Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, the calming roars of the ocean, mixed with the refreshing legions of tropical air, created the unquestionably ideal set of conditions for a certain woman to enjoy her time on what was mostly a troublesome work trip. On the sandy shores of the central island of the thirteen islands, with a fold-up lounging chair, a woman who'd been sent on the mind-numbing task that forced her to travel to the sights of Manaful Epicentre, and recently voiced her disaproval to her team leader for almost breaking her table.

  In fact, she was so bent out of shape over the table incident that it was all she could irrationally think about whenever she was taking a break from sifting through the abundant mana vents for any signs of abnormalities: such things outside of the usual outbreaks that commonly sprang up in Teulani Archipelago.

  [Tiliana Crest is a slightly short, lightly tanned twenty-three-year-old female humalian vatruva; she has shoulder-low, ultra curly, blonde(twenty percent) to pale blonde(seventy-five percent) to glowing blonde(five percent) hair. Blonde(top) to purple(bottom) gradient eyes with a muted and pupilless left eye. Slightly plump thighs and wide hips. And two golden, twenty feet long, ribbon-like appendages protruding from the base of her spine that she usually has wrapped around her respective legs]

  [Tiliana is wearing an oversized, fur, dark beige winter coat that she always wears unbuttoned, with golden peg buttons. A black croptop, with a glowing ring on the front. Baggy, dark blue joggers. Ultra fluffy, vertically striped, black slouch sock. And, blonde coloured socks]

  :Attributes:

  [Base](pink)

  [Mana Capacity: U]

  [Mana Control: A]

  [Mana Tolerance: U]

  [Advanced]

  [Affinity: Mana Absorption]

  [Proficiency: Mana Sifting]

  [Complex]

  [Speciality: Mana Tuning]

  [Blessing: Foreseer]

  [Class: Mana Maguses]

  [Grimoire/Tapestry/Curio limit: 8]

  "Your drink, dear," the motherly waitress of the nearby beachside cafe said with a sultry tone of voice, startling the lounging girl right out of her vexation-fuelled daydreaming. Tiliana turned red in the face, involuntarily sinking into the bars of her chair, at the motherly waitress's tone and use of dear to address the Ultracous Magikrouso's member.

  "Y-yeah, thanks," Tiliana mumbled sheepishly as she received the alcoholic drink. She didn't dare to take even a single sip of her drink, not until the waitress had disappeared into the cafe of her employment at the very least. And with the woman out of view, Tiliana took a swig worth half the total sum of drink. "That damned kitsune-eared, why is it always me getting stuck with the tedious work. I specialised in mana to be in the supportive roles, not to be a glorified kid in a sand pit with a sand sieve."

  "He's lucky he's a hot, single dilf." The short woman almost felt a vindictive giggle crawl its way up her throat at calling the guy that, only exentuated in its potency by the mental image of her Kaluso bringing her breakfast in bed and being the perfect house husband from all her favourite novels, as she brought the rim of her glass to her mouth, ready to take another 'sip' of its contents.

  "I'm lucky I'm a what?" Kalusozalna asked rhetorically, having not properly heard what the woman had said; his tone of voice made it abundantly clear he wasn't all that bothered if he got an answer out of Tiliana or not.

  The mere fact that Kaliso was talking to her, let alone him suddenly being in the same timezone as her, didn't process in her mind until long after she had down another quarter of her total alcoholic beverage. But the moment she consciously comprehended Kaluso's presence, Tiliana choked and spat out her drink, which resembled more of a surging tide, as the darkened spots in the sand around her became that much more abundant. She practically jumped on the spot out of instinctual fear; such an involuntary action sent the open, smutty novel in her lap flying over her head.

  Tiliana's heart sank right into the very pits of her stomach as she watched the pages of her novel flutter through spicy scene after another. But she deflated in relief as Kaluso closed the book when he caught in mid-air tumble.

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  However, that relief was swiftly lit into a silent, self-contained inferno within the book reader as Kaluso brought the cover to his face to inspect it: a skimpy catgirl sitting in the most obnoxious of ways.

  "Oh, this one. Although this one seems different," Kaluso remarked nonchalantly.

  Tiliana was sure her heart should've stopped upon hearing those words: perhaps the absurdity of Kaluso knowing what the novel's contents were or that he'd read the original kept the woman from having a self-imposed early demise, empowered by her shame. With a moment to breathe, she honestly felt kind of jealous, given how expensive original copies were, but was too preoccupied with keeping her hyperventilating in check to think about it too much.

  "Oh-o... you've read that?"

  "Indeed, I have, in a vicarious sort of way, from my daughter constantly reading off excerpts from it whilst she was writing it."

  For a moment, Tiliana struggled with all her mental might to remain calm. She failed gloriously as she sprang off her lounging chair to grab Kaluso by the chest before planting her feet slightly below her hands: "You're daughter's the original's author?"

  "Regretfully... in the sense I was forced to read every single draft, and not from her having her hobbies," Kaluso explained, followed by handing back Tiliana her copy of the novel before plucking her off himself with one of his tails and placing her back on her lounging chair. "Now, do you have any other questions before I get to why I've come to you in person?"

  Following a sheepish eep of shame at being called out by her team leader, Tiliana anxiously squirmed in her lounging chair, along with a few weird little noises, and quietly mumbled out, "Soo... do you know if she'd got any drafts lying around?"

  "It's beyond me. She published those books fifty years ago, and she usually stashes her prototypes for anything she creates somewhere even I don't know."

  "I... see," Tiliana mumbled disapointedly as she poured the last smidgens of her drink into her mouth, only for a thought to jump to the front of her mind when the shock of Kaluso's appearance fully faded. "Why are you here anyway?"

  "Did you forget that report you sent me before taking this extended break of yours?"

  "I-um, of course not, I just didn't expect you to show up in person instead of sending someone else like the usual."

  Kaluso mentally scoffed at the woman's mostly truthful statement. In his mind, it seemed no matter how much time passed, Tiliana just couldn't shake the habit of adding unnecessary information or inputs to a conversation that really could be done without, not that the kitrunai felt particularly inclined to have her change her ways. "I take it the mana vent you found contains magical traces from the Stigmai of Nightmares or their subsidiaries?"

  Tiliana nodded with cheeks redder than tormatos or strawberries: "Naturally, I noticed the odd readings on the frosty island, that I won't degrade myself by failing to say the name of."

  "Its name isn't that hard to pronounce, Tiliana."

  "Says the guy who's had multiple centuries to practice the name."

  "Fair enough, the first three times I did struggle to say Kruyaktroviki."

  "So you admit it's a hard name to say!" Tiliana spoke with elated flair at being proven right by the very guy she'd accused of being full of it that the name wasn't hard to pronounce, only for her elation to come crashing back to earth in a fiery crater as the word three rang between her ears. "Wait, only three times?!"

  She drooped her head low, in a somewhat sloshy fashion, as she ruminated on any other questions she wanted to inquire about.

  "Say, do you think it's overstepping boundaries if I wanted to meet your daughter for an autograph?" Tiliana mumbled out with a slight slurred stammer, emboldened by the tenth, nine and a half, dose of alcohol she'd downed into her system.

  "I don't see why not, but you're still on the job, and she's currently off doing some... material searching for her next book, or so she called it, so that can wait. And before you ask, because I know you were thinking it, I don't have the slightest idea what her newest book is about other than it involves the paranormal of the haunted variety."

  Tiliana slumped her head even further down before defeatedly swinging it back to the head of her lounging bed.

  "Bummers, wake me up when you're done dealing with the mana vent issue for me," Tiliana added as she gracefully rolled onto her side before conking out in seconds, indicated to Kaluso by Tiliana's ribbon tendrils slacking ever so slightly around her legs. Seeing her carelessly leaving herself exposed to the sun without a drop of sunscreen, Kaluso rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers, causing a large parasol to materialise over her: forming from an energy matching three greens that resided in his inner pupil. With his ally free from the wrath of the sun, Kaluso nodded his head, only to manually micro-adjust the angle of the sand-embedded parosol for a minute straight, until finally relenting. Somewhat appeased that the angle of the shadow would keep Tiliana from rolling out of the shadow in her sleep, Kaluso bent his knees before launching himself high into the sky, followed by a dragonic roar of a dragon as a large shadow swept over and past Tiliana, who didn't so much as stir from the noise.