"Where is everyone?" Julius asked. "Don't you have the horned lady, the Uthra dude and the vampires?"
Brie laughed. "Something like that. They're probably in the dojo. We train a lot."
"Well, I want to join your party!" Julius exclaimed enthusiastically.
"Not yet buddy. You're too young," Sora said while patting him on the head.
"Propoganda!" Julius shouted and stared at Sora.
"Eye of Lockheart!" Sora whispered.
Julius stood in a daze smiling. Brie grabbed him and put him on the ground in an awkward position.
"Release!" Sora muttered.
"What the? I was with my parents, how the hell?" Julius said, clearly confused. "My demon art had no effect and how am I on the ground?! How the hell did I end up sitting like this?"
Brie giggled. "Not quite sure."
"Let's train you up at a school for the gifted. We can have Celeste build one. Sera, are you willing to teach the class for now for demons?" Sora asked politely.
"Of course," Sera said while slapping Julius on the head. "Trying to attack the King is a good way to get yourself killed!"
"I was just trying to prove my worth," Julius cried.
The rest of the party heard the commotion and headed upstairs. After hearing what happened, they all agreed to create a school and set up safe check points for the demons trying to travel to Sorbella.
"What do we do with Julius?" Celeste asked. "Not like we can just give him a house and say go live alone at 15 years of age."
"Julius, would you like to stay with us for now?" Brie offered politely.
"Yes. Thank you so much. Do you have anything to eat? I'm starving."
"Come with me," Sera said.
They made their way to a refrigerator in her room. She took out a pound of human flesh and told him, "Eat up."
After finishing their meal, they quickly returned to the living area.
"Sora, I think you need to buy a crematorium," Brie suggested.
"Won't people want the ashes?" Sora asked.
"I swear you'd think this guy lived 5000 years ago or something. No one cares anymore. They all know where we go when we die," Sasha joked while rolling her eyes.
"Ok, go buy one under your name Levi. Take Sasha with you," Sora ordered.
"Celeste lets go work on building this school," Sora said excitedly.
******
"What the fuck happened to you?" Azazel said as he healed Gluttony.
"Not sure my lord. One minute I was slaughtering demons and having myself a nice meal. I felt really powerful. Then it's like time froze and Sora showed up and Sera and Brie somehow kicked my ass while standing right next to Sora," Gluttony said, frowning. "Sorry my lord I don't usually fail."
"Pride, get in here now," Azazel demanded.
"Yes, my lord?" Pride asked as he laughed at Gluttony. "Pathetic."
"When you fought Sora, did anything weird happen?"
"Brat tried to freeze time but it didn't do much," Pride shrugged.
"Well apparently he's getting better at it, damnit!" Azazel said as he kicked Gluttony and sent him flying into the wall.
He teleported Pride and Gluttony out of the room.
"He gets stronger Azazel. Tread carefully," her golden eyes shined as the goddess spoke.
"I think it's time he and I had a little chat," Azazel said with a smirk.
*****
Over the next two months Sorbella became a full blown city. Over 50,000 humans, Uthra, vampires and even demons filled up the now large city streets. The rich pounced on the opportunity to open new businesses in the city, although much of it was still funded by Brie and Sora.
Julius still enjoyed living at Sora's mansion, and even got his own unique seal created for him. He couldn't join the party, but he was given a special seal that allowed him to teleport to the party when in imminent danger, couldn't speak that he knew of Sora's mansion, and earned a share of any dungeon clearing he completed.
He mostly trained with Levi, Leila and Sera in C-B ranked dungeons. He was gaining strength by the day and his demon art was now able to control several, lower level enemies.
Brie and Sora spent most of their time in the castle but would teleport to the mansion for sleep. It was nice to get away from the castle walls and constant responsibilities of being King and Queen.
Julius approached Brie and Sora nervously. He'd wavered over the last few days on whether or not he should even ask them.
Sora and Brie walked in holding hands and smiling. This relaxed Julius, but he was still jittery.
"What's wrong Julius? You look like you're really nervous." Brie asked with a smile.
"You know you really don't have anything to be nervous about. Even though you aren't an official party member, you still have all the same conditions as one essentially. This is your home too."
"That's actually what I wanted to talk to you two about. I was wondering if you two would adopt me as a step child or something?"
Brie squeezed Sora's hand and smiled.
"We already think of you as one, but if you'd like to be formally adopted, I'm sure we could arrange that."
"Thanks! I'd really appreciate it. I don't want my Father's last name anymore. He's a scumbag who doesn't deserve my time. I also don't expect to gain your abilities or anything."
"Let me ask Celeste." Sora said happily and teleported away.
Brie gave Julius a hug. "That took a lot of courage to ask, but we are super thrilled to have you as our step-child!"
Sora returned and gave his wife a reassuring nod.
"Celeste said we can do the paperwork ourselves because we are King and Queen. You would not gain our abilities, but you would be legally part of our family. If anything were to happen to Brie and me, you would inherit everything. This includes the party."
"Woah. Please make sure nothing happens to you. You need to save the world!"
With some help from Celeste, Sora and Brie filed the paperwork with the Sorbella clerk of courts.
With the wedding approaching, the party celebrated with a nice evening party.
When Brie and Sora laid down to sleep, they talked and laughed about how awesome it was to have a child and thought of potential names for when they were going to have kids.