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I reached Erika’s home in an instant, as I knocked the door, she quickly opened the door. She looked as radiant as ever, her unchangeable body gave her an almost synthetic beauty, but her soul alone infused into such a body made it livelier than many alive people I’ve ever met, her warm smile, despite her cold body, was radiant and innocent, and her eyes, despite being artificial, were filled with the life and innocence of youth. Her long pink hair was shiny today, perhaps she took a bath. Her father had made her body so she could manually clean it, apparently, so even taking baths is okay.
He had really made sure to get everything right for her, the only problem there could be if somehow termites began to live on her, but I don’t know if there are termites in this world to begin with. I haven’t seen any, and all these houses are made of wood… I guess people either take good care of their homes or a species of insects capable of eating wood just doesn’t exists… Which I doubt it, seeing how there are so many monsters of all shapes and sizes into more faraway lands… Nonetheless, there was no time to delve into these thoughts, I had to do other things first, which were of more importance.
“Hello, Erika, how have you been?” I asked.
Erika looked at me as she smiled even more happily, this girl was always happy…
“Good! You saw me just yesterday and you’re asking me how I have been as if we were separated for so long…” she said. “I bet you missed me, heheh…” The girl giggled adorably as she imagined that my basic manners were somehow because I missed her.
I cannot really tell her that I didn’t missed her because that would only sound more rude, and this girl is too overly sensitive to take my honest self too well.
“You’re right, I missed you.” I said. “I’ve become here as always to make some alchemy, can I enter?”
“Y-You did?!” She asked while blushing. “I-I thought you would say “no” or something… A-And yeah, come in, sorry for not letting you in right away. This home is your home, Blake. You always let me stay in your house so the least I can do is to let you in here as much as you want!”
“Thank you.”
I walked inside the house as I found all the things I always find in here, the large quantity of dolls spread everywhere, the tools, and all of that, her father really doesn’t clean, doesn’t he? Well, I am nobody to talk bad about their home, they can do whatever they want in there. At least it seems that it is not because Erika is fine with it, but it seems that her father seems to be more comfortable in a space like this with all things available for him to grab at any given… moment, I suppose.
Meanwhile, the second floor is cleaner and where Erika always keeps clean with her dolls, they work hard to please her and they are even cooking and cleaning for her whenever they can, well, the same ability as her father’s Spirit, which are only strings, while Erika ended having entire dolls as her spirit, a rather interesting thing that happens in this world, where parents often have children with “upgraded” versions of their spirits, although this is not completely common.
“Ah, Blake, welcome back.” Said Erika’s father, the old man seemed more tired than other times, and he was sitting over a wooden chair while reading a book with the light of the sun coming out of the window, he had a small cup with warm tea at the side. “My girl has been talking about how you were coming today, she was wondering what sorts of things you will come out with…”
“Oh, I see that Erika talks about me, huh?” I said while giving Erika a smile, the girl only blushed more. I had found a small entertainment into teasing her sometimes. Perhaps a child’s body really makes you slightly childish, or maybe I am just slowly becoming more open-minded about thoughts and activities that do not relate to growing stronger? Whatever is the case, I enjoyed this. Although maybe I should stop overthinking everything methodically.
“T-That’s not right! I… I…” Said Erika, while stuttering to find an answer, but she was only growing progressively more embarrassed. I moved to her side and petted her head.
“Don’t overthink it.” I said. “Want to see me doing alchemy?” I asked. Erika’s eyes shone brightly in excitement, she always enjoyed chatting with me of whatever things she had in her head while I was doing alchemy, these were our little moments together that Eleanora was often jealous of, for some reason.
“S-Sure!” She said. “I really wonder what you’re going to do today, you’ve been mass producing those healing pills for most of the time, I guess there’s not many materials in here aside from some lesser healing herbs.”
“I have thought about a few new recipes using demon materials.” I said. The moment I said those words, the father of Erika looked at me with surprise.
“I was told that you participated in the fight against several demons before reaching the wild boar by Erika…” He said. “I couldn’t believe it at first but… is it true?”
“Kind of, I wouldn’t had been able to reach that far without the assistance of the good people at my side, the hunters were of great help at surviving this hard environment and the whole challenge…” I said. “I was only there as a healer and supporter, but they rewarded me with a lot of the materials. I thought about using them and designed some basic recipes, I’ll use them now, is it okay for you?”
“Yes, yes, it is okay for me… You’re like my second son by now and seeing how much my daughter is close to you, I hope you take responsibility later, that’s all I want in exchange.” He said.
“Responsibility?” I asked while tilting my head.
“Ahaha! Never mind… Go on.” He said.
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