Bölüm

[GENERATION FAILED - RAW TEXT]

Hokh’hokton made his way down the stairs, where he immediately caught sight of an empty bottle lying at the landing. “Again?” he said, narrowing his eyes in anger. “Now where was that no-goodness hiding all this liquorthistime...” Fuming, he stormed into Telbyress’s room.

For a while afterwards, the sounds of Hokh’hokton’s angry shouts and Telbyress’s tearful apologies could be heard throughout the goblins’ house. All in all, it was an utterly typical morning.

◇ ◇ ◇

Inside the house, Rys was busily running all about the kitchen. “Now...” she said. “I need to focus, and prepare breakfast for everyone properly!” Effortlessly holding an enormous frying pan nearly twice the size of her own body in a single hand, she tossed a truly staggering quantity of food up in the air.

Awestruck by the performance happening right in front of her, Byleri found herself unable to stop watching Rys’s movement, momentarily forgetting to attend to her own tasks in the kitchen.Lady Rys is, like, just way too good at this, isn’t she?she thought.Like, I get that she’s super strong because she’s a demon and everything, but it totally seems like she’s getting better every day...She stared transfixed as Rys heroically stir fried the thin-cut ingredients.

“Oh?” Rys said, suddenly. “Byleri, why have you stopped cooking?”

“Fweh?!” Byleri exclaimed, hastily returning to her work. “A-Ah! Y-Yes, ma’am! I’m, like, totally sorry!”

“There’s no need to rush, you know,” Rys told her. “In fact, you can injure yourself by moving too quickly in the kitchen.”

“Y-Yes, ma’am!” Byleri repeated, putting down the knife for a moment and taking a deep breath. Only when she was sure she had calmed down sufficiently did she pick the knife back up.

Rys nodded, satisfied.Good, now Byleri is less likely to wind up hurting herself,she thought.As the wife of Lord Flio, the head of this house, it is my duty to mind the underlings!

Rys was a great champion of the lupine demons, a people known for their powerful sense of pack solidarity. Rys made it her concern to look after not only her children, but everyone living in the house and its attendant settlements.

As the two labored in the kitchen, Charun entered the room wearing her usual maid’s outfit. “Good morning, Madame Rys, Miss Byleri,” she said.

“Good morning, Charun,” said Rys. “Are you here to help us with breakfast?”

“Yes,” Charun said with a deep formal bow as she stepped into the kitchen proper. “Please allow me to be of assistance.” She retrieved the magic box containing her stockpile of tea leaves, and began preparing her vessels for the proper brewing of tea.

Charun, of course, was always on tea duty in Flio’s house.

◇ ◇ ◇

At the same time as Rys, Byleri and Charun were preparing breakfast, Flio and Elinàsze were speaking with each other inside Elinàsze’s extradimensional laboratory.

“You know,” Flio said, “Hiya told me that you created this space outside of the world of Klyrode itself.”

“That’s right,” Elinàsze replied with a smile. “I’m still experimenting to see what works and what doesn’t, but I’ve learned how to expand the space indefinitely.” When Elinàsze was engrossed in her research, she came across as cold and without emotion, often working in complete silence. Now, however, she was with Flio, her beloved papa. She sidled up beside him, smiling without restraint. “Now then,” she said, leading Flio into a new room she had only recently added to her laboratory. “There’s something I wanted to show you, papa.”

Inside the room was an enormous golem.

“Elinàsze...” Flio said. “Is this golem...?”

“That’s right!” Elinàsze said. “It’s one of the golems the Diabolists used at the Oldwass College of Magic! It ended up here one way or another during my conversation with Miss Gelado.” To punctuate the statement, she winked impishly and stuck out her tongue.

She couldn’t have gotten her hands on a golem like this just by talking, could she?Flio thought, a complicated expression on his face.Come to think of it, I wonder what happened to Miss Gelado after we left. She wasn’t listed among the people we handed over to the Oldwass College of Magic, and when I asked Hiya about it, they just dodged the question. She couldn’t have ended up involved with that “training” of theirs, could she...?

“Papa?” Elinàsze said. “Is something the matter?”

“A-Ah, excuse me!” Flio said. “I just have a couple of things on my mind...”

“Well,” said Elinàsze. “For now, I’d like you to listen to what I have to say.” Smiling brightly, she produced a magic grimoire and held it out for Flio to see.

“What’s the story with this magic grimoire, Elinàsze?” Flio asked.

“It’s a copy I made of one I found in the Oldwass College of Magic library,” Elinàsze said. “If you look here...” As she spoke, she began leafing rapidly through the pages of the hefty tome.

Maybe I’m wrong,Flio thought, lowering his head,but didn’t I see that book in the forbidden shelves in the library?Flio had spent some time during the trip studying in the library himself, and thought he recognized the book in his daughter’s arms.

Finally, Elinàsze found the page she was looking for and pointed it out to Flio.

“Huh?” Flio said, his eyes going wide. “This is...”

The title of the section Elinàsze pointed out to him read, “A Spell For the Artificial Generation of Djinn.” Most of the original text, however, was gone. There were characters missing all over the page, making the contents of the section nearly impossible to decipher.

“I’ve been wondering whether this might just be the spell that was used to create Hiya,” Elinàsze said. “What do you think, papa?”

“That’s a good question,” Flio said. “It certainly seems like it might be possible.” He touched his hand to the pages of the book, but alas, there was no sign of his skill Epiphany activating, which allowed him to instantaneously master any magic he happened to touch.

I wasn’t able to learn it just by touching...Flio thought, staring at the grimoire.Maybe because too much of the text is missing? Or maybe...

“Well?” Elinàsze said, beaming with delight as she looked up from beside him. “This seems like it might be interesting, doesn’t it?”

The two carried on their discussion of magic, up until Rys came to call them to breakfast.