Over the following days, everyone met the other members and gradually grew familiar with one another.
Most importantly, Hachimi—Cipher, who had been out wandering for a long time—returned to Okhema!
It happened while Pardo was selling the Mead Theresa and the others had made. A little cutie appeared beside Pardo, looking at the adorable catgirl with curiosity and delight.
She pursed her lips into an adorable cat-mouth expression, hugged Pardo's tail, and gave it a rub. By the time Pardo yelped "Meow!" and whirled around with her fur standing on end—
Cipher had vanished in a flash, clutching the three boxes of Mead Pardo had prepared for delivery!
When Pardo turned back to look, she was stunned. The three large boxes of Mead she had neatly stacked had vanished without a trace!
"Huh? Where's my Mead? My huge boxes of Mead are gone!"
"It's over! It's over! I don't want to pay for it!"
"No, no! I have to find Theresa and explain what happened!"
Panicked little Pardo knew that Theresa was the most capable person around, so the catgirl hurried away from the shipping area, rushed into the Mead estate, found Theresa, and explained everything.
"That's what happened, Theresa! I only turned around for a second, and those three boxes of Mead disappeared, meow!"
"You have to help me! Otherwise I'll have to pay for them!"
"I did the math: one bottle of Mead costs a thousand Liheng Coins, and one box has twelve bottles, which makes twelve thousand Liheng Coins. Three missing boxes mean I have to pay thirty-six thousand Liheng Coins! Even if you sold me, I couldn't afford it!"
Pardo clung pitifully to Theresa's arm and cried out.
"That's serious. Who in Okhema doesn't know Pardo is our companion? Who's got the nerve to mess with