"Some of them act like veterans, though," he says cheerfully, since their behavior is satisfying for him, because it's hilarious. "All spooked when they see each other."
"Yes," he says unhappily, "but outside this bubble there are things happening." He gives Gaav a tragic Life Is Unjust face he'd yoinked from Amelia. "They're having absolutely beautiful guerrilla wars east of here, for one thing. I tried to go play when I first got here, but She tent-pegged me with prejudice. I can see why, but..." He eyes a nearby stone for kickability. After all, he's still biologically a teenager, too.
"It probably didn't help that Phibrizzo-dono didn't wait for him to come calling," he says unhappily. "I mean, to be enough recovered from the severing to come. Um," he looks down, "I maybe didn't try very hard to delay him. He'd taken control of the Sword of Light, ne, and the Lightbearer. You can imagine what he could have done with them. And, anou, if I'd tried to delay things from Lina-san's end, uh, that wouldn't have worked." He scratches the back of his neck with an embarrassed chuckled. She would have Ragna Bladed him into the ground and tied him to a vagabond's stick with Amelia singing happy songs about justice with all the considerable conviction of her extremely bright soul to keep him weak and healing slowly.
He nods. "Since Zelas-sama needed to send me to deal with Val-kun and his allies, Grausherra had more resources than Metallium to devote to courting alliance with Dolphin-dono."