“Raph!” Raph-chan added, nodding, seemingly in agreement. With their transforming powers, I wondered if this was some kind of hunch unique to their talents. I did feel it would be dangerous to charge in there myself. If Raphtalia and Raph-chan felt the same, we should definitely fall back.

“Gotcha. Let’s try this again when we’re all back together,” I decided.

“I think that’s for the best,” Raphtalia agreed.

“Still . . . you think we’re looking at an underground maze?” It did sound a bit adventurous, I had to admit. The gamer in me was excited by the prospect. We observed the enemies a little longer and then left.

When we reached the meeting point, a tavern, L’Arc and the others were already there, waiting.

“Naofumi, how was it? Did you find anything?” L’Arc asked. It looked like Sadeena had started drinking already. She’d been told not to speak much, so she looked pretty bored and listless. She was so cheerful when she talked. I was surprised by how much she looked like S’yne, with this new attitude. Did that suggest that S’yne was actually super talkative and we just couldn’t hear her?

Soon after us, Itsuki and his party arrived too.

“Shall we move?” I said. We proceeded to a place below something like an elevated bridge, where I hoped there wouldn’t be many people to potentially overhear us. Trolley-like conveyances were passing overhead.

This all felt pretty modern. If the trolleys were running on electricity, I could almost mistake this for Japan.

“Based on Chris’s directions, Kizuna is being held underground. The exit looks to be pretty heavily guarded,” I explained. What we really needed was some kind of rear entrance or somewhere else that was connected to the maze.

“That does sound dangerous. I don’t have any better news either. The dragon hourglass has restrictions placed on it. They don’t even let people get close. We were saved by these two and their ability to check things out from outside the building,” L’Arc responded.

“We were a vital part of the mission!” Sadeena said. Both she and Shildina looked pretty pleased with themselves. Surely, they needed to turn into therianthropes to use that ability. I wondered if that side of things had been okay.

“They’ve got pretty tight security,” I said.

“They want to stop the vassal weapon holders from other nations getting in here, of course. The information on how to replicate the Return Dragon Vein leaked out too,” L’Arc said.

“From you guys?” I asked.

“We have a filter, so we’re fine,” he replied. So they had that kind of ability too? That sounded pretty convenient to have around. “Lady Sadeena and her sister seemed to suggest the guards were in the middle of experimenting on the dragon hourglass. We collected some info from people living here, which suggested they’ve been up to something recently.”