The following weekend's early evening, small gatherings of drone beegirls had formed in various places through Inkaro and Lizu's garden, all murmuring about how Awaux88 matched the description that had been spreading through their numbers since the other day. With the other participants of the sportswear-wearing group(partaking in more stationary exercises) consisting of Lizu, Enetha, and himself, Inkaro sat cross-legged on a large stone tile, deep in thought that wasn't related to the magical for once. Opposite him on a similar tile, Awaux88 sat silently, vaguely replicating the guy's posture: not in a sense of mirroring him but in the case they'd copied Inkaro before spinning around to face him.

  "How about... Paruneha?" Inkaro opened his eyes, only to be greeted by the blunt, soulless stare of his friend, who sees him as 'The Friend.'

  "Ok." The stigmai's blunt and swift answer caught Lizu's attention as she flicked her head up, casting her half-focused gaze in the vague direction of Inkaro and Awaux88 from across the garden. She felt compelled to cheekily put her two cents into the conversation, mostly to preoccupy herself during her stretches, if nothing else.

  "Not even a hint of consideration?" Lizu remarked playfully as she did all manners of warm-up stretches, focused mainly on her tail.

  "No need, The Friend said the name so I...." Awaux88, now going by the name Paruneha, paused mid-sentence. Although their face showed an absent, dead look, Inkaro and the others could tell the stigmai entity was mentally buffering, or perhaps blue screening would be a better comparison; if G.Galore had to compare the reaction to anything, Awaux88 was experiencing a logic error that caused an entire system restart to occur. Seeing that the stigmai was out of commission for a while, not too different to G.Galore, Inkaro had a rough gauge on how long he'd be waiting, so he whispered something to G.Galore before she triumphantly dashed off into the house.

  Enetha, perfectly balanced on an exercise ball with her legs positioned in her homeland's common sitting style of kneeling and sitting on legs combo, tilted her head to the right, utterly befuddled: "If this is what happens when they consider things, I can see why they would attempt to avoid such an act as much as possible. I do indeed."

  Offset from the stretch exercise duo and Inkaro, three of their fellow Star Course classmates were making laps around, while one of them had barely made one. The latter of those two options consisted solely of a very drenched Yuuvia, equal parts baffled by how Inkaro had managed to make a self-refuelling pocket space in his backyard and how it had a per-person gravity setting; although, she appreciated the second part to some extent, for the sole reason being she only had to experience a one point four increase to gravity. Not that the others running with her held it against her for how few laps she'd managed. Yuuvia very much did. Her deep blush made such thoughts obvious. Yuuvia was sweating buckets, and it was entirely self-inflicted, as she'd spent most of her life doing all manner of noble lady-related practice; basic cardio was absolutely not one of them. The only saving grace she'd been blessed by in her current plight was how she didn't smell stinky, even with all her sweating.

  "I still... can't believe... hegot exempted from partic-ipating in the combat portion... of the HalnuemiEnkindleFestival," Yuuvia whined. Well, that's what she wanted to say, but her words came out in a garbled mess from her breathlessness as she staggered past the stationary group before crashing into a cotton-candy-looking bush, legs half-heartedly aimed towards the air.

  "I feel like that Paruneha's appearance is probably a good explanation. It could imply that Inkaro will or has a stigma," Noaskou murmured, ruminating on the possibility as he easily pulled Yuuvia out of the bush with a single hand. As the guy set the girl on her two shaky feet, allowing her the privilege of continuing her run, the wolf demon was perplexed by her bizarre smell, which had only grown more potent as the evening drew on and on.

  "Always the theorist, aren't you, Gambler?" Saruno quipped obnoxiously and whipped his wings sharply, as he sat upon the purple-haired guy's head, treating it as his own personal nest of a thrown. The tiny teen would've been the stuff of frustration for any rational person, but given the humalian's stature was nowhere near a single foot, Noaskou decided to let the other guy's demeanour continue, only because he found it personally cute enough to dismiss.

  [Saruno Unoblaek(General Rank Family of the Krutaka Empire) is a sixteen-centimetre-tall, fifteen-year-old, dark tan-skinned, Humalia spirual male; he has slightly long, bleached, lime hair, with dark lime petalled and pink-cored flowers. Dark grey eyes with lime sclerae. A body that sparkles like lime glitter. And, four very large, dragonfly-like wings made of dark lime mana that protrude from the dark lime crystalline, pyramid-shaped nodes on his shoulder blades]

  [Saruno is wearing a black hoodie made of robes. There are seven golden spikes running around the back half of his hoodie's hem. Golden fishnet-like socks. And, golden sandals]

  "I... do not believe the latter is the case. Lady Yuuvia and Lady Anazenpha would've made that apparent the other day," Lyunoto said calmly, but not to the tiny teen, sitting in the centre of the garden with his knees up against his chest, and acting as a pseudo tree but a goal post for the others doing laps around the garden.

  [Lyunoto is a fifteen-foot-tall, seventeen-year-old, male identifying snuhalio reulanou, with a very slim body; he has a deep blue, mushroom cap on his head that has a glowing sapphire swirl pattern over it. The mushroom cap has an almost white shade of blue underside, with a lot of glowing, deep blue tendrils sprouting from the cap's rim that reach down to the middle of his neck. Glowing, sapphire that lack pupils and instead have a white spreading roots pattern in their place. Black scleras. Almost white shade of blue skin. Wrists and ankles are wrapped in glowing, deep blue vine-like tendrils. And, almost White shade of blue, tree trunk-shaped feet]

  "Yeah, that's true, heh," Anazenpha said playfully as she lay belly-down on top of the reulanou guy's mushroom cap with a few drone beegirls all bundled up against her body. They buzzed with feverish determination, adamantly resolved on keeping the snake girl warm, despite Anazenpha generating more body heat than any of the beegirls.

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  Briefly gazing up at the top of the beegirl mountain that he could see from over Lyunoto's cap, Inkaro lowered his gaze slowly to the third group of the Star Course First-years, where Nova and Xythio were doing weighted-down handstands, while Myhail and Myendi were spotting them.

  "Our garden has certainly turned into a training hotspot," Inkaro mentioned as he readily, if not consciously, and repeatedly booped Paruneha's little nose as a form of fidgeting. Having employed a myriad of subtle movements inbetween her stretches until her tail was within yoinking range, Lizu, sneakily in approach but obvious in execution, coiled her tail around Inkaro's waist.

  "Well, unlike your functionally introvert butt, I make a point to be social with the people I'll be interacting with on the regular, and things led to our garden being the best training spot. After all, any one of us could be chosen... excluding those who already have a stigma: so, Yuuvia, Nova, Myhail, Anazenpha."

  "Don't forget I," Enetha stated calmly, yet speaking with a subtle ferocity hidden by her neutral expression, "Soul to be precise."

  Still booping Parubeha in the nose as they still remained unresponsive, Inkaro tiredly exhaled from a deprivation in mental stimulation: "It seems royalty are predisposed to getting certain stigmas."

  "Not that some of us had a choice," Enetha mumbled harshly while peering to the side, just in time to watch Xythio fall on top of a strangely giggling Myendi, after she'd tickled his sides a little too strongly. Only once she returned her pouty stare and blank expression to him, Inkaro followed Enetha's line of sight. The new target of her attention was simple: the very finger of Inkaro that met with Paruneha's nose. So naturally, after the guy did multiple tests involving moving his hand in odd ways and seeing the little princess's reaction in her eyes, Inkaro ended up booping the noses of Enetha and Paruneha simultaneously.

  Lizu returned the favour by booping Inkaro with the tip of her tail. The dragolyte's tail booping morphed from its initial playful teasing to a more 'aggressive' style: slapping the end of her tail against Inkaro's face, which she focused more on sounding impactful than truly being so. It got a few head turns, but no one felt compelled to intervene, given how little Inkaro was physically influenced.

  "Creator, I've found something from the W.I.S.N based on your requirements," G.Galore stated, somewhat with a mix of excitement and brattiness to her synthesised voice, as she carried something underneath her using her purple mana ribbons, beelineing straight for Inkaro. She effortlessly ducked and weaved around the lap runners, thanks in part to a huff-and-puffing Yuuvia collapsing on the grassy ground, slowing the others down who'd lapped her again, before coming to an abrupt stop in front of Inkaro.

  "Hmmm... haunted mansion. Over one thousand years old... huh, that would mean this building has been around before even the nine humalian races started showing up," Lizu murmured aloud as she read through the contents displayed on her touch-screen slate, which G.Galore had graciously brought over from the house and unintentionally held in front of her face. "Sounds 'interesting', doesn't it, Inkaro~"

  Pausing after every other word from the nose booping, Enetha quietly voiced, "I hope you two aren't planning on waiting for everyone to leave before disembarking on this escapade of yours, that would be very... rude."

  The mention of a potentially genuine haunted house and Enetha's quiet implication of interest was all it took for the fire of training to be snuffed out; after all, if Enetha found it worthy of her attention, then surely it must be worth their own.

  "Now that sounds exhilarating, not that I am not afraid of no... what were the monsters called that are similar to snuhalio ghosts?" Nova tapped her chin, incessantly so as her physical pondering took on a somewhat musical flair. Just imagining a building filled to the brim with monsters she couldn't hurt caused a tingling buzz to well up all over her skin: each prickle of the tiny hairs on her skin acting like individual instances of that initial feeling, and amplifying her anticipation that much further.

  "So you do have other hobbies outside of turning everyone you see into a punching bag," Myhail said in jest, much to Nova's heavy eye rolls as she whispered that Myhail's claim was nothing but hyperbole. "Also, it's apparition, Nova."

  The two heirs to their respective thrones, who long waved farewell to the shortness of their youths, continued to harmlessly bicker over the entwined, toppled over reincarnators. Their bickering would've been nothing short of word candy to Myendi, had she not been so enthralled from being crushed under Xythio.

  Watching as all his classmates' discussions occurred around his feet, Lyunoto remained silent, choosing to stay out of it and hide his face behind his veil made from his cap's tendrils. To him, his input and opinion seemed worthless with how he wouldn't fit inside a building built during a time period where giant lifeforms were considered far-fetched.

  However, a certain snakey girl had a different thought process to the guy carrying her on his head: "That sound really spooky, right?"

  "I... suppose it does, doesn't it."

  Anazenpha, naturally taking the guy's attempt to remain uninvolved the wrong way because of his lax tone, found the guy's response amazing. Sure, she wasn't that spooked herself, but for someone to be completely unfazed by the idea of regrets manifesting into reality was impressive, just like her cousin. Ana's respect mostly came from the admiration she held for her cousin being copied onto the tall mushroom.

  "That's rusuring; having someone who not scared sounds nice... I think. Maybe the ghosties will be the scaredy cats at seeing us, who don't look like humans, yeah?" Lyunoto remained silent but did nod faintly, much to Anazenpha's happy beegirl-fluff-muffled clapping. "Also, would you mind praising Yuvi up here. For me?"

  "You mean raise?" Lyunoto asked flatly, not in a rude way, however. Anazenpha happily nodded, which tripled in pace as she audibly saw Lyunoto pluck a splayed out Yuuvia off the ground. The minute instant Yuuvia was gently plopped in front of the food voider, Anazenpha unreservedly licked her slender serpent tongue against the other girl's cheek. The exhaustion delirious Yuuvia half-smiled in content, mistaking the licking against her to be coming from one of her pet snakes for a moment. Her mistake only lasted until Ana spoke right in her ear.

  "Ah~ taste just... like my... catalyst pills?"

  "It-it's probably the weird cotton candy bush I fell into," Yuuvia grumbled, trying her best to deflect and obscure the truth about the thing Ana tasted: Yuuvia's sweet-smelling and tasting sweat. That nugget of info made the noble girl blush; that was something she couldn't obscure in any way... not that she really minded in this unique situation.