Dinner was extremely nice as Mio had to even make seconds and thirds mainly due to Yin. With her gluttony skill, she had almost no limit to the amount of food she could eat after all.

  "Yin don’t trouble your grandma so much." Shiro reminded as she raised her eyebrow at Yin.

  "Haha don’t worry about it darling. It reminds me of you when you were younger. You were quite the glutton back then you know?" Mio chuckled while bringing new dishes to the table.

  "Yeah but I didn’t eat an entire pantry you know." Shiro pouted.

  "You didn’t but you weren’t far off. Little Yin, let me tell you about how much your mum liked her food. During one of the training sessions, she only gave your granddad a small piece of the sweets while scoffing the rest down herself just to say that there were no more to give him." Mio chuckled.

  Being reminded of this memory, Shiro thought back to whether or not Nan Tian had succeeded in achieving tier 6 yet.

  Shaking her head, she focused back on the dinner table.

  Helping her mum clean up, Shiro brought the empty dishes to the kitchen and helped her clean up.

  "So how long are you going to be staying here? Your dad wants to invite a few of his friends over to train your party members so it would be good to know a timeframe." Mio asked with a smile.

  "I’m not sure. I want to stick around for a bit so that I can learn some sword techniques from dad. I’m also planning to go to Mount Olympus with the party once we’ve stayed here for a bit." Shiro replied.

  "I see…… Do you think 2 weeks would be a good timeframe for you? I know that the new age is coming so it’ll be selfish of us to keep you here for longer when you have places to be. Plus, the stronger you are, the less we have to worry since you’ll be safe." Mio chuckled.

  "2 weeks seem very short doesn’t it? Before you know it, time has already passed and we’ll need to go." Shiro sighed.

  "It’s fine though. You can always return any time you want. The demons seem to have backed off a little so we have some free time but the government is now wondering what they’re up to. After all, the demons have been quite aggressive before but seeing their sudden change in attitude is concerning."

  "I might have an idea. From what we know, it seems like each of the candidates to become the Demon Queen or King are preparing for the new age so do you think that might be the cause? Rather than expand their territory, I think the demons are more focused on cultivating their strength since failing to become the Demon Queen or King has some serious consequences." Shiro suggested.

  "Oh? Is this similar to the Queen role that you told us about earlier?" Mio asked.

  "Yeah, it’s the lifeline of the Demon race. But having a King is much worse as all the females in the demon race will have the subconscious thought of bedding the Demon King." Shiro sighed.

  "That sounds rather unpleasant. We might be at war with the demons but even I will feel sorry for them if a Demon King is born. Imagine a married couple being split apart because of the Demon King." Mio frowned.

  "Exactly. Don’t worry though, the war with Demons might end in the future depending on what happens." Shiro smiled.

  "Hm? How come?"

  "Because a friend of ours, Madi, is one of the candidates and we’re going to try our best to put her on the throne. When that happens, we’ll be able reduce the amount of conflicts between humans and demons." Shiro smiled.

  "It’s not going to be easy you know?"

  "Of course. But with the threat of other queens and rulers in the new age, they have no choice but to team up when two Queens are friends. It’s the best way to survive." Shiro replied.

  "I just hope that it’ll go well. The Queens seem like they’re on a whole new level so you need to be careful with the fights that you pick from now on." Mio reminded with a worried expression.

  "Don’t worry mum, I’ll be careful." Shiro waved her hand with a grin.

  "Oh really? Because from what I heard from Little Yin, you seemed to have almost died a few times again. Especially after fighting tier 5’s and 6’s as a tier 4." Mio said with a twitching smile.

  *COUGH!

  Looking towards the dining hall, Shiro saw Yin jump into the rift as she could only grit her teeth.

  ’Damnit just you wait!’


  Turning back to her mum, Shiro forced a smile.

  "They were unavoidable circ.u.mstances."

  "Oh really?" Mio raised her eyebrow.

  "Yes. The tier 6 came out of nowhere when me and Lil’ Tian were exploring one of the ruins. If it wasn’t for Lil’ Tian, I would have died."

  "Then what about the two tier 5’s? From what I’ve heard, the first one you organised a raid while the second one you faced when doing something with your sword. They were a ’god slayer’ too." Mio reminded.

  "Are they still unavoidable circ.u.mstances?"

  Looking to the side, Shiro scratched her cheeks.

  *sigh

  "Just be careful. You’re no longer a kid so we can’t baby sit you like when you were younger. Having a parent bury their children is a painful experience you know? My mum had to do it with my sister because she caught an incurable disease." Mio sighed while hugging Shiro.

  "Mum, you never told me about your family before. Can you tell me about grandma and grandpa?" Shiro asked curiously.

  "Mn…… perhaps another time. Their identity is a little…… special." Mio had an awkward smile.

  "What kind of special?"

  "Next time darling." Mio shook her head and poked Shiro’s nose which caused her to pout a little before nodding her head.

  "Fine."

  Once she was finished with cleaning up the dishes, Shiro notified the party that they were going to stay for 3 weeks instead of 2 so that they could get some training before going to Mount Olympus for the god trials.

  "Three weeks huh? That should be enough time. I’ll give my friends a call so that they can come over to train the lot of you. They owe me a favour after all." Koji grinned.

  "In that case then can you train me for the three weeks then dad?" Shiro asked as Koji nodded his head eagerly.

  "Hahaha, your dad is more excited about that than you are darling." Mio chuckled as she knew that Koji was more than happy to train Shiro. He was a bit of a muscle head after all.

  "Oh right, since you are staying for three weeks, we’ll need to prepare some rooms for your friends." Koji reminded as Shiro nodded her head.

  "There are some spare rooms next to Shiro’s old room so why don’t you lot stay near her for the three weeks." Mio suggested with a smile.

  "We even gave it a makeover too since it was so gloomy even though she liked the cute things." She sighed as Shiro paused what she was doing.

  "What do you mean it was gloomy even though I liked the cute things? What kind of cute things are we talking about???" Shiro asked with some traces of panic in her voice.

  "Oh nothing much. You were hiding Nibbles in your wardrobe even though it was your favourite so I moved it into a more open space with others that I bought from the shop." Mio chuckled as the party was instantly interested by who nibbles were.

  Hearing the nostalgic name, Shiro smiled before realising how bad this was. After all, it was embarrassing for her if the party knew.

  Standing up, she was about to run to her room to clear things up when a barrier covered the room which prevented the use of movement type skills to get out of the area.

  Looking towards Aarim with a forced smile, Shiro narrowed her eyes.

  "Aarim, what are you planning?"

  "Nothing much. Just curious about who Pft…… ’Nibbles’ is." Aarim said as she let a laugh slip.

  "Oh nibbles is just the 8 ft tall plush that Shiro kept since she was a child." Mio smiled, taking enjoyment in teasing her daughter.

  Having her secret exposed, Shiro could only sit down with a blush.

  She had to admit, she did enjoy the plush since it was very comfy. Due to its size, she could just dive into its body and fall asleep.

  HOWEVER! The fact that a grown woman like her, one that had experienced three lifetimes, kept an 8ft tall rabbit plush in her room was very embarrassing.

  But what concerned her more was the makeover that her mum had mentioned.

  "Mum, what else did you do to my room?" Shiro asked with a forced smile.

  "Well~ I painted the walls a light pink and gave Nibbles some friends. They were doing quite a nice deal on giant plush animals you know?" Mio chuckled.

  Hearing this, Shiro spaced out for a moment.

  "Oh my, you killed mum with embarrassment. Either that or joy since she likes plushies." Yin said as prepared to jump into the rift at any moment for safety.

  *Sigh……

  Letting out a long sigh, Shiro gave up.