126. Festival

126. Festival

Several days passed since then.

Mother, seemingly unaware that I had returned to my original body halfway through, went back home with a refreshed expression. The added bonus was her telling me to keep it a secret from Father and Freya.

Although I wanted to spend more time with Mother, there was nothing I could do since she had her own work. If I were a child, I might have thrown a tantrum, but I am an adult.

In any case, when summer vacation comes, I’ll go back up north. I can catch up with Mother as much as I want then.

My job is to grow up healthy until then.

…Since I’m not confident about doing well in my studies.

Come to think of it, my midterm scores came out today. It was a whopping 25 points. I heard I only got the last question right… And I even got scolded by the professor for scribbling on the exam paper.

Hmm.

I thought I did well.

I wonder if it’s a common phenomenon across different worldlines that if you think you did well on an exam, you’ll fail it. I used to mess up exams like this often in my past life, but I didn’t think it would happen here too.

Well, what’s done is done.

Obsessing over a past exam is something only an idiot would do.

…Still, I got a little greedy and chased the professor all the way to their quarters to ask for a better grade, but in the end, I failed. It seems like it didn’t work because I broke the wall of their house, so I should try to be more moderate next time.

“Master… My tail keeps moving on its own.”

“That’s how beast-folk are.”

And Ur, in the wolf beast-folk version that Mother left as a gift, still hadn’t adapted to the ears and tail that had appeared on her.

Certainly, when something like that first appears, it’s a bit difficult to get used to. I was the same when I first transmigrated. But she’s cute like that, so it doesn’t really matter.

As I stroked Ur’s head, she smiled goofily and wagged her tail. She’s more like a puppy than a wolf. No, now that I think about it, I think I heard in my past life that wolves and dogs are almost the same—

“Hah, hah… Sister!”

“Freya?”

At that moment, something black came running and blocked my way. There was no need to ask who it was. It was my beloved sister, Freya.

Freya hissed and shouted at me.

“What the hell did you and Mom do last time?!”

“Huh?”

On the day I had sex with Mother, Freya met me only around evening. Freya saw my soaked body and interrogated me about what I had been doing, but she seemed to just accept my words that I had met with Mother. But now, it seemed she was feeling some doubt.

“What did we do? They were just ordinary things…”

“Ordinary? What’s ordinary about it!”

Freya grabbed my arm and interrogated me. But even with her asking this way, there was nothing I could say. Because they really were just ordinary things.

Meeting Mother, turning into a child’s body, being rubbed naked, and being relentlessly thrusted into with a tail—that’s not really anything special, is it?

Even though it wasn’t me who was thrusted into, in fact.

Freya’s eyes went wide with anger as she gripped me even tighter.

“Surely you didn’t do ‘things that are common between women’…”

“Oh, Light!”

KWA-A-ANG!

At that moment, Ur stretched out her hand and fired a pure white beam of destruction at Freya. I could see faint green magic sparkling in the air, so it seemed she had put up a barrier in that short time, but it appeared she couldn’t completely cancel out the impact, as Freya was sent flying far away into the sky and disappeared.

“I have dealt with the bad person!”

“Hmm, okay.”

Freya isn’t a bad person, though.

It seemed I would have to teach Ur about her power later.

After Mother turned Ur into a cute form, Ur’s power had somehow become several hundred times stronger. It was beyond just firing light; she could completely pulverize everything in front of her with it.

Mother had left a message about this… but it was too difficult, so I didn’t remember it. I only remember her saying something about resonance amplification due to uniform alignment and morphological synchronization of the mana-user’s pattern through shape transformation.

I started walking again.

The scenery of the academy was no different from the first day.

No, it had changed a little. It just felt like there were more female students? I don’t know if it’s my imagination or if it’s really the case.

What was certain was that the sight of girls holding hands, hugging, or kissing each other was more frequent than before.

It was a truly ordinary thing.

“Skadi~!”

“Priscilla? Claire is here too.”

“Hi.”

Before long, Priscilla and Claire found me. Claire was as small as ever, but Priscilla had a pure white, fluffy scarf wrapped around her neck, unlike usual.

“A pure white light went KWA-A-ANG~ so I thought, ‘Oh, Skadi is here!’ and came running!”

“I see. Priscilla, what’s with that scarf?”

Priscilla took off the scarf from her neck, held it up, and said,

“It’s a scarf I made from the tail fur that came out of Skadi! Would you like to touch it?! It smells nice and it’s super soft!”

“Ah, no…”

Why did she make something like that? It was a little hard to understand.

Leaving Priscilla who was burying her face in the scarf and taking a deep breath, Claire approached me.

“You’re not busy right now, are you?”

“Nope.”

“There’s a festival over there, wanna go together?”

“A festival?”

As I tilted my head, Claire spoke. The way she was grinning while talking suggested an attitude of ‘Of course, you wouldn’t know.’ It made me feel subtly annoyed.

“Apparently, the academy holds a festival around this time. I also heard it from someone else. They said there’s a lot to see, so why don’t we go and take a look?”

“Hmm.”

Is it like a college festival from my past life?

There was no particular reason to refuse. I held hands with Claire and Priscilla and headed there.

As the streets became increasingly crowded, I had no choice but to turn Ur into her sword form and hang her from my waist. A little later, Priscilla pointed somewhere and said,

“Wow, look over there! It seems to be a weapon demonstration made by the Magical Artifacts Department!”

“Magical Artifacts Department?”

“Yes! The Magical Artifacts Department is… well, it boasts an accident rate of 99.9 percent…”

I ignored Priscilla, who was rambling on with a bunch of random explanations, and headed for the demonstration area.

It was a large vacant lot that seemed to have been temporarily set up. There, students were showing off their weapons by holding their own big, heavy, and giant contraptions and firing at targets with a loud bang.

—This weapon is a super-reinforced alloy vibrating single-molecule magic-driven laser-bladed curved sword that can even scratch a Mithril scarecrow!

—Woooow!

—If you swing it like this, the blade bends like a snake… Ugh! It’s going wild! Help me!

Cute.

It was quite amusing to see someone suffering from the very weapon they wielded. Another student brought a huge railgun, but it exploded and sent them flying far away. It made me wonder if this was a comedy show instead of a weapon demonstration.

Turning my gaze for a moment, I saw a female student holding something not very large and passionately explaining her weapon. Looking closely, it was a weapon similar to a gun that I used to see often in my past life.

“What I’m introducing today is an innovation in weaponry! It will overturn the classics of swords and staves!! It is!!! The magic pistol!!”

The female student spoke with great energy, then aimed at the target and pulled the trigger. With a familiar sound of “Pang!”, the flying bullet struck the blue scarecrow and embedded itself within it.

Cheers erupted from the crowd.

“What do you think! A weapon that’s cheap, easy to use, and guarantees lethality! If you just invest in it, I can make as many as you want…”

The female student suddenly put on a pathetic expression and urged for investment. It seemed that this ‘demonstration’ was some kind of investment briefing.

The female student soon raised the pistol and said,

“Anyone who wants to actually shoot it! Anyone can come and shoot it!”

“I’ll try.”

“Eh. G-Grand Duchess?!”

A pistol seemed interesting, didn’t it? It reminded me of my past life.

The weapon’s nostalgic appearance made me raise my hand and approach the female student.

“Y-Yes! You just hold it like this and shoot…”

“Shoot me.”

“Pardon?”

Slicing a bullet with a sword. It was one of the things I had truly wanted to try since my past life. I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it here in this fantasy world, but to think an opportunity would arise like this.

“I-It’s dangerous! It may be small, but it’s really strong…”

“It’s okay. This much is fine.”

I had used that blue scarecrow before during training in the North, and it’s quite soft. It’s soft enough to be easily diced. If it didn’t even pierce through it but just embedded itself, it wouldn’t hurt if I took the hit bare-handed.

“No, really…”

“Shoot.”

Under my pressure, the female student had no choice and slowly raised the gun towards me. And then, the trigger was pulled.

Bang!

“I really did warn… Huh?”

“See? It’s not that dangerous.”

There was no need to take out Ur. All I needed was my index finger and thumb. The shining bullet I caught in my hand soon turned into a wisp of smoke and disappeared. This was another scene I wanted to try, and I finally achieved my wish.

I left a review for the female student.

“From what I can see, this is too weak. It doesn’t seem suitable as a weapon.”

“Huh?! No, this is actually really strong…”

Behind the bewildered female student, the crowd was giving off a cold atmosphere. As I focused and listened in, it seemed they were starting to doubt the weapon’s performance.

—It was caught by a human hand? What about the Mithril it pierced earlier?

—Is it a manipulation?

—Isn’t it because the opponent is the Grand Duchess?

—Still, it’s a person. There’s no way a person can be harder than Mithril.

—Aish, I thought this one would blow up!

“Huh? Huh?? W-Wait a minute! Where are you all going! That was real Mithril… Huh? No! This is a product I developed with a loan!!”

The crowd vanished in an instant.

The female student collapsed in despair onto the empty lot. I walked up to her and asked,

“Are you okay?”

“No… I’ll probably have to go die soon…”

Perhaps because the people disappeared because of me, the female student didn’t say anything but was staring at me with a very resentful gaze.

Feeling a little sorry, I decided to give her some advice instead.

“Next time… try making something other than a weapon.”

“There is no next time for me…”

“Hmm.”

The girl looked extremely depressed. As I was wondering what to do, Claire approached me.

“What are you doing?”

“I accidentally ruined what this girl was doing, so I was wondering what to do.”

The female student who was lying on the dirt ground cried and shouted towards the sky.

“You damn dogs of capitalism! Go eat shit! Hwaaaang!!!”

“…”

Claire’s face was strangely crumpled, as if she didn’t know what kind of expression to make. Claire pulled my arm.

“Let’s just go.”

“Hey, but I was in the wrong, so I should help her.”

“Haa…”

At my firm reply, Claire sighed and trudged over to the female student. Then she spoke to her quietly. I leaned in to eavesdrop and it sounded like they were talking about a new product and investment.

—What are you going to make?

—It’s a masturbation device that girls will love. If you press it here, this egg-shaped thing vibrates…

—Make it right now.

I don’t know what it was, but it seemed to be a success. The female student’s face brightened, and soon Claire returned to me.

“Let’s go. It’s settled.”

“Thanks, Claire.”

“It’s nothing… hehe…”

Why is she making such a devious expression? I don’t know.

After picking up Priscilla, who was still rambling on about the Magical Artifacts Department even though we weren’t there, we started walking around the festival streets again.