Claud closed his eyes once as waiters filled up the table in front of him, his ears twitching as they attempted to focus on the chatter that he could barely hear outside. It was a shame that it was inappropriate to be eating with the general public during a celebration of Lily making it out of the Third Tutorial, but it was a loss that he was absolutely willing to bear.

"Why are you squishing my face?" Lily asked.

"Just thinking about adorable cheeks, that's all," Claud replied.

Lesser Half retched in response, and as Claud glared at the little black cube, he said, "Sorry. The Shard of Creation just intensified its attempts to stuff itself into a completed world."

Claud didn't know if the divinity was actually lying or not, though. Just hours ago, something big had apparently happened, something that didn't create any overt phenomenon — which was manifestly unfair, since everything that happened to Claud had a huge visual impact — and Lesser Half started feeling real sick, attributing it to a Shard of Creation. Whatever that thing was, though, Lesser Half clearly wasn't faking this whatsoever, and to be honest, the retching sounds were starting to become contagious…

As for the Coloured Gods, Claud didn't know if they were also feeling crappy, but who was he to care about them? The most important bit was that the divinities had withdrawn their troops, and that was what that counted…

"We'll take your word for it," Lily replied, "so don't look so miserable."

"How does a black cube look miserable?" Claud asked, and the meeplings on the table meeped away in agreement.

"It's more of the vibes that he gives off, really," Lily replied. "Anyhow, there's a lot of food, so you should dig in."

The black cube hovered in mid-air for a while, before saying, "You guys go ahead and eat first. I don't really feel well…"

Claud eyed Lesser Half briefly, and then shrugged. "Well, it is a feast for Lily, after all. If you feel up to eating at any point in time, just give us a heads-up. I'll get the waiters to bring more food."

"Sure."

The food in this restaurant was, as expected of an establishment inside the capital of the Grandis Empire itself, expensive and delicious. It was the natural embodiment of paying for quality, and Claud felt his lips curl up as exquisitely fried chicken touched down on his tongue and made his taste buds celebrate. An equally blissful look on Lily's face completed his pleasure, and for a while, the only things that could be heard was the sounds of him and Lily chewing, as well as the meeplings playing hopscotch with each other.

After devouring half the table, Lesser Half finally stirred, and in silent accord, Claud and Lily gazed at the divinity, who was now clearly pondering what to eat first. After a few seconds of deliberate thought, the black cube flew over to a mound of fried potato slices that had ham embedded in the middle somehow.

The sounds of rushing air filled the room as a small black rift appeared behind Lesser Half, and the potato slices floated off the table, which began to rattle a moment later. Like orderly little soldiers, the potato slices marched into the rift and vanished from view, and Claud, for the umpteenth time, wondered if he could accidentally toss something into the rift…

The black cube shivered once, and the rift closed. "Once again, someone's plotting against me!"

"Who?" Lily asked, tilting her head.

"I don't know…" Lesser Half spun once. "It's just a bit unnerving."

Claud rubbed his nose innocently. Did the divinity really sense his desire to "accidentally" throw an entire plate into the rift, or was someone really plotting against Lesser Half right now?

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It was a question that really warranted an answer.

Whatever the case, since he had put aside that plan, Lesser Half soon returned to the business of opening rifts and sucking in entire plates' worth of food, but what puzzled Claud the most was the clear enjoyment that Lesser Half was deriving from these dishes. The divinity was appreciating his meal audibly, which made him wonder if there were innumerable tongues in that little rift of his.

Claud shivered at that very scary image, and then shook his head. Exchanging glances with Lily again, the two of them resumed their fun and tasty task of devouring the rest of the food, while the meeplings watched…

Before long, the table had been emptied, and Lesser Half let out another happy sigh. The discomfort that he should have been feeling due to some random errant Shard of Creation clearly lost to his appreciation of good food, which was a good thing, to be honest.

The retching sounds were really getting to Claud, after all.

"So, what do you two plan to do now?" Lesser Half asked.

"Maybe look for our companions," Claud replied. "Now that the war's over, maybe we'll check out the Moonlit camps and see if we can find them there."

"Not a good idea," Lesser Half replied. "Right now, the Moons are on extreme tenterhooks. You must also consider the fact that you two have been acting as my chaperones and companions for the past ten days or so. You will stand out like a sore thumb, doubly so, were you to enter the territory of the Moons."

"Oh." Claud felt a bit disappointed. "Damn it. The Trading Board malfunctioning at this time…how are we supposed to look for those asses?"

"Why not ask Emperor Grandis for help?" Lily abruptly asked. "We're kinda on good speaking terms with him anyway. He does know us, after all. And if we promise to help him fight off some enemies for a while, he's definitely going to help. After all, the others are mid-ranked folders as well."

"And you are probably the first high-ranked folder of the current Godsfall," Claud noted thoughtfully. "I suppose we can do it with some force too, if push comes to shove…"

"Eh? Right…" Lily stuck out her tongue. "I totally forgot about that."

"Emperor Grandis, eh?" Lesser Half spun on his edge for a while. "I have heard many a story about this upstanding personage. Abolishing slavery, protecting humanity…he does sound like someone I don't mind making a friend out of."

Claud bobbed his head. "Well, you could tag along."

"Is that advisable?" Lily asked. "I mean, last I checked, both the Moons and the Dark had been laying siege to the capital. And we're bringing the smaller boss of the great Dark to meet Emperor Grandis?"

"It's common knowledge that Lesser Half has been imprisoned by his sister for attempting to protect the humans," Claud replied. "I don't really see a problem here."

"Really now?" Lily thought for a moment. "Well, don't make this a public meeting. We need to give Grandis some face, you know. If we bring Lesser Half into his court openly, the Emperor's definitely going to be embarrassed one way or another, and we'll be screwed."

Claud glanced at the septa-folder once, and then squished her face again.

"Hey! I'm serious here!' Lily squished his face back. "Anyway, do as I say, alright?"

"Okay." Claud nodded. "You're the professional in this aspect, after all."

"Excellent." Lily smiled. "You heard me, right?"

Her gaze, though warm, seemed to be infused with the essence of the Frozen Emperor as it landed on Lesser Half, and Claud watched on in awe as Lesser Half yielded without putting up a fight at all.

Sure, Lily was adorable and a harbour for his tired heart, but there was also a stern facet to her, and Claud wondered if she could take charge of things more often. It would be nice to stop thinking sometimes…but that really wasn't him, was it?

He smiled languidly at nothing in particular, and then thought about their next steps. To begin with, how did one go around talking to Emperor Grandis in private? Did they need to send a calling card like the nobles, like what they did back then? How long would it take?

Claud looked at Lily. "So, how would we go about meeting Emperor Grandis?"

"Easy," Lily replied. "We leave the city, and then come right back in openly."

"Eh?"

"Eh?"

Lily chuckled. "Well, Emperor Grandis is definitely looking for people to help in the defence of the capital. And our names are rather famous already. We're the first to take out a Distortion, after all, and in doing so, they learned that we were hexa-folders back then."

"So if we enter openly…"

"There's definitely a special channel that will inform Emperor Grandis about our arrival, and he'll go and find us," Lily replied. "See? Nice and easy."

"Alright, so we just go out and enter openly…" Claud frowned. "Hmm. Well. Now that I think about it, one of the reasons behind why we snuck in was to avoid being conscripted in the first place, though."

"Well, we now need someone to look for the others, so it's a small price we have to pay. Besides, not many people can really stop us now, right?" Lily asked, pointing at herself. "After all, there shouldn't be any high-ranked folders available just yet…"

"Alright. Let's go make our presence known, then." Claud got up. "I'm a bit excited now…"

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