We left the gatekeeper behind, moving out of the 3rd District's grand plaza and pressing deeper into the sprawling infrastructure of the capital. We navigated the winding cobblestone thoroughfares until we crossed the boundary into the 5th District… the dense, towering sector where the massive stone tenements of Caria were located.
To avoid the main military patrols and the watchful eyes of the High Command before we could control the narrative, I guided our trio into the narrow, shadow-drenched alleyways slicing between the colossal apartment blocks. The high stone walls provided a natural canopy, though Elicia's continuous-nullification loop remained perfectly active, keeping my pale, half-vampiric skin safe from the stray shafts of midday sun piercing the gaps above.
As our boots crunched against the gravel of a particularly quiet alley, Elicia slowed her majestic 5'8" stride. Her sharp, analytical crimson eyes drifted over to the girl walking on my right. She stared at Evelyn's commanding 5'6" frame, taking in the S-rank density of the magical aura humming beneath her white-and-scarlet armor, and the sheer, mature curvature of her silhouette.
"By the way, Evelyn, Why exactly did you grow so fast? Based on the timeline of the mining disaster, I thought you were chronologically a six-year-old child. But looking at you now... you look like a woman well into her twenties. You look visually older than Eirene, and you practically look the same age as me." Elicia murmured, her voice carrying a profound, puzzled curiosity as her heavy healing staff clicked softly against the ground.
Evelyn stopped mid-step, her forest-green eyes blinking innocently as she cradled her half-empty jar of strawberry jam against her chest. Her bioluminescent hair tips flickered with a soft, slightly wistful blue-green light, reflecting her internal, childlike vulnerability against her imposing, adult-sized physique.
"Well, us slimes tend to age really, really fast, big sister, My hybrid anatomy absorbs energy and adapts to survive. So chronologically, yes... I am still just a six-year-old child inside."
Elicia stopped as well, a wave of intense, maternal sadness washing over her beautiful features as she processed the reality of what our baby sister had endured. Her heart clearly ached, realizing that while Evelyn possessed the apex stats of a top-3 Luminous Knight, she was still just a traumatized little girl who had been forced to grow up at a catastrophic, monstrous speed just to survive the dark depths of the earth.
"A child's soul in an apex predator's body, It's why she eats jam with a spoon and thinks Elias is just a regular jerk. Her cells evolved to fight, but her mind is still the baby of this family." I remarked coldly, leaning my 5'5" frame against the damp stone wall of the alley, my mismatched green and crimson eyes locked onto the path ahead.
Elicia's posture softened completely, the regal, commanding aura of the Offspring Goddess melting away into pure, raw heartbreak. She looked at Evelyn… at the giant silver spoon still held in her hand, at the fierce S-rank armor protecting a fragile, six-year-old soul… and a heavy, sorrowful sigh escaped her lips.
She reached out, her delicate hand gently cupping Evelyn's cheek, her thumb wiping away a stray trace of strawberry jam.
"You're also a monster, Evelyn, You've been dealt the exact same cruel fate as Eirene... forced to hide your true powers, your true self, from a world that wouldn't understand." Elicia murmured, her voice thick with a profound, aching empathy.
She looked between the two of us, her crimson eyes glistening with a mixture of guilt and fierce protectiveness.
"One of my little sisters is a winged Dhampir carrying an 18 gold bounty, and the other is an accelerated slime hybrid masquerading as an S-rank knight. Both of you had to become apex predators just to survive the dark while I was safe in the academy."
Evelyn blinked, her bioluminescent blue-green hair tips pulsing with a soft, comforting hue as she leaned into Elicia's warm palm, completely unbothered by the word 'monster' when it came from her big sister. To her, it wasn't an insult; it was just the truth of what they had to become.
I pulled myself away from the alley wall, my dark cloak flaring slightly over my hidden wings.
"Nature doesn't care about fairness, Elicia. It only cares about what works. We survived. That's all that matters."
The narrow, shadow-drenched alleyways of the 5th District eventually opened up into the grand, imposing thoroughfare that led directly to the fortified checkpoint of the 6th District. This was the threshold to the highest administrative and military tier of Caria City, a sector heavily guarded to keep out the lower-class citizens and common travelers. And stationed right at the center of the primary iron gate, leaning against a reinforced stone barrier with a thoroughly miserable, arrogant scowl, was the single most obnoxious, universally loathed gatekeeper known to man: Betch.
Betch was a classic gatekeeper bully, an extortionate, small-minded official who thrived entirely on belittling anyone he perceived as lower status. Today, because I had left my heavy, ominous vanguard trench coat back at House 132 and was intentionally suppressing my overwhelming S-rank aura to keep our arrival low-profile, I looked like nothing more than a pint-sized, ordinary 5'5" civilian girl walking between two strikingly beautiful, high-status women.
The moment Betch's small, rat-like eyes landed on my uncloaked form, his face contorted into a deeply condescending sneer. He didn't hesitate for a single second to spit out his usual, toxic verbal venom.
"Toll and status card!"
Betch grunted aggressively, stepping forward and intentionally blocking the walkway. He looked me up and down with blatant disgust, completely ignoring my sisters for a fraction of a second as he locked onto me as an easy target.
"Well, well, look what the gutter dragged in today. What's a plain, pathetic little slum-rat like you doing trying to cross into the elite sector? You don't belong here, girl. Go back to the tenements before I have the guards throw you in a holding cell for vagrancy."
He expected me to cower, to stammer, or to offer a bribe like the hundreds of lower-ranked adventurers he extorted on a daily basis. He completely failed to realize that beneath my simple civilian dress rested the hyper-lethal reflexes of a Phase 5 apex predator who had run completely out of patience for bureaucratic small fry.
Before the last insulting syllable could fully leave his mouth, my foot moved in a blinding, hyper-velocity arc.
CRACK.
I delivered a flawlessly aimed, devastatingly powerful kick directly between his legs, connecting squarely with his testicles. The sheer, concentrated physical force shattered his smug demeanor instantly. Betch's eyes rolled back into his head, his face turning an spectacular shade of violently pale green as all the oxygen was violently vacuumed from his lungs. He collapsed onto his knees with a choked, pathetic wheeze, clutching his groin as the agonizing trauma radiated through his central nervous system.
Stepping forward, I looked down at his trembling, pathetic form with absolute, freezing indifference. I gathered a thick, disgusting ball of phlegm in the back of my throat and spat it directly onto the polished leather of his right boot.
"Watch your mouth, small fry," I murmured, my smooth, restored voice carrying a dangerous, razor-sharp edge that made the nearby guards instantly freeze, their hands hovering nervously over their sword hilts.
Before the surrounding checkpoint guards could even think about intervening, the heavy atmosphere around the gate shifted violently. The sudden, suffocating pressure didn't come from me… it came from my two sisters, who instantly flared their respective world-class magical reserves in absolute fury at the disrespect leveled against me.
To my left, Elicia stepped forward, her majestic 5'8" frame casting a massive, terrifying shadow over the kneeling gatekeeper. Her piercing crimson eyes flashed with an ancient, apocalyptic wrath, and she slammed the butt of her legendary, high-tier healing staff against the cobblestones.
BOOM.
A visible shockwave of dense, holy mana rippled across the plaza, rattling the iron gates and causing the nearby stone structures to vibrate.
"You dare insult a daughter of the Rynd house in my presence? You are an administrative speck, gatekeeper. If you breathe another word of disrespect toward my little sister, I will ensure the Knights Bureau strips you of your rank and leaves you to rot in the northern wilderness." Elicia hissed, her voice dropping into a terrifyingly quiet, regal octave that promised structural obliteration.
To my right, Evelyn's innocent, six-year-old mindset completely vanished, replaced entirely by the protective, territorial instincts of an S-rank apex hybrid. Her voluptuous 5'6" frame tensed, and the bioluminescent blue-green tips of her hair violently flashed a volatile, blinding crimson-yellow hue. She dropped her half-empty jar of strawberry jam onto a nearby crate and gripped the hilt of her Luminous Knight blade, her S-rank stats generating a physical wind that whipped through the checkpoint.
"Apologize to Eirene right now! If you make my big sister mad again, I'll dissolve you into nothing but puddles! I mean it!" Evelyn shouted, her hybrid core pulsing with a terrifyingly dense, kinetic pressure that made the surrounding guards drop to their knees from the sheer gravity of it.
Faced with the combined, catastrophic wrath of a top-3 Luminous Knight powerhouse and the legendary Offspring Goddess herself, Betch's remaining survival instincts finally kicked into overdrive. The intense, agonizing pain in his groin was instantly eclipsed by the sheer terror of impending execution. He realized, with absolute, horrific clarity, that the "plain girl" he had just insulted was flanked by the most dangerous family unit in the entire kingdom.
"I-I'm sorry! I deeply apologize! I didn't know! I didn't see!" Betch stammered frantically, his voice cracking into a high-pitched, pathetic squeak as tears of pure terror and pain streamed down his face.
Trembling violently, he scrambled backward on his hands and knees, completely abandoning his usual arrogant entitlement. With shaking, clumsy fingers, he desperately fumbled through his administrative ledger, entirely bypassing the standard interrogation, status checks, or overcharged fees. He rapidly stamped our clearance papers, grabbed our identification tokens, and handed back our status cards with a series of frantic, submissive nods, keeping his eyes glued firmly to the dirt to avoid making direct contact with any of us.
"H-Here are your cards, ladies! All cleared! Total clearance! Please, pass right through!" he wheezed out, coughing weakly as he tried to swallow his own saliva.
Evelyn huffed, snatching her jam jar back off the crate with a satisfied nod, her hair tips gradually fading back to their soothing blue-green rhythm. Elicia pulled back her suffocating holy aura, offering one last, freezing glare to the trembling man before she adjusted the tight fabric of her dress and stepped through the threshold.
I casually took my status card from Betch's trembling, sweat-slicked hand, tucking it away into my pocket with a cold, mocking click of my tongue. With the gatekeeper thoroughly humbled and the path completely cleared, we stepped past the iron barriers of the 6th District, moving as an unstoppable, unified front toward the central headquarters where Chief Roman awaited our arrival.