Erudite Kingdom (9)

"If I may ask, may I know what unique skills the four of you possess?" Margrett-san asked.

The time now is around 5 pm, the sky outside was pitch black and snow had started to fall.

Liliath and Nine, together with Jennifer-chan and Miss Margrett-san returned with some sandwiches. I wasn't sure what kind of meat was used in it, but the fact that it had cheese inside it was like.. nice.

If cheese was a thing, why was tofu considered legendary then? I somehow wanted to know the answer to this question.

Besides the sandwich, there was some boiled potatoes and hard candy as dessert. I wasn't really a fan of candy after a meal but it seems to be a custom here because Jennifer-chan was really enjoying those.

Everyone was seated around the kitchen area, it was kinda cramped but there was still some wiggle room to spare. You know, washing your hands before a meal is a thing here fortunately, they even have bar soap. So that's a weird plus. Civilization is more advanced than your typical medieval era.

"Our Unique Skills huh.. we're going to be found out in the end isn't it?"

"Isn't that inevitable?" Nine retorted.

"Prevention should be exercised," Liliath said to back me up.

"I swear hereby not to disclose information regarding your Unique Skills to others," Miss Margrett-san, holding her hand up like she was pledging.

"Liliath, is there a divine retribution system if one breaks a pledge?"Nine asked.

"There is, however, it requires the person to swear upon the name of the God of Law, Thermis-sama."

"I dare not," Miss Margrett-san said.

"To be endowed a divine retribution isn't some light burden, I can understand your concerns," Liliath said.

"To share or not to share.. such is the question.."

"Miss Margrett-san, can I first ask about your spouse?"

"Oh, he's currently busy attending his duties as a royal knight. He should be guarding the outer palace courtyard."

"And papa's very strong too," Jennifer-chan said in between candies.

"That makes sense.. you know. I actually don't even know how to fight, we really just got here to this world last night," Nine confessed.

"I believe you will be able to blossom into something more than you yourself can fathom, it's inevitable for those wielding powers such as yourself," Miss Magrett-chan said with a smile.

"Believe in yourself, that's where the true essence of a hero lies," Jennifer-chan continued. The mother and daughter pair then bumped fists. Wow, how intimate.

I don't really know about that but.. I guess there is some merit to what Jennifer said. If they believe that it's alright then.. so be it.

As for showcasing our Unique Skills.

"Noel, is it alright? To just show them our skills? We're bound to reveal them in the end. One more thing is that.. I feel like the scale of this world is just too big for word about us to spread. It doesn't feel like a novel at all. If it does spread then it's the protagonist's correction's fault."

"Alright then.. " I brought up my UI.

"I will follow whichever choice you choose Noel," Liliath said.

"Yup, that's how it is then."

"If that's the case then.. should we just let them use the apartment? It's a lot more comfortable there," Prune asked.

"It's up to you.. "

"Okay."

"Jennifer-chan and Miss Margrett-san, I want you two to think of a status window right now.."

To keep it short. I attached a BookReader widget to their UI, including Basic status window widget so they can view their stats. BookReader widget so that they can read books from my world.

Enjoy reading to your heart's content.

With my Unique skill explanation done, Nine altered their stats in front of their eyes, and also turned Jennifer's [Magic enhancement (C)] and [Magic Cost Reduction (D)] skill into [Magic enhancement (S)] and [Magic Cost Reduction (S)]. For Miss Margrett, Nine changed upped her [Sharpshooter (B)] to [Sharpshooter (S)]. Miss Margrett was once an adventurer it seems, her stats are pretty high, averaging around 300 to 500 at level 97. Miss Margrett also has [Intuition (C)], but Nine made sure not to touch that.

Jennifer-chan.. let's just say she totally clung to male Nine. Heh, he's more of a protagonist than I am, good job.

Liliath's TALENT was really just demonstration. With Miss Margrett's husbands name, Liliath managed to locate and pinpoint his exact location and..

"He's in the dungeon with the heroes it seems," Liliath said.

On the map, it was a location not too far away from the kingdom, probably. I have no idea where that is even, everything outside that was greyed out.

Miss Margrett-san was surprised to learn of this but she didn't seem to mind it. If anything, she looked proud.. somehow I get this feeling somehow that she's like that flag to our kingdom come. Protagonist correction eh? Crap.

After dinner, we brought them to the apartment, Prune's domain. In a sense.. to give them a feel of what it's like to live in an apartment in the modern world.

Things like a shower, proper toilet, sink, refrigerator, oven.. Prune did invite them to use the bathroom here if they like rather than having to wipe themselves with a cloth and hot water-- which is a really medieval way of cleaning oneself.

They took up Prune's invitation of course. I took the time to browse through some bath amenities like shampoo and body soap for future use.

"What's this?"Jennifer-chan asked.

"It's an electric kettle."

"How beautiful."

"We do use it occasionally, but that itself happens once in a blue moon as magic is more convenient," Liliath said and snapped 6 cups of warm water into existence. We had to use the ceramic cups from Miss Margrett's kitchen because we didn't have enough in the room to accommodate 6 people.

"I apologize for intruding like this," Seeing how elated her daughter was, Margrett-san sounded a little apologetic.

"It's fine. But it's kinda stuffy isn't.. hah.." Prune said-- and then sneezed. She had tissue at hand, fortunately.

"I'll just use this place then," Nine said, sitting on the couch.

"Can I open this?" pointing at the refrigerator.

"Yes."

"What's this?" She then stared at the eggs with round eyes.

"Egg."

"Really?! These are eggs from the other world?!"

"Are eggs rare here?" I asked.

"They aren't particularly hard to come by.. and there are many variants to choose from. That is, however, different from eggs that come from your world, isn't it?" Miss Margrett-san explained.

"Here, please accept some tea."

"Very much appreciated."

"Jenn-chan, you too."

"Thank you very much Liliath-sama!"

And the rest of the evening was spent talking about our experiences in each of our worlds.

To be honest, I didn't expect Liliath's world to be so 'hero-demon lord' oriented. There are like at least 10 cycles of records regarding the battle between demon lords and the otherworlders. So in a way, the people here are well notified when it comes to things in the modern world.

Their world is to ours, what ours is to theirs. To them, our world is fantasy.

Though one thing about their knowledge didn't add up.. which is that the heroes came from a world without TALENTS. I've read novels about that before but.. really? A world without TALENTS? How did the human race survive then?

Part of Darwin's theory of evolution believes that the appearance of TALENT is the main contributing factor to why us humans managed to come so far. No other creatures had TALENTS like us humans..

Or do the heroes have some sort of different evolution theory? A parallel universe perhaps?

Warm tea in a warm house holding a nice conversation together.. we got to learn quite a few things from Miss Margrett-san about this world too. We'll put that to use in time.

Surprisingly, Jennifer-chan would have to go to school tomorrow, so she said we have some time to get used to the ropes of adventuring before accompanying Jennifer for monster hunting.

School? For commoners? In a fantasy world? I'm pretty sure that's not normal. I'm not trying to discriminate here but seriously? People here educated?

Further explanation suggests that the concept of general education was spread around 2 cycles ago, about 200 years ago. It has become a norm for children from the age of 6 to 12 to go to school. In a sense, Jennifer-chan is in her last year. Once winter is over, she's to find an occupation or something.. and she dreams to be an adventurer.

Huh.. even after 200 years of general education, the modernization of this world is still slow isn't it.. no. The architecture of the guild, mana battery and engine-based carriages.. Maybe I just don't know this world well enough yet.

Jennifer-chan, who couldn't keep up with time dozed off on the table. From Miss Margrett's explanation, Jennifer-chan sleeps at around 7 pm, the time now is around 8:30, way past her bedtime.

Is it just me or is Margrett damn strong? She carried a 12 year old like nothing..

Now that they've left..

"We need to find a way to improve our fighting power, for self defence," Nine said.

"Is it really necessary to fight?" Prune was reluctant, I was on the same page.

"We're talking about a sword and magic world here, so it's not something we can just overlook right, Liliath?"

"I will have to agree with Nine."

"How are we going to practice then?"

Yeah, that is a question but..

"Any ideas on how we can come up with a workout schedule? Otherwise we'll go through our days not doing anything at all," Nine asked.

Liliath and I somehow met each other's eyes. That sparkle of crimson in her pupils, we thought of the exact same thing.