Kazue would have been jealous about Moriko’s shopping trip and dinner with the princess if she wasn’t so happy having her friends visiting her. Well, okay, she was still a bit jealous, but only a little. Givewo options, she’d rather have her friends over.

  Her little ‘camp out’ had been fun, and also given her a ce to test out the rest area. The yout wasn’t quite perfect, and she’d made some mental o tweak things once her friends were in the library, such as adjusting the yout of the kit area to make things more ve.

  Once everyone was ready to tinue, Kazue had called the shrine maidens together and gave them all a mischievous grin. “I’ve adjusted the rules of the area just for you. Your primary goal is simply to fihat’s your way forward. However, you have some bonus quests; each of you may tell me ohing you learned from the library to earn a bonus reward, and you may each corree wrong thing you find presented as truth in one of the books. Which means stories and myths don’t t.” As far as she khere were no incorrect records in the books currently in the library, but there was always a ce. And these bonus quests were something she’d had in mind for visiting sages anyway. Her friends were not so knowledgeable, but all of them had more than a bit of book learning, so they might happen to spot something.

  “There’s a separate bonus for each.” Not that she’d entirely decided what those were yet, but she was keeping a tally of what they’d done so far. She and Mordecai had talked st night about rewards in general, they’d been mostly izing things to make a good impression, but after this it robably time to create standardized rewards for most groups. It was just a lot of effort to always e up with something new, and they’d sort of already e up with a few specialties they handed urly, such as the crystal-honey potions. “Now, good lu finding me!” Kazue had her core create a swirl of wind and a light bit of sparkling dust as she did a spinning jump while de-spawning her avatar, making herself vanish into thin air dramatically.

  It had taken days of practice to nail the timing. If she was going to bee a famous kitsune, even if as a dungeon, Kazue felt that she should try to live up to some of the myths when she could. But it turned out that it takes a lot of work to pull off special effects like that.

  As she settled her avatar back down iea shop, she realized a slight fw in her pns for the day. While her avatar was a focus for the dungeon area around it, her avatar was not really suitable for trag stuff further away. Whily left her with one focus to follow her friends and to follow the priest’s party. “Er, Mordecai? Could you…?”

  “Of course love.” Came his amused reply. He’d figured it out while she was hesitating on asking, and had shifted his core’s focus to the library’s bat path.

  With that taken care of, Kazue focused her core on trag her friends’ progress while her avatar practiced some of the spells she’d been learning from him, plus some of the teiques Moriko had taught her previously. She wasn’t very good at chi manipution in general and didn’t anticipate being so, but the practice did help her with mastering the aura that let her enhance her foxfire and imbue it with spells.

  Mordecai was doing some practice of his own, w his way through various imaginary bat sarios in each of his forms. He already knew how to respond in his humanoid shape, but these hybrid forms were uo his experiend he wao know the strengths and weaknesses of each. The rger the body the harder it was to sway and slide past an attack, but this came with tougher skin or scale, making it easier and safer to use a limb to deflect a blow. With the bit of testing he’d done so far, he retty certain that in his battle or war form he could safely deflect a nonmagical bde so long as he got the angle right, and most magical bdes with the addition of a bit of chi eling.

  But his core was still free to pay attention to the explorer’s party. He quickly queried the residents to get what instrus they had gotten from Kazue, then pared her assessment of the party to his own. They were pretty mu agreement and he saw no reason to ge anything.

  The wandering Bunbrarians would be traveling in pairs, which would make any enter where they engaged after hearing other bat a suffit challenge for this group. If they were instead waiting in a location without other creatures with them, they would be in a group of three.

  Biblios was going to ehem without support from Horace, but with support from the smaller bookwyrms and the biting words.

  Moriko’s intended schedule had been totally demolished, so her day ent dealing with all the goods that had arrived the night before and arranging to get most of them off to her father-in-w for him te shipping. Ohat was all settled, she turned her attention to studying the papers her master had sent her.

  Thankfully she wasn’t going to have to worry about more than two geions. She’d been informed st night that Prince Gou would be the you person at the dinner, and the oldest of Princess Kagami’s children was thirteen, three years youhan Prince Gou.

  So, from the top: King and Queen, Yoshihiro Apifera, 56, and his wife Phaedra Apifera, 54, who had previously been a daughter to a coastal duchy. Moriko had known their names of course but hadn’t been aware of what noble family Phaedra had e from.

  Both of their faces were on s minted in the past seventeen years. The previous king had abdicated in his mid 60’s and was still avaible for sultation but was now in his 80s. Giveendency of the royal family to live o or even over one hundred, retiring was on practice so that succession was not a series of old men repg each other. Yoshihiro had cimed the thro the age of 39.

  His features were a mix of the two on lineages, which itself was more on in this kingdom than someone who was distinctly one or the other. The northern empire by trast mostly had folk with rounder eyes. Half-elves teo look more almond-eyed than their human ary alone would at for, as the elven side of their ary teowards those features as well.

  Queen Phaedra and Princess Kagami looked much alike acc to what she’d heard, so Moriko rather imagihat it would be hard to tell the older woman’s age. The notes she’d been given also mentiohat sylph bloodlines ran strong in the queen’s family, which expined why they had such ethereal appearances. She was generally calm and poised and known to wield both air and ice magic when called for.

  Princess Kagami, 34, eldest of the royal children, was married to Lord Zarod, a younger son of a southern barony. They lived in the royal estates at the ter of the city and had three children, all sons.

  Prince Ailwin, 33, first son ao the throne. He resembled his father but with a slightly lohinner face. His wife was Lady Amhis, a half-elf who had previously been a oner and was a mert who had made herself wealthy. She had irely retired from business either, though she kept a slightly more distant tou her s for the most part. Moriko suspected that at least one of the merts she had dealt with previously had actually been w for her. They also had three children, two sons and a daughter, with the daughter being the you. As heir, he had a suite he ter of the pace.

  Princess Kitiara, 31. She and her wife Lady Catherine split their time between the capital and the northern border. They were a bit of a power couple and tales told of how quickly the two of them could cut their way through a group of bandits. Their soldiers were said to both fear and worship the two women.

  Priiriana, 28, eo an elven noble named Ilimater. Po have the wedding here before they moved back to his nds for their perma residence, where there would be a sed reception for locals that would be her formal introdu as the dy of the estate.

  Princess Bridgette, 21. No known romantic affiliation, but very gregarious and seemed happy to accept almost any danvitation during balls. Her bloodline had been firmed as phoenix, but it was uaihat lineage was introduced or even what side she got it from. It robably from someone who had married into one of the families without knowing they carried this potential.

  Prince Gou, 16. Sed Son and you child. Taller than his siblings and already well-built, there were hints of a draic bloodliirring in him, though it had not fully maed. Which dragoage it was had not been revealed yet. Even without draiifestation he was a young powerhouse and quite handsome, and had the eye of a few young dies of the court. Though he seemed to enjoy the attentioly, he’d shown no i in a particur girl.

  Moriko sighed and thunked her head onto her small desk. This was the dozenth or so time she’d read through it all, and the third time she’d written a summary to try and hold it all in her head. It was time to get some food and take a nap befoing over the list again along with the basic etiquette rules. They weren’t quite as bad as she had feared, but it was still a lot more plicated than anything she’d dealt with iemple outside of full-blown ceremonies.

  At least over di night they’d slightly ged the pns, the carriage would pick her up from the clothier instead, which would also give mistress U a little more time to finish the dress before it was time for Moriko to put it on.

  Mordecai did his best to offer his emotional support to his frustrated wife, but Moriko was grumpy from all the studying and only in the mood to accept so mufort. He had copied her memories and thoughts as clearly as he could, and would use them to prompt her if she hem during the dinner, but that he didn’t mention to her just yet.

  Moriko was intelligent and could focus on a task well enough to memorize this list, but she was far from a natural academic. He didn’t want to give her any subscious excuses to s learning this, and he felt that she would feel more aplished if she did it all on her own. Mordecai just inteo be her safety if needed.

  But with her attention turowards food and sleep, Mordecai turned his thoughts to a different sideration. “Kazue love, given the gender discrepan your , how do romantic retionships generally work out?”

  “Mmm, it’s a mix. If a girl wants to be with a boy kitsune, she’s probably going to have to accept being one of a few or even several. Sometimes a guy insists that a particur girl is the only one for him, but holy, it's pretty rare giveions. If she’s happy to be with a human or an elf or such, well, my dad’s human and it’s not all that rare. We probably also have more female couples than in other pces, but that’s just a guess. On the flip side, though a guy usually winds up with a group of women, and has a lot of open dating early on, the final group of women usually self-selects out of the women he’s been seeing and work out who is patible with who, and the themselves to him together. His options are all or none. Most guys aren’t foolish enough to try and be picky in this circumstance, and the rare ohat is, risks finding himself with no one. For a while at least, long life spans and all that, so if he gets wiser a younger group of women may form around him, with the advid supervision of older women.”

  That sounded well put together to him. Not perfect, but given the circumstances rather healthy. unities with even a tempender imbance were better off if the rger popution gender was cooperative about the situation rather than petitive, he could only imagine how bad it would be if all the kitsune women were peting for a small pool of men across geions auries.

  And that information solidified how he was going to approaething wheime came. But right now it was time to see how this group did against Biblios.

  Zagaroth