Chapter 97
The clergy ate soft serve and coffee together, and their divine power grew strong enough to activate even a halo?
“Huh? Why are you already feeling better?”
“Your Highness, Princess Flare. I, too, am someone who learns.”
Akion had not anticipated this, but he soon calmed down.
Had the coding the Heavenly Lord had set up properly really created this kind of synergistic effect?
It was obviously going to trigger with bug-level benefits anyway, so was there any reason for Akion to get angry?
“Namu Amitabha Buddha….”
“What on earth is that supposed to mean? Somehow, it makes me feel at peace.”
That was why Akion was no longer afraid.
What else could possibly come out of this?
Even if something did, he figured nothing would surprise him anymore.
- Creak!
- Crack…!
“Oh. The horns….”
“Huh?”
That was what he thought, until he saw Flare’s horns growing after she ate coffee and soft serve together beside him.
“Flare… I feel like the dragon blood in your body has grown even thicker.”
“I-is that really true?!”
The Tower Master beside them drove the point home, so was there really anything more to think about?
Akion stopped thinking.
- Sssshk.
“Oh, they’re shrinking….”
“Hehe, there is no need to be disappointed.”
Fortunately, perhaps because the effect was temporary, they soon returned to normal.
“Ah, but the dragon blood did get a little thicker.”
“Argh.”
No, it was not fortunate; the effect came with bodily modification.
Akion ended up cursing once again.
*
Verifying this turned out to be absurdly simple.
“Mmm?”
“What is it, Big Sis?”
“Why is my Spiral Power surging when I eat this? And two strands at that?”
“Argh.”
One spoonful of Spiral Power in the espresso.
One spoonful of Spiral Power in the soft serve.
Thus, the affogato was packed with the mana that had formed a double helix, and the clergy who wolfed it down had their divine output multiplied by the square.
More precisely, the keyword ‘growth’ seemed more fitting.
“Oh? Tain. Haven’t you gotten a little bigger?”
“Wunga?”
Affogato enhanced and improved the consumer’s physical growth.
One short child among the ordinary customers had even grown by half a finger joint right before their eyes.
Akion looked up at the heavens at an effect so absurd that he wondered whether this was really all right.
Was this really not a bug?
“Hmm, I guess it only works once.”
“If you understand that, eat in moderation. There won’t be any left for the customers!!”
The one saving grace was that this growth effect activated only once.
If it activated endlessly… Akion was honestly afraid just imagining what might happen.
“C-couldn’t I have just one more bowl? I will pay generously…!”
“Argh, then go get your own portion.”
“Ehehe! I love you, Akion!”
Meanwhile, the Tower Master, who had become addicted to affogato, ate all of it. Anyway.
“Whew. If it works, that’s all that matters.”
Honestly, the Heavenly Lord must have been the one who coded it to work this well… so Akion could not bring himself to stay angry at Him.
So Akion considered offering a prayer to the Heavenly Lord, just for today.
“But why doesn’t the young master have any effect?”
“Hmm. Indeed, why is that?”
“I don’t know.”
After remembering that he alone had not felt any effect, he resolved once again not to pray after all. Anyway.
*
“So, Saint.”
It was afternoon, just late enough to be dangerously close to lunchtime, and the soft-serve mix had run out completely.
To put it kindly, the Saintess was disheveled,
or, to put it less kindly, all the effort she had put into dressing up had become completely pointless.
“Shall we go now, as promised?”
“Now? It’s lunchtime.”
The white dress the nuns had lent her was already stained with water,
her makeup had been completely washed away when she washed her face because of the heat,
and her hair had been tied up because it was too silky and swishy.
If not for her noble features, she might have looked like an ordinary commoner’s wife.
Even so, the Saintess urged Akion to go as promised without a single complaint.
“A-are you all right?”
Akion had called her, so she had come with high expectations, only to find that he wanted her to help with work,
and yet the Saintess had still readily accepted his request.
She had seemed to get a little angry whenever the nuns teased her, but now she was not showing it at all, which made Akion feel somewhat guilty.
“I ruined all the effort you put into dressing up because of me.”
“Oh my.”
The Saintess was pleased that Akion at least had some sense.
Honestly, after he called her over, failed to properly look at her outfit, and asked whether she could help, she had wanted to punch him….
But now he was honestly apologizing. And…
“You knew I had dressed up?”
“Yes, well. If I didn’t notice that, wouldn’t I be blind?”
The fact that he quickly noticed the effort women put into their appearance, which men often failed to recognize, was a passing mark in the Saintess’s eyes.
Akion might have been acting nonchalant, but ordinary insensitive men would not have noticed such things.
“Heehee.”
Akion’s thoughtfulness was gently melting away the Saintess’s grievances.
Perhaps that was why she had come to like Akion─.
- Squeeze~
“Hehe, let’s go. You said I was pretty even like this, didn’t you? Then, as a gentleman, you should lead the lady.”
“Hmm.”
Thanks to the Heavenly Lord—not exactly choosing him for her, but giving her a push—the Saintess had found courage.
Now that things had come this far, she resolved to somehow win Saint Akion over from those unyielding women.
*
The Academy festival lasted five days in total.
Of those five days, the four-person group had decided to go on dates disguised as inspections of the Academy’s events every day.
There was even a moment when they had to decide which of them would get one extra day with Akion.
The four people deciding were Goldie, the Tower Master, Aysirel, and Flare….
“Foxy!”
Then the Saintess suddenly appeared and threw everything into chaos!
In the end, after deciding the order through rock-paper-scissors, the Saintess achieved the coup of drawing the first day.
“You suddenly show up and join our front line! You’re such a total fox!”
“Ahem, Goldie. You mustn’t use improper terminology.”
And four silhouettes were following those two.
They were, of course, the four who had lost to the Saintess.
“She’s a snake. A very foxy white snake….”
“Hiss hiss!! Goldie is good at catching snakes!”
“That’s right. You should step forward first and exterminate that snake.”
“Don’t incite Goldie, Tower Master….”
Using the Tower Master’s highest-order magic, some magical whatchamacallit that no one could perceive…
Aysirel and Flare, who were listening, could not understand it at all, but thanks to this, they could walk openly around the Academy without attracting attention.
“More importantly, is it really all right for you to slander the Saintess like that?”
“Anyone trying to take what is mine is a snake.”
“Me, Goldie, and Her Highness Princess Flare too?”
“Goldie is… a doggie.”
“Why does only Goldie get special treatment?!”
Of course, since no one could hear them, a completely unfiltered conversation was taking place.
Meanwhile, Aysirel and Flare were slightly displeased by the Tower Master’s favoritism toward Goldie.
“Is Goldie harmful?”
“She’s harmless.”
“Miss Goldie is harmless.”
“Right?”
“Eh, you aren’t scared of Goldie…?”
But both of them ended up conceding the point to the Tower Master’s facts.
The loyal hound Goldie claimed to have suffered emotional damage. Anyway.
“Ah! Look over there!”
Just then, where Flare was pointing….
- Jingle jingle!
“All right, couples get one extra dart throw! The couple with the highest score after three rounds wins this giant plushie made by the Aquila Workshop!”
“Oppa, I want that! That one!”
“Leave it to me.”
A dart-throwing game for festival participants was being held.
“That’s the game that started in Enacysis, right? I heard it’s incredibly difficult…!”
As far as Flare knew, the darts placed in Enacysis’s public bathhouses were spreading throughout the Empire.
“Oppa… you can’t even do something like that?”
“No, it’s way harder than I expected…?”
“It’s okay. I can still love an oppa like this. So, as my live-in son-in-law─.”
“How did the conversation end up here?!”
Apparently, it was quite difficult, and many people had shed tears of blood over it.
Indeed, even before their eyes, fresh young couples were breaking apart in droves.
- Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
“T-twenty triple… three times in a row…?”
“T-ton eighty (Ton 80)!!”
Except for Akion.
It was a game Akion had developed, and he was a man who had beaten everyone from Goldie, supposedly the best at Enacysis, to the bishop of a monastery.
‘Easy as expected.’
Once he had finished adjusting his strength and judging the dart’s center of gravity?
It was far too easy for Akion.
For him, manually applying spin coating (applying coating material at a perfectly consistent speed onto a rotating substrate) was much more difficult.
- Thwack-thwack-thwack!
“Heavenly Lord, have mercy, all three rounds were Ton 80?!!”
“It’s rigged!! This is rigged!! He must have used magic!!!”
“Or he must be an Expert from the Faculty of Knight Studies!!”
Above all, Akion had a constitution in which a great deal of mana was imbued, even though he could not use mana.
Since that mana naturally assisted his movements, he was somewhat similar to those who practiced martial arts.
“I’m a professor.”
“……That Akion Enacysis?”
“The young master who can’t use magic or swordsmanship, except for magi-engineering?”
“That’s a bit harsh… Anyway, can I take the prize?”
Even so, he was only a little stronger and more precise than an ordinary person.
With a bit of technique, that was enough to score well at darts.
“Th-that easily…!”
“Ah, the young master’s bullying instinct has reared its head again….”
“Only those poor Academy students suffered. Heh heh….”
“Sigh, Akion. Take it a little easy.”
Goldie, the Tower Master, and Aysirel, who had been subjected to that dozens of times, knew exactly how this would turn out.
While they alternated between complaining about and admiring Akion’s merciless skill….
“Here.”
“Huh? This? For me?”
Akion handed the silver-furred fox plushie he had received to the Saintess.
“What? Weren’t you playing because you wanted it?”
“Th-the thing is….”
The Saintess had originally entered the dart game so she could spend some cozy time with Akion.
She had not expected her date partner to be a dart champion.
“Hmm….”
While Akion stared at the flustered Saintess, he noticed that the plushie’s head had a blue streak, perhaps from dye contamination.
“Who cares? We won first place, so that’s enough. I don’t need it, so I’ll just foist it off on you, Saintess.”
Akion, that really does seem like an Enacysis trait….
“And now that I look at it, this plushie even has hair the same color as mine.”
“Pardon?”
“I’ll give it to you as a present, so please don’t forget that I gave it to you.”
He had simply blurted out such a remark without thinking.
It was a casual excuse about how she owed him because he had given her this gift….
“Ah, uh, yes.”
To the Saintess, who did not know the circumstances, it sounded as though Akion was hiding how hard he had tried for her.
The four watching all of this from nearby hiding places were….
- Blush….
“Yes… I will treasure it and care for it as if it were Saint Akion.”
“Th-that fox of a young master…!!!”
“Shouldn’t we make our move soon?!”
“I’m angry too, but everyone, calm down first─ Wait, why are Her Highness Princess Flare’s pupils slit vertically again?!”
“Ah, I got angry without realizing it.”
Seeing the Saintess’s cheeks turn red, they felt a rush of heat all at once.
The competition for Saint Akion had only grown fiercer.