On the other side, Altarin set his foot down atop a street light pole, perching on it while scanning the eerily emptied streets with his eyes.

“There’s no one anywhere,” he said.

“Curious...” Eden, who was lying in his arms, shared his doubt.

Suddenly after being thrust into a dangerous situation, Altarin found that he couldn’t respond as sharply and as he would have been able to in his prime. The keen senses that were refined and honed to perfection through countless years of fighting in the Holy War had been dulled somewhat by the years of peace and the presence of his new family it seemed.

“Never thought there would be a day where it hit me that I’m old.”

Altarin sighed, time got the better of all of us eventually, what was worse was that most of the time you wouldn’t even have the time to think about how time got the better of you—like right now.

“Brother Altarin... watch out.”

Altarin’s conscious process ceased action and his instinct kicked into full alert at the same time his physical body kicked the light pole beneath his feet, launching himself and Eden back into the air.

Booom—! 

An explosion followed them, sending bits and pieces of the metallic light pole flying everywhere along with some of the concrete from the footpath. Altarin quickly searched with his eyes for the ambusher’s location and eventually found that it came from above him, from an… uh, it was an… yep, it was an attack helicopter.

“Seriously? Why is it always a helicopter?” Altarin smacked his forehead, feeling as if he had met his fated enemy.

“Another one… is coming.”

Altarin tightly clutched Eden’s body with his arms and shifted his weight, utilizing the property of gravity to spin aside, maneuvering away from the missile’s path. He succeeded. But the missile landed directly on a glass building behind them, shattering at least two entire stories of the building’s structure.

Boom—!

Seeing that it wasn’t the last of their attacks, Altarin held Eden close with one hand and manifested his pistol with the other, spreading his wings and taking flight.

He speedily navigated the maze-like streets between Anorlon’s skyscrapers as two more attack helicopters came after them with countless more barrages of heat-seeking missiles.

The missiles trailed after the two with terrifying velocity. Altarin shot as many of them out of the air as he could, dodging the remaining missiles which rushed past them to the nearby buildings, creating a violent series of explosions wherever they went.

“Collateral damage. Lady Athena won’t be happy about this...” Altarin grumbled and changed the trajectory of his flight path, rapidly rising in altitude in order to lead the missiles into the sky above the city.

And when he arrived at a suitably wide empty space...

“Eden, hold on carefully,” Altarin said calmly, aiming his pistol toward a literal swarm of angry, volatile, flying projectiles of death.

“Um.” Eden nodded and clung to his neck.

Levitating steadily in the air, Altarin spread his wings wide and narrowed his eyes, unceasingly calculating the speed and angle of each missile and deducing their explosives’ radii in his mind. A process that only took a split second in reality to complete.

And eventually...

“[Celerity.]”

After that small evocation, a silver bullet—shot out like a personification of precision and accuracy—sliced through the air in an instant, piercing through multiple missiles that were lined up in its course and obliterating them, making shockwave after shockwave of air pressure that caused a chain reaction which eventually wiped all the missiles out of the air!

Booom—! Booom—! Booom—!

The emanating power from the blasts sent Altarin and Eden’s hair fluttering wildly, but they were ultimately safe, unscathed.

“Brother Altarin… Good job.”

“Ahaha~ It’s not really—Ah! Watch out!”

Suddenly, Altarin saw a silent bullet traveling directly toward his face. He quickly shifted his posture out of the way, but failed to avoid it completely.

The bullet hit his left shoulder, and before he could figure out a way to counter-attack or make a proper judgment, another one flew past him.

Deciding to put Eden’s safety first and foremost, Altarin retracted his wings and began falling down fast, hugging Eden with both his arms to protect him from any potential dangers.

Eventually, they crash-landed on an empty rooftop of a building. And Altarin let go of Eden to let him stand on his own.

—When he looked around, however…

[Give up resistance *sniff* or we will definitely blow you to pieces *sniff* like your friend did to Kevin.]

A mechanically filtered voice came out from one of the attack helicopters… yes, one of the attack helicopters, for they were not only two or three behind them but at least ten, staring them down like a horde of flying Wyverns, ready to strike their prey and tear them apart.

“Oh sorry, I didn’t know the barrages of missiles earlier were warning shots—!” Altarin couldn’t resist shouting back despite the seemingly dire circumstance.

“Brother Altarin… what should we do?” Eden, who was standing beside him, asked.

Laughing a little at the tension he hadn’t felt for a really long time, Altarin replied, “I don’t know, Eden. Try acting cute?”

“Acting cute...?” Eden tilted his head, before looking down and biting his thumb like he was seriously contemplating it.

“No no no, I was joking!” Altarin hurriedly tried to un-said his words, but he was too late. The deed was done, the ball had already started rolling down the hill, and Eden already had—an idea.

Eden fearlessly jumped onto the rooftop’s railing, and took off his hat, releasing his long golden hair that glowed with an aura of peerless beauty to dance gracefully in the wind. 

...and twirled.

“Magical Catgirl Eden, transform! Let your evil hearts be purified by the radiance light~!” Eden put up his hands in front of him, and winked. “Meow~✰!”

.....

And after a couple of seconds of silence

[Mmmmmmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeoooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww—!?]

With the screams, it became clear that the effect of Eden’s moe power—was devastating!

The formation of the attack helicopters was suddenly thrown into total disarray when one of them accidentally smashed into the other one. Causing the nearby helicopters to panic and begin firing their full arsenal randomly.

Blowing up each other, blowing up themselves, blowing up the nearby buildings, and catching on fire. One by one, the helicopters pummeled down, hitting and slamming and wrecking into one another until they all erupted into a giant fireball of explosions. Propelling broken parts of the armored vehicles everywhere!

One of the doors was launched into the wall of the nearby building. One of the helicopters’ tails was sent high into the air and eventually disappeared into the horizon. While a rotary blade fell from the sky and cut into the ground behind Altarin who was looking at the fiery scene of carnage and catastrophe amazed, astonished, and thoroughly terrified.

Eden, the cause of that literal disaster, turned back to Altarin with shining golden eyes and gave him a thumbs up.  “Brother Altarin… Good job.”

“No, Eden, that definitely wasn’t me!” Altarin bewilderingly protested. “...Eden?”

Altarin noticed that something was wrong when Eden began to weakly wobble.

Eventually, Eden falls off the building from the railing.

“Eden!” Altarin immediately jumped from the rooftop to catch Eden’s falling body, but when he caught up and pulled Eden’s figure into his arms, it was already too late to slow the descent.

KrraacK—!

The ground trembled, and the impact of Altarin’s landing created a large crater in the concrete footpath. He had hastily chosen to absorb most of the damage of the fall by landing on his back. A decision which his normal self wouldn’t have made if Eden’s fall didn’t incite so much panic—but when he was about to examine what was wrong with the person he was trying desperately to protect...

—He found that there was no one in his embrace.

Confusion attacked him, then that confusion turned into realization, before finally transforming into seething wrath.

Altarin gritted his teeth.

“They got him...”

He got up to his feet, once again manifesting his pistol to aim at the sun in the sky, behind the layers of clouds and smoke coming off the nearby wreckage that mysteriously lacked any kind of dead bodies, and evoked one of his sorceries.

“[Dispel.]”

And...

BANG—!

—————……….

[ The City of Anorlon - Central Park ]

The orange sunlight immediately stabs into my eyes when I open them.

I ignore Vena and Ruby who are starting to awaken beside me and get up from the bench, searching the surroundings for any appearances of the cloaked people while suppressing the destructive urges that are brewing inside.

Predictably, there is no sign of them anywhere, and they are probably long gone before we could even realize what was happening.

—Damnit!

Back on the bench, the two girls open their eyes. While Ruby looks confused, Vena is faster to grasp the situation.

“Demigod level illusionary domain...” she mutters and shamefully casts her eyes downward.

I’m not feeling any better either, however, I do have an idea as to who those bastards were and continue her sentence, “Order Angels aren’t capable of breaking into Demigod-rank. So either they were able to hide that they were Divine Spirits or they were…”

““—Chaos Angels,”” we both arrived at the same conclusion.

“I shouldn’t have been so careless…” Vena begins blaming herself immediately, clenching her fist in humiliation. “We’ve gone soft, Altarin... Time of peace has made us weak… If we were we from back then, Eden wouldn’t—!”

I pull Vena into my embrace before she could continue, not sure if it’s entirely because I want to comfort her, or because I also want to stabilize my own emotions. But because of our connection, they fundamentally mean the same thing anyway.

“Vena, all of that was in the past, remember...? There’s no need to go back. Eden wouldn't want a big sister and a big brother like that,” I gently whisper into my sister’s ear, hugging her tightly.

“Altarin...” Vena softly calls my name and regains her composure.

“I-I’m very sorry!” Ruby stutteringly speaks up, she even bows to Vena while doing so. “Recently, I’ve become unable to properly control my emotions! And it’s…”

“—We need to report to Lady Athena right away… This time, things are different from before,” I say to Vena, separating from her.

“I’ll get right to it…” Vena says and pulls out a House Athena’s crest from her pocket.

“You don’t even care at all?!”

I turn to Ruby whose corner of the mouth is twitching due to having been ignored. “I’m very sorry to hear that, Miss Fairwright, but I can guarantee that whatever you’re going through right now will get better with age.”

“I'm not going through a phase!” She stomps the ground irritably, clearly acting like a teenager going through a phase, before calming down and asking somberly, “But more importantly, where did they take Eden?”

“If my guess is correct.” I sigh. “Exactly where Eden wanted.”

—————……….

[ The City of Anorlon - Somewhere Else ]

“Kkkeeevvviiinn~! I’m sssooo glad you’re alive again!”

“Stop it, Boss, I’m trying to drive...”

I’ve awoken from my dream to find myself inside a car, partly due to the loud voices from the two people in the front seats.

“You wouldn’t believe what happened to you, Kevin! That lady was like! Wupaw—! And you were like. Shattered—! ...into pieces, literally... I was really sad~ That lady was really cool though… Hehe~ See what I did there?” The lady with long red hair flashes a silly smile while punching the air playfully.

“I know what happened, Boss. I felt it,” the muscular man in the driver’s seat grumbles. Only now have I noticed that the car he’s driving is a small van a size of about six people, one that I’m currently lying in the back rows of.

The red-haired lady continues to talk. “You were really cool too, Kevin. I got chills just by remembering your frosty figure. You were absolutely freezing. Totally Icy—”

“Boss, shut up or I’m throwing you out,” the muscular man turns to coldly say to the red-haired lady. Who then mumbles something inaudible and pouts, shrinking back into her seat with her arms crossed.

“She’s awake,” another voice resounds from the rows between me and the front seats.

I rub my eyes gently to adjust to the orange light shining through the windows. I had a really weird dream earlier, there were attack helicopters, and brother Altarin did something cool—which should have been an obvious giveaway that it wasn’t real; not that I wouldn’t know if it were.

“Nice to meet you… my name... is Eden.” I politely introduce myself and ask, “Have you seen my bag… anywhere?”

…..

A short silence passes, then the red-haired lady begins to say while looking back at me, “You know…”

“Has anyone noticed that…” glancing at the rear-view mirror, the muscular man continues her sentence.

“This girl…” the same voice from earlier resounds once again, a petite lady reveals her face, peering at me from the left second-row seat.

“Is…” another unknown voice comes from the right second-row seat, the face of a man wearing a red beanie appears in my vision.

“““Absolutely adorable!””” they all exclaim in unison.

“Eh?” I’m a little startled by their loud voices. Why are they staring at me like that? And why can’t I find my bag anywhere?

“Kevin! The road! The rrooaadd!'' The red-haired lady suddenly screams out, and everyone in the car almost hits their heads when the driver takes a sharp left to avoid the traffic; which also coincidentally causes the stuff lying above my seat to fall down on my lap, including my bag.

—I’m feeling very lucky today.

After a couple more minutes of dashing past cars after cars in the packed traffic passed, the four people are still holding their breath as if they have just experienced a life or death moment.

I have the time to look up stuff in my dictionary, and it appears that I’m being ‘kidnapped,’ taken by force against my will usually by bad people… though I just woke up inside their car, so maybe I kidnapped myself in here, I’m not really sure. But I'm not really worrying about these people being bad, not at all.

—Because Athena said that all sweets given to people are bad people, and so far there have been zero sweets given, so these people are definitely good.

Also, I’ve learned a new word today. Like… Do you know that this ‘Boss’ lady has a very fitting name for a leader? Because her name literally means ‘the person in charge.’ Did her parents know who she was going to become before she was born and named her that? They must be really amazing…

“Pheeewwww~! Kevin! Next time, let me drive!” The petite lady heaves a huge sigh of relief and punches the back of the driver’s seat.

“Miwari, this is my car. If you want to drive then get your own,” the driver, Kevin, brusquely rebukes the petite lady, Miwari, before turning back to focus on the road.

“You’re only saying that because you know you’re the worst at driving out of all of us, even Boss is better than you… and that’s saying something,” says the red beanie-wearing man, catching a whiff of the two people’s tempers.

““Nobody asked you either, Bell,”” they both shout at him.

—A very curious group, I wonder what their stories are.

“Hey, Boss, this girl smells so nice,” sticking out her nose like a sniffing dog, Miwari, calls out to the red-haired Boss. Who frowns and scolds her, “Miw... creepy.”

“I guess it's something someone of your kind is sensitive to, I guess?” asks Bell, shrugging as if all is right in the world.

“No, I’m serious! She smells so sweet, like a…!” When she meets my eyes, Miwari stiffens, and I’m not sure the exact reason why, but she also blushes slightly and turns away from me.

Looking at their faces one by one, these people’s appearances differ very little from all the other angels of Anorlon I’ve met, except for maybe the subtle auras of ‘wildness’ they exude.

“Are you people... kidnappers?” I ask them without closing the dictionary in my hand. Just in case there are any words that come up that I don’t know about.

“We like to consider ourselves ‘adventurers’ though that’s not really a thing in this day and age aside from in the Mortal World…” Boss begins to explain. “Our quest is to bring beautiful angels from the surface realm for our ‘master’.”

“We don't know why he calls himself that. Maybe it’s just because he likes to look down on people,” Miwari inserts her opinion, swinging her head left and right.

“Well, I’m the guy with a van looking to find a way to support my family,” says Kevin the driver, adjusting the rear-view mirror with one of his hands.

“And I’m just a guy who wants to see what it's like on the surface every once in a while.” Bell raises both arms to do a long stretch. “The Undercity is nice and all, but recently it has become a little… stranger.”

—The Undercity?

“As I said, our quest is to bring cute little angels like you there… Buuuttt~~” looking at me with a bright smile on her face, the red-haired Boss continues to say with sincerity. “—We’ve changed our minds~! You’re definitely tooooo cute to be kidnapped by the likes of us, little Eden, so we’re going to let you go~! Congratulations~! And please be nice and don’t send those two scary people after us, please… I beg you.”

“Nee...” I close the dictionary in my hands and look straight at the four of them. “The Undercity… Tell Eden about it.”

—————……….