The hour ticks past midnight, and Market Town slumbers under a velvet blanket of silence. Streetlamps flicker. The wind whispers through empty alleys. The smell of fresh bread and coal soot hangs in the air, remnants of a long day winding down.
Inside the cramped inn room, Vuvi, Penelo, Veena, and Pip stand fully packed. Bags buckled, weapons strapped, satchels cinched with finality.
Maribelle personally checks each of their packs like a drill sergeant doing inspection. "Food. Tools. Bombs. Emergency oils. Backup oils. Emergency backup oils?"
"Check, check and triple check!" Vuvi mutters, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
Pip beeps softly, vibrating with anticipation. Penelo clings to him like a frightened backpack, ears twitching at every creak.
Maribelle steps to the door and slowly opens it.
Waiting outside, in their nightgowns, stood the innkeeper and her granddaughter, Arienne.
"We figured you'd be leaving tonight," the old woman says, handing over a bundle of neatly wrapped provisions. "This world may be mad... but you brought a little hope to our doorstep."
Penelo sniffles as she accepts the package with both arms. Vuvi gives a rare, sincere smile.
Maribelle simply nods.
Then Pip tilts his head, beeps gently, and steps forward.
The granddaughter beams at him, stepping up and cupping his faceplate gently. She kisses it, lips lingering, whispering, "Thank you for helping me feel alive again."
Pip emits a high-pitched chime and wobbles slightly.
"I think he just blushed," Veena whispers with a chuckle.
"Impossible," Vuvi mutters. "But also... ."
They step into the street, boots barely making a sound against the cobblestones. The night brings with it a cool quiet…
Too quiet.
"Western gate," Maribelle whispers as they move. "Fast, quiet, no stops."
The group nods as they slink through the shadows of Market Town.
They hadn't made it two blocks when a ragged man lounging on a stoop blinks awake, catches sight of Pip, and gasps.
"It's him! The golden one! The bliss bringer!"
Penelo stops cold. "Wait, the what?"
A dozen shapes emerge from shadowy alleyways, cloaked in strange sashes and prayer beads, faces wild with fervor.
"Save us!" they cry. "Save our loins, o golden savior!"
"Oh no," Vuvi whispers. "Cultists."
"Just keep moving," Maribelle growls.
But more arrive, slinking out of shadow, grinning wildly at Pip.
He whistles.
Half scared. Half smug.
A few of the cultists clutch their scrolls. Others wave hand-drawn posters of Pip surrounded by beams of holy light. One has a banner reading: "His Cum Comes To Save Us!"
Pip beeps nervously.
Then a student in striped pajamas pops out of a window. "Hey! Is that the divine pleasure construct?! The Blackthorn golem?!"
Within moments, a wave of alchemy students pour into the streets, armed with notebooks, mana meters, and spectacles too large for their faces.
"Lady Blackthorn! Can we please interview you?!"
"What's his chassis made of!?"
"Is that divine pressure venting through his thighs?!"
"I need to study him! Please!"
Vuvi groans, gripping her head. "WHY IS EVERYONE OBSESSED WITH HIM?!"
Penelo raises a trembling hand. "Because... look at him? He has god-level cuteness!"
Pip does a little wave. The crowd swoons.
Then—
"PIPPPPP!"
The front doors of the cathedral blast open.
Lihona, the Saint-Sister, flies out in nothing but her sheer ceremonial shift, golden curls billowing, eyes locked on Pip with tearful devotion.
"Wait for meeeeee!"
Her female knight guard, half-armored and fully panicked, sprints after her. "Sister Liorna! You forgot your… EVERYTHING!"
She charges barefoot toward the group, arms open.
"We really need to stop collecting these people," Veena sighs.
By the time they reached the looming western gate of Market Town, they have a full procession trailing behind them:
Dozens of ecstatic cultists chanting "Glory to the golden shaft!"
Alchemy students shouting over each other, quills scribbling madly
Saint Lihona, still glowing, still dramatically weeping
And half-dressed royal knights, trying to form a protective cordon
"Okay, I'm freaking out," Penelo whimpers, hiding behind Pip, who is now vibrating like a tuning fork.
Veena hisses at a particularly bold student who tries to scan Pip's pelvis with some kind of crudely built device.
Maribelle steps up to the gate guard. "Open the gates."
The guard blinks. "By whose—"
She hands over a badge. It radiates authority.
Old-school war-era authority.
The guard pales. "Y-Yes, ma'am."
Meanwhile, the students and cultists begin clashing, arguing over access.
"His miracle belongs to science!"
"He was sent by the Great Mother herself!"
"Step aside, I have a degree!"
"Your degree is useless if your soul is empty!"
Lihona drops to her knees.
"Why is there so much anger?" she whispers, weeping. "He should be a bridge of unity... not a wedge of desire..."
Her knights, swords drawn, begin shouting for calm.
Then...
"ENOUGH!" Maribelle's voice thunders over the madness.
She pushes Vuvi and the others toward the now-opening gate. "Get moving. I'll stall them."
Vuvi hesitates.
"Go!" her mother snarls.
Vuvi nods, grabbing Pip's hand. "Everyone with me!"
Vuvi, Pip, Penelo and Veena all turn toward the gate, preparing to break into a sprint.
But then...
The sky cracks.
A flash of crimson light tears across the stars like blood spilling across a canvas.
Everyone freezes in places.
Students, cultists, knights, even Maribelle.
Everyone gasps, gulps, then looks up.
The air suddenly grows heavy.
Wrong.
Tainted.
Then it rips open.
A rift. A tear. A fracture in reality.
The sky itself shears like paper, exposing a swirling void.
And from that void...
Descends five figures.
First comes a tall, flamboyant man in a purple suit, flipping through a conjured fan as he floats down, cackling wildly.
"Oh, what a mess of mortals. Don't get too close, Darling." he bellows.
Then a colossal figure in a tailored obsidian suit emerges. Impossibly broad-shouldered. Eyes cold and serene behind a monocle.
"I wouldn't dare, Dearest." he sneers.
Next, a woman made of smoke and curves, dressed in tight leather, gliding effortlessly in front of a massive, floating scythe that hums with malicious joy.
She says nothing, just raising a smokey brow with an unimpressed sigh.
Beside her descends a childlike girl with sugar-pink hair in pigtails and a star-tipped wand. Her innocent giggles echoing across the rooftops.
"Look at all the little toys, Mama!" she laughs.
Finally, the fifth figure oozes out of the void.
Gasps then rang out like thunder.
Lihona falls to the ground, face pale.
Alchemy students scream.
The cultists mutter prayers.
And Maribelle... curses. Loudly.
They all watch in unrelenting horror as she descends.
Tall. Pale. Beautiful beyond reason.
Eyes like sunsets bleeding into oceans.
Hair white as starlight and adorned with a crown that shimmers with dark power.
The Demon Queen.
Vexena.