Idle Chat: Celes Strawberries

“I’ll be going to that person’s place today. Ehe, ehehehe...” Celestine muttered to herself with a big grin on her face.

Today was another day in which she would report on Kaoru’s status...or, rather, to go visit the manager of Earth.

“Ahhh, I am ever so grateful to Kaoru! Not only did she come up with the reason that I was able to meet him, but she gave me the great idea of checking in on the world regularly so we would have something in common and things to talk about! And all her antics give me plenty of exciting things to talk about. It’s almost as if she’s doing it on purpose...

“Ah! Maybe she really is doing it on purpose! Ohh, how wonderful you are, my only friend! I never knew how splendid it is to have friends!”

She was speaking much more candidly about “that person” than ever before. ...And although she referred to him as such, he wasn’t technically a person. It seemed she was getting much closer to him, emotionally speaking.

In the meantime, her one-sided feeling of friendship toward Kaoru grew ever stronger.

Celestine’s main body...the name of which was rather impossible for humans to pronounce...saw humans as something akin to how humans saw water fleas. But to the Celestine that was a mere sliver of her main body, which had her abilities lowered to make it possible for her to communicate with humans, she saw humans she took a liking to the same way humans saw chicks or hamsters.

However, she perceived most humans as akin to bugs, and humans she disliked were like mosquitoes or cockroaches to her. So, if any of them annoyed her or got in her way, she didn’t hesitate to dispose of them.

Kaoru was somewhere around the level of a kitten she had received from someone she liked.

But her feelings of appreciation and friendship toward Kaoru were real and specific only to her.

“In any case, I need to seize this opportunity! I can’t be losing to that old lady from the ＃§♭÷⊇∮￡ dimension or anyone else!”

It appeared she had rivals, as well...

But it was a mystery how old they were if Celestine considered them to be old, while she had lived for millions of years herself...

But regardless of the life form’s age, Celestine, That Person, the Old Lady, and all of her other rivals were nothing more than mere fractions of their main bodies, and since each of them had lowered their rates and levels of thinking so that they could communicate with the life forms of their respective worlds, they were all in a similar state.

...In other words, they did each vary to some degree, but they weren’t all that different from Celestine.

The current Celestine had merely adopted an appearance similar to the creatures of her world, and she had no need to mimic the form of a human when visiting That Person, but That Person also happened to take the form of the same creatures, so she always visited him with this appearance, happy that they had matching looks.

“Okay, perfect! Here I go!” Celestine fixed up her appearance, and after checking herself several times, she teleported across dimensions.

As an aside, Celestine’s breasts were small because, within the standards of her species, it wasn’t considered beautiful to have unnecessary lumps of fat hanging off their bodies, having things that could inhibit movement attached to them, or having meaningless curves.

As a species that had no concept of sexual relations or raising children via breastfeeding, they considered small, compact, tight, and efficient bodies to be superior and therefore beautiful.

Celestine had actually made Kaoru’s breasts slightly smaller than her original body’s as a gesture of kindness when reconstructing her, and even made it so they wouldn’t get any bigger through eating or exercise.

...It was done out of consideration. She thought it would make Kaoru happy...

It was completely unnecessary...

“H-How do you do...” Celestine opened with a greeting similar to that of a human’s. It had only been the blink of an eye since they last met, by their standards, but it must have been far too long in Celestine’s mind.

“Oh, hey, Celes. Thanks for stopping by all the time...”

“N-Not at all, I like reporting to you about Kaoru...” Celestine said shyly.

Since they didn’t make use of the concepts of having lovers or getting married, nothing made them happier than having someone wonderful know about them, having another think favorably of them, or having others rely on them in an emergency and relying on them. Of course, this didn’t apply to her main body but rather that of the lowest-grade offspring like this Celestine.

Therefore, Celestine was in the height of happiness at the moment.

Meanwhile, the other offspring, who were of a slightly higher level than Celestine, watched her through monitors in other dimensions, writhing at the sight.

“So bittersweet!!!” From the perspectives of the other offspring, it was like thirty-something-year-old older sisters watching their younger sister getting excited about her first love. They no longer felt such emotions themselves, but watching their younger sibling experience it made them feel strangely happy and entertained...

“Kaoru to the Eyes of the Goddess!”

“This is the Eyes of the Goddess.”

The intonation was a bit off, so “Kaoru” sounded more like “Kirk.” This was just a matter of Kaoru’s preferences. She had taken a tool out of the Item Box to contact the children of the Eyes of the Goddess. The tool in question was the “sound resonance crystal set,” which contained a potion inside of it. It came in a set, as the name suggested, and when you spoke into one of them, the sound resonated through the other crystal to relay the message.

...Though, officially, it was just a potion container that came with such functions.

Kaoru had to open the Item Box and check it to notice any calls from the kids, but the children answered right away whenever she called from her end. To them, the idea of leaving the house that Kaoru had left them unattended, or not having someone on watch with the sound resonance crystal set — their only means of communication with Kaoru — was inconceivable.

So, Kaoru had contacted them regularly, once every few days, to make sure there were no issues at the orphanage or in the royal capital. She kind of had to because, otherwise, the worried orphans would have constantly tried to get hold of her, and she would have been bombarded with alerts every time she opened the Item Box.

“Anything new?”

“Nothing in particular. Oh, Achille just went through his ceremony to officially become a baron. Then he brought up the idea of Lolotte becoming his lover, and there was a big argument with everyone else at the workshop.”

“Ah...”

Achille, the third son of Baron Lyodart’s household and one of the workers at the Maillart Workshop, was to receive the title of baron for his contributions in the plan to keep the Goddess in the country. The reason for him receiving his title was supposedly because he had assisted the Goddess and worked as a driving force in welcoming her to their country.

In truth, they had wanted to make Kaoru royalty or at least a high-ranking aristocrat, but they figured she wouldn’t care about ranks made up by humans. So, in order to increase what little chance they had, they decided to put men of marriageable age associated with her into circumstances that would make it easier for her to marry them.

Hector, of Earl Adan’s household, was already the firstborn son in the family, so he was fine as-is.

Achille had been making moves on Lolotte, the girl from the Eyes of the Goddess who had been named Kaoru’s successor for handling the domestic duties at the Maillart Workshop, but a baron couldn’t just take an orphan girl as a wife, so the idea of being his mistress had been brought up.

“The guys at the workshop wouldn’t have said anything about the third-born son of a low-ranking aristocrat with no title prospects. Making her his mistress would have been one thing, but they couldn’t stay silent when he proposed to make her his lover without any official standing, which would have meant their child wouldn’t have inherited his status or rights as a noble.”

A mistress was similar to a concubine. Their arrangement would be officially acknowledged by the lawful wife, the man would take care of her expenses, and their child would inherit the aristocrat’s status and rights, unlike a lover, who would never be officially recognized.

But for an orphan, even that would be like a Cinderella story. And a commoner was really in no position to argue with a baron. But to the others at the workshop, he was still Achille, their colleague, despite his noble position. And they all felt the need to protect their friend, Lolotte.

“Well, then I guess it’s really up to what she wants... Why don’t you let her decide?”

“We will. Oh, and Achille’s older brother’s wife came to check on us. She said she was worried now that you weren’t around to take care of us. But when we told her that all you did was lie around and that you didn’t cook, clean, or do laundry much, so we always took care of ourselves, she went home looking really mad.”

“Gya...”

“Gya?”

“Gyaaaaaa!!!”

Kaoru then had Emile and Belle take over the conversation and curled up with her head clutched in her hands...