Outside the door stood Luke and Pyris side by side.
Unlike the calm Luke, Pyris was swallowing her tears repeatedly.
“Huuuh…! Sniff, huuuh…”
In the end, Liv was unable to finish cleaning.
As a result, Yerna confirmed the state of the house and both Luke and Pyris were spanked and sent outside barefoot.
In fact, the act of being sent out was more about telling them not to interfere with the cleaning and to think carefully about what they had done wrong than it was about punishment.
However, Pyris continued to cry for some reason.
“Stop crying. If you keep crying, people will keep coming over.”
The sight of a small child quietly crying seemed to call for help from others, causing passersby in the hallway to murmur worriedly, “Why are you crying? Can’t you go home?”
Each time, Luke would tell them, “There’s no need to worry; we’re being punished,” while brushing them off, but even that was getting tiring.
It was a very embarrassing situation.
Eventually, Pyris stopped sniffing and looked at Luke.
“I’m sorry, big sister. It’s because of me…”
The reason Pyris was crying was not simply because her bottom hurt from being spanked, but rather because of the guilt that Luke was punished because of her.
In fact, Pyris cried more when Luke was punished than when she was spanked.
Spirits, which originally lack a physical form, are not very sensitive to physical pain.
Therefore, it wouldn’t be something to be so sad about, just getting spanked on the bottom and hearing a loud scolding.
“I’m okay. By the way, how is your bottom now?”
However, separate from that, Pyris currently had a physical body.
She could feel pain, and it was the same that if she got hurt, it would be hard to move.
Thus, Pyris was holding onto her skirt, pushing her belly out so that the cloth wouldn’t touch her bottom.
“No… Actually, it’s still hot. How about you, big sister?”
“Well… It did hurt, but…”
She also felt pain the same way.
Well, compared to the wounds and injuries she had endured in the past, this level of pain was nothing, but of course, she felt the immediate pain.
Isn’t that right? Just because one has experience of being stabbed with a knife doesn’t mean getting a shot won’t hurt.
Therefore, the question of how much pain one can endure has nothing to do with what kind of pain they have experienced in the past.
She just had a much higher threshold for enduring pain than others, which allowed her to easily tolerate it.
Moreover, the recovery ability of this body could quickly heal something as minor as a spank.
Now that she had fully realized the nature of this body, it was showing a recovery speed that couldn’t even be compared to the past when she didn’t understand her body well.
Unfortunately, that wouldn’t apply to what she directly hung on the scales as a price.
“I’m all healed now. I’m not in pain.”
In fact, the emotional pain from embarrassment was greater than the pain in her bottom.
The physical body could recover quickly, but the feeling of shame is hard to forget easily.
“Sigh.”
Luke clasped his hands and sighed.
These days, it felt like nothing was going right, as if something was always going wrong somewhere.
‘Liv’s cleaning ability turned out to be much less impressive than I thought…’
He had wondered if there was some special magic being used, but it was just sweeping and mopping.
Wasn’t it too basic for a top-tier living armor with the finest technology, which was created 5,000 years ago and gradually improved to the present?
It was an absurd level of performance in another sense.
No, considering that it was something Renie put in, it could be attributed to that as well.
After all, she didn’t seem like someone who organized things well.
In the end, for one to teach something to another, they must possess a certain level of expertise in that knowledge, so if it was a cleaning skill put in by someone who doesn’t clean well, it would undoubtedly be lackluster.
If she could use magic, a living armor wouldn’t need significantly powerful cleaning abilities in the first place.
‘We can consider properly equipping Kate with a suitable cleaning function later.’
For now, Liv was facing issues in terms of size.
The small doll-sized body that could fit into one’s arms struggled to handle an ordinary broom, and the density of the self-awareness accumulated over so many years filled within the magic core didn’t have space to add additional functions.
While Luke was pondering about upgrading Kate’s cleaning capability, a sudden thought crossed his mind.
‘But no matter how much she swept with a toothbrush, wouldn’t Yerna’s house have been somewhat clean since it’s not that large?’
Something seemed odd.
Even if it was a mess, if he assumed he cleaned it himself, the task of clearing away the dirt would have been completed a long time ago.
Surely, fixing the damaged items would take a bit longer, but still.
However, when Luke and Yerna opened the door, the sight they encountered clearly didn’t fit the statement of “it’s been cleaned.”
It seemed like no attempt had even been made.
Luke asked Pyris, who was beside him, about this mysterious occurrence.
“Pyris, by the way. No matter how poor Liv’s cleaning performance is, it doesn’t seem like nothing was cleaned at all.”
“Uh, yeah?”
At that, Pyris flinched like a startled cat and avoided Luke’s gaze.
It was truly a suspicious behavior.
‘There’s definitely something.’
Luke changed his tone slightly firmly and moved closer to Pyris.
“What exactly happened? Tell me.”
“That, um…”
Pyris hesitated for a moment, choosing her words, then lowered her head, seemingly embarrassed, and muttered.
“It was just so fascinating watching the doll clean…”
“Fascinating?”
“I kept creating messes for her to clean.”
“So… you created a mess for her. In other words, you made a mess just as much as Liv cleaned?”
“…”
Pyris nodded quietly at Luke’s confirmation.
Seeing that, Luke covered his face and let out a big sigh.
“…I’m sorry. I was having too much fun making a mess for the doll to clean…”
“That sort of thing could have waited until after Liv finished cleaning.”
-Slap!
Unable to contain his impulse, Luke flicked Pyris on the forehead.
——-
As Luke spent time pondering the magical design for upgrading Liv’s cleaning ability, Pyris was deeply considering the stains on her toes, the walls, the patterns on the ceiling and floor.
Finally, the front door opened.
“Okay, everyone come in and sit down.”
At Yerna’s remark, Luke and Pyris immediately entered the house, wiped the dirt from their soles with a rag, and quietly sat in the living room.
Pyris also sat down following Luke, but she couldn’t stay still thanks to the sting in her punished bottom.
Luke averted his gaze from her and looked around the living room that Yerna had tidied up.
The house, which had obviously become more desolate.
After cleaning up the broken trash and tidying to some extent, Yerna’s house looked strangely empty.
On a positive note, one might think it looked more spacious.
As Luke was having such futile thoughts, Yerna asked.
“Do you two realize what you did wrong now?”
Pyris immediately answered.
“We made a mess…”
“Nope.”
When Pyris’ answer was denied, Luke quickly supplemented it.
“Inflicted irreparable damage to the household…?”
“…That’s not it either.”
Yerna looked at Luke with a slightly perplexed expression, as if to say what he was talking about.
Then, it means it wasn’t material damage.
‘If that’s the case…’
Luke hesitated a bit and spoke.
“Then… Is it that you deceived me?”
“Yes, you two tried to deceive me. That is the biggest mistake. Do you understand? We are family now, right? Family should never lie to each other.”
“…”
Yerna spoke firmly.
“From now on, never tell a lie.”
“I didn’t lie…”
“Concealing the truth is also a form of a lie!”
He had nothing to say.
Luke hung his head low.
Pyris followed suit and hung her head as well.
“…”
Yerna approached the sullen children and hugged them warmly, speaking gently.
“Then have both of you reflected enough?”
“…Yes.”
“…Yes.”
“You won’t do it again?”
“Yeah.”
“Yes.”
“Good, so it’s a promise.”
Yerna extended her pinky.
Luke and Pyris each hooked their pinkies around hers and nodded.
It felt like a warm tug in their chests.
Still, they didn’t fully understand what it meant.
“Are you hungry? Let’s eat now.”
