"Wait, what do you mean?"
Back in her room, Melinda furrowed her brows and asked the empty space in front of her.
"Wait, wait, wait! Then what was in my purse if not the Silva Core?"
The gold-haired girl shook her head, raising one hand and inquiring the same vacant spot.
"Eh…?"
As if having a proper conversation, Melinda tilted her head and gasped, reaching out both hands…
"?!?!"
And her eyes widened in disbelief as a gray egg, similar to a large apple, materialized on top of her palms out of thin air!
"...w-wha…? No way… Hold on…! I understand what you're saying, but Kobolds know that eggs are important! Why would one of them hide it in my purse?!"
Melinda gasped, staring between the egg and the empty space in front of her.
"Maybe it's a bad egg? I've heard one of them getting scolded for hiding a bad egg before…"
She pointed out, moving her hands as if to weigh the Kobold's egg.
"EH?! N-no! Don't throw it! We don't know if it's actually bad!"
The next moment, Melinda cried out, holding the egg to her chest protectively and turning away from the empty spot.
It was a rather odd display she was putting on, truth be told, but her act was so convincing that if someone saw her, they would swear they were able to notice a silhouette of someone wearing a maid uniform standing in front of the gold-haired girl.
"Hey. Are you kidding me? The only place I'm taking this little one is a child registry! I don't care what the public opinion on Kobolds is. They count amongst intelligent races."
Melinda suddenly flinched, and her already sharp gaze turned cold, stabbing into the empty space.
"Then I'll just adopt her when she hatches."
She shrugged her shoulders and mumbled, getting all pouty.
"...okay… I'll adopt her -if- she hatches… are you happy now?"
Melinda tensed up and lowered her head, grumbling with a bitter expression while hugging the gray egg.
"Then you can take the rest of the day off."
The gold-haired girl scoffed, sitting on her bed, pouting.
Then she laid down, curling up into a ball and snuggling to the Kobold's egg.
Shockingly enough, after a few items flew around as if moved by someone, the door to the gold-haired girl's room opened and closed on its own, but she didn't even flinch as if it wasn't anything out of the norm.
"Don't worry, I'll take care of you. Blessed Heal."
*UMPH*
Melinda ended up gently patting the egg and muttering to it before using a spell—a holy attribute spell that engulfed the whole room in a golden shockwave, rejuvenating everything within its reach.
—---
It was a rare occasion when Zane's teammates came to pick him up from the Jade Academy's dorm.
The tall half-elf Alenas, the short part-incubus Viran, the wolf beastman Stein, and the grim-faced albino human, Rose.
All approaching or already over level 80, a true force to be reckoned with.
"..."
"It's okay. You don't have to be so on edge."
Even so, Alenas was so tense and jumpy while walking on the Academy's grounds that Viran had to grab her hand and reassure her, or she would have fled the scene.
"I don't know about that. That girl is back already."
"!!!"
Stein sniffed the air before shrugging his shoulders and pointing out, causing the half-elf to tremble.
"Oh, for the love of Perseverance! Did you have to tell her that?!"
Virian clicked his tongue in anger at the beastman while Alenas crouched down right next to him, folding up and covering her ears with both hands, shaking like a leaf.
"Alenas, calm down. You know that the official stand of the Fenrioette family on elves is a peaceful one."
"...o-oficial one, maybe…! But I am originally from the Fenrioette territory…! Once word got out who was responsible for the assassination of the current family head's wife, the locals purged anyone with elf blood within them! If not for my human grandpa smuggling me out in a suitcase, I would have my ears cut off and get killed just like my parents!!"
Rose glanced at his shaken comrade and reminded her, but she shook her head, crying out as if relieving the trauma.
"Locals. Commoners tend to go wild when they believe to be in the right."
Stein's ears perked up while he scoffed with a scornful expression.
"The ones responsible were punished by the family head, though."
"Oh yeah? Then why are there no elves or half-elves living or even traveling through Fenrioette territory even nowadays?!"
Virian spoke up again, but Alenas only yelped in response while leaning against him, unable to stop trembling.
"...!"
"That's still on the locals, not the family in charge of the… huh…? Stein…?"
Rose rolled his eyes, annoyed at the unnecessary stop right before the dorm where the leader of their party lived, but he held back his words in surprise at the odd action coming from their beastman teammate.
Stein also crouched down like Alena, but it seemed even more severe with him. Besides trembling, his wolf ears were lying flat on his head, and his usually puffy tail was between his legs, coiling around his ankle.
"Stein? Stein! What the hell is going on?"
Since it was the first time any of the party members had witnessed the beastman act that way, it caused a commotion between them.
"...?"
So much so that the gold-haired girl who exited the girls' dorm and was making her way towards the boys' one, gave the four of them a judgmental glare with her sharp golden eyes.
"...!"
Virian's eyes widened in realization, and he even turned so that he would completely shield Alenas from the gold-haired girl's sight…
"...pfft…!"
"!!!"
…but that action clearly seemed amused by the girl who snorted with a rather mocking expression on her face as she passed the group and walked straight to the boys' dorm's door.
"Oh?"
The door opened, and a monstrous white-haired man passed through them, stopping with a soft gasp at the sight of the gold-haired girl.
The girl was carrying a towel, or something wrapped in a towel, at least, and her behavior had drastically changed from a moment before.
Now, she was all fidgety, and the aura of happiness was just beaming out of her like an area of effect of a skill.