“Whaaat?!”
“H-Hey! What did you do, you jerk!”
I was in such a panic that while I turned Eldrid’s ears and tail invisible, I’d made her clothes and underwear vanish too. She was completely naked, and I could see her delicate bits.
Oh jeez.
I gulped audibly. I stood there frozen stiff (in more ways than one), but Eldrid wasn’t having it.
“You! Y-Y-You! The hell are you standing there and staring for?! Fix this!” she yelled.
“I-I’m s-s-sorry! Um, I shouldn’t stack another spell in cases like this, so—”
“H-Hurry up, damn it! Someone’s coming!”
“Aaah! Wait, wait, wait!”
The footsteps were getting closer by the second. This was really bad.
Eldrid inched closer to me to avoid the approaching danger, and I backed away to avoid laying hands on her. Suddenly, we both lost our balance and fell to the ground.
“Oof!”
“Hng!”
Eldrid had landed on top of me. I thought something like this had happened before, but I had no time to think about that.
“Dispel! And Uncanny Illusion! Phew...that should do it,” I said with a sigh of relief.
I’d removed my illusion spell, then recast it properly. That had been a disaster, but Eldrid was back in her original state—except she looked terribly embarrassed.
“Um...” I said awkwardly, but she turned away from me.
“Jerk,” she said.
“Sorry! I’m so sorry! I should’ve paid more attention!”
“Well, I know you didn’t do it on purpose, so it’s fine,” she said.
Despite that, I continued to earnestly apologize. It might have been an accident, but it was an awfully careless mistake nonetheless.
Eldrid didn’t say a word.
I wasn’t sure what to do, so I decided to change the subject. “S-So, there’s something I wanna ask you,” I said.
“What?”
“Uh...well, it’s about the thing you were talking about with God this morning.”
“Oh, that,” she said.
“It sounded pretty serious. What was that about?” I asked.
“Yeah...” she said, then hung her head slightly. “It was about my family.”
“Your family? What happened?” I asked. The subject seemed to be important to her.
She fell silent. It wasn’t that she refused to talk, but it was more like she wasn’t sure how to phrase it. It must’ve been a complicated issue since she’d brought it up with God.
After some time, Eldrid finally spoke. “It was about my mom; a lot has been going on with her. But things haven’t been going well for me or my dad because of her.”
“Sounds like there’s no easy solution,” I said.
Eldrid had spoken hesitantly, struggling to find the right words. The heaviness of the conversation must’ve been too much for her.
Scratching her cheek, she said, “Anyway, I’ll talk to you about it eventually.”
“Let me know if you ever need help. I’ll be happy to do what I can,” I said.
“Really?”
“Of course.”
She looked at me for a moment, surprised, then her expression brightened. “Okay! When that time comes, I’ll be counting on you!”
“Sure!”
Her smile had returned. We were here to have fun, so I was glad to see her being positive again.
Afterward, we did another round through the amusement park again and enjoyed all its attractions. Then...
“Two chicken legs—no, three chicken legs, please!”
It went without saying that the food stall vendor and I were once again shocked by Eldrid’s bottomless appetite.