Time is like water in a sponge; squeeze, it comes, but I forgot the basin, so it hit the floor with a whoosh and was gone like rain.

After all that babbling, the night-long feast wound down; lamps dimmed, laughter curled like incense, and no one carried a sour face home.

Yes—no one at all, not a cloud in that clear sky.

Even Elfe forgot her earlier pain like mist burned off by sun, and chased Ling everywhere like a sparrow skimming fields.

Poor Amelia shadowed her, hands ready like nets, afraid Elfe would tumble like a leaf in a gust.

Then Ling downed a cup of actual wine—something as mild as pineapple ale—and the usual trope of instant drunken collapse didn’t show.

Makes sense; with bodies tempered like iron, how could a sip topple us like straw?

“Look at—hic—look at Elfe, what a loser!” Ling’s face went peach-blossom red, and after one cup she melted onto Alicia like warm wax.

Strength ran out of her like water from a cracked jar, and her mouth started scattering nonsense like dandelion fluff.

“Ling, you’re drunk. Stop drinking. Big sis will take you back to rest,” Alicia said, voice soft as a shawl.

“No! I’m super brave! Let me check first! I wanna become a grown-up, right now!”

So Alicia used one clean strike, the Anti‑Loli Noble Arm: Hand Chop, a crescent like a falling petal, and knocked her out.

Before Ling hit the floor, Alicia caught her in a princess carry like cradling moonlight, and took her to the room Amelia had prepared.

As for what happened after… who knows—the teacher taps the head, and the scene fades like a curtain.

Morning.

The loli wriggled free of the Octopus‑Cage hug like slipping from kelp, pushed Alicia’s weight off like a quilt, and dressed with a wince.

She sat at the bed’s edge, palm on her brow like a cool leaf. “A hangover, huh…”

——Crimson King!!!——

By noon, under a sun like a hammered coin, Alicia lent the Elvenfolk a hand and helped them pin down the old site of the Mystic Realm.

Then she and Ling rode off on the awakened goat‑headed monster, hooves drumming the plain like rain on drums.

With wakefulness came calm; the rampage mode folded away like a storm leaving a clear horizon.

Out of respect for strength and thanks for rescue, the goat‑head bowed like a mountain and asked to follow them.

Alicia didn’t object; she’d planned to take him anyway, even by force, like roping a runaway bull, but now the road lay smooth.

With him wanting to join, Alicia also had a rounder reason, polished like river stone, to ask Amelia to let them keep him.

Thus rose a scene oddly painted: an adorable loli and a statuesque sister with a saintly glow riding a purple, horned goat‑head across flatland like a brushstroke.

How to say it? It felt out of tune, like one wrong note in a lullaby.

“Hey, sis, should we give him a name? Calling him nothing is clunky, like a cart with one square wheel.”

Ling poked the silence like a stick at a pond, bored ripples spreading under the wind.

Alicia saw the boredom in Ling’s eyes like a bird pecking glass, but seeing isn’t exposing; she kept it gentle.

Naming can’t be one person’s whimsy, like painting over another’s crest.

“So, big fella—what do you think?” Alicia’s voice rang small, like a windbell under eaves, but the goat‑head heard it clear as a drum.

“Master, since you saved me, my life is yours; a name is a leaf on a stream—give it, and I carry it.”

Even so, when it came time to name this mountainous beast, Alicia hesitated like a traveler at a forked path.

Name him “Lucky” or “Prosper,” and he might accept; but Alicia couldn’t swallow that, like a bitter seed stuck under the tongue.

Imagine shouting in battle, “Lucky, use Frenzied Claw!”—you’d lose momentum on the wind, like a kite with a snapped string.

Girl names were worse: “Sophia,” “Nyaki”—silk draped over granite, wrong at a glance and heavy at heart.

Round and round, she walked into a dead end like paths twisting into thorn.

Alicia’s naming skill was a dull blade; either plain and lifeless, or flipping a dictionary like dice and risking “Dick,” or worse, a word that sounds like a curse.

For the first time, she regretted not studying, regret falling cold like rain; if only class had stuck like ink.

Back then, there was someone whose naming art bloomed like roses and cut like knives: “Blood‑Rose G Linda, Blood‑Smeared Butterfly,” reeled off like breath.

If only she had that gift, she thought, wishes fluttering like paper cranes.

Helpless, Alicia set aside big‑sister authority like a cloak on a chair and looked to Ling for a spark.

Ling didn’t answer; her gaze stitched to the goat‑head like a thread, mind wandering like fog over the marsh.

After a long breath, she came back, voice calm as lake water. “Let’s call him… Edmund.”