Volume 9, Chapter 11 – Eternal Angel’s Blessing

After a simple breakfast of bread and milk porridge, Yisi, who hadn’t slept well all night, let out a big yawn as Mary began to clear the dishes from the table. Although the sunlight streaming into the room through the dining room window was mood-lifting, and the quiet atmosphere, broken only by the clinking of cutlery, was very comfortable, fatigue was still fatigue. Without proper rest, the drowsy feeling would not dissipate from her mind.

Camilla, sitting below Yisi, looked puzzled.

“Onee-sama, did something happen last night? You made quite a loud noise.”

“I heard it too. The sound of Master being happy,” Mary added.

“It completely ruined the mood,” Edith chimed in.

What kind of mood could Pepe possibly have in the middle of the night?

That said, since Refina wasn’t at breakfast, the answer should be obvious. The soundproofing in this mansion wasn’t very good, yet the two of them had managed to be so discreet that I was completely unaware—or maybe there was noise, but I was too excited and ignored my surroundings.

First, Yisi discreetly glanced at Edith. Seeing that Edith’s attention was on her own fingernails and not on her, Yisi secretly breathed a sigh of relief. She clasped her left hand, the one with the ring, with her right and smiled.

“Something nice happened.”

It’s probably better not to tell my companions. It would be terrible if it started a competition.

“What was it?” Camilla naturally pressed for more.

Then, Tiffany answered in a perfectly calm tone, “Falling in love.”

“Huh?”

As a reflex, the muscles in Yisi’s face stiffened.

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Did Tiffany eavesdrop outside my door?

No, the point should be that Tiffany is deliberately trying to stir up trouble.

For some reason, Mary let out a small gasp that sounded like envy.

“Ooh.”

“Onee-sama wasn’t here last night… Did you go to see Andrea?” Camilla’s tone was like that of a wife questioning her husband about an affair.

A sense of guilt welled up. Not daring to look Camilla in the eye, Yisi laughed nervously, “Ahaha,” trying to change the subject. “Eh, yes, I did go to see Andrea, but it was to adjust the trigger-activated magic items…”

“I knew it. Otherwise, Onee-sama wouldn’t be in such a daze this morning.” Her fine eyebrows arched upwards, and Camilla pulled the standing Laxy to her side. “Isn’t this what you like, Onee-sama? The Blood Clan doesn’t reach adulthood until they’re 20. Andrea is even younger than Mary.”

“M-Miss Camilla…” Mary first cried out in surprise as she was pulled, nearly stumbling, then became flustered at the latter half of Camilla’s sentence—though Yisi had no idea why she was flustered.

As for Laxy, who was also pulled over, she simply looked confused, unable to comprehend human predilections. Although Laxy understood that Camilla was talking about her own maturity in terms of feminine charm, from Laxy’s perspective, she didn’t understand what was so charming about it. Of course, if Yisi had time to explain, she would say that this charm was just like what Laxy once wrote in her diary about liking a handsome, blue-haired hero who rode a dragon. The blue hair and strong jawline were the same kind of charm as a woman’s maturity.

For someone like me, who’s always talking about “onee-sama,” liking Andrea is indeed an inexcusable crime.

That’s why I have to hide the secret of the ring.

Yisi screamed internally. Thank goodness her companions hadn’t noticed the ring on her hand, otherwise she couldn’t imagine what would be happening now.

“Hoh, even when it comes to breast size, you shouldn’t put yourself in the same category as Her Majesty the Queen, Camilla. Precisely because Her Majesty is not yet an adult, she still has room to grow. But as for you, a human who is already sixteen… although you always use magic to feign it, as your older sister, I see it all very clearly. It’s just too pitiful.”

This is bad.

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Even though Pepe had eased her embarrassment, it only made the simmering chemical reaction more intense. Camilla usually used magic to create the appearance of a suitable bust. Combined with her beautiful face and proper ladylike demeanor, she was always praised by outsiders, especially men. But having seen all of Camilla, Yisi knew that her figure was actually quite barren, perhaps even more so than her own or Pepe’s—just a slight, barely-there curve. Her usual shapely figure was merely the result of padding or magical illusion.

Even I wouldn’t dare mention this in front of Camilla…

Normally, Refina would be here to smooth things over, but the problem was, Refina wasn’t here now. Yisi could even see black flames burning furiously behind Camilla.

Goddess above, why didn’t you grant Camilla a perfect figure?

“I see… so that’s how you’ve always seen me, you woman… Hehehe, I can’t just pretend I didn’t hear that.”

Edith knocked on the table without a trace of fear. “Besides that, shouldn’t the focus be over there? What happened last night that made Yisi cry out in the middle of the night? I don’t think it was as simple as just a meeting.”

“Next time, I’ll be sure to ask Andrea properly. For now, you explain what you just said.”

“I was merely stating a fact. In the end, such things should only be shown to someone you like. Deliberately faking it to satisfy your vanity only makes you more pitiful. If you have enough charm on your own, it doesn’t matter if you have them or not; it won’t affect how others see you—that’s what I think. You, Camilla, seem to think differently. Well, it is precisely because of this that the differences and respective charms between one member of the Blood Clan and another, and between the Blood Clan and humans, are made apparent.”

If I stay here any longer, the flames of war will eventually reach me.

They might ask me questions like, “Who’s better, me or Edith?” Honestly, it’s both a headache and a cliché.

Time to make a quiet exit.

While making a shushing gesture at Tiffany, Yisi nodded at Laxy, signaling her to handle things here and make sure the two didn’t come to blows. Yisi then quietly left the table with Mary, who had finished clearing the dishes.

For some reason, Mary was all smiles as she walked down the corridor with Yisi.

“What’s wrong? Does their argument make you happy, Mary?”

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“Eh?” Completely surprised that her happiness was showing on her face, Mary fumbled in a panic, nearly dropping the dishes. “N-No, nothing of the sort! I’ve always hoped that Miss Camilla and Miss Edith could sit together amicably.”

“Then why are you smiling so much?”

“Well…” Mary’s eyes darted around, her gaze landing on Yisi’s left hand. Her cautious look reminded Yisi of a mischievous pixie. “Because Master suddenly has a ring on her hand… You never had one before. An-chan gave it to you, didn’t she? The thought of An-chan and Master’s relationship getting better and better just makes me happy.”

It makes her happy?

If Mary had wings like Laxy, she would surely be the cutest angel. Even though she noticed the ring, she didn’t point it out at the table.

An urge to tease her arose.

Yisi spread her fingers, showing the ring on her ring finger to Mary, and said with feigned nonchalance, “Ah~ ah~, if this continues, An-chan is going to steal Mary’s place. My heart will only have room for Andrea, with no space for anyone else.”

“Eh? Will that happen?”

A flicker of uncertainty instantly appeared in Mary’s purple eyes.

So she does worry about her position after all. Her cuteness level just went up another notch. It might be selfish to say, but in Yisi’s eyes, if Mary hadn’t wavered just now, she would have felt a sense of being abandoned by her, a subtle feeling of loss that it wouldn’t matter even if her master was stolen away by someone else.

“Oh, right. Mary, would you like to help me test some magic items in a bit?”

If there were no problems this time, she could hand over those trigger-activated magic items to her companions. With the tests and advice from Boris and Andrea, she already had a general understanding of the issues with the first batch. Contrary to her initial assumption that the trigger points were too sensitive, the key problem was that the magic she had packed into the items was too powerful. As a result, when some of the offensive trigger-activated items were activated, they would either interfere with the user’s ongoing actions or simply blow the user away as well.

Examples included various mixed-magic spells like [Fireball · Triple Acceleration Type III], [Swampification · Diffusion Type], and [Piercing Spear · Elemental Spear Formation]. She hadn’t noticed when she used them herself because her defense was too high to feel it. For Boris and the others, however, they discovered the problem immediately.

According to Boris, he had lost several suits of armor because of this. Fortunately, following the operating procedures Yisi had given him, Boris had worn the [Eternal Angel’s Blessing] soft armor made by Yisi before testing the trigger-activated magic weapons. Otherwise, just one of those explosions would have cost him half his life.

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Afterward, Boris had even praised the defensive performance of the soft armor, saying that as long as he wore it, he could face a dragon’s elemental breath or even its stomp head-on without getting injured. His meaningful glances hinted that Yisi should lend (she guessed he probably wouldn’t return it) this soft armor to him. In response, Yisi pretended not to understand and took the armor back.

It wasn’t that Yisi was being stingy, but this soft armor was truly unsuitable for Boris. The ‘Eternal Angel’s Blessing’ was designed from the beginning as a pattern for young girls. Andrea had the teleportation stone she had given her and could teleport to her side with people around her in case of danger, but Evelyn, Shinku, and the others were different. If they ran into any trouble, by the time the news reached her, it would be too late to rescue them even if she left immediately. Therefore, a set of life-saving equipment was necessary.

As for the creation of the soft armor, the inspiration came from Laxy’s angel attire. Laxy had previously given Yisi a set of clothes she had personally sewn, specifically for underage angels of the sixth and seventh ranks. Since it combined both comfort and defensive performance, Yisi took it out for some research and found that its performance was unexpectedly good.

First, the clothes used a type of thread Yisi didn’t know. Second, there were traces of magic inside the clothes. At first, Yisi thought Laxy had inscribed a magic circle inside, but a closer inspection revealed that was not the case.

According to Laxy, the traces of magic were because the thread had been soaked in a special magic liquid before being woven. After being soaked in that liquid, if the fabric encountered a violent magical impact or a sharp object’s piercing, it would, in a very short time, transform into armor with a hardness comparable to Mithril. When the magical impact disappeared, the fabric would return to its original softness.

Following this line of thought, Yisi finally solved a problem she had been facing for a long time: how to equip her front-line companions with armor. Although she had previously used softer scale armor for Mary, she still found it not aesthetically pleasing. Setting aside how armor looked on men, when worn by a young girl, she felt that it concealed the softness and slimness a girl should have. Although there were cool and heroic-looking beautiful girls, soft clothes still suited Mary better, making her look more petite and cute.

So, Yisi asked Laxy to prepare the magic liquid again. After understanding the principle, Yisi replaced some of the ingredients with superior ones that had the same effect. The result was the current soft armor, which, after suffering a strong magical impact, had a hardness comparable to Orichalcum. Yisi named it [Eternal Angel’s Blessing.]

Of course, this crude method of ingredient substitution was not without its costs. The resulting fabric could only be called soft armor and still had to be classified as armor. Even without a strong magical impact, its softness could not be compared to real cloth. Its flexibility under normal conditions was more akin to leather armor. However, compared to scale armor, it was much better. First, its flexibility was greatly improved. Second, because the raw material was cloth, it could be dyed with beautiful colors and patterns, making it suitable to be worn between underwear and an outer jacket.

It was worth mentioning that during the production of the soft armor, Yisi and Laxy had a major disagreement over the clothing pattern. Yisi believed that the soft armor should be designed as a two-piece set, top and bottom, making it more comfortable and easier to wear. Laxy, however, argued that it should be designed as a one-piece suit, covering every inch of skin below the head and fitting snugly against the skin to maximize its effectiveness. As long as the head was protected, the soft armor could protect its master no matter where the enemy attacked.

However, the kind of clothing Laxy described was no different from a bodysuit. Although a pure white bodysuit was indeed subtly sexy, outlining the slight curve of the chest and the shallow depression of the navel, its breathability was too poor. Moreover, Yisi could not accept the idea of a stranger seeing her companions wearing bodysuits. Therefore, Yisi strongly rejected Laxy’s suggestion.

“Is it that trig… trig-activated thing Master was talking about…?”

“Trigger-activated magic item.”

“Yes, yes, that’s it!” Mary nodded repeatedly like a chick pecking at grain. “Are we going to test the trigger-activated magic items? I heard from Alice that these items are very expensive. She only has one, and it breaks after one use.”

“Well, they are quite expensive, but not to the point of breaking after one use. It’s probably Duke Wozwahl not wanting Alice to take risks and deliberately scaring her. Well, that’s basically it. The basement of this mansion is too small for testing, so let’s do it in the backyard.”