“Hello, how may I help you?” The woman at the counter for receiving donations asked.
“We’re here to make a donation to the shelter.” Owari reached into his pocket and took out a crystal card. Inside of it were thousands of credits. He planned on donating all of it.
“What will you be donating?” The woman asked doubtfully. With Owari’s coat he looked more like someone who would be asking for food. Not to mention he wasn’t wearing anything to protect himself from the cold.
“We don’t know what would be best, so we’re here to give some money.” Noel answered as Owari handed over the crystal card.
“Thank you. Every bit helps…” Her voice trailed off as she looked at the number displayed on the card.
“No problem.” Owari smiled calmly seeing this. He expected as much.
“Is this real?” The woman couldn’t help but ask, despite knowing it was impossible to fake a crystal card.
“It might be surprising to hear, but I’m actually very rich.” Owari chuckled. “That’s not all I came here for.” Owari grabbed her attention with these words.
“What else brought you here?” She asked in a daze.
“About seven days after appreciation day I’ll be spending the day by the train station. Anyone who wants to go home but can’t afford to can come to me and I’ll pay for as many people to go home as I can afford.” He answered.
“How many people is that?” She asked apprehensively. There were hundreds of people who would take him up on that offer. Not just the younger ones, but even the older people who’ve been here longer.
“Let me see.” Owari pulled out his crystal card to check. The number displayed was around the 88,000 mark. Adding the 200,000 he receives every year on the second or third. “A lot.” He finished his thought with some words. “Probably a few hundred?” That was putting it mildly.
“Should be.” Noel smiled off to the side. She was fine with Owari spending his money on this. It was him who made the money in the first place. She was just along for the ride so to speak.
“Really?” The woman asked apprehensively once again.
“Yeah. I make a lot of money. A train ride to even the furthest part of the Leviathan territory should only be a few hundred credits.” He answered.
“I see.” The woman still wasn’t sure, so Owari showed his crystal card to her causing her hands to shake. She had never seen so much money in one place, and he handed it over so casually. As if it wasn’t much to talk about. “Okay.” She barely squeaked out as she handed the card back carefully. It was at this point she looked at the card he handed her before. It had nearly eight thousand credits on it. This would keep them stocked for a few weeks if everything went the same as usual.
“Well we’ll be taking our leave now. We hope everything goes well here. And I’d prefer if you didn’t try to sneak away with the money.” Owari rested his hand on his sword hilt drawing attention to it. Seeing that action she was well aware of the threat. However she was already too afraid of his monetary power to try and steal from him. Where would she run to? A few thousand credits could only let her survive so long after all.
After that the two of them left. They had left Morgana with the baby at home. This wasn’t the type of weather to bring a child out into, let alone the place they had gone. Though Owari wondered how they would respond if he had brought a baby with them. “They probably would have wondered if we were crazy.” Noel commented when he brought it up.
“Probably. Would they be wrong though?” Owari joked.
“I’m inclined to say no.” Noel giggled.
“I love you.” Owari said randomly.
“I love you too.” Noel naturally replied, not asking about the sudden random display of affection.
“Let’s get home to Sophia.” He pulled her close and the two walked home together arm in arm.
When they did get home Owari checked his mail and found something interesting. The crystal card communication company had made some breakthroughs. They could finally get the receiving end to display the proper lettering. It had taken a while and a lot of experimenting but it was worth it. Owari smiled, they were asking for some money to build a business which can produce the new technology and sell it.
Owari wrote back saying he would send them some money when he gets paid at the beginning of next year. He gets a lot of money at the beginning of each year so it was a lucky time to make a breakthrough. Otherwise he would have had to take out a loan. As for the train payment, it wouldn’t dip too heavily into his large swaths of cash. After all it only cost a few hundred per ticket. Unless thousands of people came then it would be fine.
As for how they would make money off this project of theirs, he decided to leave it up to the designers. He would only leave the restriction that they can’t use underhanded or scummy tactics. He wanted a company that had a good reputation, or at least a neutral one after all. After writing the letter he gave it to Morgana to bring into town to mail out. It would arrive around the time he got paid. They were located in a different city after all. He would have to go through the bank to have the money sent over so it should take until about the second week of January.
A few days later before appreciation day Owari and Noel invited over Lance, Rebecca, and Erica. They wanted to hang out since it had been a while, plus they wanted to give them a chance to meet Owari’s mother. Rebecca and Lance had already met Noel’s father a while back, so they decided to give them a chance to meet Owari’s mother.
Erica was the first one to arrive as Noel and Owari went to go pick her up. They coldly left it up to Rebecca and Lance to find their own way over. The two of them had vehicles of their own after all. Of course they already offered to buy Erica a car, but she had no interest in driving. She could easily run anywhere she needed to. With her light affinity her speed was faster than any car by this point. She was already at high gold rank.
“So who’s this?” Owari’s mother asked as soon as they walked in with Erica.
“This is Erica. She’s my student.” Owari introduced.
“She’s like a little sister.” Noel pulled her down into a hug, it was somewhat awkward given that Erica was much taller than Noel was, but she accepted it as if this was normal.
“Is that so? How cute.” Owari’s mother smiled warmly seeing the two girls.
“Erica, this is my mother.” Owari introduced.
“It’s nice to meet you.” Erica bowed respectfully.
“It’s nice to meet you as well. How did you all meet?” She was curious. She never expected her son to take on a student.
“Well I met her because Rebecca had been looking after her way back in the day. She was only 14 back then I do believe. So she still needed someone to watch her. She was a lot like me so I gave her some tips. One thing led to another and I started to teach her how to fight.” Owari explained.
“I met her when we went out for a holiday trip around town. She was quite cute. I especially found it cute how she kept calling Owari teacher.” Noel also explained.
“Is that so?” Owari’s mother had her curiosity sated with that.
“They’re nice.” Erica added from the side.
“Really? I’m glad they treat you well.” Owari’s mother also found her somewhat cute. Her appearance was eastern which reminded her of her husband and son. “Come here.” She waved for Erica to come over who did so obediently. Then she stood up and pulled her into a hug. “You really are quite cute.”
“Why do people like to hug me so much…” She asked somewhat helplessly. This only caused Owari’s mother to hug her tighter. Erica didn’t fight it off and simply hung limply in her arms until she stopped .
“Now that I got that out of my system. Is she a good student?” She wasn’t really sure about Owari’s strength. She only knew he was stronger than his father and very strong among hunters. But he and Noel were always too humble when talking about themselves.
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“She’s not exactly ahead of the curve too much. But once she gets down what we’ve been teaching her she’ll snowball and catch up quickly. Now that I plan to stick around a lot I’ll be able to teach her more.” Owari explained.
“She’s already high gold rank, which for her age is impressive though not outstandingly so. Once she reaches platinum rank she’ll rise quickly.” Noel added with sparkling eyes. The two of them were full of pride when it came to Erica.
“Wasn’t your father only gold rank before he died?” Owari’s mother was surprised. This girl was just as strong if not stronger than his father?
“He was about as strong as she is. Though his growth speed was faster, it came at greater risk to himself. She has barely even fought magical beasts and has already reached this level.” Owari replied casually.
“Is that so? So she isn’t at as much risk then? That’s good.” Owari’s mother felt it would be a shame for such a cute girl to have her life at risk so much.
“She’s more interested in the pursuit of strength as opposed to the pursuit of a good fight. She’s the opposite of us in a way.” Noel also felt it was good that she wasn’t going out risking herself all the time.
“Though she is still more interested in scholarly pursuits such as magical beast research and affinity research. When she gets stronger she plans on traveling around and searching for unique beasts and affinities.” Owari explained her goal to everyone. Even Noel hadn’t known her true goal until then.
“So she’s a lot like you.” Noel smiled.
“Sounds about right. I did say I started teaching her for that reason after all.” Owari didn’t deny it.
It was at this time that there was a knock at the door. The one to go answer it was Erica who decided to find an excuse to get far away from Owari’s mother and Noel who looked like they were feeling sentimental enough to ‘attack’ her. When she opened the door the ones who appeared were obviously Lance and Rebecca. They quickly entered to find Owari’s mother sitting on the couch. They were actually a bit stunned seeing how pretty she was. After all they recalled Owari’s appearance when he first met them.
“I feel like you’re thinking something rather rude.” Noel said sharply.
Both Rebecca and Lance pretended not to hear her as Rebecca spoke first. “It’s a pleasure to meet you ma’am.”
“The pleasure is mine. So you’re Owari’s friends huh?” She gave them an appraising look. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Good things I’d hope.” Lance chuckled. He never believed Owari would bad talk them.
“Of course. My son rarely badmouths people, especially when it comes to such good friends. I must thank you.” She stood up and smiled at them kindly. “I thought my son would move out here to the city only to fight and study all the time. I’m glad he got to meet such good friends so soon after he arrived.”
“Well technically we all met before we arrived.” Lance joked.
“That’s what he did most of the time anyway though.” Rebecca said at the same time, also joking.
“You two seem pretty in sync. How lovely.” Owari’s mother smiled at them causing them to feel self conscious.
As they were talking Sophia started to act up a bit and so Noel and Owari started to soothe her while everyone else talked. As they did so they considered how to handle her going forward. Things like when they should start teaching her stuff and when they should start to take a more hands-off approach to her so she can develop independence. They quickly went into their own little world and forgot about their guests completely.
As the two parents began making plans for future activities with their baby, everyone else stood around talking to themselves. Owari’s mother properly introduced herself and began to get to know Lance and Rebecca, as well as Erica of course. Like this time passed until it started to get late, at which point everyone went home. Erica wanted to stay but there was no room with Owari’s mother taking up the spare room.
A few days later it was appreciation day. Owari went out early and picked up Erica. When she arrived everyone was there. “Now it’s a real family gathering. If only father were here. Too bad he is too busy.” Noel declared.
“Right, it would have been nice to get everyone together so we could all get to know one another better.” Owari felt it was a shame.
“I never thought I’d see the day you and my father started to get along.” Noel thought it was amusing.
“He had to come to accept me eventually. Nobody can stay bitter about something forever. It’s exhausting.” Owari chuckled.
“I suppose you’re right.” Noel agreed.
After that they all got to work handing out their gifts. It was rather ordinary and nothing of note happened. After finishing exchanging gifts they all talked. When lunch rolled around Noel made them some simple meals. During dinner she cooked everyone some stew. After that everyone went off to sleep after Owari took Erica home. The next few days were the same with nothing particularly exciting happening.
Soon a week had passed and Owari went out with Noel to fulfill his promise. He sent his mother on a train ride home and stood in front of the train station. Soon enough a curious few people filtered in to check if the rumors were true. They had been given Owari’s description and when they saw him they were surprised. He looked no better off than most of the homeless people in terms of clothing.
However they didn’t mind that and some eventually approached him. As soon as they stated their intentions he took them to the nearby booth and paid for the next ticket ride to their home for them. Soon after that word got out about what he was doing and that it was real. After word got out people started flooding in. The train station was practically overrun.
Soon people started to push and crowd around one another. “Form a line.” Owari spoke calmly, however everyone heard him. On top of that he released some pressure on them. Even though normal people can’t read a person's strength, once you reach a certain level of strength you gain a certain presence about you that can unnerve people. Feeling his strength and hearing this, their instincts warning them, every single person complied with his words.
Soon everyone filed in and their tickets were all paid for. When all was said and done after the train station closed, he had paid about 30,000 credits to get all 120 or so people a ticket. That amounted to about 90% of the homeless people in the city. Some people didn’t actually come to see if all this was true. Though some just missed the opportunity because they were late. They had all day though so Owari didn’t pity them.
After finishing up Owari went to the bank and transferred over around 250,000 credits to the communications company to use to build a workshop and hire out some people to produce some of the crystal communication devices. After that he went home and started to look through his mail for anything interesting.
To his disappointment nothing interesting showed up. Like this time started to move on as one would expect it to. As expected with a baby in the mix things around the house were mostly centered around the child. However Owari and Noel were very patient people and diligently raised their daughter. She was very clever and grew quickly. Her progress was right on point.
Soon enough March started to approach and eventually it did come. Spring was about to start which meant the week of blooming. Owari and Noel decided to have their first date in a while. They left Sophia with Morgana and made their way off into the city. They walked around arm in arm as they watched the people pass by. They casually walked around for a while before sitting on a bench nearby and watching everything going on.
“It’s nice to get out for once.” Noel commented. They hadn’t left the baby alone since appreciation day. Because of that they hadn’t spent much time to themselves. Only at night would they have any chance to spend time together, and they didn’t usually use that time to talk.
“It is. What do you think we should do next?” Owari asked curiously.
“Next?” She tilted her head.
“Yeah. Should we go out somewhere and visit someone else? Or should we stick around at home. After all it wouldn’t do to just sit around and ignore our old friends. Although we do still write, it would be nice to see them and show off our daughter.” He considered a few things before saying this.
“I see. You make a good point. I wonder…” Noel fell into thought. “Perhaps we should have someone hold a party as an excuse to get together?”
“That sounds like a good idea. Maybe we can have your family sponsor it. It would be a good chance to get some people together and let our friends spread their connections. After all, we could invite some rather prestigious people. There would be countless people falling over themselves to befriend us.” Owari smirked.
“Using our status to help our friends? What a wonderful idea.” She liked it. It was exactly that craftiness that allowed Owari to become as successful as he has.
“So now that that’s decided, what do you think about how things are?” Owari changed topics.
“Hm… What do you mean by that exactly?” She asked for clarification, though she had an idea. She was more interested to hear his opinion first.
“I’m happy. I didn’t think it would be so nice to have such a peaceful atmosphere. But I do admit I miss going out and hunting.” He said honestly.
“I agree. When Sophia is older we can always start back up.” She suggested.
“I’m still not sure if I want to take the risk. But I feel like it would be against my nature to not go out and fight.” He admitted.
“I never thought the day I’d see you stop fighting would come. I had been under the impression that when we had a child I would become a housewife.” She chuckled.
“I wouldn’t do that to you. I’m not heartless.” He pulled her close. “It is nice to spend so much time around you.”
“I agree.” She snuggled up to him.
The two continued to flirt all the way through the day until the day was over and they went home. Morgana did an excellent job as expected, nothing untoward happened. The next day Owari sent a letter to the Silverblood family asking them to hold a party of sorts. They’d be allowed to use Owari and Noel to invite whoever they liked as long as it wasn’t anyone sleazy. In exchange all of their friends would also be invited to the gathering. It was a fair exchange.
He received a reply a little over a week later. Obviously Noel’s grandfather agreed. After all this was also a chance for the Silverblood family to spread their name and gain more connections as well. Who wouldn’t want to be connected to the family of two geniuses like them? As for their fame, although they might not be well known among normal people, everyone who was anyone knew who they were and more importantly what they’ve done.
After getting the go-ahead Owari started to send letters to everyone. He invited all of the trainees he and Noel trained, Tristain was invited, Kent and Maribelle were also invited, after a thought he invited Merrily and Zacharias, the two people he had met by chance in the woods long ago, as well as Erastil, the random girl Owari saved in the forest. The main reason he invited the later three was that they were closely tied to the Luna family which he was more biased towards due to having his wedding in their hall. Though he’d never let them know it if he could help it.
It would be a few months before it could happen though. They needed to set a date in the future that people could work into their schedules, not to mention all the preparations like determining how formal it was going to be and such. Owari left that up to the professionals. His job was done for now. All he needed to do now was wait for the date to be determined and show up on time.
Owari wondered what he should do in the meantime. He had plenty of time now before the party. Because of this he wasn’t sure what to spend his free time doing. He looked around at his study and the numerous books that lied within. There were probably hundreds of books lining his shelves, but he’d already read most if not all of them. What else could he do with his free time? When he thought this far he suddenly recalled Erica. He was still her teacher after all.
Owari went and picked up Erica who was ecstatic that he was ready to teach her. They stood in the forest nearby where a large number of boulders lay. “Split one of these. No using mystic arts.” He demanded.
“Yes teacher.” She bowed and pulled out her sword.
She carefully lined up her sword and swung it diagonally, smoothly slicing the boulder. “Alright, now do it with this.” He threw over one of the many blades he brought with him. When she unsheathed it she found a dull blade.
“Yes teacher.” She once again bowed and swung her sword. Again the boulder split.
“Now this.” He threw her a wooden practice sword.
“Yes teacher.” She bowed and swung the sword, however it only got halfway through before stopping. “I can’t do it.” She said sadly.
“That’s fine. If you could split a boulder with a wooden sword you’d already be a platinum rank. Show me what you can do with a mystic art.” He ordered. When he saw her reaching for her real sword he admonished her. “Not that, you can already cut through the stone with that. Use the wooden one.”
“But it will break.” She looked at it dubiously.
“Your job is to keep that from happening.” He walked over and sat down on top of the largest boulder.
“I’ll try my best.” She said as she tried swinging the sword using a mystic art. She lined up her blade and suddenly when she pulled it back it flashed white and swung at near light speed. A flash passed through the boulder, however it wasn’t cut. Instead the wooden sword only had the hilt remaining and the end was charred.
“Not good enough.” Owari declared and threw her another wooden blade.
“I’ll do my best!” She said as she swung her sword again. And again it flashed white and turned into ash.