Despite wanting to explore their host's home some more and maybe get to know each other better, both groups were just too curious about what was going to happen next in this alternate world of a sorts. They still barely understood what all of this actually meant, but until their host returned from his shopping trip, they had no choice but to wait for his return. And what better way was there than to watch TV?

As such, after everyone was back together, seats were taken and the watching device turned on.

The first scene that played out on the big screen showed the camera zooming in from above the clouds. Soon, a landscape came into view, consisting of a forest in the far north, a big city in the south, a village to the west and large, open fields practically everywhere else. Of note was the city itself, which was surrounded by one huge lake. The city was practically an island in the middle of the lake and the only thing connecting it to the main land was a single bridge.

"Hey, that's Ladylake!" Sorey exclaimed, recognizing the first human settlement he had ever visited easily.

"Hmm, I wonder if we are going to see the two of us now," Mikleo spoke thoughtfully, referring to himself and Sorey.

"Wow, the place looks even better from above," Rose commented, causing Alisha to puff her chest in pride at the compliment to her hometown.

"It looks beautiful," Laphicet acknowledged.

The camera zoomed in closer at a fast pace, until it slowed down, when it reached the shore of the lake. On the southern part of aforementioned lake, Symonne could be seen wandering around the coast, lazily swinging her baton around. She had a bored expression on her face, yet she was humming a little tune to herself.

"Wait, I don't remember Symonne being at Ladylake," Sorey spoke thoughtfully.

"This is an alternate world, remember?" Dezel spoke to the Seraph.

"Oh yeah, I forgot."

"Hmph. Besides, I would have known if she had been there," the wind Seraph spoke with venom in his voice. The others noticed this, but decided to not pry into his personal matters just yet.

As Symonne walked at the side of the lake, she of course came across the raging river and the destroyed bridge. People could be seen on the other side of the bridge with building material and tools at the ready. However, none of them were doing any kind of work, quite the contrary actually. Some men were simply talking to each other, others played with dice and again others were even drinking some beer.

"I remember that. The workers couldn't repair the bridge, because of the raging currents," Mikleo said with crossed arms. "And the currents were caused by a Seraphim that had been taken over by malevolence."

"So the Malakhim became a dragon?" Eizen asked worried. The others of his crew tensed up, aside from Velvet and Magilou, but relaxed when they saw Mikleo shake his head.

"No, he hadn't fallen that far. In fact, on our journey we met quite a few Seraphim that came corrupted by malevolence. I don't want to imagine what would have happened if they all became dragons."

"Yeah, just imagine. Having to fight a dragon every other day," Rokurou stated with a serious nod.

"And why do you sound so excited at the prospect?" Eleanor asked with a deadpan expression.

"It's Rokurou. What did you expect?" Magilou summed it up the best.

Since Ladylake proper appeared to be Symonne's destination, she had to cross the water somehow. And she already knew how. Using her artes she conjured a little ice bridge. Not over the river of course, that would be suicidal. Rather she created the bridge over the lake itself. She didn't make it too big and made sure to melt the ice away as soon as she was on the other side, in order to avoid a commotion. Luckily for her, no one had looked towards her during the time it took to cross the small part of the lake.

"You know, we could have done that a couple of times," Velvet noted with a thoughtful expression.

"On the other hand, we never really needed an ice bridge for anything," Eleanor pointed out. "Plus creating one that is thick enough for all of us to cross would take away considerable amounts of energy over time. Energy we could possibly need in a battle."

"Besides, with all of this global cooling going on, it's only a matter of time until everything becomes a frozen wasteland and we have to migrate to the south," Magilou felt the need to comment.

Being so close to the workers, Symonne was now capable of overhearing their conversations.

"Must have been a lot of rain in the mountains. Can't explain all of that water otherwise," one of them said, speaking to the foreman.

"Let's just hope it will flow down quickly. If we don't get that medicine transported quickly, there won't be anyone left in that village."

"What is he talking about?" Eleanor asked the Zestiria crew.

"The village he talks about was plagued by a disease," Alisha explained. "However, this bridge practically connects Ladylake to the rest of the world. And due to a lack of foresight on our behalf, there were no ships that could be used to transport the wagons or the medicine on the other side. This bridge is the only thing connecting Ladylake to the rest of the world."

"Sounds like a design flaw to me," Rokurou stated.

"Sadly, we noticed this too late. Many died due to the plague."

Symonne didn't stay too long to listen to the workers. She had almost reached her destination and planned on going there without any interruptions. A pipe dream as it turned out to be. The camera suddenly looked down at the Seraphim from a hill. On said hill, a pack of wolves were watching the young looking Seraphim with bloodshot eyes. It became immediately clear that those weren't normal animals. These creatures had been corrupted by malevolence. They were bigger than your average wolf, had longer claws and not to mention the glowing eyes.

"Hmm, I wonder if I can get one of those as a pet."

Several eyes wandered towards the resident witch.

"Didn't you say you're a cat person?" Laphicet asked.

The blonde woman waved him off. "Oh, I wasn't thinking about "that" kind of pet. I just think something like this would be good for Magilou's Menagerie. People love exotic animals."

"I wouldn't call a daemon an exotic animal," Eizen grunted.

"Oh please, have you taken a look at Velvet?"

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

The wolves charged down the hill with every intend on killing the "helpless" girl and make her their dinner. However, Symonne wasn't fazed at all. The opposite appeared to be the case. Almost lazily she raised her wand and swung it around. Three fireballs, one for each wolf, escaped from her weapon of choice and flew straight at the attackers. The animals yelped in pain and found themselves flung across the air until they painfully landed on the ground. To add insult to injury, the fur of the three assailants was now on fire. Yelping in surprise and panic, the wolves did the only logical thing and ran straight into the lake. Symonne snorted in half-amusement, before continuing on her merry way.

Laphicet couldn't help but chuckle at the comedic display of the daemons.

"Oh hey, that's us!" Sorey pointed at the screen.

As Symonne came closer to the entrance of Ladylake, the camera moved away from her and floated towards the bridge connected to the city. It showed that all traffic on the bridge had practically stopped, as the Spearowfeathers were in the middle of fixing a cart that had broken down.

"Those hellions sure did a number on our carts," Rose stated with a frown. "Thinking back, I should have known something was wrong with those wolves. Their jaws easily bit through solid wood and even after stabbing them at vital points, they wouldn't go down at all."

"It's what makes daemons so dangerous to normal humans," Eizen explained. "At least back in our time we have weapons enchanted with the magic of Malakhim. But even with that, it's still risky to engage into a fight with a daemon."

"Doesn't mean it won't stop certain blockheads from doing so. I won't mention names." Edna refused to look at anyone. Multiple parties still felt like they had been spoken to.

The camera stayed at the site of the accident for a couple of seconds, showing Rose giving instructions to her fellow merchants to check the wares, see if anything had been damaged and to hurry up the repairs. The camera then floated away and moved towards an old road, where two familiar faces were walking down and talking to each other. Symonne could be seen walking up that path, eyeing both young men with interest.

Sorey and Mikleo visibly tensed up. Both of them knew what Symonne was capable of doing and both expected her to put them through hell. However, the exact opposite of what the two longtime friends expected happened.

Symonne approached the two individuals halfway on their descent to the city, giving them a friendly wave. "Why, hello there." she greeted the newcomers, when they were only a couple of feet away, getting their attention. Both Human and Seraph stopped in whatever they had been discussing and looked in front of them. Before any of them could say anything, Symonne continued on.

"It is rare these days to find a person capable of interacting with my kind." she nodded towards the blue-clad seraph.

"What is she doing talking to us?" Mikleo wondered.

"Probably trying to trick you into doing something you will regret," Dezel answered in a disgusted tone. "She is working for the Lord of Calamity after all."

"Hey, Velvet isn't that kind of person!" Laphicet immediately defended the local daemon, causing Velvet to look to him.

"He's right. Velvet is much more straightforward," Magilou agreed with a devious smile. "Although she isn't above some dirty trickery every now and then."

Velvet just grunted, not denying the accusation. She always tried to get every advantage she could get, be it in battle or somewhere else.

"You mean like the time she used you as a meat shield, when we were fighting that frog daemon?" Rokurou asked with a smirk.

"We promised to never talk about this again!"

"Wait, you're Seraph?" The human asked in slight disbelief, but also excitement. His Seraph friend crossed his arms, looking a little surprised.

"Indeed, I am. My name is Symonne." she introduced herself with a small curtsy. "And who might you two gentlemen be?"

"O-oh. This is Mikleo." The human pointed towards his seraph friend. "And my name is Sorey. It's nice to meet you."

"Well, she is staying polite so far," Alisha said carefully.

"Doesn't need to mean anything." Rose toyed with her knife. "Tricksters know how to play it cool and strike when you least expect it."

"It is a pleasure." Mikleo nodded politely. "Honestly, I didn't expect to run into a fellow Seraph so soon. The two of us just left Elysium and are on our way to the human city."

"Ah, so you're from Elysium." Symonne filed that little tidbit of information away for later while keeping her polite gesture. "Personally, I have never been there, although I heard it is the last malevolence free place on this continent."

This seemed to disturb both Mikleo and Sorey. "The last malevolence free place on the continent?" Sorey echoed. "Are you sure you aren't exaggerating?"

"Sadly, it isn't a joke." Lailah shook her head slowly.

"Is it really that much of a problem?" Laphicet asked.

"Is it? You can't come even close to a town without feeling like a thousand ants are crawling all over your body," Dezel grunted. "Being with Sorey has made things easier, but that's only for us sub-lords. Every other Seraph is constantly at risk of turning into a daemon."

"But doesn't that include her as well?" Eleanor gestured at Symonne on the screen.

"Who knows what's going on in her head? Trust me, I've met her. She may all prim and proper now, but in her head," Dezel tapped against his skull. "She is messed up."

Eleanor didn't say anything further, but frowned none the less. ("Something doesn't add up here…")

"I take it you do not come out of Elysium very often." Symonne deduced and turned around. She gestured with her baton towards the city. "Do you see the black particles coming out of the buildings?" she asked.

Both Mikleo and Sorey came a little closer and squinted their eyes. It took them a couple of seconds, but they too eventually noticed the malevolence.

"Oh no." Sorey breathed out.

"This isn't good," Mikleo commented.

"Sadly, this has become the norm," Symonne said offhandedly. "You have probably noticed it already, the wild animals that have been turned into hellions."

Velvet's unbandage hand balled into her fist. She was all too familiar with the scene in front of her. Granted there was nowhere near as much malevolence as there had been during the accursed scarlet night, but that didn't mean that rather uncomfortable memories were awoken inside of her.

"That's a lot of malevolence," Rokurou noted. "The town must be infested with daemons."

"Regular people only see them as humans," Edna explained. "And the daemons living inside the city have learned to adapt. Sometimes the power gets to their head, but most of the time they manage to fit in."

"So, like me and Velvet do. Of course, it helps that we still look human."

"Yes. We even got attacked by a couple of them." Mikleo said, looking back at Symonne with a hardened gaze. "Is it truly that bad?"

"Bad? Definitely. The worst it can be? Well, luckily we're still not there and there are those that try to improve the situation. Take Princess Alisha for example-"

"Wait, what?!" Symonne found herself interrupted by the two boys, as they stared at her in disbelief. "Alisha-" Sorey began.

"-is a princess?" Mikleo finished off.

"That sure threw us in for a loop," the water-seraph nodded at the reaction of his other self.

"You can say that again. My mind was blown when I learned the first other human I met was a princess." Sorey threw Alisha a grin.

The princess in return giggled. "I'm sorry, Sorey. But I couldn't give away my full identity to someone I had just met."

"Makes sense," Eizen acknowledged. "Rulers have all kinds of enemies they have to be wary about. You only need to look at the prince."

"Or any other politician." Rokurou shook his head. "I don't understand. How come someone who talks all day can have more enemies than your average mercenary?"

"There is a reason they say words hit harder than anything else," Alisha stated.

Huh? You two know her personally?" Symonne tilted her head in curiosity. "I didn't know she could see Seraphim."

"Well, actually, she can't." Mikleo cleared up. "We just happen to stumble upon her by sheer coincidence and helped her out a little. She got lost inside some ruins in Elysium and was possibly attacked by a hellion. Sorey" he pointed towards his human friend "helped her out a little until she was ready to leave. We thought that was that until out of nowhere a fox hellion showed up. He revealed to us that he had the intent to kill her."

"A daemon assassin? Now where have I heard that before?" Bienfu "wondered" out loud.

"Can we not talk about this?" Eleanor asked through gritted teeth.

"Aw, don't tell me you're still hurting about our little disagreement we had back then?" Magilou spoke sweetly.

"I wouldn't call it little…" Laphicet sweatdropped.

"I wouldn't call a situation where people try to kill each other a "disagreement" either," Velvet chimed in.

"Excuse me, what?" Rose asked. "What are you all talking about?"

Laphicet stopped the video, feeling like this explanation would take a little while.

"Oh, where do I begin? It all started when we were hired by a notorious, underground guild that specialized in everything your dark heart could possibly desire…"