After riding the roller coaster, Dayton looked like a defeated soldier who had just returned from the worst battlefield.
“It still feels a bit dizzy…”
“Yeah…”
As they sat down exhausted, watching Dayton and Diana, Pyris tilted her head and asked.
“Does that mean you can’t ride anything else now?”
With no change in expression, Pyris’s naive question made Dayton and Diana react with dismay.
“Let’s take a break. Diana is struggling. Hmph, I’m fine, but…”
However, seeming displeased with Dayton’s act of pretending to be fine until the end, Diana squinted her eyes and said to him.
“Brother, stop pretending to be cool; it’s not cool at all.”
“…”
At a loss for words, Dayton simply looked away into the distance.
Seeing this, Pyris furrowed her brow, imitating Luke’s habit of stroking his chin with a perplexed expression.
“Why is that scary?”
It was a sensation that Pyris simply couldn’t understand.
After all, she was a spirit that had long since been liberated from the fear of death, and her sense of speed and time regarding the Material Plane was also rather vague.
Even if she could understand emotions, she had no way of grasping why or what made people so fearful.
Diana, instead, looked at Pyris with curiosity and asked.
“Were you not scared at all?”
“I’m more scared when Sister Luke gets angry than anything like that.”
“…That’s true.”
Diana nodded as she recalled a time when she and Pyris had read a bad book together, mimicking a scene from it and got scolded.
When someone who normally doesn’t get angry does get upset, it tends to be quite scary; honestly, it was much more frightening than when her brother got angry back then.
Well, although Sister Luke had quickly apologized for getting angry at her, Pyris had been scolded a bit more.
After all, they had even slapped her rear end directly.
Thus, they had the memory of being scolded the most severely back then, so it was no wonder Pyris thought of her sister as scary.
“It’s true! When she gets really angry, it’s super scary. I almost died!”
“Is it that extreme?”
“Yeah.”
Pyris shuddered as she recalled the time she had gone into a strange facility in the forest.
The magical flow back then, to be honest, left a slight trauma for Pyris.
In the end, she was relieved to find out that it wasn’t anger directed at her, but she still didn’t want to think about making her sister genuinely angry in the future.
During their conversation, Luke took a moment to interrupt.
“Don’t worry too much; no matter what, children don’t kill.”
“…Huh?”
Diana and Pyris paused at Luke’s words.
The notion that children don’t kill inversely implies that adults might, doesn’t it?
Because of this, Yerna’s expression was also tinged with a bit of surprise.
Of course, Pyris had halted in response to that high-level judgment simply because others had reacted that way.
Nonetheless, noticing the mood becoming subtle, Luke quickly added on.
“Of course, that’s a joke.”
“Ah… Haha! Right? Isn’t it?”
“I was shocked!”
Hearing those words said in Luke’s characteristic tone of firm conviction didn’t feel like a joke at all.
In fact, it really was that way.
There were indeed times when the ones that looked too youthful were spared from death intentionally.
However, for some reason, the shocked expressions didn’t fully dissipate even after hearing that it was a joke.
Luke pondered how he could break this atmosphere and decided to try the way Renie often used in such situations in the past.
“By the way, what shall we do now? It seems according to your reactions that riding that kind of attraction again is probably out of the question.”
“Ah, right.”
Dayton was the first to chime in.
“Hmm, where would be good to go?”
Next was Yerna.
Thus, Luke managed to steer the conversation naturally to a new subject.
“Phew, I honestly thought I was going to suffocate. I might have to hold back on jokes in the future.”
Isn’t making jokes supposed to be this difficult?
He had often heard that being a mage lacked a sense of humor, but he thought he was reasonably good for a magician.
He began to seriously consider if perhaps in the past, due to his powers and authority, he had never been able to voice when something was unfunny.
As they appeared to be deep in thought, Pyris asked with a look of slight disappointment.
“Are we not going to ride any more attractions?”
That look reminded Dayton of something akin to a demon.
With a quivering heart facing pure evil, he forced a smile and spoke as if nothing were wrong.
“Let’s take a break before riding. How about we do something we can while resting…?”
“Okay. So what will we do?”
In response to Pyris’s question, Yerna spoke up.
“Well… How about we walk around a bit? It’ll help with the dizziness more than just sitting.”
——————–
Although they were wandering without a destination, it didn’t feel unpleasant at all.
After all, this place was decorated quite extravagantly to make it visually appealing, and there were plenty of sights and snacks to see, so there was hardly time to feel bored.
Well, Luke liked walking anyway.
However, it seemed that it was about mealtime now, as he was starting to feel a bit hungry.
Yet, somehow knowing this, Yerna looked at Luke’s expression and asked.
“Are you getting hungry? Let’s find a place to eat.”
“Ah, yeah. Let’s do that.”
It was then.
“Hey, everyone! Come try your luck at the prize draw!”
Suddenly, a shout from somewhere drew the group’s attention.
What caught their eye was a man shouting under a sign that read “Prize Shooting.”
Behind the man was a shelf lined with cans marked as targets, and in front of it was a simple cane shaped like a slingshot.
The man shouted once more.
“If you score high points, you’ll get a prize! The entry fee is only 5,000 gil!”
What on earth was he trying to do with that?
Luke slightly lifted the eye patch he had deliberately not removed due to the unhealed burn marks, sweeping the place with his magic sight.
Having confirmed the design of the slingshot and analyzed it, he found that it was optimized to launch weak projectiles.
Once he gathered all the information, he placed his eye patch back down.
“Yerna, how about we check that out?”
“Eh? Luke, are you interested in that?”
Luke nodded immediately.
Perhaps one might say it sparked his curiosity.
Of course, being a mage, he couldn’t help but be intrigued by a slingshot of a form he had never seen before.
“Hehe, really? Then let’s go take a look.”
With a big smile, Yerna immediately changed direction.
Soon, a middle-aged man approached them with a sad expression.
“Excuse me, dear guests. Have you come to try the ‘Prize Shooting’?”
“Yes, we’d like to give it a shot.”
“Yes! It’s 5,000 gil to try! Who will be participating?”
Yerna cheerfully took out 5,000 gil from her pocket and handed it over to the man.
“Luke, do you want to give it a try?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you said you wanted to!”
With a bright smile, Yerna offered her place to Luke.
It was a form of magic he hadn’t experienced before and a kind of staff he had never seen.
It would obviously be better to try it out directly.
“Hmm… Alright, let’s do it.”
Following the man’s guidance, Luke took his position.
“Now, look at the can, and just shoot as if you were using a slingshot. The spell is already loaded. If you hit the can, you’ll get a prize based on your score.”
“Hm, I see how it is.”
Hit the can.
The rules were simple.
Luke lifted the slingshot and aimed at the can.
He pulled back a pure white orb floating at the end of the Y-shaped slingshot with his finger and let it go.
Just like that, the white pellet was shot out like a slingshot.
However, it didn’t hit the can.
It felt somewhat like trying to aim at a real slingshot was proving a challenge.
Usually, Luke only used magic to launch projectiles through coordination specification and image construction; he didn’t have much experience with archery or shooting.
Thus, even after several attempts, he didn’t hit the can accurately.
‘So, that’s how it is.’
Yet, he had finished analyzing the magic’s mechanism, which had been his original purpose.
Now, he could wrap it up without any regrets.
“Too bad! Little lady, it seems you won’t be getting a prize.”
Nodding at the man’s direction, Luke turned his body away.
If he focused a little more on the pulling, direction of force, and projectile tendencies, perhaps he could have done better, but he didn’t particularly want it that badly.
The inefficient structural system and power limitations significantly weakened that magic; he was just curious about how it actually launched.
He didn’t really have any interest in the prizes, so he felt little more motivation.
“That’s enough for me; I’m leaving.”
But watching this, Yerna thought to herself.
‘It seems he’s disappointed for not getting the prize he wanted.’
On this day, there shouldn’t be any reason for such a gloomy face, she thought as she stepped forward for Luke.
“I’ll give it a try this time.”
“That’s right.”
As Luke handed the slingshot over to Yerna, the middle-aged man approached and said.
“It’s 5,000 gil. As for instructions on how to shoot…”
“It’s fine. Just give me the money.”
Yerna quickly took out 5,000 gil and handed it to the man, then lightly relaxed her wrist.
‘But it’s been a while since I’ve done this kind of shooting; I wonder if I can still do it properly?’
But that worry was short-lived.
The moment she aimed at the can, her body naturally recalled the familiar sensation, and a smile formed on Yerna’s face as she pulled back the orb.
“Alright.”
Once she released the hand that had firmly pulled, the white orb flew perfectly towards the can.
With a clear sound of ting, the can fell from the shelf as Dayton merely nodded along.
Among the forest keepers in Luke Forest, Yerna was certainly among the top.
Hitting a can from this distance was likely nothing for her.
“Um, how many hits do we need for a prize?”
“If you hit all 18 shots, it’s first place! If you hit 14 or more, it’s second! Just hitting 10 will still earn you a prize! There’s no time limit, so take your time and shoot!”
The man responded cheerfully.
However, upon seeing Luke’s expression, Yerna shook her head and said.
“We have to feed the kids, so I’ll just shoot quickly.”
After saying this, Yerna immediately let her body lead as she started shooting the orbs.
The speed was so suspect that she doubted whether she was actually aiming at all.
Yet, not a single shot went astray.
Ting, ting, ting, ting-.
The sound of the cans hitting the ground echoed continuously as the man witnessing the scene couldn’t help but doubt his eyes.
“What? No, what is this…?”
The three kids watching on the side couldn’t help but exclaim their admiration.
“Wow, so fast!”
“Oh, she really is the forest keeper of Luke Forest.”
“Sister Yerna is amazing!”
———-
The first prize was a large stuffed cat.
Except it was dressed in a wizard’s hat and costume.
It was a character called ‘Magic Kitty,’ the mascot of this amusement park.
With its cute appearance, it was quite a popular character.
“I’ve never seen such skills in all my years here. Who on earth are you?”
As the man handed over the prize, Yerna shyly brushed her hair back and said.
“Ahaha… Actually, I’m a forest keeper.”
“That’s why! Forest keepers are definitely different! Wow, I thought I was watching a circus.”
Was it truly that impressive?
It certainly felt like she had been doing well today.
“I just went with the flow. I was lucky.”
“Still, not just anyone can do that. Now, here’s your first prize!”
“Thank you!”
The wizard cat plushie.
It looked somewhat similar to Luke.
Considering that Luke loved magic and wizards, he must have been looking at it with interest.
Yerna, having received the plush, immediately handed it over to Luke and spoke.
“Here! Luke, you wanted this, right?”
Luke, staring at the large plush, was taken aback by Yerna’s words.
“W-What? Me? I’ve never thought of that at all…!”
“You don’t need to be shy. It’s okay! You were staring at it earlier, right?”
“No, that’s a misunderstanding. It was just so large that it caught my eye; I never thought about wanting it…”
He was just curious about who would like such a thing, never having the desire to own it.
Yet, to find out that it had become the prize?
Luke, flustered and hesitating, Yerna thought he was embarrassed that his desire for the plush had been unveiled and smiled as she embraced the plush to him.
Being young, it was okay for Luke to show a bit of childish behavior.
“Take it! Since it’s a gift! How about decorating your room with it when you move in later?”
“Ugh… A gift, huh…?”
With Yerna saying this much, he had no choice.
Rejecting a gift for no serious reason would be against etiquette.
