"Ah, sorry for intruding.""Good afternoon, Sir Cole."
Unlike the previous guest, Pisces apologized for his sudden appearance while Clyde gave a greeting. They had even closed the door on their way in. Ah, basic etiquette. They both sat on vacant seats on the table and Pisces was the first one to speak.
"Cole."
"Yes?"
"What did you do with it?"
"With what?"
"The recordings."
Cole knew that Pisces was asking about the recordings they had taken while he was back in the〈Huaxia Zone〉
As for what he had done with them, of course, he deleted them. He didn"t want anyone to use him for their research. Oh, and while he was at it, he decided to copy all of〈S.T.E.L.L.A〉"s records. Who knows, he might need them in the future. But Cole decided to continue playing dumb for a bit.
"The recordings of what? All of the videos of you doing "self-service"? Your self-compilation of embarra.s.sing dances? The ones with Madam Wendy--"
"BHASLGHOH! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"
With each sentence, Pisces"s face grew paler and paler. But with the last one, it instantly changed to that of a bright tomato. He blabbered incomprehensible nonsense just to make Cole shut up.
"Ah, information is beautiful."
〔You sure you"re not talking about blackmail?〕
"Steward, if one lives an honest and upright life, they will have nothing to be blackmailed with."
〔...〕
〔Yeah, you"re right.〕
Steward could only nod his head to Cole"s words. Pisces"s face was now slumped down on the table. It looked like he no longer had the will to continue asking about the recordings. Cole guessed that"s the only reason why he and Virgo had come there.
"By the way, what"ll you do with Libra?"
Then popped out the voice of Gemi who was now teaching the freed TV glued trio how to play poker. Despite that, it seemed that Mini was currently winning.
"I could give them back. The only problem is I"m not sure if you"ll be able to split him in two."
"Aries said that you should just keep them. It"s better than watching those two arguing."
It was Mini who responded this time. And only then, did Libra who was gazing out into s.p.a.ce blindly for whatever reason snapped out of their strange state.
「Eh, what? Cole, did you resign?」
"Were you not listening? You"re just a freeloader at this point. I should really give you back."
Cole sighed at the freeloader who was still in the house for some reason. He could still use Libra as a babysitter but that role would one day be unneeded.
As Libra was busy making puppy eyes to Cole, a knock resounded on the door. Eva went to open it again after she had finished helping Felicia wash the dishes.
"Next time, don"t do such a stupid thing. You dummkopf."
"Yes... Boss Rory."
This time, it was a tall red-haired lady who had come to visit. In her hands was the same visitor who had been flung away moments ago.
"Ah... Um..."
"Is your father home?"
Eva"s first impression of the red-haired lady was that she was cool. She didn"t know why. It was more like because of her aura exuded the fact that she was cool. And once again, she pointed to her father who was now served his favourite coffee.
"Ah, if it isn"t Aries. What brings you here today? And I see that you have brought Virgo again with you."
Cole"s mood had soared due to the coffee and excellent execution of black-- I mean information. Aries merely sighed and took a seat on the table and plopped Virgo down on the floor.
"Cole, please call them by their names."
"Hm? Is it wrong to call them by their position?"
Cole tilted his head and asked. He was already used to calling people by their positions. Especially people in power. It normally didn"t apply to regular citizens, however.
"No, it"s just that they"re in the process of Spirit a.s.similation."
"If you keep on calling out the Spirit"s name, their personality will surface instead of the Host"s."
"Spirit a.s.similation?"
Cole surmised that it probably had to due with the fact why Libra was the only walking Spirit he had seen. He had originally thought that everyone else had kept their locked at home due to their uselessness, looks like that was no the case.
Cole looked at Libra. He didn"t want to have such a troublesome side-effect around.
"Hai, you can have this back."
He had a wonderful business smile on and was handing over Libra like a nice gift basket. Libra had no idea when Cole picked them up, but when they realized the situation they were in, they immediately started whining.
「NOOO! Master!」
"What Master? I don"t recall ever admitting that. The only reason you"re here is that I used to be the Libra Department Head. Now that I"m not, I can give you back."
Contracts with Spirits were like job or business contracts somewhat. There was no point in making it involve life and death since Spirits were immortal after all. They were destined to hop from place to place.
Knowing this, Cole simply thought of it as having Libra hop back to their old place.
「But you pa.s.sed my trial!」
"What trial? You only pulled up whatever corresponded to the word "balance", and "law", in my memories."
「N-no, I didn"t.」
Libra"s eyes started becoming shifty. He knew the moment he encountered the second part of the "Trial". It wasn"t even an actual court. It was the court from Pheonix Right.
"Then if you really want to stay, prove that you"re useful."
「?」
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Cole brought everyone out of the house to enjoy the〈Neutral Zone〉"s snow-blindness inducing scenery.
"〈Hollow Sword〉"
As Cole muttered out, a pure black sword formed in his hand. It was simplistic in design. It was a double-edged blade that didn"t have a crossguard. But it instead had six, small floating swords around it. In place of where the rain guard would usually be was instead a hole in the shape of a four-pointed star.
"Ho... Is this a product of Sir Cole"s〈Chaos Magic〉?"
"Yes."
"? But it no longer has that slightly reddish glow."
Clyde inspected the sword in Cole"s hands with great curiosity. He had felt that he had seen something similar, but he couldn"t quite put his finger on it.
"I got rid of it."
"Eh?"
Clyde"s face stiffened slightly.
"But Sir Cole, that meant that you changed the properties of the Mana itself."
"Yeah, so? It"s like rearranging atoms. However, because of that. It had changed itself to〈Hollow Magic〉"
Cole had actually only done so recently. The time when Virgo came barging in. He didn"t want the house to glow red from the inside so he got rid of it. And the unexpected result was this.
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〈Hollow Magic〉: SSS
► Hollow out everything from within. Hollow in everything from the outside.
*Adds the chance to inflict 〈Status: Hollow〉
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That was all that was listed. Steward could detail anything more than that due to the lack of info.
Cole decided that he would do more thorough checks of the ability later tonight. The only thing he had gathered so far was that it could still be used to construct objects. Like how "Chaos" in Greek mythology was what the maker of the Cosmos had used to produce and order the universe.
"..."
Clyde simply took out a notebook and started writing down some notes. He then placed it back and joined the others to watch the demonstration.
Cole twirled the sword around for a bit and then placed it in front of him. He took a calm breath and swung it down and then made the action of sheathing it again. The action wasn"t done with much force and it looked like he was only lightly slashing the air and yet it was still crisp and sharp.
But not even a second later, the ground before them split into two and the earth had begun to rumble. The audience seemed to be relatively calm watching this and continued watching despite the shakes.
But they were still impressed. The only reason they hadn"t made a move was that there was no point in carelessly making a decision and then dying.
"Now, try reverting everything back to the way it was before."
Cole pointed towards the enormous chasm that had come to existence. Libra"s smile had already frozen the moment it opened up. It really didn"t like using its powers mostly due to his laziness.
But Libra knew that if it wanted to continue live outside, they would need to follow their Master"s request. Libra crouched down on the ground and placed their hand on the dirt.
「〈Influence〉」