"But why? She's a stigmai directly connected to the nightmare one; why wouldn't you capture her? Also, I'm not saying this because she's annoying," Louailanye whimpered a barely restrained whisper to her father as she found herself in the dreadful position of having to let said girl sit beside herself on her father's fluffy tails.

  The kitrunai demon had her arms crossed, displaying her disapproval without stating it outright.

  "Judging her for the misgivings I have for her father is benignly childish: until she does something to warrant it, I shan't treat her any differently than the people around us," Kaluso stated somewhat halfheartedly due to his exhaustion, but still meaking a point on stressing the importances of keeping one's emotions tied to those who incured them, much to his daughter's chagrin. Not because she didn't agree with her father's sentiment, but because she had to apply that logic to Myu of all individuals. That, that was something she had issue with.

  Myu lightly twirled her fingers in Louailanye's direction, shoving her snarky demeanour right in the phantomy kitrunai's face. "Yeah, Fluffy Butt, only babies pin the blame belonging to the parents on their children."

  At hearing the other girl use her father's words to be snarky towards her, Louailanye gave Myu the meanest stinkeye she could muster in that instance, followed by sticking her tongue out at the cloud stigmai, before aggressively slumping back into her father's tails. She was miffed beyond belief, even more than before. "Just you wait, Cloudy, when I get my... secret weapon... you'll get what's coming for you."

  Whilst the cloud dragon snickered and the kitrunai demon grumbled at the predicament, Enetha had long since disembarked from the leisure-providing transport that was Lizu's chonky tail and used her long, cloth-like appendages to carry herself over the crowd that stood between herself and her destination. Whether it was the nature of her being a widely known princess or from her means of traversal past the crowd, Enetha had inadvertently drawn the attention of basically everyone she passed over.

  Not that she cared in the slightest.

  Eyes locked on her touchscreen phone, watching the map app on it and following its directions, the little princess made the swiftest of beelines for her destination. Said destination being one of the temporary retrofitted enclosed floral gardens into an outside cafe-like area to lessen the burden on the cafeterias.

  Soon enough, Enetha arrived at the flowery open area that her phone had directed her to, much to her non-visible delight, said delight instead displayed by the energetic whirls of her six Mould Breaker rings as they floated and spun beside her. Having reached a slightly less populated area, Enetha dropped down to her feet, followed by wrapping her cloth-like limbs behind herself into three large bowties. Now able to sense her friend more clearly from the many others that obscured and muddied her admittedly subpar mana-sensing capabilities, Enetha bolted down the tiled path.

  Zipping every way except the wrong direction, the little vatruva humalian arrived at the table housing Enetha's overseas friend by the name of Mulinai.

  Oh, and it seemed Maunox was there at the same table as Enetha's friend too; not that said little princess noticed the second year's presence until the two masks of Lizu's older sisters that were hanging from the side of his head drew her attention by the amused sounds they made: completely unprompted.

  [Mulinai Zuo Asugaku is a very short, basically kid-sized, fifteen-year-old, humanoid humalian mouxola; she has ultra curly, shoulder-blade-low chestnut brown hair with two bonbon-shaped pigtails that are tied with black and golden beaded hair ties. Tanned-skinned with obvious tan lines in the shape of a one-piece swimsuit that reveals her original albino-white skin Bioluminescent pale lavender eyes. And, slightly wide hips]

  [Mulinai is wearing a frilly, chestnut brown mantle cape with a large pure white feather that has pure golden ends clipped to its left side. A thin, pale lavender, sleeveless and semi-backless leotard with horizontal striated lines. The leotard also has smaller holes around the hip areas. A pink, three-centimetre-long gem, cut to resemble a lantern with a golden border, that has been embedded into her back between her shoulder blades. Fluffy, chestnut brown cufflets, on her wrists and ankles, all with intricate, black, diamond-shaped thread patterns. A thigh-low, chestnut brown sarong covered in intricate, golden, diamond-shaped thread patterns. And, chestnut brown sandals with hatching-shaped extensions that go up to her ankles]

  :Attributes:

  [Base]

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  [Mana Capacity: S]

  [Mana Control: SS]

  [Mana Tolerance: SSS]

  [Advanced]

  [Affinity: Status Effects]

  [Proficiency: Debuffs]

  [Complex]

  [Speciality: Stacking Debuffs]

  [Stigma: Recognition]

  [Class: Kaizu Beaconette]

  [Grimoire/Tapestry/Curio limit: 5]

  "It's such a drag Kotou had remain at home because he couldn't bring his sister with him... it could've been a date with a little wing-girl," Mulinai whined quietly to herself, whistling sitting stoically in her seat. Legs crossed with the utmost dignified noble flare, displaying a trained aura of dignity, Mulinai took a sip of her black coffee with strawberry creme. Despite having two perfectly good hands to do so, she instead chose to hold the cup containing her choice of beverage in an unconventional way: by way of having her tail coiled around it to keep her most dexterous body parts available for anything. Maunox could only sigh as he held a hand up to his heavy forehead, having lost a sizeable amount of his strength from having to hear Mulinai stress over the same issue for the past fifteen minutes.

  "You don't say... my fiancées are in a similar boat. The not being able to attend part, not the having to babysit a sibling," Maunox murmured before he got a snarky chortle from the purple panda mask and a reserved hum from the lime-coloured fox mask. Unsure if he was physically reeling from mental exhaustion or from having two magical items linked to other people equipped directly to his head, the second-year slowly drifted his gaze in search of something else to focus on before he noticed the little princess's imminent approach: "Oh... good day, Enetha."

  Mulinai almost choked on her tea, eyes weakly widening in shock, at becoming aware Enetha had, in fact, arrived significantly earlier than she'd anticipated, which was rather odd; after all, Mulinai had been the one who texted Enetha that morning about where she'd be waiting before the tournament would begin.

  [{It's not like she predicted a different set of circumstances occurring, ones that would obstruct Tiny Tiara and lead to a later arrival, was she?]}

  [{Now who would do something like that?]}

  But that lapse in noble demeanour didn't last long enough for any silly masks to tease her. Quickly fixing her mildly crooked posture and setting her coffee cup back on its coaster, Mulinai swayed her head over her shoulder, sporting a comfortably calculated smile that Enetha could only attribute to a singular girl.

  "Enetha~! It's so good to see you~ Who's my favourite little angel?"

  "Muli," Enetha said flatly as she bounced right up to Mulinai so the slightly taller girl could scoop her off the floor and give her uppies. Mulinai very much did such course of actions, by lifting Enetha up by her armpits and leaving the little princess dangling in place like she was a genuine cat. Had the area been a bit more populated or Maunox not been burnt out by the absurd by knowing his fiancées for so long, the sight of the Teulani Archipelago heir from a well-known noble family twirling around the princess of Uythunova would have gotten a bigger reaction than a few hushed whispers.

  Still having the little princess within her grasp, Mulinai realised she had the perfect opportunity to get some firsthand intel on some individuals whom getting personally acquainted with was a top priority of hers. So still hoisting the girl up a little more before planting Enetha on her lap, the mouxola playfully coiled some of Enetha's hair around the tip of her tail, collecting it like spaghetti to a fork.

  "Say, I've heard that the youngest daughter of the Feubread Grand Ducal family is in the first year's Star Course. Are you buddy-buddy with her or her arch-rival? Also, does there happen to be a guy in your class by the name of Inkaro?" Mulinai asked affectionately, making use of her free hands to cheekily squeeze Enetha's cheeks by pinching them with the tighiest amount of force, much to Enetha's unseen delight. Whether it was more pinchings of affection or smooshing of adoration, Mulinai made a point to get her fill of Enetha's adorableness by moulding the little princess's cheeks to duo's heart's content. Inadvertently, the face rubbing on Mulinai's part made any effort on Enetha's end to answer any questions rather tedious, as she could only get a single letter out every other second. Getting an answer out of a picture would yield more fruit than Enetha at present. So, given the break in the chain of communication, Maunox decided to ask a question in the stead of Enetha, who couldn't answer the provided question: purely because he found a noble knowing of a noble was rather normal, but an overseas noble knowing of a commoner was rather peculiar, suspicious even given the person in question.

  "Huh, are you talking about Li-" But before the second year could even hope of reaching the middle of his response, he found his face forcibly thrust towards the dining table, causing a rattling noise upon contact, along with some clattering of plates and metal utensils.

  "Hey! That's not public knowledge yet... oops," the masks screamed in unison, only to go silent in shame when they noticed their shouting had sent Maunox face-first into his plain sponge cake.

  Back with the others, Lizu weakly sneezed, to the point it sounded somewhat cute: "That guy better not be thinking about asking that question again."