Sudden explosions were always a good reason to pause a conversation, and this time wasn't any different.

^Holy shit!^

"What the hell?!"

Who's blowing shit up now?!

All over street, various craftsmen were pausing their work in order to figure out the reason for this sudden explosion.

Amongst this crowd, Alicia, Alice, Bellona, and Harriet were having a slightly tangential conversation in relation to this explosion.

"Alicia. Bellona. Weird question: is Zhen Liu in the area by any chance? Can you guys contact the librarians about him?" Alice asked with casual sincerity.

She had been informed of prior events where Zhen Liu had been the central cause of explosions by Alicia and Bellona, so this wasn't an exaggerated guess on her part.

"No..."

"I don't think so..."

"Oh."

As such, when the two people close enough to Zhen Liu to know whether or not he was causing any collateral damage answered in the negative, Alice's nonchalance switched to worry.

"Okay...it's probably not related to us, but...isn't that the same direction where Master Lowblade is supposed to be?" Alice pointed out.

"Yes...yes, it is," Alicia confirmed.

"...fuck."

Understanding that panicking was a less than productive idea in this situation, the girls proceeded to pick up the pace and see why there was an explosion near the point of contact.

Needless to say, things were about to get incredibly hairy.

…

"You bastard! How dare you blow up my grandpa's life work!"

"Blah, blah, boo-hoo, don't care, where's my money?!"

"Well…that's not good."

"Oh fuck! That's Lowblade's grandson!"

The moment the girls arrived at where Master Lowblade's workshop should've been located, a rather harrowing scene was taking place instead.

The aforementioned workshop was currently engulfed in flames, while a teenager was trading verbal barbs with a man who looked handsome but had an aura akin to a rabid jackal that had stuck its ass into a beehive. Not only that, but the aether leaking from the latter's fingertips suggested that he was probably the reason why this conflagration was happening in the first place.

As to the context for the reason why this moment happened in the first place, it was due to that one thing that everyone never seems to have enough of: money.

Or in this case, it stemmed from a loan.

"I already told Boss Casshern that I would be paying him back next week! I just needed time to—"

"That was the old boss, but guess what, numbnuts, there was a regime change!" The legbreaker roared with the prideful indignation of a man whose ego was entirely dependent on the power of his superiors. "Boss Smoker is now in charge, and he demands that any and all current debts be paid off as soon as possible. Otherwise, you're going to have to pay interest."

"Interest? Interest?! At what rate?"

"Double for every third day of late payments."

"Double every...wait..."

Lowblade's grandson went silent as he tried to calculate the amount the debt would go up by the time he got the money to pay it off at it's current value.

"That...that it's impossible to pay!" The teenager screamed with all the fury of wronged tenant. "The money I'd make from that job next week wouldn't be able to provide even half of this proposed interest rate!"

"Well then, you'd better find some new jobs, pay off you current debt, or get ready to give up what's left of your workshop," the enforcer said with cold indifference. "Either pay up or give up."

With this warning given, the enforcer proceeded to leave the young man to his burning workshop and fly back to report to his superiors that the task was completed.

At this point in time, many artisans in the area had paused their work in order to see who or what was the cause of all of the ruckus.

Once they saw they who was involved, and how it all ended, these artisans proceeded to go back to their respective projects.

Not a single one of them made any moves to lend a helping hand, lest they attract the wrath of the debt collectors.

Thankfully, there were people who did give a fuck, weren't afraid of the consequences, and proceeded to try and help in a surprisingly coordinated manner.

"Axer! Are you alright?!"

"Huh? Big sis Alicia?!"

"Oh dear, oh dear."

Alicia and Harriet made moves to make sure that Axer, the grandson of the blacksmith Lowblade, was uninjured or at the very least not have any burn marks on them. The former worked to make sure that they were mentally calm, while the latter proceeded to use her abilities to heal any wounds that were recently inflicted.

Evidently, there were a few burn marks that were accrued outside of work.

At the same time, Alice and Bellona went about trying to snuff out the fire.

They had wanted to go after the guy who caused the blaze to begin in the first place, but they got the feeling that doing so would kick up a hornet's nest of issues that they weren't prepared to deal with quite yet.

Information was key to winning a war, after all, even if it's one that hadn't been declared yet.

"Follow my lead, Bellona!"

"Okay!"

[Devouring Shadow!]

[Cloud of Dreams!]

Through their combined efforts, a cloud of purple dream-like smoke quickly surrounded the burning building, which was then surrounded by a large sphere of shadow aether.

The former aether art made it so that the amount of oxygen available for the fire to burn was immediately knocked away, while the sphere of shadows completely snuffed out the flames by sapping away the heat and light.

It only took a few moments for the fire to completely die out, and the girls made sure to cancel our their techniques once the job was done.

"Tsk! I'm annoyed that we didn't come a little earlier to prevent this."

"It's better than nothing, my friend. It's better than having nothing."

Now that all of the excitement had officially died down, the girls proceeded to gather around the now healed Axer to ask them a question that was probably incredibly painful to answer but was undeniably necessary to address.

"Axer...what happened?"

"Big sis, it's...it's...guh..."

Axer couldn't immediately answer at the moment, because as the adrenaline and rage finally faded away, it was replaced by the most profound release of sobbing sadness.

"Yeah...this is going to take some time," Alicia informed the others. "Axer had always been a bit of a crybaby."

Understanding his plight, the girls didn't mention anything about the crying.

...Several minutes later...

"Sorry that you and your friends had to see me like that, big sis. There's...been a lot of stuff on my plate, lately."

"Hey, it's no big deal, I know how life can get. My condolences, by the way."

"Yeah..."

Thanks to Bellona's and Alice's collective action, they had managed to snuff out the flames before there was a chance of it burning down the residential part of the workshop.

Which was why the girls were now seated around a surprisingly sturdy table covered with tools with a single teapot sitting in its center.

In eyeshot of the table, resting on a little makeshift altar, was a portrait of Master Lowblade sitting next to an incense burner and a bronze urn covered in decorative patterns.

"So...how and when did he...ya know..." Alice tried to ask Axer.

Thankfully, the young man knew what she said was trying to ask.

"About two months ago, he went to explore the catacombs to try and find something for a big project he had planned. A week later, he came back with a horribly infected wound and died shortly after," Axer answered with blunt honesty. "I cremated him a day after that."

"Ah."

"And if you're wondering about the fucker who tried to burn this place to the ground, his name is Ignatius. He's a leg breaker for the Redoxa family, we paid them for protection. Well, we used to pay them for protection."

"Oh..."

Alicia had informed her friends prior to this moment that Master Lowblade and Axer were a grandfather and grandson blacksmithing duo that only had each other in terms of family.

Axer's mother had died due to an aether beast attack, while his father perished during a trip through a set of wandering ruins.

And now, Axer only had himself and their family forge.

Unfortunately, the latter was now horribly mangled.

And all at the hand of a group that was supposed to be protecting them.

Needless to say, this contradiction was a point of interest to the girls.

"Alright, color me confused," Harriet piped up for the group. "But why did someone meant to protect you, burn down your livelihood? It makes no sense."

"Fucked if I know," Axer sighed. "I didn't even know that the Redoxa Family had undergone a leadership change. And now I need to figure out how to pay off the fuckwads before it's too late."

At this statement, Alice finally piped up.

"Well...I did have a commission for your grandpa, but is it safe to assume you're almost as skilled?"

At the prospect of being able to dig himself out of a financial hole, Axer perked up.

"What's the job?"