The girls were taken aback by the suddenly appearing monsters, but fortunately, they were no pushovers. Ling grabbed her scythe, Tita raised her Orbal Cannon, Tio drew her orbal staff, Alisa lifted her orbal bow, and Laura tightened her grip on her orbal sword...
And then there was no more then.
As the monsters dissolved into the air unwillingly, the girls finally breathed a sigh of relief. Then Tita looked at Laura in surprise.
"Are there monsters in this castle too?"
"I don't know. There were never any monsters in this castle before... I don't know why it's like this now."
Laura herself was completely bewildered and had no idea how to react. However, at that moment, Alisa glanced behind them and suddenly cried out.
"Mr. Fang Zheng is gone!"
"Huh?"
Hearing Alisa's cry, the girls turned around. Sure enough, Fang Zheng, who should have been standing behind them, had vanished at some point. He had clearly been beside them just moments ago, but when those ghostly monsters attacked, the girls' attention had been drawn away. By the time they came to their senses, Fang Zheng had disappeared without a trace.
"Huh? What happened?"
"How did Brother Fang Zheng suddenly disappear?"
The girls stared in stunned disbelief. Only Ling helplessly raised a hand to her forehead.
"Ah... Big Brother is pulling this again..."
The other girls might not have understood what was happening, but Ling knew perfectly well. Back when she, Fie, Anjie, and Enneia had traveled around the Liberl Kingdom with Fang Zheng, he had pulled this sudden-disappearance stunt more than once. He called it "survival training," meant to help the girls stay calm and take action in any situation.
At first, Ling and the others had suffered quite a bit because of it, but now... they had long