When Mia saw the flash surge out of the pillar, she thought, ‘Oh no.’ She instantly decided to tell her sisters to flee.

 Before she could shout, the blinding light engulfed her, and she could no longer see.

 When Mia’s vision returned, she found herself in her room in the mansion. The hammerhead shark plushie was coursing away from her carefreely — while Mia was dangling in midair by an invisible thread. Her hands were also bound by the same unseen force, while her bottom assumed a position that could only mean one thing.

 “No, no, no! Daddy nooooo!” Mia screamed. She could feel the spring of tears triggered by her fear and bursting from her chest, yet her eyes were stubbornly dry.

 Nobody answered her. Instead, a feather-duster formed from mana manifested behind her raised buttock.

 Slap! Slap! Slap! The spanking began, and Mia cried out, “Owwww! Owwwww!”

 She stopped after the second cry, realizing that despite the harrowing sounds, she had not felt any pain at all. Only then it hit her that there was a silver lining to becoming a plushie after all!

 After a dozen spanks, the invisible force released Mia from its grip and the girl plopped back onto her bed. Seeing its owner’s return, the hammerhead shark plushie swam toward her excitedly with a wriggle of its fins as though it wanted a hug right now.

 “You didn’t even try to help me just now! Go away!” Mia pushed the plushie away a little hotly and walked out of her room.

 She found out that her other sisters had also been forcefully magicked back from the mage tower when they exited their rooms, in a way. Bai Yuu technically slipped out from her place from under the door.

 “Is everyone okay?” Mia asked with concern.

 “Feeling pretty fine. The feather-duster gave its best beating, but I didn’t feel anything at all!” Bai Vye replied with a little cheeky smile as she rubbed her backside.

 “I am also well,” Bai Yuu answered. Just like her sisters, the pillar in the tower teleported Bai Yuu to her room, but the magical feather-duster failed to hold her during the automated punishment. Unsurprising that the master of preparations did not imagine the day when his daughter would turn into a paper doll.

 Nevertheless, it was obvious that the sisters’ brave quest to break their curse ended with a failure. However, what they did not fail was to attract their father’s attention — way back in the Imperial Capital, Baiyi felt a troubling, nagging tingle and fished out his phone.

 “Something wrong?” The Hitman Walker, who sat close to him, that asked.

 “The brats at home are it again! This time, they broke into my lab and triggered my spells. So now, they should be enjoying a full performance from only the best feather-dusters, I bet,” Baiyi said. He called his home number, but it failed to connect.

 “Huh. A signal-shielding spell at play, I presume?” He muttered to himself in confusion before tucking the phone back into his pocket without any more thought. An ultra-secret meeting like this one would understandably employ a spell like this to prevent information from leaking out of the room. The only reason why the Archmage and Undine could text him a few moments ago was that they had access to his secret, secured channel.

 Hence, Baiyi had decided to return home after this meeting ended. If he was going to start a war, at least he visits his daughters before it all. It was his promise, after all.

 ‘Speaking of which, who among them would dare breach my lab? Ha, it’s not even a question; it must have been that youngest, overtly pampered little menace, Bai Yin! I swear she didn’t learn a thing from her last punishment; maybe she needs a refresher on how pain feels like after these years,’ Baiyi thought to himself. ‘I enchanted those feather-dusters only to deliver ten strokes or so. I’ll have to add a few lashes more myself when I get home!’

 Little did Baiyi know that he got it all wrong this time. Although the ‘little menace’ had done something even worse than entering his lab without permission and was therefore liable for a lot more lashes than Baiyi was prepared to add, it was not her this once. Just as her three older sisters were embarking on their epic quest, she was hurrying after Anshin as quickly as her feet could take her to find a way out of Eos.

 There was no teleportation portal nor bus stops within the old abandoned city. The only way out of Eos was to stick to the city outskirt and walked on the freeway to catch a bus passing by. It was how Anshin reached Eos in the first place.

 Anshin was incredibly protective and caring toward Bai Yin throughout the journey, sharing all of her food and drinks with the girl without reservation. Maybe it was because Bai Yin was adorable enough to elicit maternal instincts, or maybe watching Mordred transforming back to her actual form did a number to her sanity. Either way, they had their lunch in a wasteland-like park filled with tall, wild grass.

 Being a foreign student from one of the New Empire’s vassal worlds, Anshin and her unflattering pocket could only afford dry, hard Iron Ration. Still, to eat food this bland without any complaint showed how hungry Bai Yin was after traveling through the city for half a day.

 She ate in silence for a while before the tears began to splash on her food.

 She was thinking of Mia; how she bent over backs for her even during meals, almost as though she was going to chew Bai Yin’s food for her. She remembered how even at the eve of enraging Mia, her big sister was spreading honey on her toasts for her just because she liked it.

 Guilt ballooned in her chest until it sprung from her eyes.

 Alarmed, Anshin quickly produced her handkerchief and passed it to her. “What’s wrong? Is the food that bad?”

 Bai Yin shook her head hard. Truthfully, she could not even make out the taste of her lunch. “I… I made my sister… c-c-cry this morning…” She stammered in a low whimper. “She’s my f-f-favorite big sister… I didn’t m-mean it…”

 Anshin’s heart sank. She tugged the crying girl into her embrace and gave a somewhat clumsy but heartfelt reassurance. “Don’t cry; it’ll be alright. I’m sure that if you sincerely apologize to your sister after you get home, she’ll forgive you.”

 `Bai Yin nodded quietly and wiped her tears. She sat up from the bench and said, “Let’s get back to walking, Big Sister Anshin. I… wanna go home as soon as I could.”

 “Mm.” Anshin smiled and took up her little hand before resuming the journey.

 The city still proved to be too large for the duo, especially Bai Yin, whose short little legs put her at a disadvantage. The sky gradually darkened, but the freeway that would bring them out of Eos remained unseen.

 “Looks like we’ll have to stay in this city for the night. Gotta’ look for somewhere safe,” Anshin muttered, scanning the discarded blocks and buildings around them. The night had offered a menacing filter to the husks of the city, transforming them into grotesque leviathans that frightened Bai Yin into clutching the edge of Anshin’s clothes while she hugged close.

 “Don’t be scared! It’s a ghost city, but the Empire’s always been very safe and low on crimes. Nothing will happen, I’m sure of it…?” Anshin reassured her in an admittedly uncertain tone. She was actually just as scared, though her fear was mostly leveled at the thugs and ne’er-do-wells they had encountered in the day.

 ‘But we haven’t seen them for the whole day, or even anyone like them. So it should be safe at night, right?‘ Anshin told herself.

 She was proven wrong in almost the same instance. A series of blaring engines split the grim, still air. A few seconds later, the two girls found themselves surrounded again.

 “Why the heck is this happening again?!” Anshin felt like bursting into tears. She quickly crouched, placing her body close to Bai Yin and shouted, “Don’t… Don’t any of you dare touch us! We’re friends with the Mega Dragon Gang!”

 Apparently, Anshin was so nervous that she misremembered the name of Mordred’s gang. More fatally, however, bringing it up gave the opposite effect Anshin had hoped.

 “Mega Dragon Gang? Ha, you mean the Mad Dragon Gang, you idiotic chick. If you didn’t mention them, we might have helped you,” the leader smirked. “But since you’re a friend of that b***h —”

 He tossed a sinister glance at his underlings, inciting an unsettling roar of guffaws.

 “Well, well, well! We Sharks usually don’t stoop to taking someone’s b****s as hostages, but the Mad Dragon’s women are exceptions to that rule!” They cried.

 “Be gentle while you’re at it! You can’t ask for much s*** if they looked too roughed up,” the leader warned.

 “Hey, look at that little girl! Looks like a proper young lady from a wealthy-a** family!” Someone cried.

 The leader examined a shivering Bai Yin’s uniform and broke into a grin. “Damn straight it’s a wealthy chick. Looks like we hit the jackpot this time, guys! Alright, get moving before that f**king dragon patrols the street.”

 All the thugs and gangs in the ghost city had been hiding and leaving the duo alone all day purely because they perceived Mordred’s transformation as a show of dominion. But when dusk had fallen, and that dragon had not returned from wherever she had gone, the thugs decided that the coast was clear.

 The only silver lining was that this particular gang only wanted them for ransom money. It could have been worse.

 “Don’t be scared, Little Yin. Your awesome sister’s gonna come save us!” Anshin murmured to Bai Yin as reassuringly as possible. Watching the armed hoodlums drawing closer to her made the older girl gave up on retaliation.

 Bai Yin shook her head. “Big Sister Mor-Mor had gone somewhere far. Very far… I don’t think she’s coming back anytime sooner,” she whispered.

 “But I know someone else who could help,” Bai Yin muttered firmly as though she had made a decision. She produced a bright, flashy object from her inner pocket and flung it at the frontmost thug.

 It was hardly a powerful projectile or anything noteworthy. It knocked on the boy and bounced off his head, hitting the ground weakly with a soft “ting!” Regardless, it drew the boy’s attention. He picked the object up and studied it with the light from their motorbike.

 It was a hammerhead shark-shaped emblem.

 “What’s this? Somekinda national symbol or something? Looks expensive and well-made,” the boy remarked loudly, flashing his teeth at the girls as he tucked it into his pocket. “Real-life lesson number one, little girl. This little s*** can’t save you.”

 “Oh, that so?”

 A low growl suddenly rang behind the crowd. It was more of a whisper, except it managed to reach everyone loud and clear despite the blaring exhaust and whirring engines of their motorbikes.

 Everyone shuddered. Bai Yin was practically vibrating.

 From deep within the darkness came a series of jaunty clanking of metal hitting against metal, as well as poundings that could only be formed from metallic boots striking the asphalt pavement.

 The crowd’s eyes traced the source of the sounds and made out a fashionably-awkward armor from the dark. Its design was antiquated; the helm looked like a pumpkin, and the mask bore a childlike drawing of “(-_-)”. The stranger was unarmed — unless a feather-duster counted as a weapon.

“What — what the heck is that?!” Anshin blurted out, both intrigued and terrified.

 Bai Yin sounded embarrassed when she answered, “That would be my father.”