Chapter 77: Presentation
[Edited by: deathbricks, Bunny, Arthur300000, and ArchmageNaoki ]
"Ah, thank you, ma'am, the cookies were delicious." It was an awkward farewell when Marcus and Peter left. Even though I was trying to shoo them away as quickly as possible mom kept stopping me, so it took twenty minutes for them to leave.
For some reason, mom was strangely happy when I brought them inside, she went overboard in catering to them, so I had to leave Cocoa with her to help her with the clean up. Damn, the amount of snacks she gave them could keep me happy for three days.
"Alright, I'm leaving too." I told my mom and went after them, but mom pulled me back.
"Kuro, are you planning to go out like that?" She looked accusingly at my one piece dress.
"No worries, mom. I’m wearing pants under it." Lately I felt that this kind of thin one-piece dress felt the most comfortable to me, even more so than a jersey. It was hard for me to admit that, but even after repeated tests the result was the same. With my patent pending, pants-inside method, even if my artificial cat tail accidentally flipped my skirt up there would be no problem.
"That isn’t the problem-, wait, that’s also a problem, but you should select the pants according to which color goes well with your skirt. Anyways, if you wear that thin dress in this kind of weather you might catch a cold. At least wear a climate control device." Mom seemed troubled.
"I don't like that device. It feels weird." I protested. That thing made me feel like I was in a full body suit. Every time I wore it I felt like I was going to rob a bank with a stocking on my head. "Besides, if I catch a cold it can be healed with magic, right?"
"There are also magic resistant viruses." Cocoa offhandedly added while she was watching a television program called ‘Dungeon Adventurer’ while munching on leftover cookies. Recently I felt she had filled in a bit since we first met, especially her thighs. Mom's snacks are scary.
"Hah, at least put this on." While I was contemplating how I should break it to Cocoa, mom put a big scarlet scarf around my neck. It was so big that it covered up to my nose. As she adjusted it a bit, I could smell her scent in the scarf's very fabric. Did mom knit this for me?
"Be careful with it though, I was planning to give it you at the festival of the first moon, so I didn't have time to get it enchanted with auto-repair function yet." My mom said as she hugged me goodbye. Touched by her effort, I planned to treasure this scarf. I didn't know what this festival was all about, but I could just ask Skynet later.
"Thanks, mom!" I felt glad and warm as she patted my head. I waved back at them before I left the house and quickly caught up with Marcus.
As we walked around the snow-filled neighborhood, I asked them to put an enchantment on the scarf for me, but they said they needed tools for the job. Ahh, that's too bad. I didn't want to leave my scarf with them, it was full of warmth and love, and there was no way that I would let it out of my sight. Let's be careful with it for the time being then.
I called Pristia to ask where they were. Surprisingly they were still at the hospital. Maybe it was crowded because of the storm? Pristia said that Barbara was vaccinated and now they were just waiting in line to pay for her vaccine fee, so she told me to wait at the usual department store instead.
"Hmm, which bus should I take to the department store?" As we arrived at the bus station, I looked dumbfoundedly at the map attached to the board behind the waiting seats. Normally, Skynet always told me which bus to catch and its time. So I never found the need to learn how to understand these spaghetti lines and charts. Currently, these things were still beyond my shut-in capability. Anyways, since my niece was enthusiastic about her education, it was my job as her uncle to support her.
"Ah, you should take the red bus." Marcus's index finger traced one red line on the chart and continued. "The next bus is supposed to come at 11:45, so it's about six minutes." I followed his finger but still didn't get how he derived that from this cryptic mess.
"And which bus are you getting?" I asked them and secretly wished that he would stick for a while, so I wouldn't get on the wrong bus.
"I need to take care of something at the school, so it's the green line." As Marcus said that, a bus with the word green painted in leafy green color came along and parked in front of us. Ah, he must’ve already looked at the bus schedule before we left my house. That's why the bus immediately came when we arrived.
"Uhm? Why don't you get on the bus?" Perplexed at their behavior, I asked. Marcus looked at a loss for words for a while.
"How could he leave you here alone when you made that face?" Peter explained and chuckled. "With those artificial cat ears on you, no, even without 'em, you would surely lose all your money at any poker table." ... My face showed it all again.
"Ahem, I will wait until you get on the bus first." I rubbed my eyes as I found Marcus became cool for a fraction of a second. Hmm, one didn't have to finish a villain with a phrase like, 'You are already dead.' to look cool, huh? Anyways, I won't admit it out loud though.
The bus station was quite empty, only two other people who came out from the green bus were staying with us. The road was also devoid of cars, there were only three of them that passed by before a red bus came along. I was going to say goodbye to Marcus and Peter as I entered the bus, but I noticed Marcus following me inside.
"Ma'am, she wants to go to the department store. Please tell her when you arrive there." He said as I paid the one credit fee. Oi! Don't treat me like a kid...
"Please leave it to me." The middle aged female driver answered him, she seemed energetic for some reason. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry as he got off the bus.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
"Ahh, it's good to be young." An elderly couple at the front gossiped... I felt other people's eyes were focused on me with weird smiles, so I decided to take the back seat which was devoid of people.
The warm air that came from the slit above my head made me feel sleepy. That combined with the soothing scent of my mom that permeated from the scarf made me want to snuggle in the corner between the windows and the seat and go to slumberland. Well, I actually did that. Luckily, Ms. Driver came to wake me up at the department store station. Otherwise I might’ve woken up in a strange place and have to call for help.
I left the bus with my pride not so intact. At least, I properly thanked the driver. The air outside felt a bit colder than before. It wasn't due to an actual temperature drop, it was because I got too warm and comfy on the bus.
I called Pristia and asked where they were, but they were still at the hospital. She told me that she would call me back when they arrived.
Since my siblings weren’t here yet, I went ahead to find a shop that could enchant my scarf. I asked a clothing store first, and the staff there kindly pointed me to the enchantment specialized shop called ‘Enchanted’ on the second floor.
The department store today was less crowded than usual, maybe because they had already stockpiled their necessities before the storm or something. I was happy that I could browse things as I pleased and didn't have to be mindful of other people. Anyways, I went straight to the shop that I was told about.
"What can I do for you, little miss?" A bald clerk wearing spectacles said as I approached his counter. The air inside the store was filled with scents of new plastics, oils, and metal.
"I want to add auto-clean and auto-repair enchantments on my scarf." I grabbed the edge of the shiny counter and told him.
"Ah, which enchantment grade do you want?" Huh? Grade? The clerk saw my confusion and pointed at a poster next to him.
Fabric equipment enchantment fee (Price per enchantment)
Grade SS ............ 3,000 Credits
Grade S ............... 1,000 Credits
Grade A ............... 500 Credits
Grade B ............... 100 Credits
Grade C ............... 25 Credits
Grade D ............... 5 Credits
It didn't tell me anything but the price! I looked around but there was nothing with more information about it, but there were a lot of tools and advertisements for new stuff.
"Uhm, what's the difference between each grade?" I asked.
"It's a strength of enchantment and the warranty period." He offhandedly said. I wondered how they would pay me back if my mom's scarf were to be damaged though. Anyway, I pointed at the Grade SS, which caused him to take a second look at me.
"That will be 3,000 credits, miss." He looked at me with disbelief in his eyes, but I handed him my ID card anyway. Thankfully, they counted auto-repair and auto-clean as one enchantment. I thought that I would need to pay 6,000 credits for it.
Thanks to the LCD display like property of the ID card, I didn’t have to worry about showing my private information. To anyone but me it just looked like a blank, black card with nothing written on top. There is an exception though: At that time when I still had that evil line on top of it, I couldn’t remove that line at all and everyone could see it. Anyways, since that line was removed, all they knew was whether I could pay for the merchandise or not, after they swiped my card on their reading device. Of course, if the police took a look at my ID card, they would see everything.
"D-dear customer, it will take an hour for enchantment to complete. Are you fine with that?" The shopkeeper suddenly changed his tone. I nodded and handed him my scarf. I was a bit worried because he received it with shaky hands. He must be a new staff member.
"Just don't damage it, alright?" I added before I followed my scarf to the back of his store, but I was shooed away by a worker inside. She claimed that this area was for staff only, and it was not safe for a kid to walk around. The sale clerk looked a bit awkward when he saw that, but he didn't intervene. What a rude bunch, all of them.
As they swore on their life to me that they wouldn't damage the scarf or ruin its scent, I reluctantly left their workshop.
While I was waiting for them, I bought more mithril ingots for my own weapon crafting and sold off all my unnecessary devices and almost spoiled monster corpses in another shop. With all those gone, I got another hefty sum of money and a lot of free space in my storage devices.
[Let's see, right now I have 608,005 Credits.] I checked my ID card as I got my card back from an adventurer store. It was a lot of money, most of it was from that unique monster contract though.
Hmm, if I wanted to live alone comfortably as a shut-in, I would need about 100 Credits a day. for my rent, food, and toys. So, I could live for... 6,080 days! Wow, that was a lot. Huh? Did I just pay 3,000 credits a moment ago? Nah, that was for special occasion, so that didn't count.
Anyways, if I translated the number of days I had into years then it would be around... 16 years which was not enough for me to stay happy for my entire life. It seemed that I would need around 2.5 million Credits or so to retire, assuming that I would live for 80 years.
"Hah, my dream of a worry-free life is still so far away." I sighed. Of course, I could double or triple that duration if I spend my money prudently. Even more so if I acted stingy, but that would only mean that my harem dream would never be realized. While I was still contemplating about my future, Pristia called me and announced their arrival.
She told me that Barbara was starving because she also woke up late and skipped breakfast. So she dragged them into a restaurant next to the Monster Burger that we visited when I first arrived in this world.
"Okay, I'll be there soon." I told her and hung up. Then I went to the enchanting shop. It was already time to get my scarf back.
The bald staff politely greeted me and handed me a luxurious box as I arrived. I wondered why they wasted the effort to put my scarf into such box. Was it an attempt to cover up the damage they had done to my scarf?
I looked at him suspiciously and opened the box. Hmm, there seemed to be no sign of damage. Also, my mom's scent was still there. All in all, they seemed to be doing their job properly.
"Here miss, this is the lifetime warranty document. Your scarf will be preserved forever, even if it burns, it will restore itself from the ashes." The staff proudly presented. It seemed too good to be true though. Could it really restore itself after it was burned? I didn't want to test it out though.
"Just don't burn it too frequently, the warranty will be void if you intentionally try to destroy it." He added while wiping his sweat with a handkerchief as I doubtfully looked at him. Ah, there was still a limit to it then.
I thanked him and went to the restaurant that Pristia told me about. It looked like a self-service restaurant with a kiosk and a lot of conveyor belts.
Some of the items displayed on the kiosk were incomprehensible, but most of it seemed to be cheaper than a normal restaurant. This meat burger, for example, it was only one credit, and I could buy two to get one for free. I wondered what kind of meat it was though.
"Kuro! There you are!" Barbara came running from her seat while Pristia and Aunos just waved at me.
"Ah, hi-" I was going to greet her back, but Barbara just grabbed my arm and pulled me to her table. What a forceful girl she was.
"It's alright, this meal is my treat." As she propped me on a chair, she smiled brightly. "As thanks for renting me Skynet." She added before I could protest. My niece was a good girl after all.
"Uhm, ok, so let see, what I want is-" While I was thinking what I want from the menu I remembered, Barbara interrupted me again.
"Ta-da! It's a kiddie deluxe set!" She proudly presented an impressive looking tray to me. It even came with a palm-size teddy bear which talked when squeezed... a kiddie set... was she trying to pick a fight with me?