So why are you here? And as a mermaid and… you're huge.

  “This place brings me calm and serenity. I also wanted to show you my other side and uhh thank you.”

  This place filled with evil?

  “You're just being silly but tell me how you came to that conclusion.”

  I wanted to Ourasyn but she wasn't a 9t currently, she probably can't use [Empathetic Bond] either so I told her.

  She let out a melodic, cute laugh. Nilah was tackling her, but I’m unsure if she noticed. She might be even tougher in this form; the toughness of ocean dwellers is no joke. We blew up the stomach of the Ancient Whale with something that could vaporize a city and all it did was blast a hole in its stomach.

  “Hey, which form do you prefer?” Giana said as her voice rang through my head. Is it possible that her ability to sing is related to her being a mermaid and not using [Transform] on her voice? The other idols never stood a chance against her, did they?

  Is this a trick question?

  “I…I'm just curious… some fans have pointed out that they like my legs, but I don't have any at the moment.” She waved with her deep blue frilly tail.

  How do I say this without being cheesy?

  “It's fine if you're cheesy.”

  Nilah had started flinging frost magic at Giana. Does she really not notice, or is she ignoring Nilah?

  Uhm, do you not feel that?

  “Feel what? Stop dodging the question!” Another headlock.

  You're still you, that's all that matters.

  “If you're fine with me like this, then I will too. I…just wasn't sure…”

  Silence, but not awkward. Both of us are dealing with uncertainty, as we're both hybrids.

  “Hey Deca, can I see your phoenix side?”

  Uh, sure I just look like a human in it though as the best I can do is make wings appear for 3 seconds or so.

  “I'd still love to see it.”

  The switch was made and nothing changed appearance wise besides my hair acting like it was made out of fire. The wings came out for 4 seconds but I couldn't lift off.

  I'm just a glorified fire chicken now… how embarrassing…

  I turned back to a 9t in embarrassment, but this revealed that Giana must feel.

  “Thank you for showing. Shall we go for a swim?”

  I took Giana up on the offer, had Nilah go to her sword form and stored her.

  Certain underwater sections connected back to the aquarium. Water filled corridors were going between the exhibits. It would be difficult to determine who is inside and who is outside like this, but it felt like swimming with the aquatic life. I promised Giana to take her swimming to the Feeding Frenzy place off the coast of the Aquini Kingdom one day after getting my memory triggered by all this fish.

  We left the aquarium refreshed. Giana was in her 9t form for obvious reasons and was in a great mood. We walked into the AA and encountered a familiar face.

  Back off Healerguy, I have Giana by my side now!

  Healerguy smiled. “I know. I'm going to miss the interesting interactions and strange ailments. Don't hesitate to bring him to me if it gets too much Giana.”

  He made a strange gesture and left.

  How did you do that? Healerguy had no problems dragging me to the sickbay!

  Raishin was sitting in a corner with Greg and Yv. They all looked exhausted.

  Heh, seems you guys got rekt, how did the explosion tests go?

  This idiot was too enthusiastic and sent everyone in the test room to the sickbay…

  I got a lil’ bit carried away. And then Healerguy appeared…

  I'm glad that I'm not the only one who suffers from him.

  Greg got up and was radiating more darkness than usual.

  We thought that it might be a great idea to take a mission with our new team, however we can’t find Noelle.

  “I…I will look for her!” Yv jumped up and ran off.

  Did you guys accept a mission yet?

  I wanted to but Greg was being boring and Edgy, so not yet!

  Hey! What’s that supposed to mean? Raishin and Greg started to bicker and I split them up.

  Right, stop bickering, use this time to get to know your healer a bit better, I will pick up an easy mission.

  I gestured to Giana to keep an eye on Raishin and Greg and walked over to a new terminal. I looked over my shoulder and noticed that my friends were quite awkward.

  It’s important for them to get to know the others too, and not just their love interests. So far, I’m the only one who has put effort into that.

  There will be times when I must entrust Giana to Greg or Raishin, and I don’t want them to be awkward.

  I opened a menu and a list of possible missions opened. Most were a pain in the ass because in Daddy’s Girl’s infinite wisdom, she had promoted me to A rank so all the pain-in-the-ass missions were on top.

  We don’t need pain-in-the-ass missions to get into deep shit, we could do a ‘fetch my groceries’ mission for an old lady, and it could end up in a catastrophe.

  An escort quest to Virnai? Isn’t that one of those villages next to the Gittrian river, like Girai? Why doesn’t he take a boat?

  I kept reading, but there were 5 people that needed the escort. Those boats can only take 2 people max, unless they count as cargo, but that’s not going to be comfortable. I could use [Boat Magic] but the rest of my team won’t have much to do if I do. Maybe we should do an old skool escort mission to get into things. How bad can this be?

  I accepted the C-rank quest and relaxed a bit. Giana is trying to get to know my friends better, but Raishin is staring at her chest. Does he want his ass kicked by me and Noelle?

  Greg seems to be unable to interact well with women. Quite unsurprising, but strange that I didn’t notice before. Why are my friends so high maintenance?

  Yv and Noelle came in, and I hoped that this would break the awkward situation. Giana explained the assignment to them. I never made this an assignment, but it seems she’s taking this seriously.

  Giana and Yv tried to talk to Raishin and Noelle started to talk about construction about Greg. Greg was interested in old stuff, so it lead them to ancient architecture. At least that’s going well.

  Do I let my team sweat a bit longer, or should we start this mission? A café caught my attention, so letting them sweat it is. I ordered ice cream and a sandwiched and enjoyed my team, agonizing while trying to strike conversations.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Greg noticed and he seemed quite annoyed. Greg and Noelle got up and joined me.

  I am going to drag you into this.

  I’ll pass, I’m not interested in sand.

  “We know, here, this is what Barusu and I crafted for Giana.” Noelle handed me a crystal box. I peered inside discreetly and instantly closed it.

  Giana’s charm magic is going to one shot me when I give this to her.

  Noelle grinned. “That’s the whole point. Barusu had also shown me some things you crafted; I’m impressed. It has been a while since I’ve seen someone turn a relatively brittle metal into something sturdy.”

  Well, it’s leaning more into ‘flexible’ it’s a result of when I tried to find out how to make Nilah… the sword version. Normal swords just shatter when I swing them, so I went deep into making sure that wouldn’t happen. Nilah as a sword is the only sword that can handle my swings.

  About that, we’ve never seen the sword up close or at all, you always sheathe it or swing it at insane speeds.

  That’s the point, but another reason is… I’ll draw attention if I show it…

  “Ohh, now I’m even more interested! Show me!”

  Bring the others here, they’ve clowned around enough. I’ll show Nilah in sword form, and then we’ll do this escort quest.

  Noelle beckoned the rest of the team, and we got veiled by an allusion to not draw attention.

  I took Nilah out my dimensional pocket. She was impressive even while sheathed.

  Just note, it might get quite cold here once I draw her.

  The blade got pulled out of the sheathe, and revealed the light blue transparent blade with white snowflake patterns in the blade.

  This is Nilah in sword form. She looks different when I create copies, as to not draw attention. I don’t need people after me that want to steal my sword.

  Even Raishin was speechless, he did try to touch it though.

  Go ahead if you want to lose your finger. It will either drop off due to its sharpness or it will get frozen off.

  Raishin slowly retracted his hand and I sheathed Nilah.

  Right let’s go!

  “W…wait! That was wonderfully crafted…”

  Thank you, Noelle, it was extremely difficult and one of the reasons I invaded Witchaven. But now I think of it… do you use weapons?

  “My fists!”

  Gauntlets it is.

  “Does dancing or my voice count?”

  Uhh, maybe a chakram? Idea, totally not stolen from Mathguy.

  “I…I use a cannon!”

  My friends and I looked at Yvonne.

  A what?

  A hand cannon? Like Ted?

  “I…it’s a flower cannon!” Petals gathered and formed a strange looking flower.

  I see, not my expertise, but I might have swiped an ancient manual that details on how to make hand cannons. So only need to find a suitable weapon for Giana then.

  The idols were excited to be able to get a cool weapon in the future, and we headed over to the north gate. The clients had been notified, and they would meet us there.

  “Deca, you’re an A-rank adventurer, right? Isn’t this mission too easy for you?”

  You would be right, but as Damian has said, creatures have been breaking out left and right. This C-rank quest could escalate to an S or SS-rank quest the moment one of those fuckers appear. Also…

  Strange things tend to happen to us. There is no guarantee that this will stay easy.

  We met up with the clients. It was a family of 5. 2 parents and their children. The eldest seemed to be around our age.

  They seemed to be excited to have a famous party like us escort them. I let the social stuff to Greg and the idols while scanning the area.

  Hey Agnis, do you think that chick likes me?

  Don’t be silly she’s married.

  No, I mean the other one?

  Raishin gestured at the eldest daughter of the family who was about our age.

  Dunno, a safe bet is that she doesn’t and is interested in Greg, look.

  Greg was chatting up the clients, causing Raishin to become envious, so he joined the conversation. Just me then I guess.

  They couldn’t afford a car, so it was using wagons like old times. At least the roads are better this time. We would be divided in 3 wagons. Noelle and Yv would ride the front most wagon. The family, Greg and Giana would ride the middle one and their belongings and supplies at the back with Raishin and me.

  Having Raishin without Greg or me would cause problems, but he also couldn’t sit with the family as he would probably harass the eldest daughter, so this was the only option.

  Yv would scout out in the front and any head on attack will be stopped by Noelle. Greg and Giana to protect the clients and Raishin and I are just extra baggage, that’s why we’re with the supplies and luggage.

  Jokes aside, assassins might cut off the supply line and attack a day later or so. There were no details on who or what could be targeting them, but better safe than sorry.

  The Yttroz Industries work fast. It already seems as if they were preparing to build a physical wall.

  City guards let us pass through the barrier, and we were on our way. It should take 10 days to get them to their destination. These wagons are so unbelievably slow.

  Maaan, we just left but I’m already bored.

  Well things always go wrong, so we might see something interesting in a day or 3.

  Raishin tried to practice his spear, so I used [Spatial Flop] on him.

  Huh what? What’s this strange skill? Teach me!

  Raishin said while trying to turn around and constantly failing.

  Just stay put, it’s a spatiotemporal skill, so you wouldn’t be able to use it anyways.

  It took Raishin 10 minutes to get off his back, and it physically exhausted him. At least it made him behave.

  Night fell without any incident. Things didn’t go as fast as we had hoped, so we had to set up a camp. Noelle erected uselessly detailed huts. A ruckus started as someone didn’t want to corporate and honor Noelle’s choice of who goes in what hut.

  “Lil’ bro! Come out of that tree! Why do you keep doing this?! Sleep in the hut I made for you and Giana!”

  I’m fine sleeping in this tree!

  A stomp shook the area. “Giana do something!”

  “I will join him in the tree.”

  “Not that! Tell hm to sleep in the hut!”

  “Deca, can you sleep in the hut with me?”

  I will sleep in the tree; someone needs to keep a lookout.

  “Sorry Noelle, I tried…”

  Another stomp. “Did you now? Fine! Have it your way!”

  Noelle stormed into her hut and slammed the door. The family was watching us as if they were at the cinema. I did give them popcorn, though.

  Greg was at first stopping Raishin, who wanted to sneak into Noelle’s hut, but he let go. Surely, Raishin isn’t stupid enough to try now, right?”

  He went for it… some people never change. Greg went inside Raishin’s hut as Noelle put him together with Yv. Poor woman…

  Yv just went with Giana, leaving 1 empty hut. The family had their own hut.

  The village we aimed for to rest at was 4 hours further up. We would make a short stop there tomorrow and then continue. I sent a shadow clone to investigate.