Chapter 353 – Throwing the towel

Chapter 353 – Throwing the towel

The sisters visited Ellie after she had run away from Steph once she had seen her, to find out that it was just a misunderstanding. The little princess wasn’t scared of her in the slightest and merely wanted to make sure that her dog plushie was still in her room because Steph looked so similar to it, and she thought her plushie had turned into a girl. Afterward, the duo went to the other girls, and Plushie, the dog-girl’s new nickname, immediately befriended Anna and Ari as she was incredibly sociable.

“It’s beyond amazing that you managed to find each other again, and I’m incredibly happy for you, but...” Ari looked a little awkward after having listened to the tale of the sisters. “Maya already warned me, but it actually does feel like you have even more magic than Sophia... Much more, in fact... D-Does that mean you’re even more ridiculous than her when it comes to that...?” She sounded pretty worried while facing the little sister.

“Hmm...” Steph tilted her head. “That’s hard to say, actually... To be perfectly honest, even though I have that much of it, I don’t really know how to use magic.”

“E-Eh?!” Anna and the jaguar got loud while staring at the dog-girl, who had gotten comfortable next to Chloe on the sofa after the sisters had arrived earlier.

“Well,” She scratched her cheek, trying to come up with an explanation. “I’m aware of my magic at least as long... as I remember having a tail, but... I somehow only became able to actually able to use it like yesterday...”

“Why?” The princess naturally couldn’t understand that kind of explanation.

"That's an excellent question!” The dog-girl scratched her cheek.

“Why are you sisters so complicated?!” The jaguar got loud. “Well, it proves that you are sisters, but still!”

“Ehehe~.” In one way or another, the two took it as a compliment. “We do know how to make things not boring, after all!”

“Oh no...” Ari’s face paled a little. “From the sound of that, there definitely will be even more chaos from now on...”

“Sounds fun!” Steph liked the idea.

“Maya, Chloe... I hate you...” Looking utterly defeated, the black-haired girl glared at both of them.

"A-Ah...” They had nothing to say in their defense.

“S-Say,” The jaguar looked at the new girl with slightly upturned eyes. “How do you feel about catastrophes caused by magic and or lack of common sense...?”

“I do feel like I’ll relate a lot to the lack of common sense part, but...” Naturally, as Steph had just arrived here a day ago, her common sense would be even worse than that of Sophia or Chloe. “How do you define catastrophes? Something world-ending?”

“NO! I-I mean, yes! B-But... urgh!” Her expression turned desperate. “W-Why is something world-ending your first thought?! What’s wrong with you sisters?!”

“I think the sisters are perfectly fine!” Chloe disagreed with her. "One's amazing, and the other's even amazinger!”

“You’re part of the problem!” Ari just glared at the fox.

“Ahaha...”

“...” For a moment, Sophia wanted to complain about clearly not being the amazinger sister, but after seeing the nice smile of her while glancing at Steph as she said that, she decided against it.

“Anyway,” The dog-girl faced Ari again. “I can promise that I have no intention of destroying the world because I love it too much, but I need some examples for regular catastrophes.”

“Sophia, please explain everything you did lately...” The jaguar had a handy example ready.

“Did you forget to tell me some stories?” Steph glanced at her sister.

“I might’ve skipped a minor detail or so, but I think I mentioned everything of interest that happened lately.” The blonde tilted her head.

“Hmm... The war thingy was quite unfortunate, but were the other things really catastrophes?”

“The magic accident Fenny and I had that created the lake we visited earlier definitely was.” She could admit to that, at the very least.

“Ah, right! That was pretty baffling, true.” The dog-girl had forgotten about that for a second. “Alright, ignoring the war, and that... Ah, I might be able to see a slight pattern.”

“T-Thank you!” Ari was happy that she could understand her.

“Still, for the most part, nothing seems like catastrophes to me. Just a girl having a ton of fun~. Sure, a mishap or two might’ve happened, but there was no actual harm, was there? I’m all for that! Sorry...”

“Wow, you really are absolutely amazing!” Chloe liked her reply a lot.

“Ehehe~.” Steph let out a happy giggle before focusing on the jaguar again. “Sure, I’m sure it can be a bit of an inconvenience at times, but... Depending on what happened, maybe also embarrassing for a moment. Even so, everything I heard from Sophia’s adventures lately sounded extremely fun! The bits Chloe told me were amazing, too! If you think having a great time in life is a catastrophe, I’ll be an absolute disaster!”

“I want to change my previous statement from you being amazing to you being perfect!” The fox-girl's opinion of her got even better.

“T-Thanks...” The dog-girl took a bit of damage from the increasing praise and started blushing a little.

“How big was your tree, then?! There's just no way she would've kept it at that, after all!”

“T-Twice the size, I guess...”

“T-That would mean around 500 meters! Seriously?!” The jaguar raised her voice. “Wait, actually... I mean, it's still completely over the top, but I was expecting more. D-Don't tell me you held back?!"

“Could you not be so shocked?!” Sophia didn’t like her reaction.

“Impossible!”

"Don't I have the best friends?" There was the slightest hint of sarcasm in the blonde's voice while she glanced at her sister.

“Absolutely!” Steph only showed her a massive smile in return, though. After all, it was perfectly obvious that the group was really tight, and she was incredibly happy about that.

“I promised Maya to make a tree twice the size of hers, so...”

“Ah, that’s the reason, I see.”

“You should see the trees of Fennyfenny and Aura!” Sophia tried to divert the attention a little. “They each created a tree that’s over a kilometer tall! Those are probably also the ones that can be seen from the king’s office!”

“Fen being the one who taught you magic really had an effect on you...” Ari could only roll her eyes.

“Hehe~.”

“I wanna make such a tree, too!” Anna apparently liked everything she had heard so far.

“Oh, speaking of,” The blonde then faced Chloe. “Have you already heard what the trees have done to the surrounding forest?”

“Hmm?” She just tilted her head.

“It seems like the trees we grew completely work on magic now. From the looks of it, they need neither water nor nutrients anymore.”

“S-Seriously?!” The fox-girl got loud.

“Even more, they also radiate magic. So much actually that you can see it with your bare eyes in the air.”

“Wow!”

“It also had an effect on the surrounding forest. Every plant grew a good bit bigger, and everything's green again! The trees and all are full of leaves even though they should’ve long fallen off!”

“It turned into a magical forest!” Steph summarized it in an easier way. “It’s beautiful there!”

“Oh my gosh, that’s amazing!” Chloe’s expression changed into an even bigger smiler. “Mythical magic mega jungle, let’s go!”

“Let’s go!” The dog-girl was a big fan of the idea.

“Those two get along quite well already, huh?” Anna tilted her head while watching the duo. “Also, let’s go!” She also was looking forward to it.

“It’s official... I give up, Maya.” With a defeated expression, Ari then looked at the cat-girl. “I definitely don’t get paid enough to deal with one more. I quit being the voice of reason from now on! Steph also said some very nice things about it, so I’ll give it a try!”

“Always happy to help!” The cause smiled at her.

“...” The cat-girl wasn’t smiling, though. “S-She definitely has a point and all, and I look a little forward to the jungle, but... BUT! At least when we’re in public... At least assist me there!”

“Hmm...”

“Please!”

“Alright, fine...” Ari felt bad about leaving her hanging.

“Wait!” It seemed like Chloe was listening in on them. “Does that mean we can officially go nuts when it's just us?!”

“...” The duo didn’t answer her.

Once that topic was taken care of, the girls returned to chatting again, and Steph was already fully integrated into the group.