A few seconds before Yerna arrived home.
The details of the incident are as follows.
“I have an idea, Pyris.”
“What is it?”
“There’s not enough time to explain right now.”
“Huh?”
At that moment, Luke had no idea when Yerna would open the door and walk in. There was no time to sit still and calmly explain his plan. In fact, there was far too little time to even come up with a plan.
Luke immediately placed his finger on Pyris’s forehead and spoke.
“Sleep.”
“Huh…?”
Pyris immediately closed her eyes as if falling asleep and collapsed. Despite being special, Pyris was still a spirit easily influenced by magic. Plus, with a body capable of feeling fatigue, the effect was certain.
The reason Luke started putting Pyris to sleep was simple. Explaining that Pyris hadn’t turned on the lights because she was asleep was far less serious than claiming that excessive use of magic caused a mana depletion, which led the system to block her power.
Luke sighed and looked around. There was at least one positive aspect to the mana depletion. At least the darkness covered the messy chaos.
‘Alright, now I need to come up with an excuse to get Yerna outside…’
As Luke pondered what to do, he soon found the answer.
“…Yeah, an apple pie would be good.”
Luke could recall that he currently had no ingredients, like apples or cinnamon, at home. Using that as an excuse, he could send Yerna out for a bit and clean up the mess neatly afterward, which would solve everything.
Despite feeling that the plan was a bit hastily cobbled together, it was the best option for now. If Yerna had been even a little later, he might have come up with a better plan.
“…”
So, it meant that he hadn’t originally intended to go out with Yerna from the start.
——–
-Whoosh-!
At the sound of Luke’s whistle, Pyris rubbed her eyes and woke up.
“Ugh… what…?”
Still half asleep, Pyris yawned and stretched. Soon, she began to read the spirit language contained in Luke’s whistle.
-Py, hurry up and wake up!
“Is it over?”
Pyris took a moment to assess her surroundings. However, she didn’t see a clean house or her sister.
“Sis, where did you go?”
A bit flustered, Pyris quickly transformed into a spirit and flew toward Luke’s urgent whistle.
It turned out that Luke wasn’t cleaning but was walking outside with Yerna. The first thing Pyris felt upon seeing that was betrayal.
-Sis, are you running away and leaving me behind!? Just to scold me!
In her blue orb-form as a spirit, Py glared at Luke fiercely.
Luke soothed her, saying, -That’s not it! The plan just went a little off course.
-Really? You’re not trying to frame me and running away, right?
Suspicion dripped from the spirit language. Luke felt a bit unfairly accused by that statement.
-Weren’t you the one who did it from the start? What would I frame you for? And if I wanted to frame you, would I have woken you up with a whistle?
-…Well, I guess that’s true…
Pyris seemed to have lost her arguments and let out a sad sigh, wobbling in the air. She looked quite pitiful, prompting Luke to speak gently.
Initially, it was also his responsibility for not supervising Py properly. In truth, he was the one who caused the trouble by transplanting the artifact Liv into the teddy bear without saying a word.
At that time, Liv’s arrival had made him too happy, and he hadn’t realized how deep the resistance Py had towards the artifact was.
Perhaps he should have explained it sufficiently to Py before the surgery.
-But don’t worry too much. I have a second plan in mind.
-You really do?
Py exclaimed, sounding as if salvation had come.
In response, Luke slowly began to explain his plan.
-First, you should gather magic to restore the house’s power. And then…
-Okay, okay, then what?
Luke silently observed Py for a moment.
‘It seems unreasonable to expect this guy to clean up too.’
Given that Py had a spirit-like perception, she didn’t even know what item belonged where. Although she seemed to vaguely perceive ‘disorder’ now, her understanding of tidiness was still at a serious level.
Leaving cleaning to her was utterly nonsensical.
For that reason, Luke had planned to clean up himself after sending Yerna away…
‘But I didn’t expect this situation to occur together with me.’
He had intended to use his outdoor restriction, but Yerna’s perception of punishment was too flexible. Initially, if he had said “no going out over the weekend,” wouldn’t that mean no going out, no matter what?
Yet, she lessened the punishment just because he acted a bit childishly…
‘Acting like a child isn’t always good…’
It would have been beneficial under normal circumstances, but now it acted as a harmful countermeasure.
Moreover, at that time, he hadn’t thought about the variable of a phone.
After all, who would wait for the other person to arrive and exchange notes when there was a real-time communication medium like a phone?
Even requesting errands over the phone was incredibly convenient. Of course, if he had had more time, he would have done that.
‘Well, it’s not like there’s absolutely no way out.’
Since the plan for him to clean was disrupted, Luke couldn’t do much more than stall for time, but he still had one hope left: the existence of ‘Liv.’
Before the chaos began, while he was transplanting Liv’s magic core into the teddy bear, Luke had discovered an additional logic circuit.
It featured a ‘housekeeping assistance’ function.
When he created it, he hadn’t specifically envisioned it as a housekeeper, so he had tilted his head in curiosity regarding that function.
Perhaps it was something added by Renie, who needed a housekeeping aid in that space.
Now, it was time to pin his hopes on it.
-Wake Liv. If you inject mana like drawing a circle into the magic core, it will activate.
-Why?
Py tilted her head, wondering if she had misheard Luke’s spirit language.
What help could that little teddy bear provide?
After all, smashing things was something that teddy bears could do better than herself.
-That kid can do some cleaning too. It has the housekeeping function installed. Oh, and this time, make sure not to fight with each other, alright?
-Uh-huh…
Py mumbled an uncertain response.
Seeing this, Luke felt the need to encourage her in a soft tone.
-Py, if you’re my little sister, you can do at least this much, right?
-I got it! Leave it to me!
Indeed, Py was significantly delighted by the term ‘little sister’ and flew off in the direction of the forest.
-Oh, and don’t gather too much mana! Just a couple of crystals the size of your thumb will do!
-Okay!
As Luke watched Py disappear, he soon found himself facing Yerna’s pleased expression, causing him to freeze for a moment.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Oh, no. I just thought the whistling sounded fun from earlier. Do you like going out that much?”
“Ah… haha, yes, it’s really nice.”
Luke laughed helplessly. Thankfully, it seemed he hadn’t been caught having a secret conversation with Py in spirit language.
——-
In the end, this was Luke’s role.
He needed to stall for time.
Until Py provided magic energy and Liv sorted out the situation in the house.
To do that, he first needed to shop along an entirely different route than usual.
Deliberately, Luke went to a fruit store he rarely visited.
The owner was picky, especially toward children, so bargaining would rarely go well, and the store was also a bit farther than the others.
Yet now, that could prove to be quite a substantial advantage.
At least, he could buy time just by the distance to the store, and he could also double it while bargaining.
“Is this the fruit store you said we should go to?”
“Yes, this place has the best quality.”
The claim of good quality wasn’t false. In fact, the quality was better than any other store, but since it wasn’t a magical ingredient and just a meal, it was inefficient to shop here as it cost more time and money.
“Wow, all these apples look delicious.”
Yerna picked up an apple one by one, exclaiming in admiration.
The apples looked smooth on the outside and seemed packed, making it seem like they would be very tasty even if just eaten raw.
However, what Luke needed now wasn’t to buy delicious apples but to stall for time.
Luke intended to choose them as slowly as possible without appearing strange while examining the apples carefully.
As Luke was doing just that, the store owner approached.
“Welcome. Oh, who do we have here? Aren’t you Luke Ilushi?”
An old woman approached, leaning on a cane and draped in a shawl.
Luke offered her a formal greeting.
“Yeah, it’s nice to see you too.”
“Come to look at apples, have you?”
“That’s right… but you’re quite quick to greet today.”
That was indeed strange.
Typically, this elderly woman wouldn’t come up close like this.
What in the world was prompting her to speak first without being called today?
Luke soon found the answer in her words.
“When you get to this age, you don’t often see the little ones hanging around the store. Did you come with your mom today?”
Ah, it seemed that being small due to age made her not see him well.
In Luke’s case, since he possessed magic sight, which was quite different from how people age, he hadn’t thought about this matter.
In the old days, old people with poor eyesight didn’t survive for long, to begin with.
As such, Luke couldn’t have considered that poor eyesight had become a common affliction in modern elderly individuals.
Regardless, when Luke hesitantly nodded, it somehow seemed to enhance Yerna’s mood significantly.
He wasn’t sure why, though.
As Luke resumed selecting apples, the old woman chuckled and said, “If you’ve come to look at apples, these ones over here are the best. Come see them over here.”
“Uh, thanks for being so polite.”
As Luke reluctantly moved to choose apples, now she even insisted, “I think this apple will be the best, here you go.”
As he expressed gratitude outwardly, inwardly, he was feeling quite put upon by the situation.
Today, this old woman was far too kind.
Thus, Luke picked apples much faster than expected, sighed, and thought he would have to stall for time in the bargaining process.
“Well then, the price is…”
“Today, I’ll give you a special discount. How about 500 gil each?”
Luke immediately tried to respond.
“500 gil is too e… uh, wait… What did you say?”
Cheap.
It was so inexpensive that he couldn’t haggle any further.
Selling apples of this quality at that price made him question if there was any profit to be had at all.
What on earth was the reason for this kind of generosity today?
Luke gazed at the old woman with suspicion.
Then, she let out her characteristic chuckling laughter and said, “It seems like you rushed out from cooking. Hurry, take these and make something delicious with your mom.”
“What, what do you mean?”
“Oh my, thank you! You didn’t have to worry so much.”
Indeed, had others seen him like that…!
It was only then that Luke slapped his forehead.
This, surely, meant that he had miscalculated.
