After catching up with Trudy and having some tea with Zeke and the rest of the two families that were taking care of Merumeru’s castle and Alex’s property, filling them in on recent events, Yvne and her two children paid a visit to them in the dining hall.

  “Greeting Magical Girl Alex and Fufi.” Yvne curtseyed when she entered, followed by her two heirs. “May I join you?”

  “Of course.” Fufi waved a wing.

  Lady Yvne, Cassius and Seraphina all took their seats. The two younger members of the family gave a formal greeting. Some maids came in and poured them some tea.

  Grace and Fuzi came in and joined them shortly after.

  “Thank you.” Yvne accepted the tea.

  Her two children also accepted the tea.

  Alex eyed Cassius, her weird dreams that handled lewd things like handholding coming to mind.

  “Is something the matter m’dy?” Cassius looked a bit nervous.

  “Uh,” Alex shook her head. “Just a weird dream I had.”

  “Pray tell?” The young noble man sounded interested. “It is fttering that a lovely young dy keeps me in her dreams.”

  “I’d rather not talk about it.” Alex tensed. “A demon was invading my dreams.”

  Grace cut off this part of the conversation. “It wasn’t really Cassius in your dreams. So don’t worry about it. And Cassius, please stop using your charisma so btantly. It is very rude.”

  Yvne gave her son a gre.

  “I told you she wasn’t interested.” Seraphina chided her brother.

  “I trust that you were able to get your doll back then?” Yvne wrapped things up.

  “Yes.” Alex nodded. “Though this whole thing was a big mess. Mister skeleton wandered off and I’m a little worried he decided to head off to the capital and go fight the strongest demon in the kingdom.”

  “Very likely.” Grace agreed. “That thing is relentless. He’s fought his way to the general only to get defeated in one or two hits several times in the past. After he loses enough levels someone seals him to prevent him from coming right back. But it never sts forever.”

  “How many times has he gone to the Jass capital?” Alex looked at the former succubus.

  The other magical girl tapped her chin. “At least a dozen. Originally he fought on the mainnd where the hero gave up. I’m assuming one of the generals that was closer to the demon queen sent him to this frontier pce to cause trouble for rivals and not have to deal with an unkilble foe that keeps coming back.”

  “What a weird world.” Alex shook her head. “You’d think someone who couldn’t die would be able to just keep fighting and eventually wear down the demon queen’s forces.”

  Fufi looked at Alex. “You would think, but he’s been trying for so long.”

  Grace agreed. “The demon queen has effectively a limitless supply of demons, here it is not as pronounced because humans have to summon them and bind them to the demon queen’s contract so they can stay past the duration that summoner can maintain them. The terrifying thing about fighting the demons is not how many one can defeat, because there will always be more, but defeating enough of them at a rate that can push them back.”

  Yvne remarked that her design of a dream catcher helped, but that it didn’t hold up against a tier 3 succubus made her look a little worried. The fact that the demon was defeated by the angel was good news but she was very concerned about how they were picking fights that someone at the level cap would have trouble with.

  The grim news about how impossible it was to fight through the demon hordes to make it to the demon queen's pace demanded a change of subject. Alex eventually recounted the strange cult-like writings that they found on the isnd hinting at a machine cult.

  “They covered this in history css.” Cassius spoke up. “The gnomes retreated underground when it became obvious that they stood no chance against the demons and walled themselves off from the outside world. It is a shame. When I got this machinist skill I thought that it would be something a gnome could help me train with. They always made the best contraptions. They still had a few back in the capital when we were studying there.”

  “We should go and speak to professor copperpot and maybe find Aqua.” Alex’s face hardened. “She has a lot to answer for. When winter started she became all dodgy as did the nymphs. I bet something was going on with the season change.”

  “The fey courts are mysterious.” Yvne gave as best an answer as she could. “The adventurers guild never put out bounties for 100 year old ginger in the winter. Our guild master said that they’d tried it lots of times but after the years rolled on they came to realize that in winter teams wouldn’t just not find things they more often than not would just not come back.”

  “That whole 100 year old ginger thing really was a trap.” Alex mused. “Aqua caught imps for Professor Copperpot to do unethical biological testing on them. Though maybe there actually is some in there. I’m not sure.”

  After finishing up talking about all the news, including gossip about the group of nobles that got out of Jass and joined them on the isnd, which Yvne was very opinionated about, they prepared to wade through the snow to go see the gnome. Alex, noting that the gnome was a bit anti-social decided to just bundle up and go alone, well Fufi didn’t want to stay behind but bringing ones familiar around doesn’t really count.

  Going back to the carriage to change into the winter outfit, then gathering her fmingo, Alex headed out. The trip wasn’t long, but the snow was deep. The magical girl knocked on the snow-covered steel container fort and waited for an answer.

  “Who’s there?” An old gnome’s voice called out.

  “Alex and Fufi.” She said, “We just got back and are checking on things.”

  The steel door opened, it took a couple tries, ice making it not want to move but the pair of them got it loose. Alex stepped inside the container. It was incredibly cold.

  “Right this way.” The old gnome headed down a stone staircase that led below ground, through a hole in the steel container.

  “Looks like you’ve done some renovations.” Alex followed the gnome down into a cave.

  “Can’t have my samples freeze.” Professor Copperpot grunted. “There are not any miners here but a couple of the men here can swing a pick. Plus having some of your fancy tools from your shop helped a bit.”

  They rounded a corner and entered an open area that doubled as a living area and a biob. An assortment of pools of stagnant water were on the floor and some vials here and there. Luckily the pigs were not inside.

  Alex had to resist the urge to clean. “How’s your pgue coming along?”

  “I’ve got a good symbiosis going with the mosquitos and the virus.” The gnome nodded. “When spring runs around letting the swine and insects out could start the spread. And as infections go we can work on evolutions and see how fast it’ll go.”

  “Have you seen Aqua around?” Alex looked about. “When the fey chased us out, she was absent. I kinda felt intentionally left in the dark.”

  As if on queue, a voice called out. “Meru!”

  A slime girl led a blue-haired Nereid out of a tunnel that Alex ignored because of the darkness.

  “Where are you leading me?” Aqua asked, getting pulled by the hand of the smaller slime girl. “Hester is boring.”

  “Hey Aqua.” Alex waved. “We were just talking about you.”

  “Hello.” Aqua paused, sounding like she got caught. “It has been a few months.”

  Alex jumped straight to it. “Why were you acting so weird when winter started?”

  Fufi also gave her to coppers. “Yeah, all the fey turned on us right after winter started.”

  Aqua sighed. “It wasn’t my idea. It was the winter court.”

  The magical girl motioned for her to continue.

  “Sakura is a big deal. But Ki is not. The Yuki Onna that came found out that some of the humans figured out that the system does in fact cssify us as monsters.” Aqua shook her head. “We turned everyone that acted on that knowledge to shrubbery but the winter court didn’t like that and came up with a pn to try to kill two birds with one stone as the saying goes.”

  “The ice cn?” Alex guessed.

  Aqua nodded. “That is what we had to keep a secret from you that they were working with the ice demons to drive out the humans. But the real pn was to force a conflict with the demons in the Jass kingdom.”

  Alex completed the thought. “And the thing with the Angel, did the winter court pn that too?”

  Aqua shook her head. “No, we were not exactly sure what happened there. It was more of a happy accident than anything else.”

  Looking to the gnome for support Alex asked. “How do you trust this woman?”

  Professor Copperpot didn’t look phased. “She’s fey, they are not known for being consistent. Besides, she set me free so I figure seeing if we can turn a rge chunk of demons into pigs is enough to stick with her.”

  Alex rolled her eyes. “Happy accident.”