Some time had passed since my daily life at Hera Familia began—if you could even call it that.
And now, I was lying on a bed with Lady Arphia, held in her arms.
"W-why?"
"Be quiet."
Boom!
"Guh?!"
One thing I had learned over the past few days was this.
Lady Arphia was extremely, extremely domineering, and if something displeased her, she would swing her fist without hesitation.
So I'd been trying my best to go along with her mood as much as possible, but...
"Still, isn't this a little too strange?"
"What is?"
What do you mean, what is? Did I really have to say it out loud?
Everything about this situation was strange.
Why was I lying in bed right now—
"Then would you rather sleep sitting up?"
—why was I in Lady Arphia's arms—
"You're warm. It helps me sleep."
she said, pressing her body closer against my arm.
Her enormous chest was squashed against my arm, shifting softly as if to show off just how supple it was.
...This softness I could never feel through the wire—no, don't ask.
Even if we slept like this, it wasn't like the sacred flame would flare up or anything, and there was no other effect to be had.
"I already know that."
"Then why do you know that?"
I never told her, so why did she know?
...Well, putting that aside, I could at least agree that it was cold.
The Harvest Festival was getting closer, and the weather had turned chilly.
Maybe it was different during the day, but at night it was so cold that even an adventurer's sturdy body could feel it.
Of course, that still wasn't much of an excuse for this situation.
Had Lady Arphia turned out to be the type who opened her heart easily? After a few days, the once-guarded Lady Arphia had instead started clinging to me and refusing to let go.
No, maybe she'd been acting so prickly precisely because she was wary of this situation.
"Is it because of my hair color?"
Sometimes, in her sleep, she mistook me for Meteria. Maybe my hair had made her guard drop more easily.
And somehow, that had led us to today...
To be honest, it had been nothing but torture for me.
At first, she just lay sprawled against the edge of the bed.
Then she gradually drew closer.
Yesterday she pulled me into the bed, and today she was hugging me so tightly I might as well have been a stuffed doll.
Was my [Firebolt] some kind of drug? Unless I thought of it that way, there was no way to make sense of this situation.
I wanted to complain, but then our eyes met for a moment.
Her beautiful eyes narrowed slightly as she frowned. Her two-colored irises stared straight at me.
I could read the displeasure in them, but what I felt then wasn't fear or danger—it was a different kind of jolt.
Only now did it really hit me. This woman was incredibly beautiful. Even more so with her eyes open.
No matter how old I got, seeing a beauty still made my heart skip. Was it the sad nature of being male, or was I just lacking in self-control?
And in a situation this close, she told me not to be conscious of it. If anything, wouldn't it be more rude not to be conscious of it?
Grandpa. What am I supposed to do?
"-Go onnnn! Take the witch down right here and now!"
That wasn't very helpful. My respect for Grandpa dropped by one point again today.
At times like this, my teacher was more useful than Grandpa.
Teacher, please give me the answer.
"-You traitor who betrayed the goddess. Die."
This elf is useless in a different way too?!
"Hey, stop making a fuss."
"Yes, ma'am."
Zing. Her sharp gaze seemed to cut right through me.
The atmosphere felt like she was scolding a child, and I could feel my pride taking a hit for no good reason—
"Good."
Maybe she liked my reaction. Lady Arphia's slender fingers gently stroked my hair.
"Mm..."
...This felt less like educating a child and more like...
"Some kind of dog training."
Even as I felt that strange sensation, as if she were teaching a pet tricks, my consciousness slowly sank under the pull of her hand.
That night, I had a dream. A dream a little different from my usual nightmares.
No, was this still a nightmare?
Usually, whenever I dreamed, it was always a dream where everyone died. Tonight, I dreamed of being swallowed by a giant wisp and flailing helplessly as I couldn't escape.
It was a very soft nightmare.
Arphia watched the rabbit fall asleep so easily and lifted the corners of her mouth slightly.
"So he really was tired."
The boy had probably not been sleeping properly while taking care of himself all this time. This was a kind of reward for him. Whenever her younger sibling had trouble falling asleep, hugging him had always helped him drift off quickly.
It might have been for a different reason than with her, but he seemed to be tormented by nightmares just like she was. Unfortunately, she had no way to pull him out of them the way he had done for her, but at the very least, she could provide him with deep sleep.
...Whether it could truly be called deep sleep was something only Vesta knew, but Arphia had no doubt that he was sleeping soundly.
That was the harm of excessive confidence.
"Hm, and this is actually quite..."
Arphia was large for a woman.
Vesta was small for a man.
Their heights fit together so well that Vesta could nestle right into Arphia's arms.
It was, quite literally, the finest hugging pillow one could ask for!
His hair was silky and smooth—what was he even putting on it?—and his warm body temperature brought a pleasant sensation with it.
She had intended to give him a reward in exchange for lighting the sacred flame every night... but if it was like this, then maybe sleeping together every night wouldn't be so bad even without that.
She got a good hugging pillow, and he got quality sleep(?).
It was a rather crude way to put it, but wasn't this what the gods called a win-win relationship?
The witch fell asleep after deciding, all by herself, on a situation that would drive only the rabbit insane.
That night, the witch had a dream too.
A dream of tightly holding onto a rabbit trying to run away. Not a bad dream at all.
It seemed the rabbit had an innate ability to drive away nightmares.
That gave her one more reason to keep holding onto him.
"Your skin seems to have gotten better lately."
"...Has it?"
Fels's words left me feeling oddly unsettled.
I hated to admit it, but when I slept while hugging Lady Arphia, I strangely slept very well.
Maybe there was something I didn't know, or maybe I was just the kind of hopeless man who slept best in a woman's arms.
My mind was a little unsettled, but as they say, a healthy body houses a healthy mind. Since I was sleeping well, my thoughts were starting to feel a little more pliant too.
It wasn't a bad thing, and I hadn't done anything I needed to feel guilty about, so there shouldn't be any problem if I just let it go. Yeah.
"I don't know what it is, but if you can sleep soundly, then get as much sleep as you can while you still can. You won't be able to sleep once you're nothing but bones."
"..."
That was heavy! I wasn't sure if he thought it was a black joke, but the sage who had lived for hundreds of years had a lot of jokes that were hard to laugh at.
"Ah, come to think of it, what are the others... the Xenos, doing right now?"
"They're in the middle of finding a suitable safe zone and setting up a base. The information you gave them was useful."
Changing the subject a little, I was relieved when Fels followed along without suspicion.
My memories were useless in the city, but they were more than enough to help the Xenos.
The Dungeon was a place I had studied thoroughly even in the future. There were plenty of unexplored regions and safe zones in my memories that had not yet been revealed in this era.
For example, the spring in the Deep Floors, or the village in the lake that the Xenos had originally used.
Apparently, the Xenos had settled down earlier than they had in the original history.
"Come to think of it, there hasn't been much reaction to that."
Was it because it didn't have much impact on history? I really couldn't figure out the 기준.
"By the way, I finished the thing I mentioned before."
"Huh?"
The thing he mentioned before?
What was it? I couldn't think of anything at all.
"That thing. The tool to support your magic."
"Ah."
Oh, that. Come to think of it, there had been something like that.
"-Since we'll be working together from now on, I'll make you a special weapon of your own."
"You won't regret cooperating with me."
It had been two weeks since he'd said that with such confidence. He'd already finished it in that short time?
As expected of the skill that had earned him the nickname Fels-Emon. I didn't know what that meant, but still.
"Here. This is it."
What Fels produced was a long, cylindrical object.
Too big to call small, too small to call large—an awkward size that was hard to carry but not impossible.
"What is this?"
"The 'Neo Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong Cannon.' Uranos named it."
It sounded like a name with an oddly high level of completion.
"It's a support tool for your magic."
"My magic?"
My magic... did he mean [Firebolt]?
A tool to support [Firebolt]...
"What could it be? I can't quite picture it."
As much as I hated to say it myself, [Firebolt] was the most ideal magic for me.
Its overwhelming usage was possible because it required no chant.
It was fast, and because it could be fired repeatedly, it had absurd compatibility in one-on-one combat.
Even against monsters, as long as they didn't have some broken trait like a Destroyer, it could still serve well as a means of harassment.
Of course, since it had no chant at all, its power couldn't help but fall short compared to a short chant spell, but my high magic stat made up for that to some extent, and if needed, I could use Argonaut to amplify its power.
Power, speed, volume. My magic lacked nothing in any of those areas. But because of that, there wasn't much room to improve it.
It was already so good that there was nothing left to refine. So a tool to support that...
"What is it?"
Half suspicious, half expectant, I looked at Fels, and he explained with a confident expression.
"This Neo Armstrong—...that's too long, so let's just call it the Neo Cannon. The Neo Cannon's effect is compression and amplification."
"Compression and amplification?"
"Yes. From what I can tell, your magic seems to go beyond short chant and into no-chant, correct?"
"Yes."
He'd figured that out even though I'd never properly shown him? As expected, he was sharp.
"Hmm. But because it's no-chant, the magical aspect is a little twisted compared to the usual case."
That was true. Normally, magic meant a single decisive blow. An absurd power that could overturn the battle.
In that sense, my [Firebolt] was a little lacking as magic.
"I was disappointed by that once, too."
When I first got magic, I'd dreamed of something amazing, only to be disappointed when all that came out was a fireball. Of course, I quickly realized how foolish that thought had been.
My [Firebolt] was every bit as broken as any other magic, just in a different direction. Especially when you considered my fighting style, there probably wasn't a more perfect spell for me.
"The magical tool meant to compensate for that is this Neo Cannon. It's a simple but effective item that raises power and range through compression and amplification."
"Oh..."
So that magical tool was basically an artificial Argonaut. A [Firebolt] with constant Argonaut-level power... that was definitely appealing.
The question was how good its effect really was.
"It gets compressed, so the area shrinks a little, but the power rises accordingly. Go on, try firing it."
Rather than rambling on, Fels suggested I test it directly.
That kind of move was only possible because he had absolute confidence in his own work. In this regard, no one in Orario could compare to the sage.
At least, not yet.
I took my stance in the training ground Fels had prepared. Surprisingly, this thing weighed a little.
"I had to be selective with the materials and pack a lot into it. But that's why the function is solid."
"Hmm..."
...Well, I'd know once I fired it.
"Hoo... [Firebolt]!"
Kaboom!
After taking a deep breath, I used my magic.
With a tremendous roar, the flame bolt shot out. It flew toward the target at a slightly faster speed than usual, then exploded and shattered it to pieces.
Ssssssshhhk—
"Well?"
Fels said it with a confident expression—though as bones, there wasn't much expression to begin with. I couldn't find any words to answer him right away.
Hmm... this...
"About... ten seconds?"
It felt like roughly the same power as a charge of that length.
"Ah, but using it back-to-back is a bit much."
When I tried to fire again, Fels stopped me.
So, no rapid fire either.
Ssssssshhhk—
More importantly, what was that sizzling meat sound from earlier?
"That's the cooler running. It's a first-rate piece that can cool down within thirty seconds."
"..."
Thirty seconds...
Hmm...
Let me say this first: the function is good.
A magical tool with this level of amplification is rare. In that sense, this was definitely an excellent item.
And the reuse time was thirty seconds. That was certainly not short if you were assuming combat use, but it wasn't unusable either.
"Fels. Sorry to say this, but..."
"Hm...?"
Yeah, not unusable. For a mage.
"I don't think I can use this."
"Whaaaaat?!"
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