The atmosphere in the front hall of Oxfordshire Manor was far from harmonious—if anything, it was rather tense.
This was not because the Witches had any dispute with the Emperor. In fact, they got along quite well. The tension came from two men who could not stand the sight of each other, as well as the Praetorian Guard and the Sisterhood, ready to attack at any moment. Balder, the former Sage of Light, stood motionless in the hall. Though unarmed and without a mask, he still fixed the Emperor, who had just returned from the helipad, with a stern gaze. The Emperor walked straight past without even looking at him. He ordered the Artificial Human and the Praetorian Guard to lower their weapons; there was no need to smash the carefully arranged reliefs and precious antiques throughout the manor over such a trivial matter.
Besides Balder, Rosa had also come to Oxfordshire Manor. The two had been forced to interrupt their journey because of the worldwide earthquake, coming to Oxfordshire to rest briefly while taking on a few commissions. Although the Emperor had specifically opened an account to fund Bayonetta's biological parents, it was not an unlimited expense account. Coupled with the Umbra Witches' ingrained love of luxury, Rosa, who had spent an entire summer on a top-tier cruise ship in Miami, South Florida, quickly squandered every cent in it. No one could fault her for it—the Venerable One had reversed time and saved Rosa, yet to avoid disrupting the timeline, Rosa had been forced to spend five hundred years in dark dungeons and relic chambers, watching over the Emperor sleeping in his stasis coffin until he awoke at the proper time and returned to the correct timeline.
The consequences of this retaliatory spending could only be borne by the