After a night at Silrud’s House, Mary and Luke were driving together, chatting away about various topics.
They talked about Shirud’s grandfather and the sports meet.
During their conversation, they also shared stories about what happened at Silrud’s House.
“So, how was that last night? Mary, it was your first experience too, and it’s a pity it wasn’t in a very good setting. I promise to prepare a proper place and environment next time. What do you say? Would you join me?”
– Squeak -!
However, since the way Luke spoke was rather contentious, the driver hired by the Idelega was so shocked that she made a mistake while driving.
Stopping the car on the shoulder, she said in a trembling voice, as if she couldn’t believe it.
“Miss? No way… that, first experience…”
Mary also tilted her head, puzzled by what it meant, but suddenly realized and shouted, her face turning red.
“Th-That was a game! I played a game for the first time at Shirud’s house yesterday!”
“Luke has a habit of omitting subjects occasionally!”
Was his behavior leading to misunderstandings intentional? Did Luke actually enjoy this kind of thing?
Mary’s suspicion was valid, but Luke was merely being unconscious of his actions.
In fact, there was something that troubled Luke as well.
In the past, omitting the subject in conversation wasn’t considered strange.
This was because almost all creatures and objects had spirits, and the spirits would show their faces to confirm who called them by simply responding to their names.
Thus, the indiscriminate use of “nouns” could mean that one was unconsciously calling on spirits that could appear anywhere during the conversation.
And the presence of spirits ultimately indicated the flow of mana.
Ordinary people wouldn’t care much about the flow of mana, but Luke was a mage in the past.
Mages would develop a mode of conversation that omitted “nouns” unless absolutely necessary, as they sought to eliminate any potential causes that could create distortions in the flow of mana they intended, due to the subtle flow of mana.
Most of what mages said could be understood even in sentences without nouns or subjects by thinking objectively and keeping a step back from the situation, and since they didn’t usually discuss a wide variety of topics, communication worked out just fine. Hence, Luke, too, used this mode of conversation.
Therefore, even now, if he didn’t pay attention, he would occasionally omit the subject.
That was familiar to him as a mage.
In simple terms, it meant that Luke was currently so engrossed in Super Magic League that he couldn’t afford to pay attention to such detailed sentences.
After all, it’s entertainment created by synthesizing all the technology of this era.
Mages had a strong sense of competition as much as their thirst for knowledge.
It’s no wonder the saying arose that mages could behave childishly even when they grew old.
Well, not knowing such circumstances, Mary and her driver could only look at Luke with ambiguous expressions, having become the source of misunderstanding.
The driver shot Luke a sidelong glance and asked for confirmation.
“Is that true?”
“Um, yeah. I was talking about the game, is there a problem?”
“N-No, it’s nothing.”
Receiving Luke’s gaze, which seemed to express utter confusion, she found herself speechless and could only bite her lips inwards.
After all, mentioning “first experience” to a girl who had stayed over at a “man’s” friend’s house could easily lead to a misunderstanding.
But, it felt like the problem lay within her.
‘I can’t be the one in the wrong.’
——-
“Ugh. Damn it.”
The man spat out an expletive, clutching his chest.
Today, the circle’s heartbeat was strong.
He grasped the surging mana with his will, breathing heavily.
‘I need… medicine.’
Lately, it had been increasingly difficult to control the flow of mana.
What was going on? He thought he had become accustomed to controlling his heart now.
Could it be that the day of the seizure was approaching?
‘Damn, I thought I had two more days.’
Blaming the increasing frequency of his seizures, he got up and rummaged through the drawer.
To find the medicine he always kept there.
‘Wait a moment.’
He suddenly remembered that he hadn’t paid for the medicine yet.
What day is it today?
At the ominous thought that crossed his mind, he yanked the drawer out entirely.
Flipping the drawer upside down, the contents spilled onto the floor with a thud.
He tossed the drawer away and scattered the items lying on the floor like trash while searching for something.
Damn, everything was garbage.
A few scraps of paper with useless information and used scrolls.
Various knickknacks, including photographs of the deceased, were all too messy to reflect the life he had lived.
But he found nothing amidst the chaos.
‘Damn it.’
He couldn’t do without the medicine.
In a frantic struggle.
What he was doing was no longer searching for something but rather movements closer to escaping reality.
Holding onto the fleeting hope that “there shouldn’t be no medicine,” he moved around, hoping to find at least one.
Gripping his trembling hands, he endured the itch all over his body by biting his lips, focusing on searching for something.
He pulled out another drawer, poured out the contents, and flung open the kitchen cabinet, clearing away all sorts of clutter.
Like a madman.
Even if it was utterly pointless…
“…!”
No.
It wasn’t pointless.
Among the dust-covered rubbish, he found a powdery substance that barely resembled dust, which must be remnants of the medicine left.
Dust couldn’t be this thick pink.
Wasn’t it said that efforts would be rewarded?
I don’t know if this saying applies here, but…
He hastily picked up the pink specks with his saliva-moistened fingers and brought them to his tongue.
And the effects of the medicine kicked in quickly.
“Ugh, ha…”
The man’s deep breaths resembled sweet breaths of survival, as if someone who had been holding their breath underwater for a long time was finally coming up for air.
Freed from some pain, he looked around the disheveled room.
It was dirty and disgusting.
Much like his own situation.
“Damn it.”
The man opened the phone.
“What’s going on? You make contact first.”
“I need something urgently.”
“Oh? An ‘urgent’ matter, is it?”
A voice that was unpleasant to hear no matter when, and a nasty expression could be imagined beyond the receiver.
What a pig.
“Just so happens I have a good opportunity for you.”
——
“So, this is Luke’s house; I’ve never seen Luke’s house before.”
“Yeah, since you looked around for my place at the academy, you are the only one here, Mary Aidell.”
“Oh, is that really true?”
“Indeed. Hmm, would you like to come in for a moment?”
“Hehe, I feel kind of happy. No, it’s too late today; my parents would say something if I stayed over two nights in a row.”
“Well, then there’s no helping it. Tell me when you’d like to come over.”
“Really? Then later, I’ll invite you to my house too! But you have so much luggage, isn’t it heavy?”
“It’s fine. Don’t worry.”
After finishing such greetings, Luke got out of Mary’s car, carrying the cello case on his back and cradling a suitcase containing clothes and the computer, bowing his head to the driver who had driven him here.
Seeing Luke’s manner, the driver thought he was a polite kid and nodded back, then while watching Luke’s stout demeanor as he confidently walked away, she thought that he was really a spirited boy.
“I’m home.”
“Welcome back, Lu.”
As Yerna welcomed him, Luke smiled gently, and Yerna returned the smile.
After the greetings, Luke started to drop off the cello case from Silrud’s house and the bags with his clothes.
Yerna helped him with that.
“Lu, I’ll help you.”
“Um, thanks. Oh, I did laundry over there. So there’s no need to do the laundry separately.”
“Is that so? Then we should fold them.”
As Yerna took out the clothes from the bag to fold, she suddenly looked at the animal onesie and smiled brightly.
Ah, seeing it was gone, she wondered if he had taken it after all.
It was something she clearly liked very much.
“Lu, did you have fun? How’s your friend?”
“Um, if it’s Shirud, I don’t think I need to worry about him anymore. He seems to be recovering quickly. That’s a relief.”
“Is that so?”
Seeing Luke relieved, Yerna thought that he must have been quite worried about his friend.
In fact, Luke was the very cause of Shirud falling ill, which is why he couldn’t help but be concerned, but he didn’t go into detail about that to Yerna.
“Hm. By the way, I got more gains from the visit than I expected.”
Luke took a moment to think about what he had gained from this outing.
It brought him and Mary closer and exchanged contact information with Shirud’s grandfather, the “3 Circle User” of this time.
Moreover, he had gained confidence that he could produce objectively decent performances, and he had introduced the excitement of Super Magic League to a child.
And finally…
“Yerna! I learned a recipe over there! I think you’ll really love it if you taste it. What do you say? Have you eaten already? If not, cook me my meal.”
Luke struck a pose with rolled-up sleeves, boldly puffing out his chest.
Yerna lightly clapped in response to Luke’s attitude.
“Really? I was just getting hungry. Wow, I’m looking forward to it!”
“Yeah. It was truly delicious even for me, who isn’t an elf, so I’m sure you will like it.”
Luke put on an apron and asked Yerna to tie his hair as he recalled the recipe.
Maybe it was because he thought about cooking, but Py crawled up to him, as if reminding him not to forget.
But what could he do? As I’ve said before, spirits can’t eat.
While soothing Py, Yerna felt a sense of pride watching Luke humming while tying his hair.
What should I say? It felt like the kid had already grown up.
She thought it was a relief that the boy seemed to be getting brighter.
“So, what will you make?”
“Well, I’m planning to make….”
Luke said as he opened the refrigerator.
Once he checked the situation in the fridge, Luke’s bright expression suddenly hardened.
All that was inside was a single carrot, a bit of young greens, and some lettuce—That was it.
Yerna walked over to check the state of the refrigerator and brought her hand to her mouth, exclaiming, “Oh no.”
“Ah, I forgot to go shopping.”
“Yerna, we’ll have to check the groceries first…”
“Um… yeah, we’ll have to. But it’s too late today. Let’s just eat what we have.”
Haha, Yerna laughed carefreely.
Luke sighed as he looked at her.
Lately, he didn’t know where Yerna had her mind wandering off to.
Was she busy with something?
Now that he thought about it, she had been returning home late recently, and he knew she was working hard, but…
He felt that this wouldn’t do.
“Yerna, it’s good to work, but sometimes it’s also good to take a break.”
“Yeah…”
She had been planning to do so anyway.
