"Congrats on being the first two pairs to complete the assignment."

  The adventurer instructor's praise rang clear as day through the small clearing situated in front of Gelatomb Dungeon's entrance, functionally saying they were free to go if they wished. The words were cathartic, signalling to the short princess and the noble appearance-obsessed girl that the tribulations of their dungeon delves had been brought to an end. The two sighed in tandem; although the source for their dismay differed greatly, neither was more of a burden than the other.

  Despite the mental weight bearing on her mentality from her dungeon delve, Yuuvia failed to stifle a small smirk, letting a little "heh" go as she found the guy's use of congrats humorous, imagining how he probably said the shortened form for congratulations because he didn't want to sound too formal. Although she personally didn't comprehend the custom, Yuuvia understood that in the adventurer circles of society, which were significantly more casual compared to the noble sphere, and adventurers' lack of use for any long words which could be considered fancy was the norm: "Much obliged, my good sir... I mean, thanks for the kind words."

  "There's no need for such formalities, young lass. Also, make sure to put any future Dungeon Achievement Tokens you find into those; you wouldn't want to be turning your house upside down over a single lost one, especially if it's just a bronze one, when you need."

  The four nodded earnestly, heeding the instructor's words before he walked off to check on another duo of students as they exited from the dungeon.

  Watching him for a bit longer, Yuuvia pryed her gaze from the instructor as she peered down at the two trinkets in her respective hands; in her left was a fully bronze diameter disk with a one cm diameter and a simplistic slime design engraved on the front and back. In her right was a hand-sized, four-pointed-star-shaped crystalline object that was pink.

  [Pink Token Star][Type: Storage][Rank: NA]

  -a hand-sized four-pointed-star crystaline object with her's being pink.

  -a magic object used to store Dungeon Achievement Tokens.

  Darting between them, Yuuvia visually inspected two pieces from the feats of his labour, glazing the objects with her self-imposed scrutiny. Following a mental sigh of content, the girl tapped the disc on the star, storing it magically inside it, before stashing the Token Star in her thigh band storage curio.

  But just by raising her head, she thought her eyes were about to explode from the sight Lizu was in. In place of her usual charcoal grey fur cloak with a super-soft, dark teal collar, Lizu's outermost layer of torso clothing had transformed into a colour- and material-matching hoodie. The wardrobe change wasn't all that much of a shock; people changing clothes was a rather normal thing for nobility. No, the thing that got Yuuvia so shocked her eyes were trying to vacate her skull was the clear fact that Lizu currently looked just as flat as herself in the chest department.

  Yuuvia gave the scene presented before her a sizeable, indignant huff, slumping her shoulders with a jealous scowl written all over her face that could kill a slime from how salty she'd become. Lizu found Yuuvia's annoyance simply delectable, not as much as honey, but it was a close third on the totem pole.

  With a playful bounce in her step and tail, among other things that weren't presently visible, Lizu figuratively danced around Inkaro as her tail formed a wavy and orbiting ring around the guy that restricted his movements.

  "It must've been such a struggle going on a whole adventure without me, don't you concur, Inkaro?" Lizu said jovially while strongly flicking her tail about, brushing it against Inkaro's sides as she mainly aimed for the guy's thighs and hips in an attempt to knock him over. Inkaro rolled his eyes as Lizu pulled down one of his hands to needily nibble at it: "Aren't you the one displaying symptoms of separation withdrawal?"

  Barely hiding how right Inkaro's remark was, by licking the remnant sugar off his palm with reckless abandon for her public appearance, Yuuvia glared at the display as Lizu barely hid how brazenly she was taking advantage of her early task completion to get all touchy-touchy with Inkaro while their fellow students were still in the dungeon. Yuuvia wanted to be mad, but she just couldn't; Inkaro was Lizu's partner after all. But even with that little tidbit in mind, Yuuvia still wished Lizu would show a little modicum of decency by not doing such acts in front of others.

  The only crumb of satisfaction Yuuvia could gleam from the personally aggravating scene forced upon her was the false reality of pretending Lizu was flat. Now that, that made the noble girl crack a small, satisfied smirk to rival any competent rival being petty.

  While the rest of the events around her transpired outside her direct influence, Enetha was left to her own devices, which left her very red in the face, not out of breath. Steam just gushed from her dome and up into the sky, like a very cute kettle moments from boiling over. It was rather peculiar to Inkaro, he sermised Enetha would have to have quite a bit of ice slime gelatin on her body for her body heat to be capable of generating that much steam.

  "What's up with Enetha?" Inkaro asked perplexedly, followed by the dragolyte flipping herself around his arm to scale it and plop her butt firmly on it, treating his arm like the branch of a long-standing tree. Only peering over her shoulder for a moment out of habit before taking on an underarm observation style, Lizu checked on Enetha's complexion, basking in its red radience that was still as beaming as it was from the moment the short teen first sported it.

  "Let's just say, she had an unfortunate fall into some bouncy opposition," Lizu remarked rather verbosely. Enetha raised a hand to defend herself from Lizu's implication, falling short of making any substantial verbal retort other than a pitiful chirping sound as she recalled the embarrassing set of events leading to her current complexion.

  For the sake of a little princess's pride, allow me, Nuno, to summarise the recap to protect Enetha's ...huh? What do you mean I'm not supposed to say my name? Exposing who the narrators are? But Lilu... ... ...

  Fine...

  I, TotallynotNuno(For the cards below...Nuno), will now start the summary, to my best buddy's standards.

  Lizu and Enetha, naturally, were exploring around the fifth level of their current recurrence of Gelatomb Dungeon. However, combining Lizu's marginally swifter pace and the sudden drop of slime on the little princess's shoulder, Enetha slammed her cloth-like appendages into the floor, throwing self-restraint to the wind, leading to the little princess flinging herself into the air by accident.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Having already heard the loud smacking noise and turned around out of concern for her friend, Lizu was greeted by the projectile that Enetha inadvertently turned herself into, barreling straight for her.

  Thinking nothing of it, since it was just Enetha, Lizu had raised her hands to try catching the airborne princess.

  However, there was one drastic issue in the form of Lizu failing to take into account how Enetha's tendrils rivalled her tail in strength; as such, Enetha came slamming right into her chest, so neither of them incurred any tangible damage, thankfully. Unless you count the overheating Enetha experienced as she found herself half buried in Lizu's chest, while her legs and cloth tendrils flailed helplessly.

  Other than that, the only additional result of Enetha's soft landing was the impact pushing Lizu back enough to make her step on a pressure plate, leading to the duo plummeting into a hidden treasure room filled with... golden slimes. Typical of a slime dungeon.

  Plucking Enetha from her chest and planting the girl on her tail, Lizu broke her fall by fanning out her wings, which inadvertently, or maybe not, sent all the slimes below her flying and allowing for an unobstructed landing. Lizu then fiddled with her cloak until it morphed into that accursed hoodie form, leading to her flat-chested appearance... what's with that face, Lilith?

  Anyway...

  As Lizu was busy dealing with the golden slimes, Enetha was busy being flabbergasted at how she managed to end up in the same predicament with Lizu's chest again. She genuinely considered whether the Stigmai of Strife cursed her.

  Poor her, forced to face that which she doesn't have.

  While riding on Lizu's tail and letting her deal with the slimes, which not only held the keys to getting all the things they'd need to complete their tasks but were just a good source of gelagold. The little princess had an epiphany.

  From that moment, Enetha found her resolve: she'd never again be alone with Lizu without Inkaro being present...

  Nuno... ... I genuinely struggle to understand how you passed Card Weaver classes when you do stuff like this. I feel like you were focused on the... wrong thing.

  Huh? What do you mean, I focused on the wrong thing? The focus of the flashback was why Enetha was flustered, wasn't it, Lilith? Lilith? Where are you going- wait... waitwaitwait not my Zalroth Card!

  Enetha shuddered, cloth tendrils included, out of shame-induced cringe, wishing to forget the whole ordeal had ever transpired to begin with. She clapped her delicate and slightly less red cheeks with her hands, sighing the whole time, while Yuuvia found some humour in Lizu's phrasing.

  "So they are weapons...," Yuuvia murmured half-jokingly, already figuring out what Lizu was alluding to, since Yuuvia mentally conceded it was either that or some slimes, doubting anyone other than herself would get flustered over slimes. A haught laugh, very clearly a playup on, was Lizu's initial response to Yuuvia's question while wiggling her fingers at her rival: "Sure are, one of the few guaranteed methods I have of getting Inkaro to do what I want."

  "One of?" Yuuvia muttered causiously, yet sounding somewhat awestruck, almost impressed by how forthcoming Lizu was being with how she acts behind closed doors towards Inkaro.

  Wearing a greedy grin reaching ear to ear, Lizu rose herself up from Inkaro's arm with elegant swagger as she marched up said arm before settling herself on Inkaro's shoulders with her legs crossed possessively, subtly showing off to Yuuvia: "You betcha, not much he can do, let alone anyone else, can do when I got him in my tail or..."

  Cutting her own boasting off abruptly, catching the other three's attention, Lizu eyed Yuuvia with the kind of suspicious squinting only a weary parent would wear when they know their child had done something they never approve of. Yuuvia instinctively flinched. Acompanying a twitch of her nose and a deep breath that made her horns crackle with a crispy ionising sound, Lizu narrowed her pupils into slits, sending a shudder of concern down Yuuvia's spine, a kind like she'd never gotten from Lizu before.

  "Why are there two different types of Inkaro's mana on you? The restoration I get, but why spa-." Lizu didn't even need to finish her question or pry any answers from Yuuvia. The jostle she felt from Inkaro, silently chuckling under her, was all the confirmation for her deduction to be made true.

  "You let her use it before me! ...hmph, at least you didn't tell her how to do it herself and had already used it on me ages ago, otherwise I'd be very mad right now!" Lizu whined with a pitiful tone that belied her prior confidence as she angerly pounded weak punches against the back of Inkaro's head while swishing and swashing her tail and wings. The force from her unserious wings was somehow substantial enough to generate the required force to get Inkaro airborne for a little bit.

  "Coming on a bit strong for someone who's been bribing Morilore to teach her how to use Air Writing behind my back," Inkaro mentioned with waggish playfulness in his voice, making Lizu halt all of her whining in an instant.

  A puzzled "eh" was all she said in recourse towards the reveal of her sneaky actions that some might see as uncouth. She tried to flinch back dramatically, but only ended up choking Inkaro with her legs by accident.

  "You-you knew?!" Lizu blurted out.

  Almost losing her balance on Inkaro's shoulders, she made her arms resemble windmills in a strong thunderstorm from how fast she flailed them in a dramatic effort to keep herself from an embarrassing fall, which she stopped by remembering she had a tail and so planted it more firmly on the ground.

  Raising a hand, Inkaro allowed Lizu to cup it with both hands to ensure she wouldn't fall: "I figured it out a bit earlier while I was checking G.Galore's high-priority computation records, so I suppose I should thank Yuuvia for managing to out-brat her enough to cause an error."

  While sporting a crooked, nerve-riddled smile, Lizu turned red in the face, beating out Enetha by a landslide. Squirming nervously on the guy's shoulder and sheltering her blushing cheeks from view with her dragon-like wings, Lizu locked her fingers dangerously tight together: "Ah-ha...ha... then let's just call things even, shall we?...ok?"

  Inkaro smugly winked at Lizu, doing so with such confident flair that it made the piggybacking girl shift to a pink hue, before adding, "Very well. I suppose I owe you the decency of telling you how to use it for leaving you in the dark for so long, just don't get frustrated when you see why I refrained from trying to teach you for so long."

  Lizu remained silent, too flustered to speak another vocal word, so she settled for squeezing Inkaro's hand in a short pattern to convey her message of approval.

  "Whoa... he flustered Lizuranti. That Inkaro's a bigger threat than I thought; no wonder she instantly moved when he appeared the other day. Better keep this from Nova, it'll just be one big headache if she tries to fight him for personal reasons," Myhail murmured to himself from a distance, far enough away not to be heard, but close enough for Enetha to notice him staring when she let her gaze wander as she started to zone out from the group's conversation.

  Enetha waved with a cloth tendril, and Myhail waved back.