Raphtalia’s face returned to a normal color as she began to regain her composure. That was much better. I didn’t want Raphtalia getting too upset.

“Oh . . . okay . . .”

Rishia cocked her head to the side in confusion while staring at Raphtalia and me.

“Now then! Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.”

I was going somewhere with that, but thinking about what was to come suddenly reminded me of something.

“That reminds me, Rishia. We were talking about whether or not you should reset your level, right?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to consider going without the reset.”

“Wh . . . why is that?”

“But Mr. Naofumi, didn’t you say that starting over from level one would improve her abilities?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. I observed Rishia’s performance to a certain extent while we were in Kizuna’s world. You know that much, right?”

“Yes.”

I made sure to keep an eye on how Rishia developed while we were there.

“Honestly, there’s not much of a difference between her abilities right now and what they were like over in Kizuna’s world. It’s practically nil.”

“Really?”

“I mean, there is a small difference, but compared to Raphtalia or Filo . . .”

“Fehhh . . .”

“So, Rishia, I estimate that your abilities will likely have a growth spurt coming. Your class-up could be a problem, though.”

Raphtalia and Filo both improved drastically after their class-ups. Fitoria’s feather had made it possible for Filo to have a special class-up that paved the way for a lot of her abilities to really blossom. Depending on the person and their abilities, a class-up could have long-lasting effects. Rishia was a jack-of-all-trades and master of none, but for all I knew the right class-up might make her more adept at a certain kind of magic or something.

“Oh . . . huh?! Ah, I suppose you’re right. But . . . Itsuki chose this path for me. That’s something that I treasure and wouldn’t want to change.”

“I see. Understood.”

She may have been tossed aside by Itsuki, but her heart hadn’t changed. That was all the more reason to make him regret it. That sounded good to me.

We continued to just hang out for a while, resting up for the coming day.

“Okay then.”

After eating breakfast at the castle, we spoke with the queen briefly before getting ready to head out.

“Where are we headed?”

“To visit the slave trader.”

“Mr. Iwatani.”

The queen raised her hand as if there was something she wanted to say.

“Might you be going there to purchase slaves from the same village Raph . . . Miss Raphtalia is from?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Regarding that, we may have complicated matters a bit. I must apologize in advance.”

“. . .”

What was that supposed to mean? I had a really bad feeling about this. My cheek started to twitch. Actually, I didn’t even want to know what it meant. But there was no way around asking.