Chapter 75: Contention
[Edited by: Arthur300000, deathbricks, Bunny, and ArchmageNaoki]
"Aunos, teach me magic!" Barbara raised her voice, making a clamor, and waking me up from my afternoon nap. Because of the storm, this Monday had turned out to be a peaceful public holiday. Plus, I recently acquired Pristia’s lap as a pillow with an excuse of being the youngest sister, so I decided to take an afternoon nap. Hoorah, being the youngest sister is the best!
I rolled off Pristia’s lap and realized that I was still in the living room, only two hours had passed. The television was showing those poor government officers working hard to restore the city back to shape. Seeing them toil themselves like that, I couldn't understand at all why don't they just proclaim that tomorrow is also a public holiday so that they can take it easy. Maybe they were all a bunch of masochists.
I looked around to see what Barbara's clamor was all about and found out that she was being tested for her magic capacity. I reached for Aunos's scanner to take a look. There were a lot of numbers and graphs that I didn’t understand. There were something I could read though; weight, height, pulse rate, and blood pressure for example, but what surprised me was a column named magic capacity. There was a number of '0.3 kJuiz’ written on it in red letters.
Wait, that means in theory, she could cast a spell, right? Even though her magic capacity was pitifully low, about a third of the average human her age, there was still something there. I wonder why no one on Earth discovered magic yet. Or is it because her weird magical awakening stuff actually worked?
"Uhm, Aunos, before that, please enchant my sword first." Cocoa cutely pulled Aunos from another side.
"No, your stupid sword can wait, my path to becoming a great magician has to come first!" Barbara pulled Aunos back. If I turned the sound off, the scene in front of me would be comparable to a soap opera. Damn my sleazebag brother, I only slept for two hours, and he splendidly stole both of my women, one of them my niece and the other my maid. What a lady killer, this brother I have.
"Hello, I came to deliver a package." Before I could do anything, a woman's voice from the front gate came with the sound of the doorbell. I jumped off the sofa and ran like the wind. I knew full well what was inside that package. No matter what, I had to reach her before my mom in the kitchen or my dad who was outside removing the wooden planks from second-floor windows.
"I'll get the mail!" I yelled as I ran to the front door. I slipped my feet into my casual slippers and grab the doorknob, ignoring the jolt of static electricity and turned the knob. I felt the frigid air outside rush through me as I opened the door. It was the coldest day ever. The blue sky outside was clear and there wasn’t a single cloud to be seen. I slipped myself quickly through the gap and slammed the door shut while hoping that the heating cost this month wouldn't be too high.
"Brr, it’s freezing out here." I complained as I approached the mail-woman who was in a heavy arctic suit. This was the first time I really felt affected by cold weather. My muscles began to shake to compensate for the body heat that was rapidly escaping from me who stood in a very thin, white one piece that was designed for summer.
There was a faint noise of heavy machinery in the background. I think it was a snow plowing machine because the road in front of my house was already cleared without a speck of snow on it, those machines must be magical in nature because I think plows from my world would still leave some snow.
"It's minus forty miss. Even that cute hairclip of yours won't hold up, right?" Huh? Oh, it seemed she mistook my storage device as a climate control device.
"Y-yeah, I’m shaking all over. Is that my package?" I was too cold to explain, so I pointed at the unremarkable box in her hand.
"Before that, can I see your ID card?" This time, I selected anonymous shipping which cost me ten credits more. I knew what the procedure was so I handed her my ID card and waited patiently, shaking in my slippers.
The woman in the arctic suit took my ID card and swiped it through her machine, then she took out another package and handed to me.
"Some people are too insistent, so we have to prepare a decoy." She added and winked conspiratorially. I smiled back. If it wasn't freezing out here, I might laugh along evilly with her.
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"Oh, there’s also registered mail for you, Ms. Velvori." She handed me an envelope. It came from the police. I think I know what’s inside.
I waved goodbye to the delivery woman and ran back inside. It was a lot warmer inside the house, but the coldness from outside still lingered. I blew on my hands a few times to warm myself up a bit before putting the box full of +18 graphic novels and toys away.
"Hah!? Say that again!?" I heard Barbara yell from the living room. It seems the situation had gotten out of hand. I ran back to them and saw that the tension was high and the two girls had begun grappling each other.
Barbara was already 16 years old. But for some reason, she acted younger than her age. It seemed her father spoiled her too much. As her uncle, I should do something about it, despite that my experience in raising something only amounted to a cat.
Even though Cocoa was a lot smaller than Barbara, she fought intelligently and pushed Barbara back bit by bit. However, Barbara wasn't all that bad. I remembered that her father bragged to me something about her taking a class in some kind of martial art which I already forgot the name of. Barbara took advantage of the huge gap in body size, and lifted Cocoa up. That looked bad, it seemed I had to intervene.
"No fighting! Fighting is bad!" I jumped in quickly and rescued Cocoa before Barbara could execute something that looked just like a screw piledriver move.
"Hah, as I said, I will help both of you." Aunos said exasperatedly as I separated them, but both of them were still in a fighting position. Cocoa’s fur stood up violently. My mom also heard the noise and peeked out from the kitchen. Hmm, I smell roasted meat. I can’t wait for dinner.
"I'll take Snu Snu back if you don't stop." I told Cocoa which made Cocoa tails and ears visibly droop. Hmm, it seemed that she really like the sword I made.
"But she started it first." Cocoa mumbled.
"And Barbara, apologize to Cocoa now, you can't look down on other people’s hobbies." I scolded her.
"No way! Why should I?" She yelled. Damn her father, you spoiled her too much.
"Didn’t you ever hear? With great power comes great responsibility. I can't let you learn magic if it will be used to bully other people." I used eighth grader logic against her.
"I'm sorry." Barbara pouted, but she apologized clearly.
"Now, a makeup hug." Pristia added... what did she do this entire time?
The girls seemed a bit reluctant, but they hugged each other in the end. They seemed to be good girls because they also apologized to each other while hugging.
Hmm, that reminded me, when I was in about eighth grade, I also fought with my friend at school. That time my homeroom teacher intervened and told us to shake each other’s hand.
[I got black dragon sealed in my right palm, that's why I couldn't shake your hand.] That was my excuse not to do it. Well, I got scolded badly by her and the next day my parents were invited. Eighth-grader syndrome is very scary, I concluded. Hmm, while I'm at it, let's put Barbara on the right path... Wait, what should I tell her then? This world actually has magic. That meant I couldn't say that magic didn't exist... Uhg, my head hurts.
In the end, we solved the problem by having Aunos program Snu Snu for Cocoa and I let Skynet teach Barbara rudimentary magic. Barbara was very surprised when I introduced Skynet to her. She also asked about her safety from a nuclear holocaust. Finally, I’ve met someone with common sense.
The downside of this arrangement was that I had to stay within five meters from her to supply Skynet my energy. It’s fine though, this way, I could help her when something bad happens. I also prepared a bucket of water in case her first choice of magic, fireball, ran amok.
"Kuro seems to be more mature than she looks, she handled the situation splendidly." Mom commented during dinner while I was enjoying roasted tails of an unknown monster. It was very delicious, and most importantly, it looked just like meat in an animes.
"Right, it wasn't so clear at first, but when we have Barbara as a comparison, Kuro has some kind of adult aura around her." Pristia added.
"Maybe she is even more of an adult than Pristia." Aunos joined the conversation and earned himself a whack from Pristia.
"Uhm, you see... I was alone and fighting for myself in my previous world. So, I had to grow up in order to survive." Well, I was alone for 15 years, and I did try hard to survive, economically that is, but there was no way that I would tell them the complete truth. If they realized that I was a 30 years old man, they would surely send me to a jail or an execution block because of everything I did. Still, that was totally worth it.
"Oh, you poor girl." Mom suddenly hugged me. "Please play around more. Your youth only happens once. I don't want you to regret it when you grow up." She added. My dad who just came back from fixing the roof listened to us with a beautiful smile on his face. Thanks to him we could see the mesmerizingly colorful twilight from here. It’s been almost a month since I arrived in this world. Still, I couldn't get enough of this worlds scenery.
Barbara was also amazed when she saw the snow that piled up outside. Yeah, we came from a hot climate country, so the snow was very rare for us. She wanted to go out and play but quickly turned back at the door when she felt the freezing air from outside. What a capricious girl she was.
"Ah, right, I also got mail from police, it was about my community service." Feeling embarrassed by everyone attention, I changed the topic and showed them the letter.
The document was filled with five pages of technical bullshit which Skynet could summarize it into something like, I had to work as a teacher assistant at school called Bluebell's Lady and Witchcraft Academy for 10 days. I have only one month to complete the assignment otherwise the term would become double.
While Barbara kept yelling that she wanted to enter that school, I couldn’t help but think to myself that there was some kind of conspiracy at play here.