The five of us decided to leave the area and head into Shirayaa’s little hideout and then down into the underground cellar dungeon.

"Certainly not what I thought I’d be doing today." Thalor mused as he looked around into the empty cells and knocking on the triangularly stacked barrels.

"What did you think you would be doing?" I asked, a little curious as to what he actually does in the Illuminati.

"Oh, just work stuff like managing tasks, who does them and making sure everything is running smoothly, that sort of thing.

Right, he has to be cryptic right now since they don’t know about the Illuminati yet so he has to skirt around that topic.

And I figured that it was probably time to get this little meet up underway, so I slithered off into one of the many side crevices that held the barrels and clapped my hands, getting everyone’s attention.

"Anyways, now that we have some privacy, I think an introduction is in order. Thalor, these are my friends Ashtraz and Astryza, and this is Shirayaa. Girls, this is Thalor, he’s the head of his organisation." A simple yet eloquent way for everyone to know each other.

I saw Thalor raise a brow, which for some reason felt judgemental to a degree, but he didn’t do anything more than that and stepped forth to properly introduce himself.

He did a large exaggerated bow, even giving some extra unnecessary flair with his hands, curling one under himself and raising the other far above his bent over body. Which just looked weird in his current getup.

"Greetings fair maidens." Oh great, this is going to be painful to watch, I can already tell what archetype he’s trying to present himself as. "As your associate said, my name is Thalor, my full name is Thalor Vun Crondick."

"Pfft." I couldn’t stop myself from stifling a laugh at that surname and I could see that Asty also was having trouble not laughing. And I can’t blame her. Having the word dick in your name is too funny.

"Yes, very funny, hardy har har. Do keep in mind that I’m one of the most powerful Chronomancer’s in the world." He said somewhat mockingly, and at the same time, arrogantly.

"And I’m the daughter of a fucking Demon King, what’s your point?" I retorted somewhat snarkily. To which he had no reply. Yay.

"Whatever, let’s just continue." Thalor said with a now mildly irritated tone.

*Cough* I then looked at the girls and asked them to introduce themselves.

Ash went first. "Hello, I’m Ashtraz. I was created and birthed by a curse in some mountains to get revenge for said curse, but thanks to Traytora, I was able to be freed from its clutches, and now, I can live my life however I want without having to worry about something completely unrelated to me."

"H-Hello! My name is Astryza, and Traytora is my big sister! She gave me a God yesterday!" Little Asty went next and was a little awkward and overexcited in her introduction.

Then, it was Shirayaa’s turn. She gave a quick and simple bow as she spoke, "Greetings, I am Shirayaa, and it’s a pleasure to meet you. I hope you can teach me how to use my affinity for [Time] magic."

She put it right out there and stated her desires up front. This caused Thalor to smile lightly as he responded.

"But of course, I would be more than happy to teach you. However, I am quite busy, so I’m afraid that I can’t be the one who teaches you." He had a wry smile as he rubbed the back of his head. And before Shirayaa could be fully dismayed, he said this, "I do however have a couple of friends that I trust to teach you. One of them just so happens to know Traytora. The other is an old friend of mine. Which one would you prefer to train you?"

Shirayaa smiled as she thought about her answer for a minute. The rest of us just waited since there wasn’t much else to do.

Though, I didn’t wait idly as I too was thinking about what to do next, since I have no idea how far these changes reach, or what else has changed. Is the plan I made with the Sect, still going on? What about the Cult of Fate? So many things I needed to check up on.

But that would all have to wait, as Shirayaa had come up with her answer.

"I would like to meet with both of them first and then go from there."

"A sound decision. I’ll get to it then and get into contact. Though, it may take a while considering they have their own lives and whatnot to deal with."

Then, he suddenly wasn’t there anymore. Thalor just disappeared out of thin air. Which means he must’ve stopped time and then walked out. I have no idea as to why he would do such a thing, especially considering I still had a couple of things to ask him for, but I couldn’t now that he’d left.

’Oh well, guess I’ll ask him another time.’ I thought as I turned to my friends and Shirayaa. "Well, that was something."

"It... Certainly was." Ash concurred, unsure of what to make of this situation.

"What now? Do we just wait for him to come back or what?" Shirayaa asked, just as befuddled as the rest of us.

"I guess you do, since it is you who is going to be trained. As for us three, I wouldn’t think we have to. Either way, he said it would take some time, so you probably don’t have to stay here all day until they arrive. You can probably just check in like once or twice a day till they show up."

She nodded, "Right, I guess that makes sense."

"So, what do we do now?" Asty asked.

"Uhh, good question. I doubt the city guards will let us go anywhere after that little stunt we pulled earlier." Shirayaa noted, which made all of us ponder.

That was until someone’s stomach grumbled. It was Asty’s.

She laughed awkwardly as she lowered her blushing face in embarrassment. "S-Sorry, we never actually ate earlier."

The moment she said that, the other’s stomachs also rumbled slightly. Not quite audibly, but with no one speaking and us being in this underground space, it just reverberated throughout the chamber.

I burst out laughing as they all avoided looking at me in embarrassment. "Ah, come on, I’ll take you out for some food. I think I know a place where we’ll be free from trouble."

The three of them seemed a little sceptical at my words but trusted me enough anyways and followed me out of this building and then the slums.

It took nearly half an hour to get to where I was taking them, and in that time, their stomach started to rumble a little louder, and we got some scornful looks here and there as we went. But we soon were able to reach the adventurer’s guild.

They were all worried about being here, but I told them with a bright smile that they would be accepted here. "This is a place where the strong gather. If you can hold your own, you’ll be fine. But don’t worry, I’m here to protect you."

That reassured them a little as we got a table and I left to head to the bar area to order. The lot of us got some curious glances but no scorn, just like I said.

I then went and ordered a bunch of things. And to be honest, I’d never really tried any of them before, not from what I could remember.

They had a lot of fried meats between bread, which was called a ’burger’ as well as chopped up potatoes that were also fired and called either ’fries’ or ’chips’. Apparently, nobody could come to an agreement on which name it should take.

Either way, I ordered a bunch of these foods to be delivered to my table and sat down with them and talked as we waited for our food to arrive. And what we talked about was the food itself, since none of us had actually eaten any of it before.

As we were chatting though, a male Lamia slinked up to our table. They were riddled with scars all over both their skin and their tail, which made me feel somewhat uncomfortable. He had a surprisingly burly body for a serpentine, but seeing the humongous double bladed battle axe he hefted over his shoulder like it was a mere sword, it made sense.

"So, what’re you lot doin here? Never seen any o’ you round before." He inquired in a somewhat casual and friendly tone, but I knew that he was actually sizing each of us up.

I simply pulled out my platinum rank adventurer’s card and presented it to him as I said, "I’m just bringing my friends out for a meal, nothing more."

"And the rest of you?" He pushed further.

"Like I said, I brought them here for a meal. They’re not adventurers, but I’m the one treating them." I responded for them.

He growled lightly as he looked over the table, but mostly at me.

*Sigh* "What do you want."