(Heartfelt thanks to 'World's End Ballad', 'Q Yongjiang Yiku Q', 'Youyouzi's Lament', 'Liming Qian De Weiguang', 'The Poem Written by Loneliness', 'Bing Yue Ying', 'Mao Yu Xue Yun', 'Carudia', and 'This Guy Actually' for their rewards!)
The next day, as soon as dawn broke, everyone emerged from their tents and gathered beside the extinguished campfire.
Before everyone assembled, Linse had already prepared breakfast. Though she was a rather proud young noblewoman, she remained as capable and considerate as ever.
The group gathered around a wooden table made by a contracted spirit and ate the lavish spread laid out upon it in a harmonious atmosphere.
Halfway through the meal, Noah brought up the main topic.
"Today is the final day of the Spirit Sword Dance Festival preliminaries. The competition will end at noon. Before then, teams with enough Magic Stones will probably guard their strongholds closely, while teams short on Magic Stones will definitely search frantically for enemies. If things go well, we should be able to collect quite a few more Magic Stones. So, once we finish breakfast, we'll set out!"
"Got it." The girls had no objections at all and all nodded.
Looking at the group of girls, Mira rose to her feet and, very unusually, bent at the waist in a bow.
"Thank you all very much for your help."
Mira's stiff movements made it clear that this was absolutely not something the young girl was good at.
Even so, Mira expressed her gratitude to everyone in a stiff manner and tone.
Clearly, last night's conversation had brought about a slight change in Mira.
And that sight seemed to strike the girls as rather novel.
"Until now, we've always been the ones thanking you. This time, it's finally your turn to thank us." Linse seemed quite delighted.
"Good.