Taking a seat at the chairs, His Majesty looked at us with a serious glance as he asked: “From what I heard, there seems to be a cult attempting to summon a certain devil of the past. Is that correct?” before I nodded without any hesitation.

“I see—it’s not that I don’t trust you despite you being of someone from another continent while also having super close connections with the current Queen of the Nostalgia Kingdom, it is a fact that you could be lying to us and could lead us to a scenario where we would end up losing our entire manpower involved in protecting the kingdom which is why I have to take measures against so,” he said before taking out a red scroll paper.

The scroll paper was like a decree but unlike normal decrees, this one was glowing a bit too much—not that I have seen a decree before, but I have seen drawings of a royal decree—this paper was a bit odd as it looked to be a spell scroll.

“It must be your first time seeing this from your reaction, this is a pact but unlike those scary other pacts, this is a simple pact in which instead of losing your life, you will lose your entire rights to living in this kingdom if you ever lie about the situation. Are you fine with that?” he inquired.

“As much as I wish to disagree, it is within the concern of His Majesty indeed to be cautious for the wellbeing of his citizens. You can sign it if you like, Ayu-chi,” a voice suddenly answered from behind, taking all of us by surprise as Kaori stood there dressed in a beautiful blue dress as if she was heading for a vacation.

In an instant, Crystal who was resting peacefully on my embrace suddenly woke up and hopped off from me before running off towards Kaori while saying, “Mama Kaori!” which was adorable to look at—Flora who was also resting woke up from hearing Crystal’s voice but hesitated a bit.

“Crystal, how was school?” Kaori lifted her up in the air, hugging her tightly.

“It was fine—Elder Sister made a mess as always,” the black-haired girl replied, not forgetting to smack the ego of Flora who looked a bit embarrassed. I could only pat the little girl as her ego was directly smashed even in front of her ‘elder sister’ and His Majesty.

“Ehem, how about we talk about business for now?” Kaori redirected the focus back to His Majesty who was smiling at the scene. The scroll was on the table for all of us to see the contents which were exactly that of what His Majesty said.

There was nothing suspicious at all and since Kaori herself have verified it then it means the scroll is not disguised by any means—which is a possibility considering there were spells on Solis Occassium that allows one to disguise an item into another one—the scroll was all in all reasonable enough for me to take into consideration.

“I will sign it then,” I said with confidence before he smiled, taking the scroll away as he stood up.

“You don’t have to, it was a test from me—if you weren’t willing to sign then I would have suspected you a bit but since you are willing while showing such confidence then that means I can trust you even if just a little bit,” he said.

“Don’t you think such logic is flawed?” Kaori responded to which he nodded.

“Trusting in such a way is indeed flawed but I know someone trusted by a Great Spirit will never lie about something that could make people lose their lives—a Great Spirit will adore, take in and accept someone as their parent under the condition that they are someone worthy to be trusted,” he looked at the red-haired girl beside her who was busy staring at Flora like another siscon.

I swear, all Great Spirits are siscons—Flora is one thing but for the Princess to be another means there must be something inside Great Spirits that turns them into heavily doting sisters. I actually wonder whether there are male Great Spirits in this world.

— Author note: This part may be worse in quality since the original version was ripped apart from a power outage with the remaining 350 words completely gone, nothing I can do about it but write the remaining in hopes that it can do justice.

 “Even so, if ever a situation arises where the rest of you would be forced to exile, the one who would be the saddest wouldn’t be among you but my daughter over here,” he said before receiving a jab from the red-haired girl who was pouting, embarrassed.

Their interaction was adorable to look at that I felt like the late Princess—or Queen—had truly missed out on a lot, I feel bad especially remembering that souls cannot reincarnate unless a deity interferes before their soul disintegrates… the universe feels too flawed.

“Anyhow, the two of us will not disturb your family bonding any longer. I hope all of you take care,” he said while standing up as all of us nodded before their figures were eclipsed in a golden light, vanishing on the spot. Teleportation magic was indeed magical.

After the two had left, all our attention went towards Kaori who was dressed in a way that looked as if she was heading on a vacation to the beach—which was technically correct as she was carrying a swimming ring with her.

“Where are you planning on going with such an attire?” I asked curiously.

“Right—I was planning on inviting the rest of you to the beach since from the looks of it, neither of you has tried heading to the beach at least once, right?” she replied before all of us nodded. It was true that neither of us has taken a step onto the beach before, both Mana and I were basically hikikomori in the city.

It does sound like a nice idea to head to the beach since the last time I went to the beach in the other world was like two years back and I did not get to enjoy much of it since it was a class reunion, though Kaori did entertain me back then.

“That sounds like a good idea, but we still have other issues to tackle before we can have our vacation,” I answered to which she looked a bit confused, considering she was not here during the initial discussion.

“What kind?” she asked.

“Well, it seems like the Devil of Ashen is being summoned here soon…”