Third person POV
A bit later, Azalea arrived at where Kelly was, informing her that she had finished what she needed to do at the adventurers' guild. "Oh, good," Kelly responded back while getting up from her short nap on the ground. "Can we go back now?"
Azalea then hopped on her back and replied, "Yes, but once Russell-kun and his party had chosen one of the quests I had gotten, let's go back here so I could return the others."
"Okay then, got it."
With that, Kelly flapped her dragon wings and took off from Leafmight back to Fernlay City.
Meanwhile, at Rossley's royal palace, a young man was in his bedroom looking at a framed photo of a boy. Looking at the photo of it made him remember the time he first met him 5 years ago in the streets of Rossley. At that time, the boy in the photo was an orphan who left his home village on foot in search of someone to be his family, as he didn't have any relatives back at home.
"How are you?" the prince asked while looking at the photo behind a layer of glass. "It's been a while since you became an adventurer and left us to be with a party."
He then looked at the window of his spacious room, "I hoped you're safe out there…"
Back at Fernlay City, Russell and his team had just come back from their surveillance of the fraudsters from yesterday and are now analyzing their findings. Adrian is now calmed down, sleeping on Ria's lap. John was pretty exhausted. Russell, Taryn, and Cassius are looking at their findings written on pieces of paper, determining their connections with the fraudsters' crime of fraud and scam. The three of them also factored in the effects of the snake oil-style medicine.
Cassius had bought one of them and tried it despite its repulsive and bitter taste to see if any of its healing properties would have any effect on him.
But 2 hours later, he didn't feel any of its 'magical' healing abilities.
Russell took notes of that closely, knowing that the medicine was, indeed, a fake.
Taryn was worried that Cassius might fall ill from the side effects of the medicine, but Cassius showed no ill effects of it.
Then, Kelly and Azalea arrived at a forested spot nearby. There Azalea got off, and Kelly transformed into her human form before both of them walked to the old lady's house. "Hey, everyone, we're back!" Azalea called out to them.
Russell and the others then looked at them.
"Oh, Azalea-chan," Russell responded back, "where you and Kelly went to?"
"We went to a town called Leafmight so Azalea would do stuff at the adventurers' guild," Kelly replied happily, before sitting next to her daughters.
"And I came back with these," Azalea added as she showed Russell and the others three papers containing quests suitable for Russell and his party.
Russell and the others, except for Kelly, Ria, Rai, Adrian, and John, then looked at them.
Russell was amazed, looking at the objectives of each of the 3 quests.
He wasn't interested in the money; he was more interested in the quests themselves, considering them fun and risky for him.
But before Russell would decide, the old lady came out and called all of them to come inside for lunch.
All of them did so, but Adrian was asleep, so Rai had to wake him up by tapping on his shoulder. Shortly thereafter, all of them are in the big dining room eating lunch that the old lady made for them. As his party and group ate and drank, Russell became concerned for the old lady's health and well-being at her old age, thinking about the future possibilities like: "What if she passed away, and no one would inherit this huge house and take care of it?" That question was more concerning for the young free adventurer and bus driver, and he decided to help her with the dishes after lunch. Adrian is now positive again, forgetting what Aeri tried to do to Russell.
At Alder's house, Aeri was being taught a mixed subject of manners, common sense, and moral conduct by Alder and his parents. Needless to say, she didn't like being disciplined like that, but she had no choice.
At the same time, the Elai party was at an inn in the city, being disgruntled that Aeri hadn't come back for hours. Elai was getting more impatient while Belius was getting more irritated at Aeri's insolence of not coming back. Another party member of Elai's, a swordsman named Hans Calaste, was a bit concerned for Aeri instead of being upset at her absence. It seems that all of them didn't know that Aeri was grounded by her family for her actions towards Russell and for taking part in their betrayal of Adrian, too.
Back at the old lady's house, lunch is now done, and the old lady is now washing the dishes in the kitchen. Russell, alongside Azalea, helped out as well.
"You don't need to help me, my children," the old lady softly said to them.
"No, we wanted to make your huge task to be easier if we help," Russell insisted back.
"Yes, it would be easier if there were more hands to help you in your task," Azalea added happily.
Eventually, the old lady gave in, allowing them to help her out.
After that, Russell and Azalea are now in the family house's private library with their party and group. All of them are now choosing a quest from the 3 papers. Russell and Adrian were eager to take one. The objectives of those 3 quests were equally too good for the May party to take.
But Russell knew that Quest 1 was way easier than the other 2, before thinking that Quest 2 was more like an escort mission and Quest 3 was a delivery task.
Eventually, he eventually chose Quest 1.
The reason was that it sounded easy for him to take.
And then, his party agreed, with Adrian taking this as an opportunity to hone and improve his ability.
Cassius offered to give Russell more training in his lightning magic, in which Russell accepted it.
The dragon family wanted to join in despite not being a part of their party officially.
Russell thinks for a while, before asking Azalea and Adrian if that family of dragons were allowed to tag along with them, without revealing to Cassius and Taryn about them being dragons in real life.
"Well…" Adrian responded back, "...they can but will not be rewarded since they are not members of our guild officially."
Russell gets it, and Cassius confirms it as a rule at the Emerald Guild.
So, Russell allowed the dragon family to join it but with a limitation.
The dragon family accepted it, not needing anything monetary.
So, the May party had picked a quest for a later date.
Meanwhile, in an underground lair somewhere in the kingdom, Callie reported to her leader about what had happened at Monroe Town, including her failed, assigned mission. Her leader, a figure hooded in an elaborated and black hood, was upset on her admin's failure, but it had to accept it, telling her that she did her best. It then told her to rest up after her few days of travel from Monroe Town. Callie did so and left her leader's court. Now, the leader of the shady organization was now thing about its next move.