“Oh, little Naofumi.” Sadeena gave a laugh and a nod at my cautioning, like she did when she was messing about. “Women sometimes like to be restricted. If you wish to gaze upon our demi-human forms, I can resist my other urges.”

“Yes, yes, whatever. You need to read the situation and keep a low profile, understand?” I told her.

“I understand!” she replied.

“Raphtalia, just keep your ears and tail hidden as much as possible,” I said.

“Okay,” she agreed. There wasn’t much to worry about for Rishia and Itsuki . . . and then the rest of the group was originally from this world.

“Do we have money to prepare everything we need for the infiltration?” I asked.

“Naofumi, hold on.” With that, L’Arc took out a coin from inside his clothing. It reminded me of the silver coin-like currency I had seen when first being summoned. Then Glass and Ethnobalt also took out their own money.

“It might be hard to buy really nice stuff for everyone, but we’ve got this much,” L’Arc said.

“That’s right,” Glass added, both of them holding up silver coins with holes in the middle.

“Why do you have that with you?” I asked.

“Before the waves occurred . . . we visited many different nations and so carried various currencies with us,” Glass explained.

“But we kept the cash away from Kizuna,” L’Arc commented. She sold things for cash whenever she needed it. Just taking her personality into account, I decided it was better to leave the money in the hands of her allies. She was probably pretty wasteful.

“That said, we won’t be able to rent lodgings with this many people,” L’Arc clarified.

“Just take a portal back. Anyway, getting back Kizuna is our priority. We’ll make some money when and if we need it. Okay?” I asked.

We left the town without sticking out and headed toward the spot where Kizuna was being held. We had to follow Chris’s directions, but every now and then, Chris would tilt his head with a puzzled look on his face. Sometimes he seemed unsure of the way to go.

Following the unsteady direction of Chris . . . after two days, we reached a hill from which the castle and accompanying town of the enemy country could be seen.

I wondered what was going on with the castles in this country. They built a platform, like a steel frame using truss towers, beyond a massive castle gate and then built the castle elevated on that. They had a pretty cunning design, quite different from the architecture seen in Melromarc, Faubrey, or Siltvelt. Getting inside looked like it would be a real pain.

“Why didn’t the mirror vassal weapon drop us closer to Kizuna?” I pondered aloud.

“To avoid throwing us right into battle, maybe?” L’Arc responded.

“Hmmm.” Not a bad answer. That said, with our current strength, we should have been able to handle it. Right?