Ting!

Heavenly Flower’s stopped moving. Without warning, her body suddenly became rigid.

“Ms. Heavenly Flower? Why did you suddenly…”

Miho started to call out in surprise, but froze in place before she could finish speaking. An outside observer might have thought that Miho and Heavenly Flower had just stopped talking, but their eyes trembled.

Click!

They weren’t in suspended animation for long, only two seconds at best. One might not even have noticed the pause, unless they were observing very closely. It seemed as though there was just a brief pause during their conversation before they started back up again.

“… ah. What were we talking about again?”

“Eh? Ah. Merlin. The weird spell that Merlin used.”

“Right? It’s interesting, isn’t it? Based on what he said, it doesn’t seem like it’s his own spell. It’s an ability that some humans possess; I believe they call these humans ‘passengers’.”

Their current conversation had nothing to do with what they were speaking of just moments ago. Merlin had never even talked about a concept like ‘passengers’, but Heavenly Flower used the term naturally, as if she had known it her whole life.

“Oh, Ms. Heavenly Flower. Can I be assigned to go out on the next expedition?”

“You want to go out on the next expedition? It already has a designated monster… ah, I get it.”

The designated monster had died during the last battle, and the mood among the other monsters had been quite gloomy. However, the gloominess had dissipated fairly quickly, as deaths were common among monsters due to constant battles.

“I see. It’s time for you to go to the Holy Shrine and receive our prophecy. I was so busy that I forgot… so, you want to go?”

“Yes.”

“But it’ll be dangerous. Miho, you show great potential in your monster magic abilities, but even excluding the Three Great Monsters, there are...