Noelle walks into an Adeptus portal, which led to her room in the Serenitea Pot. There, she changed back from her tattered Miko garb to her usual maid-knight armor. Her eyes then perked up when she sensed danger, and she immediately opened another portal, this time leading to the entrance to the Sumeru desert.

When she arrived, she quickly casts her right hand forward to catch the blade of an odd spear wielded by a man wearing a wolf head shaped helmet.

"Pardon me, but what business do you have with Aether?"

"None, but I do have some business with that man he is bringing with him!"

"Mister Alhaitham?"

Alhaitham then separated the both of them apart and started to fight with the stranger, who used his impressive agility to leap and attack, and at one point he leapt to a cliff, and plunged from up there. Alhaitham was prepared to parry the attack, but Noelle appears in front of him, making him raising his brows in surprise.

"Kamisato counter!" Noelle chanted, as she raised one foot up, and stepped on the blade of the stranger's spear, locking it to the ground with her strength.

However she puts too much force into the step, and as a result, a small crater is formed beneath the both of them. The stranger quickly pulled his spear away, and tried to attack her again, with several swings, all were which were either dodged, or deflected by Noelle's gauntlets. And with one final overhead swing from the stranger, Noelle manages to summon Whiteblind in time, and parried the spear away, sending the stranger skidding across the sand a few feet backwards.

"...Cyno."

Alhaitham and Cyno then began to argue, causing Paimon to ask who Cyno is. Turns out, Cyno is the general mahamatra, an expert hunter who became a nightmare for academic criminals.

"You seemed to have placed a lot of trust in Alhaitham,  to the point of blocking an attack for him. As for you, random girl, why did you protect him?"

"Since Aether protected him, then I shall do it as well. My apologies for the trouble, General Mahamatra..."

"Just calling me Cyno is fine. Had I used my power, I can even defeat that blonde traveler, as mentioned. But you, what are you? To deflect my attacks with your gauntlets, yet not suffering any kind of recoil."

"I am a maid, who serves Aether, the blonde traveler you spoke of."

"A... maid? You're too overqualified and overly armored for one."

"It's complicated, Mister Cyno--"

"Like I said, you can drop your formalities."

"Alright... Cy..."

"...Forget it. Anyway, the reason why I attacked him in the first place is because of what he kept in his inventory. Hand over the Divine Knowledge Capsule."

Then Noelle remembers, that Alhaitham took something from Mizri back in Port Ormos, and pocketed it for himself. Quickly, she turned her attention to Alhaitham, and prepares Whiteblind if Alhaitham prepares something rash. In response, both Ayaka and Nilou drew out their blades as well.

"What should we do, Aether? The girls are all..." Paimon whispered to Aether.

"We couldn't trust either of them at this point. We're at a bind here."

"Ahem... Well look at what I got here, the blonde traveler and his harem dealing with two Akademiya figures acting all tough and self-righteous over there." A feminine voice spoke out behind Aether.

"Wait, Dehya!? Finally, someone we can trust, you've gotta help us here! Otherwise, Paimon doesn't even know what will happen if the girls used their full power when those two start fighting again!"

"I don't want to imagine that too, but alright."

Dehya then tries to play mediator, and told the two men that she's going to have to beat some sense into the both of them if they continued to fight in the safe haven that is Aaru Village, which is just beyond a wooden bridge. And after that, a sandstorm approaches and a mature woman's voice calls out to them to get pass the bridge.

They were led by the woman to a house which she says belonged to the village's chief. She introduces herself as Candace, the protector of the village. She initially greets the group warmly, but then went into a questioning tone when she starts to speak of the attack at the village's border.

Dehya tries to explain that she is the mediator but failed, while Cyno doesn't hide his intentions and the reason why he is in Aaru to begin with. As it turns out he exiled himself after he failed in an attempt to investigate Grand Sage Azar on the topic of missing data, but all evidences were concealed. Azar also rejected Cyno's audit as a result, the Akademiya were already aware of his intentions. Then the girls begin to perk up when Cyno mentions another reason why he targeted Alhaitham, is that the sages had given him a task to investigate Aether.

"The sages... I'll kill them!"

"Calm down, calm down! Not all of them are involved, well at least!" Nilou said, trying to hold Ayaka back, who is now literally kicking the air as she tried to leave in the middle of the sandstorm.

"And you are not leaving in this weather as well, Lady Ayaka! Please, calm yourself down and we'll figure out a way to solve the issue!"

Ayaka then stopped, and returned to her seat.

"Nice girls you got with you." Dehya sarcastically said.

"Now is not the time to be joking, Miss Dehya..."

 The girls stayed quiet (with Ayaka still grumbling behind her fan), as the misunderstanding finally clears. But then Candace approached Noelle.

"Young miss."

"What, oh, me? What is it, Lady Candace?"

"You are involved in that fight as well. Where do you stand?"

"Aether is protecting Mister Alhaitham, which is why in turn I protected him as well, but I never knew that Mister Alhaitham was given such task to spy on us."

"That is understandable in a sense. Would you mind, if I give you a piece of advice?"

Noelle nods.

"I don't know who you are, but I can see that you have a great sense of loyalty to Aether, that traveler, but you also need to know when to not jump straight into a conclusion like what happened in that fight. You're controlled by orders and purpose too tightly, and that can be dangerous for the soul."

"I understand, Lady Candace. Forgive my wrongdoings."

"No hard feelings."

It was then when a beastly growl is heard, and Candace had to leave as she knew that it would be beasts from the desert that are attacking. A while later, everyone starts to get worried, and went out seeing the sandstorm has stopped, and Candace is still fighting a wave of rift wolves.

"Now I have something to take out my anger on!" Dehya said, cracking her knuckles before taking on one of the wolves.

The other girls joined in; Noelle fought against 3, Ayaka against 2, and Nilou against one.

Noelle gracefully dodged the bites and claws of the wolves, and in one swipe, managed to  knock the wolves sky high. When they come back down Noelle imbues Whiteblind's blade with geo, and did one spin which cleaved the three of them in half.

Ayaka merely stood in position as the wolves come in closer and attempted to pounce on her, only for Ayaka to unsheathe her tachi in the last second.

"Kamisato Ryuu: Shinpan no Katto (Cut of Judgement)"

 A dozen of slashes appear which froze the wolves in place, and when Ayaka sheathes her tachi back, the wolves were cut up to pieces.

"I've prepared myself for this... It's battle time-!" Nilou charges in on one of the wolves, only to have it plunge it's claws straight through her exposed stomach.

The wolf made a menacing smirk, but then is caught by surprise when Nilou's body suddenly turns into water, that imprisons the wolf within. And with one slash imbued with hydro, the real Nilou who is standing outside cleaves the wolf's body in half. The water then devours the wolf from the inside until nothing is left, and the water flows into Nilou's vision.

"Whoa... I never knew Nilou can fight like that!" Dehya said in awe, looking at her mistress' friend.

"Dehya, focus!" Aether shouted, as he cuts down one wolf in half, before slashing another.

After a while of fighting, the wolves were wiped out. Not long afterwards, the village chief came by to thank them, only to give them one more mystery. The Village Keepers were disappearing one by one, suspiciously so.

After the exchange, Aether and the girls walked back to the village, where Aether then stopped to talk to Noelle.

"Noelle, I think you should stay at the village, help out the locals if you can."

"Eh? But Aether, we don't know why the village keepers disappear, and if it is indeed dangerous-"

"That's what I am worried about. Remember, you have a 50 million mora bounty on your head, and if the danger includes the Eremites, who knows what will they use to get you while we are off guard."

"If that is what you say, Aether... Alright, I will stay at the village."

"That's my Noelle."

"Be careful, alright? I don't know what I will do if anything happens to you..."

"I'll be careful, Noelle. I still have those two on my side..."

They leaned in closer, and pressed each other's lips for a moment. Noelle wraps her arms around Aether's waist, as she then let go from the kiss, and Aether pats her head. Nilou looked on with a small smile, while Ayaka mutters behind her fan. However, Aether then motioned the both of them to come closer as well which wipes the unhappiness out of Ayaka.

Aether (with a lip mark on his cheek) then leaves with a steaming Ayaka who had a hickey on her neck, and a happy Nilou, who hums as they walked off to start their investigation.