Chapter 82: 82 – Child – …Comes Great Stress

It was stupid. I still didn't see the point of why Dad and Mama Lily needed to go along to save just one girl in basically an entire different country.

Family was the most important thing. Who cared about the rest of the world or 'innocents?' Sure, it was good to help out every now and then, but to risk your neck for a complete stranger...

I didn't get Dad. But I wasn't going to try and change him. The only way that someone would change would be if they decided to change for themselves.

And Dad seemed to be trying at least.

Wish he actually *would* change instead of just try, but this was the situation I had to deal with. No point complaining about it.

Anyway, there were a lot of preparations to make, so I got busy with Master Roxy. I had to work really closely with her in order to make sure everything was in order.

Fortunately, I had stupid amounts of mana to work with and my mana also seemed to be extremely malleable.

Kind of like Master Roxy's summon. The metal blob... Mercy? I think that was what Master Roxy called it.

Mercy could pick up random minerals, objects, and mana and amalgamate with it. Essentially take in the properties of whatever it combined with.

Only for a short while though. It would be pretty broken otherwise.

Ah, but it didn't like my mana. When we tried giving it a bit, the spirit ran away like my mana was the plague.

Maybe it had to do something with the whole potentially being the reincarnation of a Demon God thing. Or just having traces of said Demon God in my body?

Or maybe my mana was stronger and it would assimilate Mercy instead?

I didn't know, but whatever the case, Mercy stayed far away from me while we experimented.

And as for experiments...

There were two objectives.

The first was a defense for Dad.

I knew Dad. While he was a genius in sword fighting... Well, in just fighting in general, he also fought recklessly. He was fast and basically had the first stage of ultra instinct, but we couldn't rely on that.

After all, he wasn't Orsted fast.

I could still remember it. In what was essentially frozen time, that guy could move at normal speed.

He was an anomaly. Orsted was basically an unbeatable boss fight.

But who was to say that Being W didn't have people like that in stock?

This world was big. Dad was a genius, but geniuses were a dime a dozen when there were billions of people in the world. Especially when there were races other than humans and even mixed race hybrids.

Like the Sword God and Water God.

Even though they weren't Orsted, I was sure of it. People on those levels...

Taking each style to the extreme, the Sword God could probably move at light speed and do crazy stuff like split space. And the Water God probably had the real ultra instinct thing. Or maybe an 'Absolute Domain' where they could control and sense every incoming attack?

No, since it was 'Water', we had to assume it was based on that.

Water could flow or it could crash. It was also formless and shapeless... and it took on the form of whatever you put it in.

In that case... there was probably an absolute counter where it took the incoming attack and revolved it with added force.

Then there was the North God that was basically the mixed martial arts of sword fighting...

But that was a rabbit hole that wouldn't end.

Focused preparations. That was what we needed.

Dad and Mama Lily would leave within the week, so there were seven days to work with.

And during those seven days, like I thought, we needed a defense for Dad. And we also needed a strong sword for him and Mama Lily.

Mostly Mama Lily.

If she was going... Well, the bracelet I made for her had been upgraded with a bunch of features, but a trump card was best. And she was trained to be more of an assassin type of fighter anyway.

So again, two tasks. And we had to factor in crazy BS wildcards.

First, we started with the swords.

Mama Lily wasn't very strong and didn't use much mana to reinforce her body, so the sword had to be light. At the same time, it was probably better for her to have it concealed.

After all, no one would expect someone as beautiful as Mama Lily to be able to fight, right? And even if they did, with all the magic that would trigger from the bracelet, they would assume she was a magician and rush in to attack instead of run away.

Which would be the perfect time to counter.

So a proper blade wouldn't do. It should be innocuous. Mundane.

After a bunch of brainstorming, I remembered the story about a water nymph giving her pin to a hero to create a magic sword, so we went with that.

Kind of.

We still used a pin, but it didn't turn into a sword. Instead, it turned into a sword-hilt. One etched with millions of magic circles that would make a composite mana/plasma blade when activated. Also tons of magic circles with all sorts of traps for people who tried to take it away from her.

We could have made the same thing for Dad, but considering his style it wouldn't work. Instead, the focus was on making a blade that could handle his mana and ridiculous improvisation. also one that wouldn't break under high stress, like when I fought against Orsted.

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Which reminded me that I never did recover the pieces of my sword...

But anyway, there was a simple solution for Dad's sword.

Since I figured out how to compress my mana into a magic stone to use as ammo against Orsted, I just applied the same logic to make a hyper-compressed mana sword out of ambient mana.

The result was an ominous looking crimson sword that seemed like something Muramasa would make, but it was definitely sturdy enough.

It also *really* didn't like other mana and repelled it like a magnet.

Which reminded me again that I needed to do more research into the fundamental nature of mana still.

But those were finished.

Now came the hard part.

...How do you make an absolute defense?

-LIV-

Sylphy stared through the window at Rudy pulling his hair and scribbling into a notebook.

"Rudy's still at it?" A bratty female voice echoed from behind.

Eris walked over, her arms crossed. Her crimson hair trailed behind her as she did, along with the coat tails of the haphazard fur coat she made to copy Ghyslaine.

Sylphy resisted the urge to scold Eris for talking about Rudy so casually. Instead, she just nodded and looked back at Rudy. "That's right. It seems like he's stuck on a hard problem."

They were outside the other house. The new one that Sylphy helped Rudy and Miss Roxy build a while back.

It was late in the afternoon. The day had mostly come and gone... and most of that was spent indoors for Rudy.

Like always, it seemed as if Sylphy's best friend... No. Not just best friend. Rudy was the one she liked the most and made her happy, just like she made him happy.

But right now he seemed really frustrated.

Through the window, Sylphy saw Roxy walk over to Rudy and then peer over his shoulder, staring at the diagrams. She ruffled Rudy's white hair with a gentle smile and then started tapping certain parts of the diagram, making some suggestions Sylphy couldn't hear.

"Ugh." Eris shook her head and said, "I still don't get how he can sit down for so long. My eyes would be spinning just looking at that stuff."

Sylphy looked away from Rudy and stared at Eris. "That's because all you can think about is sword fighting."

Eris puffed her chest out and nodded. "That's right! And I'm the best at it!"

"Only because all you do is train." Sylphy frowned and said, "Have you even played with Norn or Aisha recently?"

Eris huffed. "I try! But those two brats keep making fun of me!"

Sylphy blinked. "...How?"

Norn and Aisha were still toddlers. They were smart and Eris *did* have a lot of flaws to poke fun at, but...

Actually, Aisha was smart enough to notice those sorts of things. And she definitely had a little mean streak to her. And Norn as the responsible big sister would go along with Aisha and protect her...

Eris pouted and said, "Aisha keeps calling me a muscle-head! What even is that? My head isn't made of muscles! Isn't it stupid?"

Sylphy's mouth twitched, but she did her best to not let it show. "I-It is a bit ridiculous."

"Right?" Eris looked proud and said, "I knew you'd get it, Sylphy! Now come on!" She grabbed Sylphy's hand and said, "Let's go fight some monsters in the forest!"

Sylphy glanced at Rudy and hummed. "...I guess some magic stones *would* be useful for Rudy..."

"Oh, yeah. I guess we could remember to get some for him too. But let's go!" Eris jumped up and down and said, "If you fly us there, we can go and be back before dark!"

Sylphy blinked and tilted her head, staring at Eris.

Eris stared back. "What?"

"...Nothing, Eris." Sylphy let out a warm smile and said, "Hold on tight, okay? Rudy would be sad if you got hurt."

"O-Oh. Okay then." Eris hugged Sylphy tighter.

And with that, the two flew into the air.

Eris screamed and hugged Sylphy a bit tighter still.

For a split second, Sylphy considered causing an accident. It would be so easy to just say she didn't know what happened. And since Eris liked Sylphy now after all Sylphy did for her, Sylphy would never get blamed for it.

And if Rudy got sad, Sylphy could cheer him up about it too.

But that would be mean. And besides, even if Eris was annoying, bratty, and took everything for granted, she really liked Sylphy for some reason. And Sylphy didn't want to hurt someone who really liked her. Even still...

...Maybe Eris was just stupid? It seemed like she had completely forgot about the past between them just because Sylphy said some nice things and showed her some magic.

Oh well. It just meant that if Eris liked Sylphy more, Sylphy didn't have to worry about Eris stealing Rudy's time with Sylphy.

Now... her Rudy was working hard so Sylphy should work hard to bring him something nice, right?

Maybe they should go hunt down some Terminate Boars so they could grill some meat and have fun with a campfire...

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