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Cloud whom I gazed seemed to waver for a second, but then gave a strong nod. The sister next to him was looking at him with a hard-to-describe expression.

“I am going with you. I’m already at an age where I have to leave the orphanage by next year anyway.”
“Are you sure? We won’t be back for years, okay?”
“Yeah, I realized it during this battle. My strength is still nowhere near enough. I want to gain more experience.”
“It makes me very reassured to have you along.”

I looked at Cloud while joining my hands together. My feverish gaze made him blush and look away. Whoops, my lady mode switch got accidentally flipped.

“Cloud, I think you know it already, but if you put your hands on Nicole…”
“I won’t do something so scary!”
“Huuh? Are you saying my daughter isn’t cute?”
“What do you want me to say!?”

Cloud’s blush put him on the receiving end of Lyell’s merciless questioning. He was bewildered that he got into this mess due to unreasonable false accusations, but this was the typical Cloud.

At any rate, I got Cloud’s consent. Letina’s expression, on the other hand, remained clouded.

But that was only natural — she was, in the end, the Marquis’ daughter.

Moreover, she was the only child. Which meant that her husband would become the successor of the Marquis title.

Given her important position, she could not separate from the city.

“It is… Impossible for me. I have the duty to succeed the Marquis household.”

Letina squeezed out those words. Hearing her words, The Marquis and his wife let out relieved sighs.

If she said that she wanted to come along, the Marquis would’ve had to oppose it. However, he would be facing off against Michelle and me, in other words, people related with the Six Heroes.

If they made any rash remarks, it could worsen their standing. Letina’s answer probably considered all that.

“Well, you have no other choice, after all.”
“In truth, I… I also wish to come along! But—”
“I understand, Letina. Your situation, and your feelings.”
“Still…”
“That doesn’t change the fact that you are our friend. If we manage to return to Raum, let’s play again, okay?”

Hearing Michelle’s words, Letina finally burst into tears. While shedding tears, she stood up and hugged Michelle. And then, no longer managing to endure it, she started bawling loudly.

“Definitely! You must definitely come, okay? I will welcome you anytime!”
“O-Okay…!”

Influenced by her, Michelle also started to tear up. She wasn’t leaving this city by her choice, after all.

I stood there and watched over their friendship with warm feelings in my chest.

Then, someone raised their hand.

“Umm…”
“Oh, what is it, little Finia.”
“May I also accompany Lady Nicole?”

Hearing her, Lyell and Maria exchanged looks. What’s with those “oops, we forgot” expressions?

Finally, Maria clapped her hands with gleaming eyes.

“That’s right, there’s no knowing when Nicole might collapse, so she needs someone to care for her!”
“Hey, I don’t collapse that often anymore.”
“But you still fall into rivers, though?”
“Ugh!”

She was right that I was feeling quite a bit helpless with only having Michelle as my female companion.

Michelle was too pure, for better or worse, and do not doubt people at all, so it felt like she’d readily follow someone if they told her “I’ll give you candy if you follow me.”

I wasn’t confident I could keep her in check on my own.

However, with Finia along, we could somehow manage to hold her by the reins together.

“Well, true. We also need someone to fend off Cloud’s sexual harassments.”
“It’s not like I do them out of my own will!”
“Oho…? You b̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲, you harassed my daughter?”
“Master Lyell, that’s a misunderstanding!”
“Hoh, let us discuss that in detail over tea.”
“Not you too, Lord Maxwell! Give me a break already!”

As Lyell was drawing near Cloud, Maria got behind him and lightly touched his neck with her finger. The next moment, Lyell’s body got petrified as if he was struck by lightning magic.

“Hyaaah!?”
“Dear, why don’t you leave it at that. We are having an important discussion here, you know?”
“Agagagagagaga!”

Eventually, he collapsed back on his chair as if all his strength had left him.

The commoners that were present looked at this situation as if they had witnessed something they shouldn’t have.

What Maria did was most probably directly stimulating his sense of pain.

“So, Maxwell. Where exactly is that second store you mentioned? Honestly, if it’s not somewhere that doesn’t have a certain level of influence, Lichtenberg’s hands may reach them, don’t you think?”
“Y-You do not need to worry about that. After all, it is located in the most strictly audited places.”

Maxwell answered while acting a little scared at Maria’s deed. However, his following words came with a sense of pride.

“That place is the Stolla Domain. The very same frontier that we have personally inspected.”

What Maxwell presented was, in a way, the fateful domain where Donovan Stolla Serwa had taken on the feudal lord’s position.