The first rays of the morning sun soon arrived, and the first to wake up was the great kitsune. It got up from the mat in its room, stretched, and began grooming itself with its tongue. Then, it ran to the sunflower’s room and lifted the disk underneath the potted-plant with its mouth, bringing the sunflower out to the sunlight.
After dropping the sunflower in the yard, the great kitsune ran around, scrutinizing every inch of the yard with its nose. Finally, it grabbed a bunch of shiny objects with its mouth and brought to Baiyi’s side.
It opened its mouth and with a ‘clang, cling, clang’, daggers and secret weapons fell onto the floor.
“Oh, this? Er, last night, after you all fell asleep, some intruders came. Don’t worry, I fought them off. I didn’t have time to clean the mess up, though,” the Soul Armature told the curious fox.
The fox’s ears stood straight, turning from left to right and again, and its face donned an expression of suspicion that only a fox could make. ‘How did I miss such a racket?’
“Well, they were very capable assassins, so it is normal for them to conceal their tracks and battles. But really, it’s fine already; they will not come here anymore. Please help me clean up the grass, though. Oh? Sunny’s already on it? Well, it’s not good to have it doing the cleaning alone! Hmm? Oh, icicles on the rooftop? Er, well, I did that. I don’t think we need to worry about those, though, because they are gonna melt after a while, anyway — right?” Baiyi started conversing with the kitsune in fragmented sentences. “What? You’re worried someone’s gonna get bonked on the head? Oh, perish the thought! I don’t get many visitors here; plus, no one would be stupid enough to get hit by something this obvious…”
“Oy! Look at that sunflower! It can move on its own! And, also, it can sing! So awesome?!” Baiyi exclaimed. Suddenly, “Owwww!” A very familiar voice reverberated from outside. “Why is it raining ice cubes here?!?!!”
Baiyi and the fox looked each other with an identical awkward gazes.
After a while, Miss Undine, who had not been seen in a long time, stepped into the house with a swollen head. She did not even greet Baiyi when she entered the room, and instead, she kicked off her heels and jumped right onto his couch. She frowned, then grimaced, then rubbed her swollen bruises, before drinking a tangerine potion rather boorishly.
Undine looked like she had just returned home.
Baiyi could not even decide if he wanted to laugh or cry at her antics. ‘Aren’t you a legendary-level martial artist? How did you even get outsmarted by icicles? Or did the return to your family business automatically suppresses your martial art skills and turned you into a moe symbol?’
Even as Baiyi approached her, Undine did not seem to remember to readjust her posture. Her young, attractive body just stayed as it was; free for the Soul Armature to gawk at, especially the black silky socks tightly wrapped around her feet.
The silky black texture reflected the light of the morning sun, forming a very inviting vortex that would cause anyone to desire to rub them.
Although Undine still failed to notice the problem with her posture, she snapped, “Why were icicles on the roof?!”
“Maybe it’s the weather?” Baiyi looked out of the window, seeing only mist. It must have been pretty cold outside.
“Are you joking? Sure, winter’s coming, but it’s not like we have reached the stage where ice cubes rain down from the sky 1 !” She retorted, totally unconvinced.
Baiyi eyed her in her current state, but he was not awfully worried about her injury. She was still a legendary-level martial artist, so her pain should be short-lived.
Instead, he leisurely sat down next to her on the next couch and said, in a concerned tone typical of seniors, “Hey, now, if you knew it was winter already, you really shouldn’t be wearing summer clothing, right? Your skirt is pretty short; aren’t you bothered by the cold?”
“What are you even saying, Mr. Hope!” Undine suddenly sat up straight, putting her heels back on as her face turned serious. “Today, I am wearing the latest winter wear which hasn’t even hit the shelves dude. I spent a fortune on this! Although I wanted my theme for this winter to be ‘Dark and nimble’, I yielded to the reality of the climate and closed up a lot of my upper body.”
To illustrate her point, Undine even pointed at her chest. ‘Fine, she’s right. She is being far more conservative than usual today. At least the blouse wasn’t opened all the way to her belly button. However, your shoulders are still bared!’
Undine’s shoulder straps managed to cover her chiseled collar bones, and the straps intersected on her neck, forming a graceful bow.
“And look at my skirt! It’s now pleated, and my knee-high socks have changed into leggings! Aren’t the changes obvious enough for you to notice already?” Undine finished in a slightly upset tone. She could not believe that even after all the hard work she underwent to acquire the latest winter fashion, Baiyi still had not noticed any changes in her usual outfit.
She muttered quietly, “All he cares about are the little girls, anyway!”
“Uh… I… I really didn’t notice all that…” Baiyi could only stammer, feeling awkward.
Suddenly, across the Void, Baiyi heard the Assassin Walker jump up, “Duh! Whenever there is a female in front of you, all you look at is the lower half! Is the skirt short? Are the legs lean? Ooh, what about the color of her socks? Would anyone expect you to notice some other parts?!”
For once, Baiyi had nothing of substance with which to refute her.
Unless he played the asshole card! “Well, do your legs look good enough?”
“Wh-what?! Why… Why did you..?! My… My body… didn’t you see every part of it from my memory already? I mean, it’s not as long as hers, but I’ve trained, too, so it’s pretty curvy and lean, too; I mean, if I were to wear black silky stockings, too, I —”
Her voice kept growing softer, and soon, Baiyi could not hear her even if he wanted to. Soon, the girl stopped bothering him.
‘Ahaha!’ Baiyi smirked victoriously in his head. He did not really care about what she was talking about because her rebuttal had been too soft…
As soon he had beat up the Assassin in their little verbal spar, Undine had also finished describing “the awesomeness of my latest winter fashion”, and she went on to admonish, “Don’t be fooled by the skimpiness. I’ve got a lot of tiny thermal runs embedded in them!”
“Alright, alright, I made a note about them!” Baiyi replied. He was starting to feel dazed. “So why did you even come here early in the morning again? Just to show off some clothes?”
“Oh please, I’ve got better things to do than that! I just got bonked by an icicle or whatever that was, so my head’s kinda spinning,” Undine replied in a mildly aggrieved tone. “Got a mirror?”
Baiyi could only ask the fox to bring one of their mirrors, which had been polished so much that it now reflected light.
Of course, when Undine saw the fox, her eyes brightened, and she gripped on its pointy ears, dragging it towards herself. “What a beautiful doggo! Where did you buy it from?!” She cried out as she stroked the fox vigorously. “—owww! Why are you pinching my eeeeaaaars?”
“It’s not a dog, it’s a fox! And it’s not just any fox; it’s my new student!” Baiyi explained flatly, launching into a summary of his new students.
“Oh… I see. Sorry for the offense, Zakum the Sage.”
The fox lifted its left paw and waved, signifying that it was okay.
Then, Undine turned to Baiyi, sporting a scarlet face, and said, “Um, Mr. Hope? I’ll appreciate you letting go of my ear now. It’s… quite a sensitive spot.”
“Oh, right. Er, let’s get back to the real business.” Baiyi released his grip in embarrassment. Her ear had been quite smooth to the touch…
As it turned out, it was about the Doles’ new business venture, providing goods from the Southern Land. The aerial route that they had developed required more transport, so the family was thinking of purchasing more of Baiyi’s gliders at a much economical price. At the same time, Undine wanted to seek permission to develop the area that Attie’s clansmen were situated into a massive rendezvous point for large cargo and goods.
After a few successful trades, the Doles also started bringing Northern goods to the Southern Land. They were typically raw materials that only the North could produce or high-class wares the Northern aristocrats use, and as they were immensely popular in the South, the Doles profited greatly from it.
The outcome was that the Dole’s secret monopoly of the aerial route had been exposed to the public; not that this did not play into their plans. They needed more investment to properly expand the market, so they had decided to work together with the merchants from the Northern Land to maximize profits until their legs gave away due to the weight of their money.
Best of all, new beasts and human resources had been taken in from Gouve during their mass exodus to the South. The newly-arrived griffins and skycruiser rays quickly filled up the niche for the need to transport goods by air. This was especially true of the rays due to their gigantic size.
It seemed like everything was going great.
“Shouldn’t the demand for my glider be lesser now?” Baiyi asked quizzically, combing Vidomina’s hair as she sat on his lap. Little Mia was sitting close-by with her hair unkempt, waiting for her turn. As the two adults discussed, the humanoid students had started waking up.
Ever since the terrible event at her home, Vidomina had become visibly more clingy. The first thing she did after waking up was to cry out very sweetly to her godfather, asking him to make her hair. Meanwhile, Little Mia acted like she was facing some sort of threat, putting her own comb down and asking Baiyi for the same treatment.
Baiyi did not mind; In fact, he enjoyed it 2 . Back when they were in the girl’s dorm, he did Mia’s hair all the time; he just had not resumed this practice since they moved into the mansion.
“Why would demands be falling? Dude! You forgot about those barbarians, didn’t you? And those wild beasts that could easily kill the skycruiser rays? Plus, these rays aren’t nocturnal,” Undine replied, busying her hands with Tisdale’s hair, as well.
“How about the dragon knights? You can hire them to protect your transport, you know? Come on; you guys got the pocket for something like that, right?” Baiyi said as he pinned an adorable kitty hairclip onto Vidomina’s hair and put her back down. He picked up Little Mia next and started on her black hair.
The girl’s eyes narrowed into two fine lines, and her expression was one of content.