12 A Family of Chuuni Otakus
"So let me get this straight. You not only broke your promise to not get involved with the war, but you went out of your way to become the Master of Assassin after watching her kill her own master using poison." My father asked me with a twitching brow.
"Hehe... In fairness she didn't MEAN to kill him, he was just kinda careless" I chuckled nervously.
I was currently being scolded by my father for recklessly contracting a servant, and an Assassin no less. He was already on the edge when he found out that Manaka was Saber's Master, as he didn't want even the slightest chance of me getting involved and being hurt due to my lack of experience. This was the main reason why I was the one visiting Manaka lately rather than her visiting me. It was also the reason why Manaka didn't tag along when I contracted Assassin.
"Well, I always knew you weren't going to be able to keep away from such an exciting event, however, what are we going to do about your servant's poison? If she can sweat, then surely her perspiration is poisonous too!" My father explained a bit annoyed.
I was a bit surprised that he even thought about that but quickly recognized that he always seemed to take extreme precautions when it came to the family's safety. For example, when Elza first applied to be a photographer of my mother's idol enterprise, he dug up information on how she was a magus, though not one from a powerful or influential family, and confronted her.
Magus unaffiliated with Clock Tower families like Elza are often more dangerous than normal because they can practice magecraft with unknown foundations not taught in the Clocktower and were harder to counter. Plus, non-noble magus often have to take bigger risks in their pursuits of the ROOT as they don't have the lineage or financial backing of noble households, making them unpredictable.
Of course, before he confronted her, he found out she had adopted Carren and thought she may be trying to manipulate the adoptive daughter to get to me. It happened pretty often, where common-born magus used their own children or adopted children to try to seduce the inexperienced heirs of noble families. That's the entire reason why I grew up homeschooled rather than going to a regular school or a sponsored moonlit academy.
Thankfully, at the time, Elza was under a Geis, so she wasn't able to reveal that I had planned this and that she was acting under my orders. Fortunately, Manaka stepped in to take the bullet for me. She informed him that Elza was under a Geis and was put into her position by her to 'protect mother'.
'Now that I think about it, isn't it odd that he isn't so defensive about Manaka?' I thought before pushing that aside and continuing to listen to his scolding.
"But I have to say, the worst part about this whole thing is how it's affected your mother! She's in such a dire state right now because of you!" He reprimanded.
"Father, I don-"
"Save it, mister! Until I find a way to fix your mother, your not to leave the grounds of the mansion!" He interrupted.
"There is no need for that, dear." My mother said from the doorway. She was leaning against it in an all-black dress with dark veil. Her skin was ghastly pale and her eyes were blood-red.
"Honey, you shouldn't get out of bed yet!" My father said as he worriedly walked over to her.
"No! Stay back!" My mother retreated quickly, extending her arm in front of her to keep as much distance between her and him as possible in the small hallway they retreated into.
"But-"
"No! This curse that has been laid upon me by the fearsome Tyrant Dragon of the Black Abyss will spread to you as well!" My mother said overdramatically. "If I do not collect the Sacred Purifying Flame Elixer from the Immortal Sword Seraphim, I will never be able to touch another's flesh without an absolute death befalling them!" My mother said as she began crying and running down the halls.
"Olvi- I mean Lightning Shadow Necromancer! Come back!" My father yelled as he ran off after her.
I had watched the whole scene with half-closed eyes from the moment my mother appeared. My plan on convincing my parents that I was secretly going through a chunni phase failed spectacularly. My father instantly saw through my disguise and lifted my sleeve to see my myriad of command seals, while my mother seemingly had a revelation and became an actual chuunibyou. The setting was that she was cursed by an evil dragon to not be able to touch the ones she loved ever again and the only way to release this curse was from a medicine guarded by a special extremely powerful angel.
"Should someone nearly six months pregnant really be running around like that?" I thought out loud before getting up and wandering to my workshop.
Serenity materialized behind me as I left. "If you would command me, I shall get this Sacred Purifying Flame Elixer for you, master." She said. I think she was genuinely serious about it, but it was a bit hard to tell with her mostly emotionless face and voice.
"Ah, no need to worry about that Assassin. It's just a play those two are doing among themselves." I said as I opened the door to the underground workshop.
"Play?" Serenity said to herself while tilting her head to the side. I ignored her thoughts for the moment, as my father's worries were valid. Serenity is an incredibly important asset to my future plans, able to instantly defeat most people and servants unless they have exceptional poison resistance skills or implied poison resistance skills.
Artoria, for example, doesn't have poison resistance, but she is a 'king' and has Avalon. The fact that her legend says she is a 'King', especially during the middle ages, implies she would have built up poison resistance during her lifetime. Even if she didn't and relied purely on Avalon to fuel her passive defenses, the fact she was a 'King' gives her a minimal amount of poison resistance, even without Avalon.
Of course, she would still die if exposed to Serenity without Avalon, but it wouldn't be an instant death like Seiji's was.
This is why I needed to create a mystic code for her that allowed her to essentially 'toggle' her poison on and off. Can't have her killing all my waifus just by them accidentally touching or Serenity working up a sweat during battle right?
"Serenity, sorry, but you're going to have to stay here for a little while while I make you a mystic code to deal with your poison," I told her as I pulled on a drawer and pulled out some gold bullion and gemstones and scattering them on the large volcanic stone island table in the center of the workshop.
"It is no use master. No amount of mystic codes can suppress my poison. Every part of my body is lethal, so much so it has become my noble phantasm. Even being in the same room as me is enough to make one unwell as they inhale the poisonous breath I exhale while breathing." Serenity told me.
"You know, your surprisingly talkative when it comes to your poison," I said while using Creation Magecraft to form the gold into an elaborately shaped bracelet lined with dozens of gemstones.
Serenity straightened herself a bit before asking "Does it displease you?" Her tone was similar to before, being emotionless, though it slightly carried a hint of worry or fear. She probably was worried I didn't want her to talk too much, as she was 'my assassin' (as in not assassin class, but his personal servant even after the war).
"No, it's fine. I like the sound of your voice. It's calming." I said as I began to use Spatial magecraft to 'interfere with the boundary' of the bracelet. This was a unique form of, for lack of a better word, 'enchanting' a mystic code I had discovered recently. It would allow any mystic code I created to instantly become a top-tier Noble Phantasm, as the mystery generated by 'interfering' in this way was something completely new and unknown. Even I didn't bother learning how it worked with my eyes. It would only allow me to comprehend the process of making that one enchantment while also making all other enchantments worse when using this method.
My mystic eyes had some unfortunate downsides, however, if the only time when I can't use them is when I'm creating extremely customized enchantments that no other Magus could ever hope to replicate, outside of maybe my father and mother due to them having the same magecraft via their magic crests, and Manaka due to being connected to the ROOT and being able to cast it through there, then I wouldn't consider this too much of a demerit.
"Is that so? Then I shall make an effort to talk more often." She replied.
I turned to her and gave her a thumbs up while smiling and tossed her the bracelet. "Try it on." I said.
Serenity, without skipping a beat, immediately put it on. The golden bracelet automatically shifted its own size so it would fit her perfectly. Not so tight as to cause discomfort, and not so lose as to fall off or be stolen.
"What does it do you may ask." I started, closing my eyes and pacing back and forth in lecture mode.
"Well, it's basically a tool with two separate effects. The first is that it renders all of the poison in your body inert when not in combat. It does this by passively storing all of the poison your body generates inside the gemstones where it is highly concentrated. That way it's even more effective against targets with poison resistance. Only someone with complete poison immunity would ever be able to resist your poisons. The other ability is that it allows for you to release the poison inside the gemstones in one of two different states; as a liquid or a gas.
If it's as a gas, it allows you to control a vapor cloud of the gas to your will, so you could fill entire rooms with highly caustic toxins. You can also manually return the vapor to your bracelet whenever you wish. This version is the least deadly and you can choose whether this poison is fast-acting and highly detectable, like a cloud of purple haze, or as a slow-acting invisible killer gas that doesn't start infecting targets until much later. his way you could theoretically poison an entire base or workshop of enemies and leave before anyone knows that they are even poisoned. I even made it so you can 'activate' when the poison's effects happen, so it just sits in their systems for a while before you, now miles away, activate the poison, instantly killing them.
However, in combat is where this Mystic Code truly shines. You can create streams of boiling poison, poison bolts you can fire at enemies in a range, or if you wait long enough for the poison to accumulate inside the gemstones, you can even create a wave of poison to wash away your enemies. Furthermore, when released in its liquid form, I made it be highly acidic and high in temperature, so it can eat through armor and other barriers. The only way to avoid being poisoned by it is to dodge, though the gasses released from the poison during the fight will inevitably affect the people who dodge it too." I said, geeking out at my own ingenious creation.
Serenity looked at me for a few moments after I finished explaining all of the functions of the bracelet. Finally, after probably a solid minute, she spoke.
"Master surely is an evil person." She said emotionlessly.
"Eh!?!"
"While master was creating this weapon of mass destruction, he was talking so innocently about how he liked my voice." Serenity continued.
"H-hey, I'm not that bad now am I?" I asked with a shaky voice.
Serenity turned her head away from me after I asked that and wouldn't look me in the eyes, so I took critical damage and fell to the floor.
'I became an Artificer otaku!' I yelled in my mind.
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A/N: Sorry I didn't upload a chapter yesterday. I spent all morning asleep as I had worked over 50 hours last week and couldn't be bothered to do anything productive. I then spent the afternoon and evening reading other fanfics and being lazy.
My favorite new one is "I Got ROBed And Had A Fun Life In A Fictional World!" by Eromaru.
The MC has an actual brain when using his Ability Creation powers and uses them in a similar way to how I would actually use them if I had them. I'm not super familiar with how the world works, however, I vaguely recall reading the manga of the source material a while back, so it's kinda refreshing and nostalgic from the time I read manga before Manga Rock committed suicide.
Anyways, should I do this more often? Tell you guys about all the fanfics I read over the week while at work and have them at the bottom of every chapter? (Y/N)
