Princess Caecila stepped by her guards, Typheras and Imperial guard Petronia Rex.

“Petronia, Typheras, do you understand miss NSLICE-00P’s actions?”

Typheras shrugged.

“You know I’m not one for magic, I figured you’d know more than I do.”

Petronia rubbed her chin.

“She seems to be running through spells, though she’s having trouble with a few of them? Guess that’s not one she learned through the Aesdes? Either extreme foolishness or extreme confidence to be experimenting with something like that in the field and without a tutor present. And extreme skill or extreme luck to actually get it working unassisted.”

Princess Caecila nodded.

“Right, perhaps she was just on the verge of getting that spell to work and just needed a little more practice? I am told she has archmage-level abilities, those circles seem a bit basic for what I’d expect her to be working on.”

Petronia shrugged.

“Mages normally specialize, right? Maybe she’s just branching out after mastering her chosen school.”

Petronia then grinned.

“I will say one thing though. Wisdom of the time and place aside, I’ve got to applaud her diligence to continue working on the basics. Which reminds me, Princess, how has your practice gone lately?”

Princess Caecila glanced away.

“Well, you see, I’ve been dreadfully busy lately…”

Typheras smirked.

“You mean like His Highness taking you on dates? You always seem to have time for those.”

Princess Caecila glared at her.

“Typheras!”

Petronia smiled.

“I see. I think I’ll speak with Fulcinia about your schedule then.”

Princess Caecila frowned and fell silent while Typheras chuckled.

Lilussees turned over in her hammock. She chittered, and then turned over again. She chittered once again.

She realized the truth.

She was bored.

She had never been bored before.

Back when she was a dungeon master, she had a great many tasks to conduct between her rests. Then after she joined the boss, she had to give advice to ensure her new home would stay safe and the snack wouldn’t get them into any trouble. Later, she had to follow the boss’s orders and work out in the field, and then there were…the dark times she didn’t like to remember.

So all in all, Lilussees always had something she needed to do between her rests.

But now?

NSLICE-00P hadn’t deployed them to scout this time, and was only deploying registered monsters to fight in front of the Imperials. NSLICE-00P was largely powerful enough to take care of herself at this point, and even if she needed former dungeon master advice they had the slime now, who seemed trustworthy enough and who had more experience than Lilussees did.

In other words, Lilussees had been left alone in the hangar, with no pressing tasks she needed to complete either for her own purposes or by the boss’s command. She had, for perhaps the first time, been able to sleep as much as she wanted.

And so she discovered a terrible truth.

She could, in fact, get enough sleep.

Now that she had been able to sleep as much as she wanted, undisturbed, for several days straight, she had reached the point where she couldn’t immediately fall back asleep. Her mind was naturally alert at this point, and her body fully rested.

She originally thought of just waiting until she could sleep again…but it turned out that would be much longer than she expected. And sitting here doing nothing but waiting…made it feel like even longer.

“I guess I’ll, like, do something, or whatever.”

She shuddered at the words that left her mouth. She checked in on the other monsters in the hangar to distract herself from that.

The slime was in its room, apparently putting together an armor or golem of some sort? The snack was brooding over something, but 02S was keeping an eye out so Lilussees ignored him. 01R was sparring with the other monsters, even the other spiders had joined in, but Lilussees was definitely not interested in that. Otherwise, the boss was practicing magic while watching over 00B, the registered team, and her Imperial friends.

Lilussees chittered, and began perusing the records offered by her ‘cybernetic components’ or whatever this armor was called. The boss had apparently adjusted it to resemble the records from the Aesdes, so it was significantly easier for Lilussees to navigate now. Not that the snack had figured that out.

She watched as the boss learned yet another spell, so she flicked over to the magic section of the ‘combat protocol database’.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Well, I guess I should, like, boost my skills, or something.”

Lilussees selected a spell circle at random, one that she didn’t know yet. She began to move her mana when a message appeared before her eyes.

“Activate Dark Bolt protocol?”

She rubbed her mandibles and decided why not. Her cybernetic components then took control of her mana. They guided her in forming the circle, keeping the mana perfectly precise.

The magic circle formed, and a small bolt of Dark mana hit one of her old hammocks.

You have learned the skill Dark Magic!

You have learned the spell Dark Bolt!

The spell Dark Bolt has leveled twice and is now level 3!