Daimon and Jasmine descended from the captain's cabin using the portal, the four patriarchs were already gone from the conference room, so there was no more drama caused by Skyfire.
They then returned to the main residence where the others were already waiting for them, even Thea and Marlene had returned from their little walk.
Judging by the slightly reddish expression on her face, she has drunk something that wasn't created using the detoxifying effect of the three-colored water.
But there was no harm to it, since they are in the citadel so there are no dangers for the time being, and Lina isn't here to nag her, so the Empress was happily drinking to her heart's content.
"Daimon, come sit and eat with this Empress", said Thea as she patted the chair next to her, it's worth mentioning that she threw Marlene who was dead drunk, to the floor in the process since she was occupying the seat Thea offered to Daimon.
Aisha and the girls who were just returning from the kitchen, placed the dishes on the table, in just an hour they prepared a banquet, each prepared their own dish and now their eyes were all set on Daimon.
"Ahem, is there something wrong you all?", asked Daimon, one could arguably say that being looked at by a lot of pretty girls is a dream-like situation, but their expressions weren't exactly calm or lady-like like normal, but rather fierce.
'Mom what the hell did you tell them?', Daimon said to Aisha through the mental connection, only to see Aisha smiling at him.
'Nothing much, I just made a little cooking contest with them, naturally you are the judge, darling~'.
Daimon chuckled, so that's why he was being stared at by all of them so intensely, al these princesses and noble young misses, turned out to be rather competitive.
He just grabbed some of all the plates and started eating, naturally none of them was an experienced chef, but it was quite tasty, so there was no problem with the food, Daimon refused to give a verdict as to not get himself into any troubles, but he did tell them that their food was delicious.
The Risha sisters were more than happy to hear it and the others were also convinced since Daimon isn't someone that compliments others for nothing.
"I have to admit it, preparing the lunch together was quite fun", said Mellie who has somewhat cheered up thanks to the girls.
"It would have been better if I could participate too though", added Jasmine as she gazed at Cassy with a slightly sour expression.
"No way Jas, you are more apt to make other type of things… like poison", jokingly said Cassy, making the other girls laugh while they enjoyed the fruits of their efforts.
Even Daimon allowed himself to relax a bit, the mellow laughs and giggles of the girls were contagious, so the group enjoyed their meal which turned into some kind of feast, Thea even shared some of her softest drinks with them.
By the time they finished this small party the sun was already setting and most of the girls were beat, all of them ended up sleeping on the couches in the living room, or on their beds in the room, while Marlene passed out on the floor.
Even Aisha was slightly drunk as she clang to Daimon, who experienced the not so funny scene of being the only sober one.
Daimon carried Aisha to their bed and tucked her in, before he also laid down to sleep, tomorrow they should be arriving at the underwater grotto mentioned by Carlos, that's also probably why Mellie actually joined the others to drink, which was also the first time she has done such a thing.
'I hope the queen doesn't blame for this', thought Daimon, as she saw the smiling sleeping expression of Mellie who was sharing her bed with Daphne and Chris.
…
And so, the hours passed and soon the night was replaced by day, since the citadel was high in the sky, the morning came quite early, after the little party they had yesterday, the girls woke up with a bit of a headache, which they solved by carelessly drinking some tea made with three-colored water.
"If that old man knew what you are using the three-colored water for, he'll bang his head against a wall and die", said Daimon as he ate a plate of fruits native of Neptune which Liliana prepared the previous day and he kept in his inventory for later consumption.
Speaking of Liliana, she passed next to Daimon and used her pretty fingers to grab a grape from Daimon's plate and then ate it, not like Daimon minded, but he noticed those three had become more daring lately.
To his surprise, the drunk Yvonne was a lighter version of the cheeky Yvonne that appears when she uses her wings, Leslie on the other hand becomes quite assertive too, so those two spent the whole noon playing some board games to decide who will cook for Daimon, just to end up hugging to sleep after they tied ten out of ten times.
Liliana on the other hand kept some distance, showing some slight signs of the shyness that overwhelms her when she user her wings, it was rather amusing to see them being so carefree.
"We'll make a bigger party after we all return to the academy with the others", said Aisha who was magically fresh despite not having drank the three-colored water, how could she an experienced former Archmage who used to drink with Liz and Elaine all the time, lose with these "little girls", Thea was an exception since her alcohol tolerance is unusually low.
After the girls recovered from the hangover, they went to the bathroom to refresh themselves, while Daimon left the mansion, when he opened the door, he actually met with Aurora.
"We have arrived at the point mentioned in the map, besides me, I suggest that only little Mellie and you come… because we don't know the state of her mother's body", she said.
Daimon nodded, originally only Aurora was going to accompany Mellie to retrieve the coffin of her mother, for safety reasons, but Annete apparently discussed it with Mellie and they wanted Daimon to go too.
Personally, he didn't mind, it's not the first corpse he has seen nor the last he will see, also Mellie asked him to accompany her by saying, "You are my friend, so you'll come with me, right?", seeing those big eyes of hers with an expecting gaze on them, he could only accept her request.
Daimon who was originally just her bodyguard as per the conditions of the contract he signed with the queen, had now become friends, not to mention Aisha and the sisters were close to Mellie too, girls were better at showing support to a friend in these kinds of situations after all.
The girls came out of the mansion and they all turned to see Mellie with warm expressions on their faces.
"Let's go", calmly said Mellie, though she was sad at first, she isn't weak-minded and thanks to her friends she has prepared for what she is about to see.
Aurora nodded and then she snapped her fingers creating a spherical barrier made out of mana that covered Mellie, Daimon and herself.
"We'll return in an hour or so, don't cause troubles", said Aurora as she gazed at Thea specifically, the white sphere of mana then floated and flashed towards the sea below the citadel.
On the way down, Daimon saw the current scenery that surrounded them, they had already left the Mermen Sea and were currently in the territory of the Elemental Sea, besides the water of the sea who was actually of a lighter tone, the biggest difference wasn't in the sea but in the atmosphere.
'To think that the concentration of elemental mana is actually higher than of neutral mana, what a strange place', thought Daimon.
With his infinity eyes he could see countless small particles of all colors floating all over the place, normally the atmosphere is like a blue background with small dots of many colors, the blue background represents neutral mana in Neptune, the color varies depending on the planet, but for some reason most of the time is actually the same blue color.
The different small dots are the elemental mana that lingers all over the place, but this time the roles were reversed, the dominant were the countless dots of many colors while neutral mana was secondary.
Such a set up will make it easier to advance for those who are particularly skilled in their element, but harder to advance for those who aren't, since they will take more time to refine the elemental mana they absorb from the atmosphere.
It was probably thanks to this that Mellie was the youngest Lord ranked of the group, having reached the early stage of the Lord rank at her 17 years of age, while Mellie and Daphne are 19 years old already, by the way Chris and Cassy who are also early-stage Lord ranked, ae just a couple of years older being 24 and 23 years old respectively.
Not like a few years make some difference at the long run, every person is different and some naturally take more time to advance either a first or later on the path.
After a couple of seconds of descending from the sky, Aurora's barrier dived into the water, normally a person would think it twice before deepening into to sea at the parts which are far from any large inhabited area, because magic beasts roam free all over the place.
But with Aurora exuding the pressure of a Maximum Stellar ranked, only the crazy things below the waters of the Maelstrom Sea will come to look for trouble, since they attack everything at sight.
There is also a chance that a high stage Stellar ranked beast appears to confront Aurora, if its territory is invaded, but naturally if Carlos could use this area as the burial site for Annete's mother, then the danger level of this part of the sea isn't that high.
Daimon was surprised to see of the underwater scene, there were many species of fish swimming in groups here and there, all kinds of natural rock formations and obviously magic beasts that roamed free here and there.
Aurora's aura wasn't a warlike one, but a calm and serene one, so the magic beasts didn't runaway but kept a respectable distance from her, Thea wanted to come originally, but her Aura would have made all these beasts get nervous and aggressive since she is from a race native of the Maelstrom Sea.
They soon reached the bottom of the sea, this part wasn't that deep, just around five kilometers and the light perfectly reached this area, so it was a pretty scenario instead of the dark one that normally would have appeared.
"It's there, are you ready?", asked Aurora as she pointed at the entrance to the grotto mentioned by Carlos.
"Mm", Mellie nodded in response, her little fists clenched a bit, feeling some anxiety now that it was the moment of truth, but she then felt Daimon's hand resting on her shoulder, she turned to see him and for some reason she felt at ease.
"Thanks…", she mumbled with a more relaxed voice.
Aurora made the barrier move and they soon entered the grotto, according to Carlos there was a large tunnel that led to an open space into the grotto, after he left Annete's mother's coffin in that open space, he collapsed the tunnel so that the magic beasts wouldn't disturb her, he didn't make it out of any kind of guilt or regret, much less out of goodness, but because he who has seen a lot of strange things after travelling through many places, and finding many antiques thanks to his Analyze Resonance, was actually afraid that she could come to haunt him or something like that, since despite the fact that she never spent any time near him, and he doesn't remember having done anything to her due to being drunk, he for some reason never dared to force her into anything.
Luckily with Aurora here, those stones were easily destroyed by her light mana as they advanced into the tunnel, to soon reach the open area inside the grotto.
They actually reached an underwater bubble of air, and had to surface to reach the open area, the white sphere elevated and they came out of the water to a spacious cave with nothing else besides a blue crystal coffin laying on top of a small hill.
Aurora scanned the whole area to make sure it was safe and only then she dispelled her barrier, to let Mellie and Daimon come out.
"I'll wait here… if you need something just tell me", she said.
Mellie nodded and then after gazing at Daimon she walked towards the crystal coffin followed by him, the land was dry but it wasn't that big, just around three thousand square meters.
Still the seconds they spend walking towards the small hill felt strangely long, Mellie doubted for a split of a second at the last part, but ultimately, she exhaled and then approached the coffin.
Daimon who limited to keep silence and follow her from behind, frowned when he saw Mellie freezing on the spot one meter away from the coffin, he approached her to see what was happening and her pupils behind his mask contracted a bit
"It's not there… Daimon am I seeing things?", asked Mellie with a low voice.
Daimon shook his head in response, he injected mana into his infinity eyes just to be sure, if this was an illusion of some kind, then he will at the very least will notice some traces of it, even if it was done by a high ranked rune master like Blackbeard, he managed to see the alterations on the formation around the Wild Tide Reef.
But the result produced more doubts than answers, and a small headache to Daimon, the contents of the crystal coffin were water, but it wasn't normal water but water with a large number of laws, big enough to make Daimon get some backslash for looking at it.
"That water is not normal, but a treasure on par with the three-colored water, but there are no traces of biological remains, am I missing something Rita?", asked Daimon.
"No, young master is right, in fact there aren't any sings of the coffin being fully opened… ever, there is just a small hand sized hole on the lid, from which this water was injected and that's all", said Rita.
"Then either mother was made of water, or that man is lying, we are clearly missing something here", mumbled Mellie.
Daimon shook his head, he is absolutely sure Carlos wasn't lying, it's hard to trick his instincts, not to mention Annete was there during the interrogation, she studied every aspect of Carlos's rhythm, even if he practiced how to lie, there is no way he could control his heartbeats, the flow of his blood or the unconscious movements that one's muscles do.
Maybe if he was a knight, he could have made it harder for Annete to know whether he was lying or not by controlling his body reactions to some extent, but even then, she would have noticed it, that's how much she had analyzed him over the years.
"Let's take the coffin with us, we can interrogate that guy once again to confirm if he knows something else, if not then we can still make the White's Ancestor spill the beans later", said Daimon.
'Though I honestly doubt the queen will wait to interrogate Carlos the moment we inform her of this', he mentally added.
"Mm", Mellie nodded and then returned to Aurora's side with a somewhat happier mood, whatever happened to her mother, as long as she didn't get to see the corpse, she won't believe she is dead.
On the other hand, her pretty eyes now had a cold light on them as she thought of the White's Ancestor, that old man had yet to realize he managed to piss off a pair of very troublesome sisters, but he will find out soon.
For the time being Daimon asked Aurora to bring the coffin with them, she created a separated barrier to isolate it, just in case, they could later inspect it within a safe environment, the other option was for Daimon to sent it to his inventory where no matter if it had some tricks, it would be harmless.
But he didn't suggest it, as it could be seen as a disrespectful, they soon returned to the citadel where the others were waiting for them.
Needless to say, they easily noticed Mellie's expression which wasn't what they expected, and they were intrigued after listening to the sum of the situation directly by her, and the confirmation of Daimon too.
Thea whose mana sense was stronger than Aurora's inspected the coffin too and she reached the same conclusion, besides that water which she noticed was a treasure, despite not being able to see the laws swimming inside of it, there was nothing else.
Daimon looked at the mission which was created out of the opportunity he "stole" from Adam and he sighed.
'Of course, it can't be that easy', he thought, he still has yet to steal the legacy for the hero and getting the second hidden gem, he got the first one thanks to Mellie, and his supposition was that the other one was related to Jasmine, probably on the hands of the Shaman.
Since Adam went out of his way to trick her, the only problem is that as the asshole he is, he might as well just have targeted Jasmine, because she had a high status or because she was pretty.
