Chapter 58
Chapter 58
“Shall we calm down a bit first?”
“Sister, what are you? Perhaps a new saint candidate?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Go and put that Rose in her place! She’s so annoying!”
“No…”
The situation was like this.
I had only used a bit of my cooking skill, which I use daily, to make something for Seiren who said she wanted to eat.
But Seiren seemed to have sensitively noticed that very small and subtle power.
She grabbed me while I was using the cooking skill and started to interrogate me about what it was.
“Well…”
At this rate, her intuition seems far better than Sian Terezia’s.
“Ah, sister. Is this how you do it?”
As this pretty girl with big eyes and an innocent face tried to coax me, I quietly called out to the system.
‘System! System! What should I do?’
Please save me quickly.
[Haha, do your best.]
[You two look good together.]
But only giggling responses came back.
I irritably closed the system window and turned back to Seiren.
Seiren was saying things like “Sister, I want to eat scones… Please make them just one more time,” with her hands clasped together.
In the end, I had no choice but to make scones in front of Seiren, adding strange ingredients.
I handed the completed scones to Seiren with a ‘poof’ sound.
Seiren picked up one scone.
“Sister, does divine power go into this too?”
“Well, I’m not sure.”
“Let me check!”
She seemed to concentrate quietly with her eyes closed.
The scones were freshly baked and steaming, so they should be hot, but her reverent prayer pose with both hands raised, showing no sign of discomfort, was a bit funny in a way.
I waited for Seiren, half giving up on this situation.
Or well, waiting for her to tell me about my skill.
As I was waiting for Seiren absent-mindedly, she suddenly opened her eyes.
Her deep blue eyes, identical to Isiel’s, sparkled.
“There’s definitely divine power, though very faint.”
“Really?”
“But it’s so little that it’s almost non-existent. But it’s definitely there!”
I guess so.
I nodded.
“Since divine power is needed to use my ability, I suppose the result would contain divine power too…”
When I spoke, half resigned, she reacted with even more interest.
“Is cooking sister’s ability?”
“I have this and that.”
While cooking is what I use most often right now, if I had to specify, the inventory is also a skill, and my steel liver is a skill too.
And operating the system window required divine power from the start.
Divine power for me is… like a battery.
A battery to maintain a phone or laptop!
“That’s fascinating. Can I research your ability and divine power later?”
“How?”
She said with a shy smile.
“You see, I was at a disadvantage in many aspects of divine power compared to Rose, the current saint. While her power manifested in the form of healing ability, mine manifested as combat power.”
She spoke with a slightly bitter expression.
“If this were a world at war, I probably would have become the saint. But the world is peaceful, right? So from the temple’s perspective, Rose Biatin, who could heal the sick, was better than me.”
“And?”
“Because destructive power can be really dangerous if misdirected, I did a lot of research on my own.”
Oh, I nodded and quietly opened the system window to check the quest.
[Visit the Temple
(omitted)
(Completed) Visit the Temple.
(Completed) Meet ‘Seiren Lemiere’.
(Completed) Investigate mythology.
(4) Investigate the connection between skills and divine power.
(omitted)]
Could it be that the last one, ‘Investigate the connection between skills and divine power’, is going to be accomplished through Seiren?
[SYSTEM | YES]
I closed the system window again and approached Seiren.
Then I grabbed Seiren’s hands.
“I want to ask you to research the connection between my ability and divine power. Tell me if you need anything.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
I nodded vigorously and quickly checked the recipe in the system window.
“Just a moment, I’ll get the recipe out for you.”
Usually, I tend to process everything in the system because it’s troublesome, but everything registered in the system can be taken out into reality in the form of items.
In other words, while I can’t take out the skill itself, I can take out the ‘recipe’ that serves as a medium for the skill.
[That’s not it though?]
‘What do you mean?’
“Sister, what’s this?”
I postponed asking the system anything more for now.
Our Seiren in front of me comes first.
I handed her a low-grade recipe right away and gave a simple explanation.
“So if you have the recipe, the ingredients that match the recipe, and divine power at the same time, you can cook?”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
“That’s fascinating. Let me take a look.”
I quickly voiced my personal interest.
“If possible, when using this skill, or ability, it would be great if you could find out if it’s possible to use someone else’s divine power instead of my own.”
Seiren nodded readily.
The system chimed with a ‘ding’.
[SYSTEM | ‘Visit the Temple’ (4/4)]
[SYSTEM | The ‘Visit the Temple’ quest has been completed.]
[SYSTEM | You have received reward 1 ‘Minion 3’ for ‘Visit the Temple’.]
I quietly checked the system window once, and Seiren checked the recipe once.
Hoping that my ‘Minion 3’ wasn’t Seiren Lemiere…
[SYSTEM | You have received reward 1 ‘Minion 3’ for ‘Visit the Temple’.]
The system displayed the notification that I had received reward 1 again, as if telling me not to avoid reality.
[SYSTEM | You have received reward 2 ‘Philosopher’s Stone (D+)’ for ‘Visit the Temple’. Please check your inventory.]
When I checked the inventory, there was a ‘■■ ■■■■ ■■■ Philosopher’s Stone (D+)’ placed there.
They said divine power could be stored in the Philosopher’s Stone, right?
I first took it out of the inventory and held it in my hand.
It looked just like an ordinary stone.
“It’s a Philosopher’s Stone?”
Seiren recognized it as soon as she saw it.
She took the stone from my hand, held it in one hand, and closed her eyes slightly before opening them.
“It’s quite a high-grade stone. I filled it with divine power.”
“Thank you. But how do I use this?”
“Well. Usually, rich people fill it with divine power and use it like a charm.”
I was a bit disappointed.
I had hoped that I might be able to use someone else’s divine power using the ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ as a medium.
Seiren said while pocketing the ‘Philosopher’s Stone’.
“But there’s some power leaking out little by little, I wonder if there’s an internal crack?”
“Can divine power leak if the inside is damaged?”
“I wonder… I’ll take a look at this too.”
Seiren happily received various things from me and was in high spirits.
[She’s a celestial scholar.]
[It would certainly be appreciated if a friend like that could be our priestess.]
[At least she’s researching our power.]
She had already sat down in the reception room saying she had no other plans and started looking at the materials I gave her.
I was dumbfounded by the quest that had been resolved so quickly.
When I was in the North, I thought it would be nice to find even one person to work with me in the capital, but I’ve already found three.
[SYSTEM | Calculating overall quest progress.]
[SYSTEM | Calculating…]
While there were many quests that were significant in paying off debt, there were also many useless ones, so I had a lot of quests in my possession.
So it’s hard to check them one by one, and I usually focus on checking the ones that the system notifies me about via pop-ups, but there are days like today when the system calculates everything at once.
[SYSTEM | The quest progress for ‘Sian Terezia, What Kind of Person is He?!’ has been partially updated.]
[SYSTEM | You have received a ‘Random Skill Box’ as a reward.]
[SYSTEM | There are a total of ‘3’ ‘Random Skill Boxes’ confirmed in your inventory.]
Come to think of it, I was planning to open two earlier, but Isiel and Seiren called me and I couldn’t open them.
“Today really is a long day…”
As I was pressing my eyes shut from fatigue, someone banged on the front door.
“Seiren, your brother is here!”
And now Isiel has arrived too.
“Today really is a long day.”
When will it end?
I have to sell ice cream on the streets again tomorrow.
* * *
Isiel was very worried.
Seiren didn’t want to come home, so he wanted to send her to a hotel, but she was being stubborn and didn’t want to go to a hotel either, and he didn’t know what to do.
He came to the Luwin mansion with a maid, carrying a lot of luggage that Seiren would need.
Isiel gave a standing ovation when he saw Seiren sticking close to me saying “Sister, Sister”. Then he came straight to me, not even minding Cassis.
“Please take good care of our Seiren. Okay? That’s what friends are for.”
“Who are you?”
“Ah, Irina. How could you?”
He handed me a white envelope.
“What’s this?”
“A bribe to take good care of our Seiren.”
“I don’t accept anything less than 1 million jurangs, you know.”
“Just this once, please.”
I opened the envelope, thinking I’d just take a look.
Inside was a single white paper.
“It’s not money.”
“Should I give you money too?”
“That would be nice.”
“I’ll prepare it for tomorrow.”
When I unfolded the paper, there was a contract inside that had already been signed.
It was even a magical signature.
“You’re going to do the ice cream business, right?”
“Yes, I have to.”
“I’ll invest. Should I just invest, or help with everything I can, starting with people?”
If I could get investment from the Lemiere family, I wouldn’t have to worry about funds. Moreover, if Isiel actively helped with promotion, it would be perfect.
Since I had no intention of driving Seiren away anyway, I said “Oh, yes” and quickly pocketed the contract.
“I want to add one more condition to the investment.”
“What is it?”
“I want Isiel to be a model.”
“What’s that?”
“I want to use Isiel’s image to spread throughout the empire for promotion.”
Isiel didn’t seem to understand what I was saying.
But in my head, I had already made plans to promote not only in the empire but all the way to the Eastern Continent using Isiel.
He nodded when I said so.
“If I’m investing anyway, it’s good if it does well. I’ll do it, I’ll do it.”
So, in this situation where nothing had been confirmed internally within Luwin, I succeeded in finding an investor and a model.
Is it okay for it to be this easy?
[It’s because we’re here~]
‘Thank you.’
[You’re welcome.]
After that, it was quite a leisurely afternoon.
Isiel and Cassis drank alcohol, and Seiren whined that she didn’t want to sleep, so I gave her warm milk.
I drank water because I felt like if I drank alcohol now, I’d spend tomorrow in bed again.
Isiel had just gotten a punch on the shoulder after telling Cassis he was grateful and that he could bill the costs to him.
I absentmindedly enjoyed the warm winter time, rolling the three ‘Random Skill Boxes’ I had received earlier in my hand.
“Irina.”
“Yes?”
“Now that I think about it, I forgot to bring back the robe. That was a Humbly family mage robe, right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Don’t wear things like that. I’ll give you one from our family instead.”
Come to think of it, the Lemiere family was also a magic family.
I hadn’t seen them use magic properly, but Isiel himself was a magician.
The Lemiere mage robe would probably look as cool as the Humbly family’s robe.
I nodded for now.
“Here. Her name is Elizabeth.”
Isiel said primly as he handed me a huge pointed hat.
