After making a scene within the Mercenary Guild, The trio went straight to shopping for various things, mostly articles of clothing. From everyday attire to fashions popular to some races, the group went through all of them and had fun, especially in the Elves' specialty store. Kisuke and Kuroka had a good laugh while playing around with Yoruichi, to the point that they both received a small lump on their heads.
But since it was such a great image change, Kisuke bought various varieties for her even with Yoruichi's protests against it and threats of him being beaten up. For the reason he gave? It went like this, "We've caused so much trouble in the shop that other patrons left! The least I could do is to take away some of their merchandise!" While also facing the happy shopkeeper with a serious expression, "Young miss! Please give me more recommendations!"
After that, they went to a desolate, but good cafe. Thanks to its slightly hidden location, there weren't that many people and the ambiance was good for relaxation. Placing the items they'd just bought on the floor, the group started ordering some drinks and sweets.
After they'd relaxed enough, Kisuke took out a green orb and asked Kuroka to activate it by inputting a bit of her Magic Power, "What's this, nyaa?"
"A receiver. That's where all of Sera-tan's reports come in. After you put in your Magic Power, it'll prompt you to set up some parameters. Just make it so only the three of us can hear and see it and play it from the start."
Kuroka did what Kisuke instructed and a few seconds later, they all heard Serafall's voice inside their heads, "Ehem... Can you hear me? Is this thing working?" They all could hear some paper being flipped in the background, "Oh, it's working."
From her perspective, Serafall then started narrating any notable things from after Kisuke left for the Dizara region. First of which was Loki's complaint of Kisuke 'breaking' her precious child.
Yoruichi and Kuroka gave Kisuke a dirty look the moment they heard it and Kisuke could only defend himself by saying, "Don't blame me! She's been absorbing things so quickly and I ended up pushing how much she could take! I'm also surprised by her progress! She was already broken from the start! I didn't break her!"
But thanks to Serafall's continuous report, Kisuke was able to get away with it.
Serafall then described how the Guild, more specifically, Ouranos issued a quest to everyone from the Hestia Familia and Artemis Familia to escort the 'child of Dragon' to a certain place within the Dungeon while also secretly asking Hestia and Artemis for a personal meeting.
Sona decided to accept the quest after some discussion with the members. Since the Guild described Tanis as the 'child of Dragon', they could only follow the instructions for now as the other side already knew of her existence.
Meanwhile, Serafall tried to follow Hestia and Artemis secretly, but since she didn't really have any effective stealth skills and Divine Power was covering the location of their meeting, she could only wait for their return.
As soon as they were back, Serafall asked them what was going on and Hestia revealed to her the entirety of their conversation with Ouranos on how they've been helping the intelligent monsters within the Dungeon which they decided to call 'Xenos' with the help of the Ganesha Familia.
After a day, everyone else had returned from their trip to the Dungeon, and Hestia and Artemis were a little bit surprised that Tanis was still with them as Ouranos said that the real purpose of their quest was to safely hand over Tanis to her fellow Xenos.
When asked, Sona just replied that they couldn't possibly hand over their little friend to a bunch of strangers even if their origin was the same.
At that point, Hestia and Artemis realized that the group never saw the Xenos as 'monsters', but fellow 'people'.
Serafall said that she chuckled while explaining to the Goddesses that their definition of 'monster' is different from normal as they never looked at the race.
Over the next three days, the Hearth Manor was locked down because of strange rumors of the Hestia and Artemis Familias keeping a monster with them, and Sona was convinced that this rumor came from those who were looking for Tanis the day they met her and was able to track it back to them.
Thanks to that, Loki kept bothering them but Sona became adamant they won't meet other people for now, especially those from the Loki Familia for their view regarding the monsters.
Of course, they didn't just wait there doing nothing and with Koneko and Aika's efforts, they were able to discover that those people who were looking for Tanis were people of the Ikelos Familia. This, however, was already known by Serafall and she just didn't tell them.
But before they could decide what to do next, an alarm from the Guild suddenly went off, and the news regarding Rivira being destroyed was disseminated.
Sona immediately went to the Guild to gather more information and concluded that the attack was done by the Xenos after hearing the descriptions regarding the monsters. She first wanted to discuss things with others but before she could leave, Sophie called out to her due to some abrupt instructions from above.
After leading her to a special room, Fels, the skeleton they met within the Xenos' village came in and explained the situation and how the Xenos continued to linger around Rivira for some unknown reason.
Since they cut off their connection to Fels, he could only ask someone trustworthy to join the advance party with him and try to talk to them and ask them what's going on their side.
Although she was worried that her newly made good acquaintances were in deep trouble, she's also very curious about how things came to be. Recalling Kisuke's words to just experience things as they come, Sona decided to accept the mission.
After sending a message to everyone, Sona left for the 18th floor with the Ganesha Familia.