“Is she a new healer to your party?”
“Yes, that’s right but she is not a player but an NPC.”
“I see. I didn’t expect you to take on an NPC companion given that you already.. Sorry.”
He noticed that Celestina was frowning and dropped that topic and instead rubbed the fox girl’s orange hair.
“So anyway with her now it looks like I will finally have to buy some player housing when I log off. Honestly I am kind of worried about what to do.”
“Can’t you just leave her in your farm? Also, you can easily deactivate NPC companions when you log off.”
“That’s the problem, you see. The system categorises her as a pet rather than a companion.”
Even if I were to haphazardly introduce a pet and taming system into the game soon, I wonder if it would even apply to her since she is a creation of the Saintesses’ mysterious powers with which even Lain or I can’t interfere with.
“I can take care of her when you log off. She can stay at my mansion and Helena can look after her.”
“Huh, me?”
Helena seemed surprised.
“Why are you not good with kids?”
“No, that’s not it! I used to look after my cousins when they were younger…”
“That’d be a great help! I am really tired from clearing this dungeon. Also I have to deal with my children and family when I leave here.”
Come to think of it, The Farmer did not have a partner as far as I was aware. Should I put an end to the food buffs which make his single character build possible? No, but only a few players could afford it so for now it wasn’t such a problem.
We left for the entrance of the dungeon together and The Farmer left this kitsune girl who had been staring at me this whole time.
“You are not normal, are you onisan?”
“What did the Saintess tell you about me?”
“Saintess? What Saintess? You just smell weird?”
It was a good thing that Lain wasn’t there cause she’d be making fun of me right now.
“Do… I really have to look after her?”
“Are you just bad with kids?”
“No!”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about it. I’ll have Rina look after her.”
“But Raphael, we don’t really have a mansion to keep her in, right?”
“Yes, we are going to buy one now.”
“But, all the housing stock in the Jerusalem city walls has been bought already, so is it going to be outside the city walls? We can’t teleport freely so it’d be hard to go there and reach her.”
Celestina uncharacteristically pinched Rise’s cheeks. To be fair I was tempted to do the same but I held back. Maybe when there’s no one else around.
“No, it’s going to be better if we do it somewhere remote so we don’t have to worry about someone seeing us teleporting to the place. Jerusalem is too congested now. Rina.”
“Yes, master.”
Rina materialised herself behind Rise and started pinching Rise’s cheek all the while maintaining her expressionless face.
“Noo! Stop! Grrr!”
Evidently, unable to bear having her face squished by the two girls, the fox girl leapt into the air and hid behind me touching her reddened cheeks and holding back tears from her frowning eyes. All of a sudden I was starting to doubt whether I could leave Rise with Rina.
“Now, now, you two stop bullying the little girl.”
Helena stood between Rise and the two girls.
“Bleh! Why should I listen to you!?”
Celestina put her tongue out and pulled down on her cheek. It’s strange, Celestina didn’t usually act so childishly despite being basically a child from my perspective.
Cough… Cough…
I should nip this in the bud before I am forced to deal with another needlessly violent situation right before the By-Election. I also didn’t know what Rise’s transformation abilities meant so I didn’t want to cause some kind of fight here.
“Celestina and Rina. I don’t need you to listen to Helena here but just listen to me now, we are on the cusp of the by-election, so I need you to remain calm and help Rise get used to this world.”
“As you wish, master.”
“…Yes, of course. I am sorry for causing a fuss.”
I deliberately included Rina in my orders because I didn’t want to make it sound like I was singling out Celestina. Thankfully, Rina just didn’t seem to care about most things. It helped to have someone level-headed like that around even if I sometimes wondered what went on in her head.
Rina bowed and so did Celestina but I saw her give the eye to Helena when she thought I was not looking. I stopped myself from sighing. This was good enough for now. I wasn’t foolish enough to hope anything would sort itself out by itself.
