"Marrr!"

Tie ran over and picked up Marbas.

The lion head attached to the statue stared at Tie in confusion.

Tie, her eyes sparkling, said:

"Marrr, you said you can evolve, right?"

Marbas hesitated, looking at Tie with a startled expression, then nodded.

[It is not evolution, it is enhancement. I could do some things before......]

"Then can the teleportation circle be evolved too?!"

Interest appeared on the faces of the squad members.

They were curious whether the statue brought to life by Tie could really do something like that.

Under their gazes, Marbas felt his shoulders straighten slightly.

Tickled by the attention he always found pleasant, he hesitated for a moment—and was just about to answer.

"Come on, really? You could not even properly copy a single circle."

Bale ruined the moment.

Marbas flushed and shouted:

[I, I copied one!]

"......Hic, Marrr. Really?"

Marbas let out a muffled "khk" and wiped away imaginary tears.

[Yes! It is just that no one was watching!]

He nodded toward the window.

There, one copied teleportation circle was half sticking out from under a cabinet.

Tie nodded vigorously.

"Yeah! Marrr is the best! Tie believes in Marrr!"

Marbas raised his head hesitantly.

Then he jumped down from Tie’s palm.

[Then enhancement...... I will try.]

He leapt and landed on the table.

When he stood on top of the stack of teleportation circles, red beams began to burst from his eyes.

"Wow. It already looks more convincing than before?"

"Shut up, Bale. He is still a spirit. Show some respect."

"By the way, he looks kind of pathetic. If that is a spirit, then I am the grandfather of spirits."

[...kh.]

Marbas ignored the voices of Bale and Basto and focused.

A complex teleportation circle formula began to manifest before him.

"Wo, waa..."

While Tie watched in awe, Marbas reinforced the chains.

Then, into each engraved rune, he poured his ability, strengthening the stability.

[Almost done!]

At the final moment, Marbas trembled in his wooden body, squeezing out the last of his strength.

And finally—

"Hic! It really changed!"

Along the edges of the top two circles in the stack, a new formula appeared, deeply engraved.

Seeing the softly glowing patterns, Tie immediately grabbed a circle.

"Marrr, now it evolved like Puppetmon, right?"

Marbas, swaying, nodded.

[Yes! If you input coordinates, you can move anywhere! There are no distance limitations, and especially—I made it so it is not affected by waves emitted by magic crystals, so you can trust it......!]

"Waa!"

Tie immediately grabbed the circle and ran to Basto.

"Uncle Basto! Marrr did it! Let’s try it, okay?"

But Basto did not answer.

Tie tugged at his sleeve again.

"Let’s go to the magic crystal together, okay? There are two circles, we can check if it really works!"

At last, Basto nodded.

"Alright. But you stay here with the old man, Tie."

Tie’s eyes widened.

"W, why?"

"This is still a test. Until we are sure it is safe, you wait here."

Tie watched in confusion as the squad members took the two circles from her.

They moved a little away from Nordix and Tie and stood in a circle.

"I know the coordinates."

At Basto’s words, Enzo nodded.

"A small magic crystal that has not been besieged yet, in Brioude. 383 etherons to the east...... 12 lunaxes to the south."

Enzo tore the circle in half.

At that moment, a bright light burst into the air.

When Tie squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again—

Basto, Bale, Raul, and Enzo had vanished without a trace.

"Waaaaaa!"

"......Do not cry, Tie."

Lucarion quietly tried to comfort her.

But Tie could not stop crying.

"Did you hear? They say the younger Viscount Mathias had his arm torn off."

The story about the teleportation circle accident she had heard a few days ago would not leave her mind.

Tie believed in Marrr, but what if the enhancement had failed?

What if there had been an accident and someone from the squad had gotten hurt...!

"It is all because of Tie! Tie said we should try it today!"

"Why would that be your fault. We had to test the enhanced circle anyway."

"But still......"

Lucarion gently patted her back.

Selena silently held her hand tightly.

Marbas also intervened.

[My lady! Do you not trust me? I am truly confident! Once, I ruled in the Ivranis dynasty......]

"Kyu."

Pupu bumped its nose against the floor in displeasure.

Marbas immediately shut his mouth.

"Tie, you are still like this?"

At that moment, Nordix approached with two cups of warm milk, steam rising from them.

He handed them to Tie and Selena.

"Nothing will happen. Besides, they moved to a small magic crystal, and all of them have contingency measures."

Tie nodded weakly.

Then she ran to Nordix and hugged him.

He smiled and patted her back as usual.

"Life is not easy, is it?"

"Yeees......"

Even though she had never said it aloud, Tie had learned many things in this world.

That every choice comes with responsibility.

That sometimes, for gain, one has ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) to take risks.

That nothing in this world is given freely.

"Why is living so haaard......"

Back when she lived in the Gold complex, the grandmother from 107 and the aunt from 203 used to complain all the time too.

Whenever they met, they would say life was hard and bitter.

"But that is life." 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

This time, Tie said it in a firm voice.

She pulled away from Nordix and cheerfully began drinking her milk.

"Tie believes in Marrr! That means everyone will be okay!"

With a white milk mustache on her lip.

And five hours later—

"Uncle Basto......!"

On the first floor of the mansion, the light of a teleportation circle flared again.

"Kid! We are back!"

"Squad Leader, the circle works perfectly! You do not need to worry."

The light faded, and the squad members appeared.

Each of them was holding a bag filled with a magic beast core.

"So you really moved almost directly to the magic crystal?"

At Nordix’s question, Basto nodded.

"Yes. There was not even the usual collision noise of magic."

"......I see. And the siege went smoothly?"

"No problems."

After answering, Basto gestured behind him.

There, Tie was carefully stacking the bags of cores into a cart.

"Selena, shall we go to the Rewards Bureau together tomorrow morning? We can exchange all of this for money!"

"I have never been to a mercenary Rewards Bureau. It sounds interesting."

"Yeah! It is really interesting! Just—it is a secret there that Tie is a child."

Basto looked at Nordix.

"Looks like we are going to be busy."

"It seems so."

Tie did not seem to realize it, but the enhanced teleportation circle was a true revolution.

A technology that had never existed before.

The key to drastically reducing siege time.

And all of it—because Tie awakened Marbas.

Basto’s eyes lit up.

"I wonder how the strongest mercenary squads will react."

Other squads did not matter, but Tregava had never faced a threat to its position.

But if Agavert maintains this siege speed......

A long-forgotten excitement ignited in Basto’s eyes.

The next day.

At noon, on the wall of the inner courtyard, Tie’s crookedly written squad motto was hung up.

[If it is not first place, it is shame!!!]

And in accordance with that motto, the squad set out again.

This time—to a medium magic crystal.