One month had passed since Sen left the orphanage.

"I'm home!" Kotaro shouted.

Right now, Kotaro Mikami stood at the front of the orphanage entrance. Directly in his path was Gina, already dashing out of the door with a vortex of dust on her trail.

"...? What is her deal?" Muttered Kotaro.

But the next thing he realized, the whole home was filled with polka dots of brown and sticky mud. "Robbery?!"

In front of him, the midday sun broke through the clouds and illuminated the approaching figure, completely covered in mud and dirt.

"...You're so, so, so much in a trouble." Said Shinichi as he made his way towards Kotaro.

Though Shinichi was still three metres away, there was a stench of death coming from him: a putrid and damp smell that reminded Kotaro of the fertilizer for Grandpa's garden. Shinichi sneered at Kotaro as he stomped forward over the rough ground, his anger spreading across his face like an opening wound.

Kotaro turned away, running away to the yard as Shinichi approached.

"Haven’t you gone too far this time, little boy?" Shinichi continued walking towards him.

Kotaro watched him carefully. He knew all about Shinichi, knew what he could do if he angry. His veins were popping out, thick and clear veins.

Gina had told Kotaro that of all the orphanage resident had scolded her, the one who scared her most was Shinichi. Kana was incredibly threatening glare; Sen was tall and capable of catching her with a single leap; Grandpa's drilling fists were ruthless, but they were nothing compared to Shinichi.

"So any last word?" Shinichi sneered.

"W-what?! I don't get what's going on! But it must be Gina!!"

Shinichi looked him with disbelief. "That's your best excuse? Are you expecting me to believe Gina can create all those messes all by herself?"

They stared at each other for a split second, then Shinichi frantically lunged towards Kotaro, his dirty and stinky arms outstretched.

Kotaro's perception quickly checked the information about the incoming danger that was directed toward him.

He dodged to the right, quickly avoided Shinichi's dirt covered hands.

Another barrage of rapid, strong and unbroken grabbing hands streaked towards Kotaro. "Urauraurauraura!" Shouted Shinichi.

Kotaro relied on his athletic abilities, but there were times when even these weren’t enough. After all, he just a slightly stronger than your six-year-old kid; but that was where his magic came.

"Earth wall!" Kotaro shouted.

Block of earth rose up from the ground, blocking Shinichi's path and buying Kotaro a few more seconds to run away.

(Khu, khu, I've finally started to get better at this, and there's no way Shinichi-nii can destroy that wall with his thin body.)

As Kotaro thought that with a smirk, Shinichi easily avoiding the wall by stepping to the side.

"...You do realize I just need to circle it, right?" Said Shinichi.

"G-guh!" Shouted Kotaro.

On Kotaro's back was the wooden fence, in front of him was Shinichi. It would be great if there was some magic he could use right now, but there were limits to the number of times he could use magic. Not to mention whatever magic Kotaro casted, Shinichi already recorded and studied the said magic.

With no way out, Kotaro finally surrendering to his fate as Shinichi forced Kotaro to grab a mop and a bucket of water. "...You better clean it before Kana went home."

Dirty boards, muddy walls, murky drapes and windows, there was no escape from the viscous mud that settled on everything. The mud lay thickly like winters first snow, but instead of being a spirit-raising brilliant white, it was a depressing dirty brown.

And Kotaro was the one who needed to clean it.

While Kotaro was looking for an answer to his predicament. He moved some portion of mud that he could see, right now he could move earth up tp 70cm cube or 7 kilograms.

"Water spray..." Kotaro washed the remaining mud off the walls by generating water with water magic and compressing it, he was able to spray off the mud from the walls.

He came across this spell when he saw the kids in his school playing with the water gun, he tried to apply some pressure to the water, and this came about.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

It didn't take long for him to clean the rest stubborn sticky and stinky mud with this spell, but it used a lot of Aether, so cleaning an entire room was quite taxing. On the bright side, if he had a big aether power cleaning something like this was nothing more than snapping his finger.

"And done."

After washing off the filth from the walls, he hurled the filthy water into a ball and launched it outside. All that was left was for Kotaro to spray the deodorant to all over the room and with this, the cleaning was done.

He finished his cleaning and happily grinned while feeling a sense of satisfaction that his skill clearly got better.

But Gina's attitude bothered him... Leaving it like that wouldn’t be good, so he figured he might as well investigated it.

Having made up his mind, he used Earth Wall to turn the dirt outside into chair-sized boulder and sat on top of it with his chin resting on one hand as he was deep in thought.

23 seconds later, he already snored under the sunray, after all, Kotaro had been using every last drop of his aether power.

When he woke up, he already slept inside the house and woke up just in time for dinner.

Sitting next to Gina, he spoke to her.

"So... where did you go this afternoon?" Asked Kotaro.

"N-no where... I'm just playing in the park." Gina rolled her eyes to the left as she answered him.

Kotaro just stared at her without saying anything. However, just that stare was strangely overwhelming for Gina.

"...Is it just me or this room is kinda sparkling? ...And somewhat a little stink." Said Kana as she sniffed around.

"Speaking of stink, did any you kids used the fertilizer out of the normal schedule?" Asked Grandpa.

"Nope, everyone knows we only need to do that once every week." Said Kotaro.

Cold sweats started drenching Gina's face

"Huh... that's weird... considering how fast the fertilizer is emptied out." Said Grandpa.

Gina dropped her food from her chopsticks when she heard this.

"Maybe you just use it too much or there's a hole in the package?" Said Shinichi.

"Maybe..." Grandpa sighed. "And that one is the high-quality one."

Gina breathed out a sigh of relief when she noticed the topic was over. But, perhaps because of the indescribable sense of guilt that hung from her.

"...Uu, UEEeeeeen!" They had normal dinner just a second ago, but Gina suddenly cried.

"Hmph?! W-Wait a moment! Is something wrong?! Are you feeling sick?!" Asked Grandpa.

"Sorry!! It waas meeee!!! I'm the one that took the fertilizer and used it this afternoon... Uueeen!!"

"Hah! I know it!!" Shouted Kotaro. "See!! I already told you it was Gina!" Kotaro turned his head and shouted to Shinichi

"...So it was you." Veins popping from Shinichi's temple. "Do you know how long did I need to bath just to removing the smell?"

"Eeek!!" Shouted Gina as she hid behind Kotaro's back. "Kotaro!! Help me!!"

"Waaiit... can someone explain what's going on?!" Asked Kana.

With swollen red eyes and snot flowing down from her nose. Gina timidly walked to the outside and brought two hidden boxes under the bushes, one was an old bigger wooden box; the other one was a small plastic box with a flower pattern and several old, if not antique books.

"Hmph?! T-those things?!" Grandpa's eyes widened when he saw those.

Still sniffing her tears out, Gina opened the plastic box and showed the orphanage resident its content.

It was several marble-sized black balls and tennis-sized brown ball.

From the bigger old antique box, it was several tools such as flint and steel, an iron pot, glass tube, coil of rope and et cetera.

And one of the books' titles were Proper Demolition: Blowing Things Up The Right Way.

"Where did you get that?!!" Shouted Grandpa.

Still holding her tears down. "...In the warehouse." Gina muttered.

"Is that a bomb?!" Shouted Kotaro with starry eyes.

"Is that a bomb?!" Shouted Kana and Shinichi after they evacuated themselves to the next room.

She silently nodded.

***

A few hours ago.

Kotaro was playing with his friends, Grandpa was gone to buy some fertilizer, Shinichi was taking a nap in the living room, while Gina was playing with Kana.

"So then she says that Kotaro is cool!" Said Gina.

"Huh, I guess if you're a little bit of a wild child and good at sports that makes you popular." Answered Kana.

"But no one ever said I'm cool at school! Can you believe it?!" Gina spoke out in annoyment.

"Well... how about buying some groceries for me? This will turn you into a cool girl, you know." Said Kana.

"But you know... cool is more like... more like shooting laser from your eyes or something like that or making things go booom!!" Said Gina as she pretended she could do those things.

"Hm~ ... well~ I can't do those things, but am I cool?" Asked Kana as she prepared to go to the grocery store.

"....Yeah." Said Gina with a stiff smile.

U-urgh... she's only trying to make me feel better. Thought Kana with dropped shoulder. "...Anyway, are you sure you don't want to come?"

"Nope, since Shinichi-nii is sleeping I need to guard the house!" Said Gina.

After leaving a few words with the Gina, Kana went outside.

As soon as she saw Kana made a turn, Gina immediately ran to the bushes and took the boxes with her.

She already did this several times now by following the written instruction, and today was the day where she determined to create something new and original, for the purpose of being a cool kid.

Taking the fertilizer and used it as the substitution for the gunpowder, she started mixing it here and there. And even if someone was watching her, they would only think Gina was pretending to cook right now.

After several minutes had passed, with a big grin and mud on her face. "It's done!!" She shouted.

And just when she tried to put the big brown ball back to the box, somehow she tripped on her own feet.

Blobs of mud bomb flying freely in the air, and somehow managed to enter the living room and exploded without making any noises.

.......Everyone is going to kill me!!! 

Gina was running around in a circle with a pale face, trying to figure out what she should do.

That's it! She thought with a gasp.

She hid the evidence, in this case, the boxes and the books. After everything was done, the very first thing she did was running away, planning to wait at the nearby park until the curfew time.

"I'm home!" Kotaro shouted.