...

  With a lot of people in our pce, it was the first time for me to cook with such rge portions of food

  Luckily, Hikari, Aeris, and Casa helped me out on prepping the meals at hand

  Needless to say, they enjoyed all the dishes id out, with each of them happily singing their own tune as they take a bite

  It was a good feast...

  ...but Mashiro...

  "...?"

  There she is, pouting in the corner

  She usually wouldn't pout at me if I didn't do anything wrong

  That means...

  "What is it this time?"

  She tries to avoid my gaze, yet eventually looks at my way

  "...let her touch you"

  "What? Can you speak louder?"

  "Why did you let her touch you?!"

  Her hand points at Casa, who was casually talking with Hikari and Aeris at the time

  "That's what you're mad about?"

  "Uuuu..."

  This is her jealousy? I would be lying if I said she wasn't cute doing it...

  "She taught me an efficient and proper way to clean the meat, it helped me out a lot especially sometimes, the meat dishes I prepare usually still has gaminess in it, right?"

  "B-But...I love every food that you prepare..."

  "*Sigh*..."

  I wasn't able to say anything back by what she said just now, so I just scratch the back of my head as I tried to hide my fluster

  Seriously...I can't let my guard down whenever I'm with her...

  Just as if the perfect timing came, the other three came back, with the other two covered in bruises

  "Leader!"

  "I assume that you hold back this time, right?"

  "O-Of course! I'm their trainer after all!"

  Lies. A Lurachnid that can't even lie properly when their skills are usually based on lies and deception...

  The two try to catch their breaths as they tried to defend Lura

  "Its our incompetence! We couldn't keep up with her, that's why we got injured a lot!"

  "Ignis is right, Rui Hanzawa. We would self reflect on this to not burden Lura sama further"

  "Rui's fine, Magna...but if you guys say so, then I'll let you do your thing"

  Lura's one thing, but if Magna and Ignis have the determination to go forward, then I don't see any problem...

  ...I've been there...with my Master...

  Hellish training...

  "Right, I thought you guys are going to train nonstop?"

  "That was initially my pn, but..."

  "...?"

  "Something...or rather, someone has entered within the barrier I set up"

  "Again? Is it an enemy?"

  The rest of the people looked at us with the intention of being ready to battle

  "I would say that earlier...but they had the same clothes as these guys"

  "Same clothes..."

  Could it be...?

  "That must be Gideon and the others. No one besides us wears these uniforms"

  Hikari just answered my specution

  "So they probably have gone to search for you then?"

  "But I never gave them such order to follow us after"

  "They probably got worried about you guys since its been a while. Exempt them from the barrier, Lura"

  "I already did right after I noticed their presence. I figured you would also want that"

  Oh? She already had that kind of perception? I'm impressed

  "That's actually good!"

  Out of habit, I patted her head

  "?!"

  Of course Lura got a bit shocked, but didn't let me stop patting her head

  Suddenly, a burst of aura can be felt from one direction

  "Uhh...Rui?"

  "Yeah...I know"

  I stopped right after, which the aura also subsided

  "Could she perhaps...?"

  "It is what you think, Hikari"

  "I see...you got a lot on your hands huh?"

  "Tell me about it"

  While Lura was out of it, Mashiro on the other hand, stayed silent in one pce

  Now I have to make it up for her...sigh...

  "But we gotta deal with your guys first, Hikari"

  "Right, I will also go with you"

  "I will also accompany you, Leader"

  "You really don't need to, but thanks"

  "Me too Rui sama-"

  "Sorry but, I need you to watch over our guests"

  Mashiro fell down to her knees as if I rejected her in the worst way

  With Ignis and Magna heavily fatigued, Casa and Aeris can watch over for them

  But of course, I don't completely trust them enough to let them do as they please in this pce. That's also why I didn't heal Ignis and Magna

  Hence why Mashiro has to stay behind to watch their actions

  Also, Ignis and Magna haven't eaten yet, and I know Mashiro would go for seconds, so this arrangement should be fine

  "Could you do that for me?"

  "...Understood..."

  I really feel bad for this, especially what happened between us these past few days

  But I'll just have to make it up for it in another way

  "Aeris and I can also come with you too"

  "Its best if Rui, Lura, and I go while you help Mashiro watch the pce. Think of it as repaying the hospitality they did for us"

  "Huh?! Who said you can use my name so casually?!"

  Lura said, while Hikari didn't pay attention to

  "We should go now, Rui"

  "Lura will take the lead. She knows where they are"

  "Hmph! You're lucky we're on a hurry. I'll let it slide this time!"

  She says as she used fsh step right after

  "She's fast"

  "Well she did train a lot after all. We shouldn't stay here for too long though"

  "Right"

  As I used my fsh step skill, I went after Lura, while Hikari went before me...

  ...

  ...

  ...

  As we reached to where Hikari's men are...

  "?! Another one?!"

  "B-But its a human!"

  "Why's a Lurachnid working with a human?!"

  "H-He's probably mind controlled!"

  I walked over to Lura and whispered

  "What happened here?"

  "Apparently, that guy in the middle noticed my barrier going off earlier. So right after I showed up, he thought that I dispelled it to trick them"

  "What?"

  "Yes, exactly my thoughts Leader, that didn't make sense at all"

  And now she's accused of mind controlling me...

  Luckily, Hikari arrived on time

  "?! H-Hikari?!"

  "But where are the other Pilrs?!"

  "D-Don't you think this is...?!"

  "An Illusion?! I knew it, so we were tricked the whole time!"

  "...?"

  Hikari looked at us with a confused expression on his face, I gave him the same expression as well

  "Gideon, this isn't an Illusion, this is really me"

  "How would you expect to believe me when there's a Lurachnid on your side?!"

  Are Lurachnids generally hated? Why do they assume that Lura did something in here?

  "You leave me no choice..."

  "What are you gonna do?"

  Without any hesitation, Hikari took a step forward, past his men, as he warmed up his right fist

  *BAM!*

  And smmed the ground with it, shattering the ground in the process

  Right after, a light glow emitted within the cracks

  *BOOM!*

  The area then exploded to pieces

  "...It is you..."

  "Wait what, that made you convinced?"

  "It was a move that I generally used when I was sparring with Gideon. Had a light element didn't show up within the cracks, he would knew that I wasn't the real deal"

  Ah right, its because Lurachnids generally only have dark element...

  ...but in Lura's case...

  "But what happened to the other Pilrs? What happened to your sword? Why are you suddenly with these two people?"

  As Hikari took a deep breath, he expined the whole situation to his men...

  ...

  ...

  ...

  "I see...so in the end, we didn't stood a chance"

  "Right, but that doesn't specifically mean they're bad people, we were in the wrong"

  "Perhaps we are...but they still killed one of our citizens, our top adventurers at that"

  "Bribes, assassinations, other types of illegal requests..."

  "...?"

  "...Why do you think despite the guild declines these requests, someone still accepts it?"

  "?! You don't mean?!"

  "Yes. I had specutions for a while, but a lot of reports from our spies said that those clients with illegal requests takes back their request and goes to one of the most reputable adventurers we have"

  "Which is them...right?"

  "They never got a good picture of the said adventurer, but their identity resembles of the party leader, wearing the same equipment, same tone of voice, and same physique"

  "?!"

  "I have to ask, but have there been accomplished illegal requests right after those adventurers died?"

  "As of now, a lot of it got denied, but the guild hasn't identified any illegal requests that are fulfilled"

  "That furthermore supports our cims"

  "I can't believe it..."

  "How come you know those illegal requests get fulfilled?"

  "One way to know if they accept Illegal requests is the trackers that the guild puts on those requests. Trackers only tracks the existence of those requests, but it isn't a failproof pn as it can't track whether or not a request has been fulfilled. It can however alert the guild that the request had been burned, ripped, crumpled, and such. Causing it to activate the tracker"

  "I see..."

  "Another way is that, an adventurer, once registers to a guild, will have their status and bance reflected on their guild card. We can't be certain with their stats since most of them always train, but their bance on the other hand...especially that party...always had an abnormalities"

  "Abnormalities?"

  He nods to me as he expins further

  "Abnormalities such as te night transactions and big deposits. Usually, an adventurer can only get money through accomplished quests when the guild is open, but transactions where the guild is closed..."

  "Which means they get the money directly from the client..."

  "Guilds such as ours usually handles the pay with them having a cut from it, but if a request is declined by the guild, it will not be posted through the bulletin board, and thus no payment to be given to the guild"

  "! If the said adventurer is getting paid without any deduction on the guild's bance-"

  "You got it Gideon, That just means they likely took an illegal request"

  "But what if the said adventurer got money from someone else that's not a client? Someone who just wants to give them money as thanks?"

  "That's also another possibility, but the corretion between the illegal requests not getting fulfilled and those adventurers being gone is too much of a coincidence"

  "Plus the guild would probably knew if another illegal request had been fulfilled if the tracker was gone and there's abnormalities on a particur adventurer"

  "Hm..."

  I get what they're trying to say, but there's a lot of loopholes in the system that they have as well as misunderstandings that it can have

  For example...

  ...

  Before I was able to think of one example, Hikari's men started to talk again

  "So in short, those top adventurers that we have, had been involved in taking multiple illegal requests?"

  "While I am not 100% sure, I am convinced that they are the ones behind it"

  "Out of all people...it had to be them..."

  He clenches his fists, then spoke out his opinion

  "But still, they're our people! They killed them!"

  "This guy...he's getting on my nerves"

  Lura said in a soft tone, trying to hide her anger

  "But that doesn't change the fact that us Pilrs invaded their pce. It is only natural that they would protect it"

  "Hikari..."

  "Moreover, those adventurers were the ones who hurt this man's allies first. Of course he would fight back to protect them"

  "Well said, Hikari, You earned a little bit of my respect"

  Lura said while somewhat looking proud

  Gideon then takes a breather for a few seconds and collected his thoughts

  "Alright, if that's Hikari's judgement on this, then I suppose my own opinion isn't needed"

  Oh? Surprisingly he didn't argue any further

  Gideon is a lot older compared to Hikari, but he backed down from Hikari's words

  ...Goes to show that Hikari is highly respected as an individual

  "Commander Gideon, if I may remind you..."

  "Mm? Oh! Right! The reason we came here!"

  "...?"

  "Hikari, Her Highness has arrived"

  ...