After the situation calmed down to some extent, Luke was able to hear the circumstances of why the child had come all the way into the forest.
“So, you came here not because you were lost, but to see a ghost?”
“Yes.”
Luke was left speechless by the child’s bold statement.
What on earth should he do with these reckless kids?
After a moment’s thought, he decided to give the child a flick on the forehead.
“You little brats, isn’t that an even more dangerous thing to do?”
– Flick.
“Ouch.”
Although there were two kids, there was only one sound.
Looking at the terrified boy with his ears drooping, it was clear to anyone that the instigator was the girl.
The girl who got flicked by Luke shot him a look of indignation, but Luke was unwavering in his resolve.
Even if the child protested, wandering around the forest at night was an extremely dangerous thing to do.
“No matter how much the Forest Keepers guard the forest day and night, this is still close to Luke Forest, and occasionally, small monsters appear. It’s absolutely not a place for just two little kids to hold hands and go on a date at night.”
Now, thanks to Luke’s immense magical power, the fear caused by Dragon’s Fury, and the intricate protective barriers, there wouldn’t be monsters around, let alone any threatening wildlife.
But even so, there could always be unforeseen circumstances.
However, it seemed that the children had completely forgotten the warnings about the hazards Luke had just mentioned and were far more concerned with the part where he said “date.”
“It’s not a d-date!”
“That’s right, I was just dragged along!”
At the boy’s outcry, the girl nodded in agreement.
To Luke, they still looked like nothing more than good childhood friends.
“Anyway, that means don’t wander around at night. There are no ghosts here.”
‘At least not anymore.’
Luke firmly said, swallowing the last part of his sentence.
Still, it wasn’t entirely untrue.
There had been times when ghosts did appear.
He had just gotten rid of them directly.
If these kids had been a little more proactive, they might have actually seen an evil spirit.
But whether that would be misfortune or good luck for those kids was rather debatable.
Evil spirits were certainly not friendly beings, and it was unlikely that the process of finding a deserted house for two little children would be smooth.
“B-but I definitely heard the sound of an instrument…”
“That was me playing. And the mansion you knew about is no longer a deserted house. Look, I’m living here now.”
Indeed, Luke’s home was very different from what they had heard in stories.
It was a beautifully decorated mansion that one could never imagine was a deserted house.
In many ways, the garden’s flowerbeds were lovely, and the colors of the fence and walls were cute. Even at night, it was bright enough to be blindingly beautiful, and there was no way a ghost would appear in such a place.
“Well, to sum it up, this is land with an owner. And that so-called ‘abandoned house’ is where I recently moved. So don’t go around saying strange things about ghosts coming out or hearing sounds from musical instruments.”
“Eh….”
Ignoring the whimpering girl, the boy shyly approached Luke and asked.
Yet, there was still something odd.
“Then, does that mean you’re not a ghost?”
The child had never seen a girl with such a peculiar atmosphere as Luke in his life.
It wasn’t just Luke’s pretty looks or the difference in eye colors that made him feel that way.
Her graceful and noble demeanor was reminiscent of a princess from a fairy tale, and her quiet yet gentle voice contained a strong will that was enough to make any child, even without detailed observation skills, feel that there was something ‘different’ about her.
And to the child, this sense of alienness that seemed mismatched for her age felt almost like a ‘ghost.’
However, Luke shook his head as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Right, I’m not a ghost.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. If I were a ghost, how could I have flicked that girl’s forehead?”
“Well, that’s true….”
Although it was possible for a ghost to manipulate a weapon to stab, they could never physically strike a living being themselves.
Thus, the flick Luke gave to the girl’s forehead was, above all, solid evidence.
However, in a sense, Luke could also be viewed as a kind of ‘ghost,’ but for now, he wasn’t one.
In truth, he wasn’t really human either, but there was no need to go into such details.
Luke then smiled gently and said.
“So go home quickly before your parents start worrying. Understand? If you come to play again later, I’ll invite you. The way out of the forest is to follow that path over there.”
If it were daytime, he would have invited them in, but it was too late now.
Moreover, his place wasn’t ‘organized’ yet.
As he stroked the children’s heads and spoke like that, the two kids responded with contrasting reactions of shyness and disappointment.
“Can I really come back to play later?”
“No, I won’t come because there are no ghosts.”
“Hahahaha.”
They really were amusing children.
——–
After seeing the children off to the road, Luke returned home.
However, the dark house was just silent and desolate.
The warm greeting from Yerna that always welcomed him upon returning, Diana who always clung to him, and Dayton who scolded him by prying Diana away were all absent.
It was like an empty house with nobody to greet him.
That was actually to be expected.
Luke had sent them all away.
‘No, this is a bit strange.’
Suddenly, Luke felt the need to slightly revise the sentence that popped into his head.
He had sent them on a ‘trip.’
Since receiving the prize money from the recent competition, Luke had started spending the money as he had previously thought.
As he had mentioned to Gerard, he hadn’t bought the doll yet, but he had purchased a computer and magical devices.
And he had given the remaining money to Yerna and Dayton, telling them to take a honeymoon trip that they hadn’t been able to go on.
Moreover, when he handed over the travel tickets, he had arranged for Diana to have a lodging where she could sleep separately, so perhaps when this trip was over, Pyris might get the gift she had hoped for.
Although he hadn’t gone with them, it would surely leave good memories.
Indeed, it might be quite a fun trip; he was a bit envious.
But then, why hadn’t Luke accompanied them on their trip?
It was because, in order to sort all this out, Luke needed to remain alone at home.
Luke looked at the mountains of various packages piled up in his room and gave an awkward smile.
He really had received a lot of packages today.
So much so that the delivery person had asked, “Do you plan to do business with all this?”
“Haha. I really have no self-restraint at all.”
No matter how good his economic sense was, in the end, Luke was a mage.
If he had money in his hands and saw something he wanted, he had a tendency not to think much about it.
Moreover, this wasn’t impulsive spending.
Though the spending level seemed quite impulsive, behind it was a thoroughly calculated rational financial consumption.
‘It was unforeseen that I would spend everything without leaving enough for doll-making materials.’
But that was an unavoidable sacrifice.
On the other hand, he could always buy cotton seeds later and grow them for the doll.
No, actually, it might be much better for charging a golem’s magical power.
But these were different.
No matter how much Luke tried, he couldn’t make computer parts.
Processing cores, enchantment boards, seed memories, telepathy devices, Akashic recording parts…
Each one was a high-performance computer component of the latest model.
Yet the strange thing was the amount.
There were definitely not enough parts to assemble a single computer.
There were even heaps of various broken magical devices and discarded components he had randomly piled up after roaming around junkyards in the back of the house.
So, what he had were definitely not items one would expect to see in the situation of assembling a computer in an ordinary household.
That was only natural.
The computer Luke was trying to make was not some ordinary home computer.
It was to be his new brain; how could he make it poorly?
If it wasn’t the highest performance available, there was no way Luke would be satisfied.
The goal was a ‘supercomputer.’
The word that caught Luke’s eye while searching for computer parts deeply embedded itself in his heart.
A truly overwhelming super high-performance system that could finish any complex large-scale computational task in an instant.
Now that he had come to know of it, he couldn’t help but build it.
Luke wore a proud smile and propped the cello against the wall.
“All right, I think this is enough for a durability test against divine power.”
This was the reason Luke had played the cello that night.
Divine power fundamentally operates through belief in and gratitude towards a deity, making praise necessary.
Of course, Luke didn’t really need such a process, but the divine power usable by Luke and the divine power processed through normal praise have different natures.
And more than anything, it had been confirmed that divine power emitted through praise doesn’t put much burden on Luke’s body, even if it performs somewhat worse than the same amount of divine power.
For example, praise and instruments serve as a means for a mage, just like incantations or a cane.
Although as a mage, Luke had no idea how to wield the influence of divine power through praise, meaning he still had to bear a burden to exert influence, such as healing or resurrecting someone.
However, a question remains.
Why did Luke need to test divine power on computer parts?
And why was there not a single ‘magical power refining plant cultivation kit’ necessary for the computer among all these parts?
Luke muttered as he stretched his body.
“Alright! Now let’s start moving them one by one to Arinseia!”
Because the World Tree drenched in the divine power of Arinseia and the vast greenery would become the ‘computer’ Luke had envisioned.
