Chapter 67: Beautification
Edited by: Arthur300000, Bunny, Deathbricks, and ArchmageNaoki
The enchanting process isn't easy as I thought. I wanted to try making a fire dagger. But after I read the instruction manual several times over it turned out to be quite different from Skyrim. I didn't have confidence to not burn my house to the ground or freeze my room over in the process.
“Maybe I shouldn't do it in my bedroom” I concluded. I flipped through the tutorial and found an enchantment that should be quite safe to experiment with in my bedroom. A blinking light.
Making the blade glow was easier than I expected. All I had to do was scan my dagger with a tutorial program and configure two ex-cubes, the android federation currency, accordingly. Then I downloaded it into the dagger. Voila! The blade glowed when I supplied it with a bit of my Magicka.
The process became harder as I tried to make it blink. The problem was that each individual ex-cube wasn't smart enough to do something like "Turn the light on and off forever."
They can only do simple jobs. One of them emits the light. Another one takes care of regulating the Magicka input so the whole system doesn’t go out of control. To make it blink you need to add something in between those two. And that something was quite complicated.
I began with taking another ex-cube and configuring it as a comparator. The tutorial program said that it's a kind of energy regulation subsystem. It will check the energy output and compare it with the setpoint. If it's more than the set point, it will decrease the flow, and if it's less than the set point, it will increase the flow.
So, I set the setpoint to the average of the middle of the light intensity and its output. Then I downloaded it into the dagger's module. However, the result turned out was that the light emitted by the blade just came out half of its previous intensity instead of blinking like I hoped.
"Hmm, let's see, next component is a reservoir." I flipped to the next page of the manual. It told me that by putting them in the feedback loop, it will delay the comparator’s reaction time and make the light turn on and off at a visible speed. The bigger the reservoir is, the slower the blinking frequency. I did that and ... yes! It worked!
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Next morning, I woke up on my desk. It appears I fell asleep at some point in the middle of reading the tutorial. I straightened myself up and wiped my cheek. I noticed a pool of my drool on the desk, so I reached out for a tissue.
While doing that, I felt something fall from my back. It's a blanket... I don't remember putting it on last night. I thanked whoever did that for me in my mind. It could be either my mom, Pristia, or Cocoa. Yesterday, my mom had shown Cocoa how to clean my room, so my room already had both of their scents present.
What about Pristia's scent? For some reason her scent has always lingered in my room. She must be diligently helping my mom doing housework, I think.
I folded the blanket up neatly and put it back on my bed. Then I came back to take care of my pool of drool. I hope it doesn't leave a stain on the wood.
The dagger that I spent all night fiddling with laid on the desk. It seemed dangerous to sleep near a sharp object. I promised myself not to make the same mistake again. Hmm, if I remember correctly, I made it to the point that the dagger can send pre-programmed morse code.
"Isn't the tutorial too hard?" I wonder while I feed some of my Magicka to it. It blinked: "Show me your panties." Even though the enchanting module can only contain 128 ex-cubes, I made it to this point. I'm so proud of myself.
"Kuro! Hurry up! Ms. Nyatalee is waiting for you!" My mom called. What! It's already time!?
I cut a lot of corners to ready myself. In only five minutes, I was presentable and ready to go. My expertise in cosplay is frightening.
As I finished putting on my shoes at the front door my mom handed me two boxed lunches. She said the pink one is for lunch and the blue one is for breakfast. I hugged her with a thanks and carefully took the boxes.
Ms. Nyatalee was waiting for me in her blue compact sedan, the same car that she used yesterday. I ran to her and realized that I forgot ‘Blinky’, my dagger, on my desk, but it's in my house so it should be fine, I think.
"Good morning~ How's your morning nya?" Ms. Nyatalee greeted from the driver seat, I greeted her back as I slid myself in. The car was a bit smaller than my dad's but I liked the texture of its soft, leather seats.
Because of yesterday’s party there were a lot of dishes to wash, places to clean and garbage to collect so I asked Cocoa to stay home and help my mom with that. She agreed happily. Too happy if you ask me, but I didn't know the reason.
Normally half of those chores could be taken care of by magic. More specifically, putting those things that need to be cleaned in my storage device. However, my mom was surprisingly old fashioned and said that the technology didn't do its job properly, and that it’s better to do it by hand. Of course, my storage device won't iron any shirt, but my clothes didn't even need ironing in the first place. Nevertheless, when my mom told me to hand her my clothes, I gave in... my pushover habit dies hard. I still kept some of my collection with me though, these were pieces of art, not simple clothes anyway.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
"Mou, Kuro, your bed hair is sticking up all over the place." My sister protested as she followed me into the car with a brush in her hand. In my defense it’s desk hair, not bed hair, and I was going to use my saliva to put my hair in its place during the ride.
"Wait, Pristia, don't you have more important things to do?" I asked her. Waiting for me for an entire day sounds boring. However, she smiled and put me on her lap while I stored my lunch away.
"What are you talking about Kuro? It's my job to watch over you." She said matter of factly and began brushing my hair. "Don't worry, I'm totally having fun with it." She added. Sometimes I wonder what her hobby is. She seems to be preoccupied with me all the time.
It turned out that Ms. Nyatalee was a speed demon. Ms. Bluebell’s company was two towns away from my hometown, but it only took Ms. Nyatalee about 30 minutes to make it there, drifting through all the curves. It made me wonder whether there was a speed limit in this world. Maybe the speed limit is about 300km per hour, otherwise she would surely get chased by a police car.
Luckily, my breakfast is crêpe sandwich. They look like multi-layered sandwiches with the bread replaced by crêpes and filling made of sweet jams, fruits, and all delicious things… Wait, isn’t it a normal crêpe in disguise? Hmm, my mom already knew that I have sweet tooth, it seemed. Sadly the enjoyment of my breakfast was cut in half because of Ms. Nyatalee’s driving. I hope all the scary drifting won't cause indigestion later on.
"Alright! We are here nya! Your first debut~" Ms. Nyatalee proclaimed as she did the screeching spin parking. We arrived on time, but I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I thanked her and complained a bit about her driving skills, but her reply stopped me in my tracks. "It depends on how early we set off, nya." She said innocently... so it was my fault from the beginning!?
It was only 8:00 in the morning. There were only a few people around here. A security guard at the front door, a gardener, and a girl riding a road cleaning machine whirling past us. The facility was very spacious, just its front garden was already larger than a football field.
We walked into a building that looked like a modern office. Ms. Nyatalee discussed something with a guy at the front counter while I observed my surroundings. Was I nervous? Of course, this was a big step for a shut-in guy like me to show myself to the public, there was no way that I wouldn't feel pressure. However, holding my sister’s hand helped a lot. ‘It's almost risk-free easy money’ I repeatedly told myself.
The front hall was huge. I think the ceiling was about three stories high. There was a fountain behind the front counter. In the air over the fountain, there was a huge metallic sphere with several rings rotating freely around it. I tried to find the string that held them up in the air, but I realized later that there must be some kind of magic that made it float.
After Ms. Nyatalee returned from the counter, she gave my sister and me an ID card each. She told us to wear it and led us through a maze of corridors. My sister got a visitor's card while Ms. Nyatalee and I got a guest staff ID card. I wondered how she could know the way through this maze of corridors though. If it was me I would have already gotten lost at the sixth turn.
"I came to survey the place beforehand yesterday, nya." She answered my unspoken question.
"You are so diligent." I complimented her. Seeing her blush and giggle, I couldn't help but want to pet her. I wished I were a bit taller so it wouldn’t be so awkward to pat her head. Maybe I should just be content with patting her ass or chest instead.
"Here you are, nya, your dressing room. I will wait outside." Ms. Nyatalee opened a door. Inside was a hubbub of activity.
"Hurry up guys, we begin in one hour." An androgynous person inside yelled. One hour? That's a lot of time. Why do they have to hurry?.
"I'm with her!" My sister protested when a security guard told her to wait outside. "Casting staff only." He said.
Because of that I was forcibly separated from my sister. It was my first time here, so I was too afraid to make a scene. Even with Skynet reassuring me with "Don't worry, I'm here mistress" Her monotone voice only made me more nervous.
In this room, there were four women in barber chairs. Two of them were pretty, one of them was muscular, the last one though, she was beautiful, but she had purple tinted skin and a lot of stitches all over her body. ‘Is she some kind of zombie?’ I wondered.
Each of them had two staff members working on them, one for hair, one for make-up. Maybe I should find a corner and make myself scarce. I tried to walk to an inconspicuous corner but was stopped by the androgynous person.
"What are you doing Ms. Velvori? Shouldn't you start dressing up?" The person of an unknown sex asked me.
"Eh? I'm fine ... with this." I stumbled mid-sentence as he or she looked at me from head to toe with piercing eyes.
"Stefany, Luise, please help me dress up Ms. Velvori." The androgynous person ordered two stylists. After that, I was politely pushed into a dressing stall in the back, deprived of my clothes, and turned into a dress up doll again... Luckily today I wore adult underwear.
The two girls helping me dress up seemed to enjoy their work too much. If I didn't see how my sister acted around me before I would say that they had an abnormal amount of enthusiasm.
The problem though was they couldn't decide what was the best for me. "Everything looks good on you." Luise said.
"In that case, can I have my pants back?" I asked. ""NO!"" Both of them answered too quickly. Damn...
"What's the holdup, dear? We still need to do her hair and make-... Oh, my~" The androgynous person seemed to be surprised when she saw me in an abnormally fluffy pink dress. I decided to call her “she” because it would be too embarrassing if a man saw me in this outfit.
"We can't decide which dress suits her best, Madam Jack. Everything looks lovely on her." Madam... Jack? Now, I was really wondering whether this person was male or female.
"Isn't she's already stunning like this? Let's get her hair and face done. Chop chop!" Madam Jack clapped her hand twice, and the girls followed her order. It seemed that she was the big boss around here. I was half pushed half carried to the barber seat by Stefany and Luis.
Stefany, the girl who's working on my hair, was a caucasian blonde girl with bright, blue eyes. On the contrary, Louis, the girl who prepared all sorts of makeup, had black hair and black eyes. She looked like a pretty Asian girl.
"Huh? You’re not wearing makeup?" Louis asked after she wiped my face a few times with a soft cloth dipped in some kind of cool feeling liquid.
"No, I don't wear makeup." I answered honestly. I still have some reserves about putting any kind of cosmetics on myself. I felt that I would lose my manhood somehow. Figuratively speaking, I mean. Of course, I prepared to let them do it though. It's a part of the job, my food, art, and ‘toy’ bills are the most important thing here. Also, If I did it right, I will have a happy risk free life with six holidays a week.
"Really!?" Stefany suddenly lets go of my hair and stares at my face. "This is the first time I’ve seen a person with skin this clear. Luise, you’d lose your job if everyone was like her." She snickered.
"Ha, I can still do my job properly. Just wait and see." Louis looked serious. She put away her array of makeup equipment and replace them with another set... I hoped she wouldn't do something over the top.
"Hoooo! It's the first time I see you this serious. I will also do my best!" Suddenly Stefany gets fired up. For some reason their enthusiasm only made my anxiety intensify.