Chapter 115: Vanessa. Stop.
We were drawing closer and closer to the finale.
Only 4 months remained before our birthday, and, in this time, I'd only grown another 2 centimetres.
Hilda was already 18, and Esme and I are now 13, pushing 14.
It'd be surprising if you could guess that I had actually grown by a year just by looking at my body. I looked closer to a 12-year-old, height/size-wise, but fortunately, my face and the general development of my body have been on track.
A 14-year-old, fragile porcelain doll.
This thing is constantly leaking with Curses, so it's Perfect~
"Hilda, make ciletro soup today. It must be highly nutritious with no chewy chunks inside. Or slimy chunks."
...I was close to saying tomato, but I had to remind myself that it was called ciletro and not 'tomato'.
"You've become more demanding recently, little dummy."
I stared into Hilda's eyes; she had me seated facing her on her lap, with one hand behind my head and the other holding my waist and arms in place.
"I'm not allowed to be demanding?"
"Of course you're allowed."
I smirked, "That's what I thought."
"But you've become cheekier too, little dummy."
"And how so?"
"Your smile has gotten a bit prettier."
"..."
Is she insinuating that my smile was ugly?
No.
But will I pretend as if that's how I interpreted her words?
Hell yes.
"Are you saying that my smile is usually ugly?"
"Yup."
...That's not how that one was supposed to go.
"I'm joking."
...Are you sure about that?
"Seriously."
...You double sure?
"Triple sure."
"...Eh? How did you hear me?"
"You were talking, little dummy."
Oh.
That has been happening recently, and I should get to fixing that problem. It's like I'm becoming more roboti... What was it called again?
"R-o-b-o-t-i?" Hilda suddenly started articulating the word 'Roboti' through the native tongue of this world, "What's a roboti?"
"Don't worry about it."
I stopped thinking too seriously soon after that. I didn't want to leak anything that could potentially reveal what I originally was.
But I genuinely did have a problem.
I was losing my sense of reality half the time. I'd think I'm doing one thing, but I'm doing another, or I'd believe that I was saying one thing, but I'd be saying something else.
The worst ones were what I just demonstrated, speaking my thoughts aloud.
I can't be sure whether it's the Seed of Madness or something else.
ButIamsurethatit'snotmybrainimperfectlysane.
"...What did you just say, little dummy? That was a jumbled mess. Are you okay? Should I call Eldy?"
The mess of thoughts rummaging through the ocean of shards that is my brain all came to a grinding halt.
...Eldy?
"Eldy? What did you just-"
"Elden! I said Elden!" Hilda clamped my mouth shut and rushed out that response before I could dig deeper into the tarry mess that is my chest.
"...Oh. Fine."
Peacefully smiling, I gladly accepted Hilda's words at face value. As long as she realised her errors, then all is well.
Isitnormaltoactthiswaythough?
Yes, of course it is.
"Wawawa...? What is what?" Hilda, confused over my mumbling, tilted her head to the side like a parr- Parro something.
"Nothing much."
No idea why this is happening to me~
"Why is what happening to you?"
"Nothing. Don't worry about that either. Just ignore my mumblings from now on."
Seriously, I had to stop having deep thoughts at this point. Any slip-up could expose something detrimental to both my life and their lives.
I couldn't imagine what would happen were the Mistress and the madness to figure out that I had been reborn from another world. And that is assuming they don't already know and that they weren't the ones to orchestrate my appearance in this world.
But I doubted that.
Had they known, they would have gone even further with their experiments. They also wouldn't have treated me as a 'child', or, well, their way of treating a child.
...A part of me was curious about what would happen if they found out, but that was just the intrusive thoughts speaking.
I'm not suicidal.
"Alright, food is done!"
Speaking of, Hilda had left my side at one point and had prepped my meal. "Thank you." It wasn't much, but the ciletro had a sort of kick to it when going down my throat; it's much better than the usual nothingness I'd gotten used to.
Nevertheless, as usual, Hilda fed me slowly and surely while chatting about random nonsense.
And, for context, by nonsense, I mean-
"The new Remmy collection came out! It's an evil bunny theme this time! It's so adorable, look, look-!"
-I mean that she spends the majority of the time chatting about her favourite Remmy stuff. Yes, to this day, even after becoming an adult, she's still addicted to the Remmy mascot and its items.
It's not that I'm disappointed...
"Dummy...?"
"Uh, um, nothing~" 'Cluelessly' smiling at my lovely Hilda, I glossed over my slip-up instantly. Hilda also let it go by her.
At least, I think she did.
I can't be sure of what's going on in her head the majority of the time.
-----
...Clang!
Shrieking metallic noises echoed with a grating clamour as he picked his chisel into the ashen grey walls of the cavern.
With a headband wrapped around his forehead to catch the sweat and his long, silver hair tied into a ponytail, the now muscular Hildekar took a deep breath with each pounding swing into the wall.
Were it a normal wall, it wouldn't require this much effort to chisel, but this...
"Beautiful. Utterly so."
...this drew the manic curiosity within him out.
His eyes blazed with intrigue each time he broke off a piece and tossed it back for the others to pick up. It'd been almost 2 years of construction efforts, and, to this day, he couldn't let go of his interest in the material.
To put into perspective, Hildekar has, during his time with this material, broken it down to its smallest size, and with a magnifying scope, has attempted to understand the structure of its molecules, its atomic structure, and what allows it to conduct Blessings and Curses. Not only that, he has created alloys with every material he is familiar with.
All of it wasn't done for the sake of the construction of The Canary—the use of the ebony wood was crucial in the alloy required to construct it—it was done for the sake of his curiosity.
Hundreds of hours wasted purely for his plain and basic interests in construction, creation, engineering, and research.
"Oy! Idiot in silver! Stop tossing them! This boat can only hold so much in its corridors! I'm running out of room over here! Relax!" Elden's shout rattled Hildekar's manic spree back to reality.
He calmed himself by taking a deep breath, then planted his chisel on his toolbelt. "How long will it take?" With the noise of clamouring metal gone, he was able to pass his message along without shouting.
"Long enough to grow white hairs on your shiny scalp! Shut up and wait for the signal!"
Shrugging his shoulders at Elden's usual hostility, Hildekar sat on a small boulder to take a momentary rest. Pulling his headband off, he folded it up and stuffed it into his pocket and leaned back on the ashen walls encasing the innards of The Canary.
'How do I tell these idiots without embarrassing myself? It's getting annoying dealing with their shit, but knowing how much worse it'll get when they find out...'
It was the worst of two worlds.
Either way, he'd get shit on by his best friends.
'...But at least the latter will be in a joking manner. Nowadays, it's gotten to the point where I feel like a portion of their 'banter' is slightly venomous.'
Rubbing his sweat-free forehead, Hildekar sighed once again-
"Alright! It's cleared up! Get to work, piggy!"
-and got straight back to work.
...Only the grin licking his lips curled with manic glee the moment he picked the chisel up.
-----
"Hold right there."
A hand slammed onto a head full of sleek, black hair and clamped down.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Fuck! Let go!"
...As expected from the crude language, the owner of the black hair was none other than Vanessa.
Vanessa tried to reach up and punch at Nemora, but the latter was already almost 6 feet tall. She stood high at a solid 180 cm, while Vanessa was much lower at 169 cm. Nemora, did, however, have to tilt her head back slightly to avoid her fists.
"Move back a bit from me, Vanessa. Your breasts are annoying as hell."
"Then let go of me, bitch!"
"No can do."
So Nemora said, but Vanessa's body was slim with accentuated curves wherever it was needed. Her hips, thighs, and butt were all full, but her overall build dimmed them into a more slender physique.
Amusingly, Nemora's complaints were more focused on how her large breasts were chaffed by Vanessa's medium is premium pair.
But to Vanessa's ears, this only sounded like an insult, leading to...
"Fucking let go, you piece of-!"
Sparks of golden draped in black flushed down from the sky onto Vanessa's body, she raised her fist at Nemora's face-
"Vanessa. Stop."
-Yulei's husky voice broke apart the plethora of Blessings and Curses.
The ink-haired lady halted her fist, then she lowered it with no more outbreaks. Her face remained calm, her eyes steady, and not even a hint of her rashness remained.