"..." Mom looks at me silently before heading over to her bed and sitting down silently.
It takes her a moment, but she speaks. "It's nothing, don't worry about it," she says, her voice slightly shaky. Obviously, it was not nothing.
"Mama, I can see that it isn't nothing. Not only do I see this, but I also hear it in your voice. Tell me, please, what is on your mind," I ask gently, sitting down beside her and hugging her.
"... It's nothing, drop it," she says, likely not wanting to worry me. Unfortunately, that just does the opposite.
Seeing she is unwilling to talk about it, I decide to call over Cifera, and after handing her a quickly written note, I tell her to deliver it to Varka.
I spent the next half an hour simply asking about her day—if anything interesting happened, if she managed to befriend people here.
During this, I find out that she came across Lisa and managed to get along with her surprisingly well. She also described how she was temporarily working as a tavern waitress at Angel's Share.
This makes me smile, happy she was able to quickly find a job, and one where she was unlikely to be treated unfairly.
I then tell her how I had been doing, the training that I had been up to as of late, how I, for whatever reason, was really, really quick to learn swordplay. I also describe that when trying other weapons, the story was not the same. I could blatantly be described as a failure in all but the bow and simple hand-to-hand combat.
The stories make her smile and laugh, her tension easing away, the discomfort of the prior topic having completely left.
I then start a bit of an awkward topic. "Hey, uhh—Mom, you remember the books that, well—fell on my head, right?"
"Yes, yes I do. I think you even mentioned once that thanks to one of them you managed to summon Cifera," she said, gaining a bit of a far-off look as she tried to remember the details.
"Yes, well, I might have hidden what I have gained from the other two books. The first one is a random item summoning spell. It does quite literally summon anything. I have even gotten just rocks from it, considering I tried once every day that I have been here," I say, speaking a bit exasperated.
"Summon anything?" she asks, very surprised.
"Yes, anything. I mean, it mostly summons casual items, like giving me an apple a day ago. Thankfully, it strikes gold sometimes. I have gotten two extremely useful items from it," I say while grinning, my nose pointing to the ceiling and my chest puffed out at my luck.
She chuckles in response and asks, "Oh? And what are those 'useful' items?"
I smile and explain, "Well, the first one is an interdimensional Wi-Fi black box that allows me to look at information from our own worl—"
She interrupts, almost screaming, "Wait, WHAT?!"
Pulling out my phone, I show her it is currently connected to Wi-Fi and that, in fact, I can watch, talk, and even download or send videos through it.
Smugly, I then ask, "Do you now believe me?"
Stunned, she is like, "Wha—HOW?!"
Chuckling sheepishly, I say, "I don't know. It even takes 10k mora a month as payment, but I have no idea how it works. It was just something I summoned." I shrug and continue, "That is nice, but it is also the less overwhelming item."
She then looks at me with the what do you mean look.
"Ah, well—the other it—e—m," I say, dragging my words, "is a debit card. A debit card that lets me go to any shop that I have visited in our last world."
She stares at me blankly, trying to process what I am saying.
"Yes. In fact, I had gone to the Square One mall today with Jean," I say tiredly, since I wanted to sleep.
"You went to Squa—... wait, did you say you went with Jean?" my mom asks, now with a smile of planned gossip.
Shit. Fuck. Damn. I spoke too much!!!!
I pray in my mind. Lord Barbatos, hear me. Save me from this predicament!!!
Morax, Lord of Geo, I vow to aid your nation. I will make a contract. JUST PLEASE SAVE ME!!!!
Beezheb—
"Oh~ so... what did you do over there?" she asks teasingly.
I can now only cry on the inside and scream FUCK ALL OF YOU.
Venti: .... Bro, I hadn't even the time to react?
Zhongli: .... That was spontaneous...
Ei: Eternity shall not be interrupted.
"... Well, today we had gone on an extermination mission, and after we returned and finished the paperwork for the extermination, Jean had wanted to continue working. I wasn't too fond of the idea—she would lose the joys of her youth like that. So, having planned to go to the mall anyway... I just dragged her along," I admit hesitantly while looking away.
"Ah... well, that does make sense—but that doesn't tell me what you did there."
I then describe that first we had gone to grab some food, since we hadn't eaten since the morning.
Our next destination was clothes shopping, which Jean had greatly enjoyed.
No, I didn't mention her asking my opinion.
Then she had decided to also drag me into buying some clothes and outfits, which I then made appear through my inventory spell.
I then describe how our last destination was the arcade, where in shooting games I won, but in anything else I lost miserably.
"You lost miserably? But aren't you, like, insanely good at them~" she says, suggesting I might have given way.
I then act sad, have my head fall down and my hands fall to the bed, and admit, "Unfortunately not. She was simply a prodigy."
"Anyway, I wanted to show you two of the spells, as well as give you the Wi-Fi password—'Left4Mi5sery'—and the debit card, since it can be activated by anyone who shares the bound person's blood. So, anybody blood-related to me."
She quickly does the password on her phone so she doesn't forget, and then gets temporarily distracted by the amount of notifications popping up.
Thankfully, I manage to pull her back by gently grabbing hold of her hand and pulling her up from the bed.
"Ma, I know you want to contact our family and friends, but look at it this way. The world thinks you, I, and everybody on the plane are dead. It is best that, for the moment, we don't rush to contact them. We first need to decide if that is worth it and what consequences might follow," I say solemnly.
She freezes at this, then nods silently, visibly distraught.
"Let me show you the spells, alright?" I say softly, pulling her along.
I swing the door out, causing a bit of a muffled bang, and head to my room, which is right beside hers.
Coming in, I close the door—but before that, I remember to close her door...
Why is there this bald guy on the ground???
Meh. None of my business.
Getting back to my room, I remove the carpet that was hiding my main circle, the desk I had replaced a while ago after "accidentally" breaking it with my strength.
I then describe that the first fourteen summons for a person only have an equivalent cost value of 200 mora, and how the rest will be higher cost.
I then get her to try it. With a slight poof, an interesting yellow metallic bow appears, with a sort of green gem in the middle. With it, a note appears:
Legendary bow, partially bindable: user can summon bow anytime. Previous master: Itsuki Kawasumi.
...Eh? Just like that, a Legendary bow???
My mom looks at it and picks it up. As soon as she does, there is a slight glow to the bow, and she then panics, talking about some kind of screen or interface popping up in front of her eyes.
It takes her a moment, but after she reads through whatever is on that interface that apparently exists, she starts to tell me how she can, in theory, give it items and materials to strengthen it, as well as touch other bows to copy their forms and abilities.
She also says that it bound to her, so she can summon and dismiss the bow whenever she wants.
This makes me feel as if I know this style of progression. I think I have heard of it before. Unfortunately, I just can't recall.
The second thing I show her is the familiar summoning circle, inviting her to try it, as the first one costs practically nothing.
With another poof, in front of us appears a small red dragon, which seems to have already established a connection just like how Cifera did.
Apparently, her name was Laika, based off the plain silver tag on her collar.
She seemed quite friendly and pleased with Mom, but had bitten me anytime I tried to bring my hand to her.
This then became an argument, as I couldn't even touch my mom anymore, who I wanted to hug.
My mom had started laughing at this before ordering Laika to stop attacking me after I had explained the contract's mechanics to her.
In fact, I had planned to summon my second familiar today, but seeing how tired both myself and especially my mom were, I decided to simply go to sleep and not bother her anymore.
The next day, I arrived at the Knights' headquarters, Cifera now perched on my head, her tail waving behind me and slipping down my shirt, tickling me.
I head to Varka's office, only to find Jean there, while the Grand Master himself was missing.
She explained that, at the moment, she was working through all of the receipts, but she seemed to have lost some and was worried.
She then remembered something, and coming around the desk, she spoke. "Sane, I was wondering—when and where will you drop off the rest of the items I purchased?"
Tilting my head in confusion, I ask, "Didn't I drop them off at your estate after dragging you there?"
Jean's cheeks slightly flush at the last part before her calm demeanor returns, and she asks, "Ah, right. By the way, I want to exchange the jewelry that we bought for each other now. Is that okay?"
Blinking, I nod, and without another word, Jean pulls out an ornate box. I, in hand, also pull out the two boxes in which the bracelets were stored.
Noticing there were two, she is startled and asks, "Wait, did you buy two? Why?"
"Ah—that—well, it is because I thought both would look extremely well with that dark green dress, so I decided to get both," I say, sheepishly admitting such a thing.
Jean smiles while shaking her head, then asks, "Do you want to open our own boxes or show each other exactly what we picked?"
"Show," was my simple reply.
With this, Jean then shows me a black-gold ring that had several green emeralds lining it, creating the shape of a dragon.
I am stunned speechless for a moment and can only say, "Thank you. That is a beautiful ring."
I then show her the emerald vine bracelets first. Left her speechless was putting it lightly, and putting them on, she said she would treasure them forever.
Then I show her the simpler amethyst pair. Her eyes shine with delight. She says nothing, but the joy in her eyes says it all.
After schooling herself, she then returns to the desk to continue the paperwork as if nothing happened, commenting that Varka is out in the courtyard waiting for me to do training.
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Word Count: 1970~
A/N: This was fun
Powerstones are appreciated.
Comments are appreciated even more.
Have a good day/night!