Chapter 166: Let’s Try Again – Part 2

Chapter 166: Let’s Try Again – Part 2

We give the Companions a small break and have them perform clean-up, then I reward our loyal soldiers with my hallowed seed. Hukarere is the first to receive it, and she ritualistically shares it with her comrades, making me so happy I give everyone another load.

The orgy down below attracts cart stalls, and once a little bit of alcohol starts to go around, the fun turns into a real party. Then the townsguard appears to maintain order in case someone parties too hard, but they (begrudgingly) keep their distance.

While it's nice to watch the orgy, everyone is feeling satisfied, so we decide to move on and explore the shopping center a bit. What immediately catches our eye are a number of shops selling "cultivable homes" grown from a number of choices like bamboo, trees, grass, corn stalks, and other materials, but the new, hot thing seems to be minerals.

"Huh..." Yunia hums absentmindedly as she stares at the scale models of a High Tree home and an engorged tree-trunk house in the grassland elf style. They don't have the "overgrown" style of brick homes covered in vines, but it's possible to mix and match.

The mineral homes grab my, Lina's, and Aoi's attention the most, though. The scale model homes look very pretty, as the colorful minerals are simply rough gems (though low quality as nobody is insane enough to use the good stuff as building material) with varying levels of "smokiness" depending on the purity.

"I think the mineral houses would be very brittle," Lina quietly remarks in case the shopkeeper can understand Andraste.

Kaatohe snorts and criticizes, "I knew that a product created to satisfy a mania would have such glaring flaws."

"At least they can reinforce the mineral home by growing support beams," the natural-born architect loli adds with a shrug.

But the Chimera obsession with "homegrown" stuff doesn't end there. They also literally grow their own clothes, furniture, food, and whatever else you can imagine. The lack of resources and space, along with an overabundance of magically-gifted commoners, has allowed them to fulfill their needs with [Alteration Magic] and [Conjuring Magic], leading to self-sufficiency, which in turn permitted the viability of their isolationist culture.

There's a lack of "curiosity shops" that are so popular with the land-dwellers, and I also miss the overabundance of monster-based products, so there isn't a great variety of weapons and armor, and what they do have is expensive. But to compensate, there are magic tools out the wazoo.

And then Lina almost wanders away from our group like a child as a particularly shiny magic tools shop catches her eye. She looks so adorably captivated by the pretty moving colors that Ciel and I both gush at her cuteness.

"We can buy the whole shop for you," I kindly whisper in her ear.

"What...? N-no, that's unnecessary..." she quietly whispers back, declining my unreasonable offer like the good girl she is.

This particular shop makes good use of hologram-like illusions, tickling Alissa's interest, so we decide to check it out. It's a home decor shop, but it also has plenty of toys and even a section for anti-monster tools. It's purposely kept dark so that the lights stand out, creating a moody atmosphere that enhances the sci-fi feel of the Sky Lander capital.

"[H-how may I help you, illustrious customers]?" a Golden-Retriever-headed, middle-aged man greets us with almost perfect composure. His hair and fur may be graying, but he cares for it as well as a woman would, considering its shine.

Thankfully, the shop is empty of other customers, as it's a bit cramped for our large ensemble.

"We're buying the whole shop!" is what I want to say, but I settle for a simple, "[We're foreigners looking for interesting trinkets to bring back home]." Spoken in Reo, of course.

"[And I see that the Gentleman and the Gentlewomen are also very humble, for you can't hide your magnificence, even if you tried]," he deftly tongues our pride.

But Yunia and Kaatohe get off on this shit, so they're pretty pleased with his cunnilingus skill.

Lina starts wandering around the shop, looking for something that interests her enough to buy it, while Alissa goes to the toy section, and her bashful eagerness makes her look like a child choosing a birthday gift for herself. Considering how my little fox had part of her childhood stolen by her slave training, it's only natural that she'd show interest in things like this.

And as an avid gamer, I encourage everyone to stay in touch with their inner child... in both meanings of the word. The most important thing in life is to be happy, as long as you don't take the "touching" part literally.

But when I actually take a look at the toys being sold, a part of me starts to dread my own future. Flashing lights and cute noises may be attractive to a child, but it quickly gets old after a few days of constant use... and I plan on having a lot of children...

"KYEEEH!" the little goblin hologram cries out as Alissa slaps its face, but since the little monster is immaterial, her hand simply goes through it without any resistance.

Of course, these aren't cute little innocent toys like a phone that makes the sounds of a farm animal whenever you press a button. These are rupegian toys, and there's nothing more rupegian than killing monsters. Squeaky toys for dogs have nothing on this shit.

Hana grabs a small glass disk with an iridescent gem embedded at its center and feeds it a bit of her mana. Suddenly, a beautiful chirp echoes across the shop, and Alissa immediately jerks her head towards its source, pointy ears at attention, fluffy tail straight and still, and eyes wide open with the intense stare of a predator as her fingers itch for her bow and arrows.

Then her head jerks again in a different direction as she follows a small blur, her eyes locked onto her prey, giving her a perfect sight of the rainbow-colored bird illusion as it flies at high speed. She knows exactly what kind of bird it is, and it invokes memories of frustration as the little shitty bundle of feathers smugly chirped victoriously every time her (soft-tipped) arrows missed its nimble body.

"[I apologize for this]," Alissa states as she borrows my [Reo Language], then she [Equip]s her bow and launches a [Mana Arrow] at the little blur.

We hear a dull *thunk* followed by the sound of glass breaking as the bird shatters into thousands of little sparkling bits of dust, which simply disappear after a second.

Gify is feeling a bit uncomfortable about what just happened, so Alissa gives the little white griffin an apologetic smile to comfort her.

The shopkeeper starts clapping, in awe at Alissa's archery skill, making my cute fox blush softly in embarrassment while her fluffy wags in bashful happiness. "[That was incredible, though I feel that you've long since surpassed this little toy]," he earnestly praises her.

Alissa's dull-tipped [Mana Arrow] disappears in a puff of smoke with a *poof*, and she inspects the wall for any damage, but her little whimsical indulgence left no dent.

"[We'll take one. Keep it for our children]," I kindly state, and now her tail starts wagging at full speed as she smiles sweetly, but we're forced to ignore the shopkeeper's cheeky grin.

While we flirt, Ciel stops at a curious toy. It's merely a square wooden board with a 10x10 grid drawn with silver, and there are four black metal coins on it, each with a little drop of silver at the center on one side and a drop of gold on the other. But the interesting thing about it is that there's a pinky-sized gem embedded at the top, which projects a hologram that shows the four black coins but flipped in a different way.

The shopkeep notices her interest and informs her of the game's rules, "[You need to make the coins match the hologram, but you can only flip coins in a line or a column, or you can switch whole lines and columns]."

Sounds simple, but it's deceptively hard, especially if the whole board is filled with coins.

Lina suddenly finds herself beside Ciel, staring intensely at the board as the motherly angel attempts to solve the puzzle. The loli stays silent as she doesn't want to bother our wife, but her anxiety starts seeping through [Bind] as she's already realized the solution, and she's starting to get impatient.

Then Ciel notices Lina's intense gaze and steps aside. "You want to try?" she kindly asks.

Our adorable gloomy dwarf promptly steps before the board, takes out the pinky-sized crystal, then reinserts it, causing the coins to flip back to their original state. Then she starts flipping and swapping, and in a smooth six moves, she solves the puzzle.

The board starts flashing with pretty lights and even plays a cute tune, but Lina's more interested in the special book full of pinky-sized crystals beside the board.

Then her eyes are drawn to the price tag below, and she frowns in disappointment. "This is too expensive," she quietly complains.

But Yunia won't have it. "Have you forgotten that you've become royalty? The reward for exterminating a single Aberrant should be enough to pay for this," the elven Queen haughtily encourages her sister-wife.

"F-fine..." Lina hesitantly accepts. Then her eyes turn to another magic tool, one that creates a hologram of anything in front of it, like a 3D mirror, and this one also piques Alissa's interest.

Roxanne walks up to the magic tool and creates a hologram of her head, then she inspects it closely and becomes so enamored with the perfection of her own face that she yearns to kiss it, but, alas, it's not to be, for the hologram is unmoving and immaterial. I agree that her gorgeous, pale visage is perfect, so I understand her desire to touch herself, and Gify helps her fulfill her wish by giving her memories of me kissing her.

Anyway, we get the 3D mirror too.

After our little shopping trip, we return to the guest mansion and have a bath along with Urmeie.

"Hah! I was right! You always take a bath at the exact same time every day!" she shouts, very proud of herself.

"It's our sacred routine," Alissa states matter-of-factly as she gently washes my body.

Sister bear starts to undress, and I can't help but stare once she frees her two big, furry, puppies. I want to dive into them so bad... but I must keep my distance until she bends over for me.

She doesn't answer, but I sense her shyly smile internally.

Then Lily turns to Chesa, prompting the light-blue not-Zora to begin, "I can cause storms, lighting, earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis, and whatever else the environment allows, but it takes a while to build up, and it's hard to control it to not hit my friends."

"Yeah, I got hit by lightning a few times," Lily calmly adds, and the not-Zora girl looks down ashamedly.

Maybe Aoi can give her a hand since my little big blue dragon can create thunderstorms.

"I'll try," she answers innocently through our connection.

Lastly, the now properly woken-up gnome casually shares, "Basically, I can use [Alteration Magic] at range and without causing shit to get mangled up, so I'm the utility. I once made the ground turn into mud so that Lily could play whack-a-mole with the uggos, but I'm bad at killing stuff on my own."

Now it's Roxanne's turn to ask curiously, "I assume it's hard to use your Gift directly on another person's body?"

He hums in agreement, "Yep. I get tired as fuck just from blowing up a single goblin's brain."

Well, would you look at that? We have a resident brain-sploder who's perfectly qualified to help him with that.

Now it's time for a practical display of our power.

Announcement

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