena was taking too long to bring Yalda back to us in Okitoshi, so I decided to try and bring them both back myself.”

  That raised a few more questions. First and foremost, if she came from Okitoshi, how did she get here without the portal network being active? And if she managed to do that, then maybe there was a way for us to use that path as well.

  “How did you get here from Okitoshi?” I asked. “You said Indena was taking too long, so obviously it would have been after the portals were shut down.”

  “That’s the thing, I didn’t use the portals. I had to travel the old fashion way.”

  “What, did you walk?” Indena snickered in disbelief.

  “No, silly! I took a train! Well, I took it after marching across the north pole, but I still did it.”

  “I have a hard time picturing you traveling by train in such a glamorous uniform,” Amanda commented.

  “I can take this all off, you know. There happens to be a normal looking woman beneath my vestments,” Sovereignty playfully chuckled.

  Indena rolled her eyes at her mentor.

  “So, Miss. Sovereignty…” I spoke up, wanting to reel the conversation into a different direction. “How did you get through the magic storm surrounding the city?” I asked.

  “It wasn’t there when I left,” she claimed.

  “Yeah, there weren’t any storms or anything last I saw there,” Indena supported.

  Amanda had some wisdom to add in. “It seems as if someone didn’t want either of you to return, activating that storm after you both were gone.”

  “Part of the reason I’m down here is to find exactly where the mana stream flows and how we can manipulate it,” Sovereignty claimed. “This cave happens to connect to ones in my home region. If we can establish a portal, even a temporary one, it would take us all there.”

  “That makes sense,” I said. “Yamin’s mom said the same thing. So that pretty much confirms that this cave network will take us to Okitoshi.”

  We just needed to establish a Nalnara gate here. I had my doubts that humanity was going to figure out how to do that so fast, but that was Miss Lauri’s job, and supposedly there wasn’t a human alive that knew the network better than her.

  “Just.. Uh…” Indena’s head rocked back and forth slightly. “Yamin’s mom’ll figure this stuff out, right?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind giving her mother a message…” Sovereignty started, “If she doesn't know already, tell her this temple has the capability to act as a Nalnara gate. But it will require the Eighth Star to activate.”

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  “Right,” I nodded, not sure how I was going to factor in, but we’d figure it out. “Elma, how is the international consent going?” I asked. “Did the other countries agree to let us travel through them?”

  This cave network traveled across the whole surface, passing through some countries that weren’t very friendly with our own. If we went through them, it was possible that we’d be disturbing their flow of mana, which could disrupt a lot of tech.

  “I can’t say it's been pleasant, but we were able to negotiate a deal to allow safe passage there and back. We just need to tell them when it's happening.”

  That was great. The sooner we got to Okitoshi the better.

  “If all goes well tonight and we get the book back, I’d like to leave the moment Uncle returns,” I said.

  “What is his ETA?” Amanda asked.

  “Hopefully within the next two days, but he could be earlier or later.” I wasn’t even sure how he was going to Elysium in the first place, but knowing him, he probably wouldn’t be too much longer. He always had good timing.

  “Fine. We can plan for any time within the next two days. But if he isn’t here by then, we leave without him.”

  I hated the thought that anyone would be left behind, but we didn’t have much time to play with here.

  “So…” I turned to Sovereignty. “Do you happen to know more about that lead monster we faced? I’m worried we may encounter more down here.”

  “Hmm…” she hummed with two fingers pressing against her frowning lips. “From my experience of these strange monsters, and I’ve only seen them a handful of times, they’re very rare. But they often lounge around these sorts of ruins.”

  They kinda reminded me of those powerful monsters in video games that you’re only supposed to face in the endgame. Given my own experience with them, I really felt like that was the case.

  “Until you get much stronger, I wouldn’t recommend fighting any unless it’s necessary,” she warned. “But if you did happen to defeat them, you’d be doing the world a favour. You might even get to collect a bounty if you're lucky.”

  “If they’re just in these ruins, what’s the big deal?” Indena questioned.

  Sovereignty brought up a host of reasons why these types of monsters were an issue. For starters, adventurous people could awaken one, potentially even irking the monster to leave and go attack somewhere else. Another reason was that these monsters occasionally prowled the lands, wreaking havoc on unsuspecting people.

  “Can they be made?” I asked, thinking back to when the Actor summoned one on the top of the mana tower in Blue. “I saw someone from the Family of Sai do it before.”

  Sovereignty folded her arms and held a deep frown after I mentioned the Family of Sai. She was clearly a high ranking member of theirs, so it was always possible that either she knew more about that incident, or she was completely in the dark like Indena.

  “They can be created, yes. There is a particular golden fruit that contains both light and dark energy within it. When a creature consumes it, they turn into something akin to what you faced here and before.”

  So based on that, the golden seed I saw before must have been the fruit she was referring to.

  “So why do they want to eat stardust?” I asked.

  “They likely are eating stardust to balance themselves out internally. The golden fruit turns them into monsters because their natural alignment is imbalanced by either light or dark… Good or evil,” she explained. ”They have to eat something full of their opposite alignment in order to complete the transformation, which will make them tens of times more powerful.”

  The golden bull thing was getting stronger and smarter the longer we fought, especially after eating my spear, so I believed what she said was true.

  “Now, why is lead a factor?” Amanda asked.

  “That, I am not sure. But somehow they are able to turn that lead into gold, which is a sign of a succeeding transformation.”

  We really needed to watch out for any more of those monsters, and we needed to be especially careful about people who have the fruits to make more of them. She wasn’t sure if the Family of Sai had more, but she assumed so.

  “Given that you’re cooperating with us, I assume you aren’t fond of your own organization at the moment,” Amanda pointed out.

  “I believe that humanity has the right to choose their own fate in this universe, not being held back by any supernatural force or otherwise… Which is what I swore to protect when I joined the Sai long ago. But shrouding the world in shadow and ushering in an age of darkness sits as well with me as it does with any of you.”

  So she was completely on our side, like I was hoping. Anyone who would have sent Indena to find me had to be good at heart, and that was the same for daddy.

  “Are you here to take me back to dad then?” I asked.

  “I’d like to,” she cutely nodded with a smile. “But it does seem you’re here for a reason, and we should see it through, shall we not?”

  “Yeah, we're looking for a demon lord.” I answered.

  “A demon lord?” She had that helmet headdress on, but I could tell she was probably furrowing her brow under it. How could she see with that thing on anyways?

  “Yeah, a genuine demon lord…” Indena spoke up. “Sov, he stole the book.”

  Sovereignty’s body jutted up with shock, and her mouth went agape. “What book?”

  “The grimoire. A demon book that summons this ‘hot servant guy.’ Yamin’s words, not mine…”

  Did Yamin really say it like that to her?

  “Oh no…” She held an unpleased hand close to her lips. “What are you talking about? How did this happen?”

  We gave her the explanation of how demons stormed the mansion and took the book from Yamin, which prompted us to shuffle down here under Little Conberg to look for whoever stole it.

  “What happened to the girl holding it?” Sovereignty asked.

  “Safe at the church, like where we always should have left her,” Indena replied. “We think a demon down here has the book. You wanna help us get it back?”

  She brushed her fingers across her chin for a moment, probably considering our request for aid, but she ended up declining.

  “I believe there’s something I should do on the surface before we leave for Okitoshi, if you wouldn’t mind. Once you three get the book back, I’ll come and find you.”

  “Sov, what are you going to do?” Indena asked. “Yamin’s safe. We probably won’t need you to protect her.”

  “You never know,” Sovereignty said. “Besides, my work here is done. You all know about this temple and its potential to act as a portal gate.”

  My gut was telling me to let her go and check things out. She was super strong, and having her along to fight a demon would be great, but inevitably that duty had to fall on me and my stardust powers. And given how rare she was saying those powerful monsters were, we probably wouldn’t be running into anymore from here on, especially since the mafia probably came through here often enough.

  “Alright. You can go,” I told her.

  “You sure about that, Shrimp? She’s really strong…”

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “My gut is telling me to let her go.”

  “Thank you, Yalda,” Sovereignty bowed. “I promise we’ll meet again soon. May you all be safe on your journey down here.”

  With that, she turned toward the exit of the temple and began sprinting out. The clothes trailing behind her were mystical, like contrails on a speedy bird.

  “Excellent decision, Hallowed Angel,” Amanda gave me accolades. “A leader must trust her intuition, especially when things seem off to her.”

  It felt right to have her go up there for some reason. All the other decisions that usually led to bad things happening made me feel kinda icky and off, so it was reassuring that this decision wasn’t giving me that vibe.

  “Hope we don’t run into more of those lead things down here,” Indena said with a deep sigh.

  “If the mafia and Poles Party individuals supposedly come through here, I doubt we will,” Amanda claimed. “I feel like it was our ignorance that disturbed the monsters here.”

  It could have been when Indena picked up that skull, or maybe when we turned on the lights… Or they were some sort of defense set in place to protect from intruders. We really had no idea, and it didn’t matter right now. We just had to find whoever stole that book and put a stop to the mess going on down here.

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