As Anshin’s thoughts were a bit slurred at that moment, Vidomina’s name did not ring a bell to her. She put down the phone after they agreed to meet at the front of her university gate.

 ‘Doesn’t this just mean that I’ understood nothing?’ Anshin muttered quietly, dismayed.

 She turned her attention to her long-anticipating roommate and began to recount the event to the latter’s increasingly baffled expression. “I really think I’m dreaming it all up…” She finished.

 “I shouldn’t have been a cheapskate. I should have just let up some of my cash to extend the protection period from my tour guide,” Anshin added. Now that she had let much of her emotions out, she had become lucid enough to grab her phone and hit up the traveling website she had visited to prepare for her trip. On the Eos article, she furiously typed out a scathing review.

 To be fair, the article did mention that travelers should hold onto their protection service as long as they were in Eos, which meant that it was Anshin’s own fault to eschew that to save a bit of cash. Alas, such objectivity was already lost amidst the girl’s steam.

 “Hey now, look at the bright side! If you did that, you probably wouldn’t have met that adorable little doll and subsequently went on a pretty amazing adventure,” Her roommate comforted. “But back to the point: how did you just… pop back into your bed like that? Do you think the doll’s eccentric father was actually a powerful sorcerer of space magic? Like, so powerful, he could teleport you to somewhere so damn far away accurately?”

 “Wouldn’t put this past him,” Anshin answered doubtfully. That Uncle Bai guy was an enigma — he somehow, via some silent means, disabled a whole gang just like those Imperial Sorcerers Anshin had heard to be capable of doing. She would probably rank the awesomeness and bizarreness of Uncle Bai as equivalent to the young woman transforming into a dragon.

 “Dude, if that’s true, you’re really frickin’ lucky, aren’t you? To have been able to meet someone as high and mighty as an Imperial Sorcerer! Oh, speaking of, who did you agree to meet? The sorcerer’s butler, I bet, probably to reward you out of gratitude or whatever,” The roommate continued as jealousy tinged her voice. “Hmph, probably even gives you a leg up in getting that green card.”

 Getting a green card — to be a permanent resident of the New Empire — was no easy fantasy. It was something that had to be pried from the hands of many, many spectacular talents from all of the Empire’s vassal states. An expert in history was simply not counted as “talent.”

 “I don’t know her other than her name — Vidomina, I think,” Anshin answered in a daze.

 “V-Vidomina — hold on, I think I know this one!” The roommate cried and dove to her phone. She drew up a webpage and shoved it to Anshin’s face. “You don’t think it’s this Vidomina, right?”

 It was a picture of a beautiful woman with a mope of lustrous pink hair, a curvaceous body, and youth that could put so many young ladies to shame. Nothing put the whole world to shame than the woman’s sultry figure —

 She was Vidomina, the rectoress and “Ma’am” of the renowned Imperial Da Xue. Everyone called her “Ma’am” for more reasons than one, too.

 “This can’t be her,” Anshin shook her head firmly. “Come on. There are so many women with the same name; I can’t believe it would be this gorgeous educator right here. She’s a world-famous rectoress with talented and influential students across the worlds on top of being one of the Imperial Princess; why would she make time for a backward bumpkin such as myself.”

 “Huh, when you put it that way…” Her roommate muttered, her excitement dying down as she examined that envy-sowing picture and grumbled, “Goddamn it, why are they so frickin’ big?! Big and bouncy — that’s injustice! Anyway, I heard that she isn’t a formal princess, because she’s only His Majesty’s goddaughter.”

 ‘Goddaughter?!’ Anshin mind reeled. The woman on the other side of the phone had referred to Uncle Bai as her “godfather.” ‘It can’t be, can it?!’

 ‘Of course, it can’t be! Impossible, inconceivable, get your head out of it! ‘Anshin smacked her cheeks as hard as she could to force her train of thoughts from hurling into fantasyland. Nothing stopped these thoughts better than going unconscious, so she threw herself back into her bed and under her cover as she mentally repeated, ‘It’s all a dream, it’s all a dream, and it’s telling me that I need a good sleep….’

 While Anshin sank into denial, Baiyi and Bai Yin, who perched on his arm, had teleported home. He had only appeared in his private residence when he instinctively sensed something awry. Perturbed, he quickly strode into the hall in front of him until he was greeted by a strange scene of a Mia Plushie and a Chibi Noirciel instructing a Figurine Bai Vye to draw a kind of formation on the floor. Baiyi took one glance and instantly knew that it was the New Empire’s most potent summoning spell —”Summoning Yer Old Man!”

 Nearby, Paper Doll Bai Yuu floated around them as the maids, now a group of clay dolls, were hurrying a bunch of magic materials like ants moving food.

 For some reason, the scene was quite… endearing?

 Baiyi scanned the room with his psychic power and determined the problem — and a small one at that, too. It was just the anomalous result of two clashing Arbiter’s Rights that could be solved with a snap of his finger, though Baiyi admitted that seeing his daughters in this state made the prospect of returning to normal slightly less desirable.

 He marched and swept Mia up from the ground before nuzzling his cheeks on the girl’s soft, fluffy plushie face.

 “Whoaaa — Dad! You’re home!” Mia let out a shocked yelp. Her eyes darted to Bai Yin on Baiyi’s other arm and remarked in relief, “And Little Yin is safe too! Oh, thank goodness!”

 “Are you going to tell me why this happened?” Baiyi put his daughters down just in time to catch a floating Bai Yuu with his fingers. He bent down and scooped a snail-crawling Bai Vye with an expression denoting amusement.

 “Save me, Dad!” Bai Vye urged.

 “Am I like those cipher cards that you used to love in your youth now, Dad?” Bai Yuu asked calmly.

 Baiyi snapped his finger and restored everything to normal, and the girls suddenly clutched on their backsides and yowled in pain. “Owww! Ouch, aww!”

 As it turned out, the effects of being whipped by a magical feather-duster kicked in late.

 A back-to-normal Noirciel quickly half-knelt beside Baiyi with her hands on the side of his mask. “I’m so sorry, Master. It’s only my fault that all of this happened,” She said pleadingly.

 “Hmm, I already know what happened — which is why I know the root of the problems is this one,” Baiyi answered, nipping a quietly slipping Bai Yin on her neck. The girl had been subjected to his inquisition on their journey home, and knowing that she had done wrong, Bai Yin filled him in everything without reservation, including how she ran away from home because she enraged Mia.

 Bai Yin began to struggle like a kitty being forced into a bath. “Nooo! Save me, Big Sister Mia! He’s gonna break me!”

 Mia was about to plead for a pardon when Bai Vye grabbed hold of her arm, shaking her head.

 “I need to mete out some disciplinary action, so I would like all of you to wait for a while,” Baiyi announced and disappeared into the second floor with Bai Yin in tow.

 A moment of silence later, a shrill, heart-wrecking scream split the air.

 Mia’s eyes immediately reddened as her chest ached. She was just about to run upstairs and stop Baiyi when Bai Yuu grabbed hold of her other arm.

 “Not to worry, I already told Mama Assassin,” Bai Yuu whispered with a crafty grin on her face. She waved the phone Bai Yin had left on the dining table.

 A few moments more and a beautiful, young woman broke into the door. An apron was still hanging around her waist with a pair of mittens on her hands when she shouted furiously, “Mistah Bai! If you lay your hand on my daughter one more time, I’m leaving you, do you hear me?!”

 She hurled toward the second floor, and pandemonium blared through the house shortly after. Then, she wailed shrilly, “Mistah Bai is a beast with no heart! He conquers women’s minds and bodies and then throws them away when he finds a new one! And now he wants to kill my daughter and me!”

 Baiyi’s irritated retort rang, “Can you filter the things you yammer?! Our children are listening!”

 “I don’t care! I’m not letting this pass — owwwwww!”

 “Calm down already? Good! Now listen, alright?”

 A few minutes of relative silence passed before Lady Assassin’s livid voice rang, “You stinking, spoilt little brat! How dare you speak like that against your Big Sister Mia! And then run away from home?! Ha! Even if your daddy’s sparing the rod, I for sure won’t! Darling, pass me that feather-duster!”

 What was supposed to be a single match now became a mix-double, and now Bai Yin cried even harder.

 Bai Yuu shrugged from her position with a grimace. “Ooh. Now that is completely out of my expectation.”

 By the time Baiyi and Lady Assassin yanked a puffy-eyed Bai Yin downstairs, the little girl could only limp with her head hanging low and tears rolling in her eyes toward Mia. “I’m so sorry, Big Sister Mia. I’m at fault; forgive me, please?” She whimpered.

 How could Mia not forgive her after all that? She instantly pulled the girl into her embrace and nudged her wetted face.

 “Alright, I guess that’s it for now. I will be sending Little Yin to Nina’s place for a bit of education and behavioral disciplining,” Baiyi said.

 Bai Yin’s entire body froze except for her head whipping toward him. “Please, Daddy, please don’t send me to Big Sister Nina’s!”

 Among all of her sisters, Vidomina was the one Bai Yin feared the most. No matter how soft her embrace was, or how lightly she nudged the girl’s cheeks with her own, or how she let Bai Yin dozed on her ample bosom at times, but that young woman was all kinds of strict. Being a former princess and an educational expert, she never doted on any of her younger sisters the way Mia did. The young woman had rules for everything, including the posture for mealtime to the position of her hands when she stood.

 Rules — endless rules! They frightened Bai Yin the most.

 Baiyi smirked. “Nope. No can do; my decision is final. I’m not gonna let you be a spoilt brat any moment longer. Alright, that’s all there is for now. I’m still in the middle of a meeting. Gotta go.”

 He planted a quick kiss on Lady Assassin and faded.

 Back in the Situation Room, Baiyi suddenly shivered as though he had just returned to his mind. He looked at the Thane, who was in the middle of explaining their battle prediction, and spoke abruptly, “Sorry, I was out just now. Did you mention that I don’t have to fight this war?”

 “Holy s**t! That was half an hour ago! Where the hell were you? Dating your mistress?” The Thane grouched.

 “No, no. I was just giving my daughter a beating,” Baiyi said even-handedly. “Well, go on.”

 Every attendant in the meeting deadpanned. ‘… We’re in the middle of a battle strategy meeting while you went home to beat your kids?’