To become a king and a magician

"So slow!"

Inside the office, Aozaki Touko, sitting on the floor with her legs outstretched, glared fiercely at the two people who had returned.

"I waited until now because you said we were going to eat at the office. I should have just eaten out."

"Although we've only received the final payment, that doesn't mean we can start spending money recklessly, teacher. Eating at home is much cheaper than eating out."

As he spoke, Natsukawa Tora took the beer can from her hand.

"Also, drink less alcohol, it's bad for your health. You've already drunk so much before we've even started dinner... There's almost half a case of this, isn't there? You drank all of this by yourself?"

"Without realizing it—I'm starving! Go cook me some food! I want snacks to go with my drinks! And cute boys! Natsukawa, you old man, stay away from me!"

"I'm only twenty-one! I'm not old enough to be called an uncle yet!"

"Brother, is this what they call a drunken rampage?"

"Grey, you don't need to know this kind of knowledge." Natsukawa Tora sighed and rubbed his forehead. It was embarrassing that adults would only impart unnecessary trivia to children. Maybe he should reduce Grey's contact with Aozaki Touko in the future?

After sweeping up all the bottles and jars scattered on the floor and throwing them into the trash can, Natsukawa Tora moved the obviously drunk Aozaki Touko to the sofa and said to Gray, "Gray, you stay here and take care of her. I'll go cook... Ah!"

It was only then that Natsukawa Torara remembered that because Aozaki Touko had said she could use magic to start a fire and cook, he hadn't bought an induction cooker. And then...

Looking at Aozaki Touko, who was already passed out drunk on the sofa, Natsukawa Torato suddenly felt an urge to smash her body.

You were supposed to be in charge of starting the fire! What's with you getting drunk first?!

"Brother, what should we do?"

"I'll try to start a fire; at worst, it'll just blow up the house."

It's not the first time anyway, so let it explode. I'll just treat it as practice.

Watching Natsukawa Tiger leave with the groceries, Grey felt a little uneasy. She took out Yad from under her cloak and shook it: "Yad, what do you think?"

"What? How should I see it?"

"My brother went to cook."

"Well, it should be fine. Although he blew up a kitchen before, he's grown a lot in the past few years. His control over magic shouldn't be a problem, right? The only thing left is the taste—hehehe, Grey, you should be able to eat anything, right? After all, it was made by your beloved brother!"

"What nonsense are you spouting!"

Grey, her face instantly turning bright red, lifted Ad high into the air—

"Hey, hey, hey! Don't smash it! Don't smash it! Smashing it against the corner of the table will really break it! It really will!" Yad pleaded hurriedly. "Hey, what are you being shy about? Let me tell you, I'm the type who gets completely overwhelmed by a straight shot, just go for it—"

"Clang-crack-!"

"It hurts so much! Aa ...

Extremely shy, Grey threw Yad onto the ceiling, where he slammed hard against the hanging fan.

16. Xiaochuan Apartment

"Tiger."

"Yes, I'm here, teacher."

"Explain to me what this thing you made is."

"It's a doll, teacher."

Doll?

Looking at the dilapidated structure on her desk that was practically a skeleton with no shape whatsoever, Aozaki Touko took off her glasses, rubbed them several times, and then glared fiercely at Natsukawa Tora.

"Tiger, if I remember correctly, my request to you was to [make the simplest possible doll], right?"

"As you said, teacher. Isn't this just a very simple doll?"

"But I didn't ask you to use the leftover pork ribs from the past few days to make dolls!"

It has been four months since Natsukawa Tora officially became Aozaki Touko's apprentice. After receiving three months of training in the theory of dolls and watching Aozaki Touko make nearly ten dolls, Aozaki Touko, believing that she had taught him enough, assigned Natsukawa Tora his first assignment.

—Make a simple doll using any material.

Ultimately, the materials used to make dolls are not fixed. Clay, wood, metal... even water can be used to make dolls, but it requires a very high level of skill.

Natsukawa Tora was still a complete novice when it came to doll making, so Aozaki Touko didn't intend to set too high a standard for him. As long as he could make something that was about 70-80% acceptable, it would be considered acceptable. But she never expected that Natsukawa Tora would use the bones left over from his meals these past few days to make it!

The limbs were made from chicken wings from the day before yesterday, while the body was carved from pork ribs from last night. And the design is surprisingly good; although it uses a difficult dragon, the accuracy is extremely high.

It can even move!

"I...sigh, I don't even know what to say."

After holding it in for ages, Aozaki Touko finally sighed helplessly, "Can't you just use proper ingredients?"

"Is there anything wrong with the materials? Aren't they all animal bones? Since magicians from the Age of Gods could use dragon bones, there's no reason why we modern magicians can't use cow bones, right? Besides, I've done the magic tricks properly, following your instructions. And using cow bones is cheaper too."

"..."

Aozaki Touko wanted to refute, but logically speaking, what her apprentice said made no problem at all.

Taking a deep breath and suppressing her urge to continue criticizing, Aozaki Touko picked up the dragon doll on the table: "I'll give you a passing grade. It would be better if you could use normal materials next time."

"I understand."

"But where did you find the skeleton structure of a dragon?" Aozaki Touko asked, examining the doll. "This structure is not exactly the same as the skeletons of various existing creatures. You didn't actually find a dragon, did you?"

"Hmm...it's just my imagination."

As he spoke, Natsukawa Tora took out the re-enactment device.

"That being said, there are many things I can't be sure of just by relying on my imagination, so I linked my thoughts with the reenactment device, which helped me recreate the skeletal structure of the dragon species as I imagined."

An operation never before heard of.

Aozaki Touko couldn't help but be a little surprised: "This thing can actually do something like this?"

"Only I can do it, after all, his access is limited to me alone, and the feeling of mental linking isn't very good either. It's like playing computer games all night and then having to go to class."

"It will put a burden on the brain. That's true. After all, this behavior is no different from directly reading your thoughts. You're lucky that your brain isn't having any problems right now. Tiger, don't use this method too often in the future. Although this is just a speculation, if you use it frequently, you may develop Alzheimer's disease prematurely."

"Yes."

He verbally agreed, but in reality, Natsukawa Torato had no intention of abandoning the project. According to his plan, if he could complete the puppetization of the reenactment device step by step, the mental link would need to be maintained almost constantly.

(I need to start training my mental strength too... I should be able to just talk to Meryl later.)

If it's that scumbag dream demon who's extremely skilled in illusions and dreams, he should have a lot of experience in training mental strength.

"That concludes this assignment. It's almost time; who will make lunch today?"

"Logically, it should be me, but I have something to do next, so I'll have to trouble you to do it yourself, teacher."

Something?

Aozaki Touko was quite surprised: "You actually have something to do? That's strange."

"Does it really surprise you that I have my own things to take care of?"

"Of course, after all, you've always given the impression of not having much personal life, and besides, Grey is always with you, so you hardly have any private time, right?" Aozaki Touko laughed. "Speaking of which, where's Grey today? Did she sleep in?"

"Didn't you say you wanted to have lunch? Grey went to the supermarket to buy groceries. Judging by the time, she should be on her way back by now."

Glancing at the clock on the wall, Natsukawa Torato turned and walked towards the door: "Then I'll be going now. Teacher, please remember to tell Grey that she doesn't need to buy groceries tonight; I'll bring them back."

"OK. Oh right, buy some wine on the way back, we've run out of wine at home."

That drunkard!

--------------------------

Ogawa Apartment.

He stopped his motorcycle in front of the apartment building, took off his helmet, and took out all the intelligence he had gathered over the past three months from his backpack.

As Aozaki Touko said, he does have almost no private time, but that doesn't mean he has none at all. He just needs to slightly reduce his sleep time, and the time available for personal activities will naturally be squeezed out.

Time is like a sponge; you can always squeeze some out.

During these three months, Natsukawa Torato also uncovered quite a bit, such as the death of Araya Sōren that occurred near the Ryōgi family residence two years ago. His current visit to the Ogawa apartment was also related to that incident.

Two years ago, shortly after Araya Sōren's body was discovered, Ryougi Shiki was confirmed to have gone missing. For nearly two years, there has been no news of her, and even the Ryougi family does not know where she is. The last time she was seen was when she walked into an alley, and she has vanished since.

However, a month ago, someone said they saw a person resembling Ryougi Shiki entering and leaving the apartment near Ogawa's apartment.

While the veracity of this information cannot be confirmed, the fact that such a message has been circulating suggests that the Ogawa Apartment does indeed house someone who could cause such rumors to surface.

"Araya Souren died two years ago... So, the Ogawa apartment shouldn't have turned into that hell on earth, right?"

In the original work, due to Araya Souren's experiments, all the residents of the Ogawa Apartment were turned into dolls, endlessly repeating the cycle of life and death, making the interior environment a veritable otherworldly hell. But this time, Araya Souren died two years ago.

"Well, since we're already here, let's go in and take a look."

17. Illegally entering the boudoir of the Liangyi family.

The interior structure of Ogawa Apartments was designed to be somewhat complex because Araya Sōren had ulterior motives from the beginning. Spirals, yin and yang, illusions... a lot of magic knowledge was applied in the design. Even a first-class magician would need some time to figure out the situation here. Ordinary residents who do not understand magic would also think, "This building is really complicated."

The first and second floors were originally set up as entertainment areas, so they are very spacious halls. They are divided into east and west sections by elevators. The same applies to the entire apartment building. Apart from the first and second floors, the only way to move to the other side is by elevator.

The moment I stepped into the apartment, a feeling as if I had fallen into the sea instantly washed over my entire body.

Natsukawa Tora frowned. "A barrier? Araya Souren is long dead. According to the information we've gathered, this place functions perfectly as a regular residential building. Logically, there shouldn't be a barrier here. Is it inherent to the building itself? Or has someone exploited this enormous legacy?"

Neither.

Surprisingly, seemingly in response to Natsukawa Tora's self-talk, a reply came from one side of the elevator.

With her hands in her pockets, wearing her signature red jacket and blue kimono, Ryougi Shiki leaned against the wall, smiling at Natsukawa Torato: "I thought it was someone else, but it's you. What's up?"

"That's the question I want to ask."

Natsukawa Torato was somewhat surprised: "Why is the next head of the Ryougi family, who has been missing for two years, here?"

“Because I live here,” Ryougi Shiki replied matter-of-factly. “Everyone needs a place to live, otherwise what’s the difference between them and stray dogs? Plus, it’s free here, so I’ve decided to stay.”

Why not go back to the Ryougi family?

"I simply don't want to go back. But by asking such a question, can I assume you were hired by my family to find me?"

He shook his head decisively, shrugged, and said with a smile, "No. I just wanted to know some things, so I did some research on what's been happening in this city over the past two years. I found something was off, so I came here. To be honest, meeting you was unexpected."