“I should get going, I have work tomorrow. If there’s an invader then give me a call, I’ll be there ASAP.” Utopia said.
“For sure, if a dangerous one shows up I’ll allow you to be bait. Later Priest.” Lucy shrugged.
After her story, the group continued to chat for another dozen minutes before deciding to leave.
“I should get going as well,” Lily-rose said before quickly trying to run off.
“And where do you think you’re going?” Lucy inquired, grabbing the girl’s shoulder.
Jumping in her spot, Lily-rose slowly turned her head to see Lucy with a malicious smile.
“Uhh… Home?”
‘Absolutely not. You’re an important specimen.’ Lucy chuckled inwardly.
“Okay, right. Now, hear me out because I’m going to ask you a very important question… In what world is that a good idea?”
“E-eh?”
Nell seemed just as confused as Lily-rose as the nekomata just looked at Lucy like she was crazy.
“Really? Okay? You live alone, right?”
“How… Did you?”
“Well, if you think about it for even a second. The fact that you haven’t tried killing me despite me being a Magical Girl and you not knowing about the ban proves that you aren’t on the side of the Invaders. Not fully at least.”
“Not to mention that your mother is an alien who seemingly wants to kill all of humanity and your father was more than likely a kidnapped Witch or something so if he’s even alive he’s not gonna be allowed to live with you. The only real possibilities are that you’re in foster care because you’re a minor or you live alone under the not-so-watchful eyes of our shitty government like me. Out of those two, I just guessed.” Lucy continued to explain.
The others went silent, contemplating how Lucy could possibly put a narrative like that together after knowing Lily-rose for less than an hour. Nell didn’t even know if Lucy was correct or not but her words made complete sense in a way.
Lily-Rose could only narrow her eyes at Lucy.
She tried to free herself from Lucy’s grasp but failed miserably, causing her to be even more shocked.
‘How strong is this girl?!’ She questioned inwardly
Lily-rose wasn’t weak. Being Half-Xin gave her an immensely powerful constitution yet Lucy, with just 1 hand on her shoulder couldn't move at all.
“Why does any of that matter?” She asked, doing her best to keep her cool.
“Well, I mean… If you were in foster care I’d have to go through several loopholes to legally adopt you and that’s tedious. So on that, come live with me. For the next few weeks at least.”
“WHAT!?”
“LUCILLE?!”
‘Huh… So Nell’s only capable of shouting in unison with Utopia.’ Lucy continued chuckling inwardly, fully expecting this reaction.
The shout of the duo, or rather, of Lily-rose as nobody else could hear Nell alerted the nearby civilians but upon seeing that they’re just kids, they assumed it was nothing.
“Lucille. Why would you even suggest that though? Even if she’s not an enemy, just having her with us is dangerous.”
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Why indeed. Because I said I’d protect her? As a Magical Girl, is that not enough of a reason?”
“B-but wouldn’t it be dangerous to have me? W-what if I attack you while you’re asleep?”
Lifting her hand, Lucy shrugged.
“I’m not gonna be the one who tells you not to attack a Witch in her workshop so... Go ahead? Okay, how about this. Let’s head to my house and heal some of our wounds. There’s plenty of room and if you don’t like it you can leave. I will sign an Oath binding contract right here if you want.”
Hearing the mention of an oath binding contract both Nell and Lily-rose shot a shocked expression towards Lucy.
Seeing that, Lucy was glad she didn’t have to explain it as contract magic was the most simple magic next to reinforcement.
Oath-binding contracts, on the other hand, are a far more complex version. Usually, it’s only used between an underkin and a Witch because both parties have to give each other a part of their Soul.
Explaining the importance of the soul is difficult through conventional means but if you break the oath, you’ll immediately become a mindless slave to the other. Of course, Lucy didn’t care as if she set the terms, it could never be used against her.
“That’s… That’ll be unnecessary! I’ll go.”
‘Easy as that.’
Nell decided to back off the topic as well. Unfortunately, the contract between a Sentinel and an agent was far too lax for her to do anything about Lucy’s antics.
“That aside, Lucille. Did you lie about your story earlier?” Nell questioned, moving the current topic to the next as the group began to move.
“Hmm, what do you mean?”
“How to explain it… The flow of how you talked was different. It was as if you were making things up on the spot.”
It was Lucy’s turn to widen her eyes in surprise.
“Eh? You picked up on that? Saying I’m impressed is a bit of an understatement. Even those trained extensively in interrogation can’t tell if I’m lying if I don’t want them to.” She chuckled, before continuing.
“Yeah, I lied about some stuff. The general story was all true. I did get chased by 2 fox Demonic Beasts into the territory of spiders and we did fight the devil for a bit before I contracted him but the specifics were changed for brevity. I don’t think any of us want me telling a priest how I continued to fight a high-ranking Devil for 2 days straight with a broken body and how after I lost that fight he hung me in the scorching sun for another day before finally deciding to form a contract with me and now he’s basically the closest thing I have to a father figure.”
Once again, the duo accompanying Lucy just looked at her idly.
“What? I’m not elaborating further. Hell, the perpetrator of the incident said he’s coming soon which means… He could appear within the next day or decade so ask him for the full story.”
With the two off Lucy’s ass for the time being, they had a rather silent trip back to Lucy’s abode with her spending the time checking the new skills she got.
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And of course, Toximancy, as with all of Lucy’s affinities, was a massive wall of text far too long for her to bother reading it all.
This affinity was far more complex than her others though. On a technical level at least. Few things are more complicated than the magic that encompasses time.
Giving her a pseudo-immunity to poison where poisons can still affect her but never kill her, Toximancy allows her to take any poisonous matter aside from radiation inside of her body, mixing and matching them together to create whole new terrifying poisons or equally terrifying antidotes.
Unfortunately, her knowledge of plant life and poisons wasn’t anywhere near enough to begin looking for poisons to consume, much less actively using the magic.