The welcome breakfast for Zelos and Merlyn was over, and both of them had gotten to be much more comfortable around Luna. I knew it would only be a matter of time, thanks to her natural friendliness, but I was nonetheless relieved to see them getting along. However, the two magicians seemed to have struggled with Katima, who must not have been very good at holding a conversation.
Actually, I also thought Katima was a bit of an airhead. It didn’t seem like she was actively trying to get to know them—though on the other hand, she wasn’t treating them poorly either; she simply did things at her own pace, which made her harder to follow. She probably only spoke with me and Luna because I had saved her life, and because we gave her free food. Still, she wasn’t a bad girl, so I was sure that given the opportunity, she and the magicians would get closer from here on out.
“Even though it was so noisy, it sure feels lonely once they’re gone,” I said.
“It does, doesn’t it? Still, I’d get burnt out if it was like that all the time,” Reina said.
“Ha ha, you might be right.”
The two of us were cleaning up after breakfast once everyone had gone. Like Luna, Katima had returned to her home. Elga had said that the Alfr village was quite far away, so I’d wondered if it would be okay to let her leave by herself. But when I saw her absent-minded, aloof attitude, I got the feeling that she would be all right. Zelos and Merlyn had said that they wanted to accomplish what they could by themselves, and went back to their tents by the river, so now it was just me and Reina.
“When I was on the continent, I never thought they’d end up like this,” Reina said.
“You mean Zelos and Merlyn?”
“Right. We saw each other at meetings, but I hardly ever spoke with them.”
“Well, it’s impossible to know how or when our relationships with other people will change.”
Apparently, the two were going to discuss their future course of action. They had set up camp away from our home because of their pride as Celestial Archmages, and also because they hadn’t wanted to be near Reina, with whom they hadn’t gotten along very well. But they had already cleared up the bad feelings between them, so there was no need to be so particular about that. This meant that now, there shouldn’t be any problems with them living near us.
“It might be nice if they do end up living closer. It’ll be pretty convenient,” Reina said.
“Oh, really? Convenient how?”
“You know Zelos’s epithet, ‘Flame of Ruin,’ right?”
“Yeah... As a guy, I’ve gotta admit it sounds really cool.”
I was pretty sure I hadn’t had that type of chuunibyou mindset in my past life, but after being reborn in a fantasy world, I’d become somewhat drawn to that kind of thing. Then again, it’s not like I cared about it much compared to the rest of my slow life.
“He’s better than me at controlling fire. That ought to be helpful for cooking,” Reina explained.
“Hm?”
What’s she talking about? I thought. When I thought of the epithet “Flame of Ruin,” cooking was the last thing on my mind.
“Also, Merlyn is so good at water magic that she’s called ‘Divine Water,’ so if she does the laundry or the cleaning, that should improve our quality of life.”
I’m not too sure about that, I thought silently, but then I remembered what our life was like. Essentially, Reina could cast most simple spells, and she was letting me copy them. It was quite easy for me to fire off spells using loads of mana if I had to, but I was still bad at fine control. That meant Reina had to pick up the slack for me in a lot of day-to-day tasks and chores.
“If they end up living close to here, I think we could entrust those sorts of things to them. What do you think?”
I nodded with a smile at Reina’s confident proposal. “Sure, I think that’s a good idea.”
Unfortunately, titles like “Celestial Archmage” were meaningless on this island. Raising one’s overall standard of living was much more important. I definitely wasn’t trying to insulate myself from criticism by offering up the two of them as sacrifices, or anything of the sort.
If Zelos and Merlyn heard this conversation, they’d probably get mad at us for not taking the Seven Celestial Archmages seriously, but you know what they say: If you don’t work, you don’t eat. For the sake of bettering our lives, we’d have to get them to do everything from cooking to cleaning.
“Since they’re here, I’ll try to come up with things they can do,” I said.
“That’s the spirit!” Reina said.
As we talked together in the house, that day wore on, no different from any other.