Solicrave: a city of boundless grimoire possibilities, from Inkaro's perspective anyway.

  Solicrave is a city made up of three distinct ring-shaped districts; the outer ring, which itself could realistically be divided into four quadrants, served as a normal city's residential and recreational areas.

  Of the middle district, the buildings were as diverse as they were competently designed. Each and every building populating the city bore no relation to each other, as no two buildings within the same city block shared a similar design or theme. It was like something out of a sandbox game, where rhyme, reason, and consistency for any sort of unifying artistic vision were frown out the window. From a golden teddy bear-themed bakery to magic weapon/tool shops, all manner of stores could be found.

  The streets were a spanning sea of golden and silver-coloured stonebricks, scattered about randomly to create various patterns of spirals or zigzags. If I had to guess, if you looked at them from some angles and squinted at them, they looked like magic circles.

  However, let's hope Inkaro or Lizu doesn't put two and two together, at least until the first term has concluded.

  And as for the centre, and comparably smallest district, was Solicrave Academy, from which everything else was built around. Obviously.

  Is what I would say if that were truly the case... but I won't tell until Little Miss Bread discovers the truth herself.

  As he peered about, Inkaro sported an everly increasingly tense neutral look, only displaying the faintest sense of disappointment at seeing the percentage of grimoire-oriented shops barely reaching the 0.01% mark. Inkaro spoke in jest, "Ah, Solicrave, the city where no one idea or way of thinking reigns at the top, aside from the pursuit of progression, of course."

  Unlike the grimoire-searching teen or the bustling shoppers, the short girl was much more preoccupied with a much more internal issue.

  "Ark, my neck...," Nuenala grumbled under her strained breath, clasping both of her hands around her neck to support it and keep it from potentially snapping.

  As the duo walked, Inkaro smirked ever so faintly, which didn't go unnoticed by the pouting girl. "Perhaps if your sleeping position didn't resemble that of the number one, your body would've been spared the consequences you face now."

  Nuenala clicked her tongue. As she clacked her metalic tail against the gold and silver street, the girl found the guy's comment truly vexing, mainly because he wasn't incorrect in the slightest.

  "Yeah-yeah, laugh it up, why don't you.". She raised her neck slightly, hoping to relieve some of her pent-up tension, before it clicked and clacked like some uncalibrated gears in a clock. Try as she might, her efforts bore no fruit when her neck remained painfully rigid. Eventually, it refused to budge any further without the risk of Nuenala turning herself into a dullahan or a headless horseman. "Don't suppose you got a muscle relaxing spell?"

  Hearing her question, Inkaro was thoroughly perplexed, mainly because she'd asked this very question the day prior. "Is that a trick question?"

  Such a crass and seriously relaxed response only ticked her off further. It was like Inkaro was teasing her again, only unintentionally this time, which was the usual way the guy's teasing occurred. She felt like laughing at the absurdity. However, she refrained from doing so, knowing it would only confuse Inkaro, most likely leading to yet another chance for the guy's unintentional teasing to occur.

  Still holding onto her neck but less intently, she slowly released her neck from the clutches of her fingers as she felt the pain in her neck simply melt away. Grimoire Galore's doing no doubt, not wishing to allow Nuenala to spin Inkaro healing her into the start of a teasing bout. As it dangled from the white/purple metal chain attached to its creator's trench coat collar, the grimoire had itself attached to the chain's golden gem sphere with ribbons made of purple mana, its grip on the gem as strong as a needy child displaying their claim to their parent's attention and affection.

  "I just woke up, not everyone can recall everything in their groggiest mental state," Nuenala barked, her face flushingly slight, mostly from her blood circulation returning but also a little bit from embarrassment. "Besides, I asked Galore that question last time... ... it's still so bizarre interacting with an aware girmoire."

  "Given up on deciding if sentient, sapient, or conscious is the right word to describe her?" Inkaro asked in unintentional jest that pierced through Nuenala's brain like an arrow. Her brain only allowed her to scoff in retort, having not braced itself for the possibility of a verbal tease being thrown at her. Only once her brain fully recovered did Nuenala attempt a proper retort to defend her honour.

  "Definition of words are hard when you're constantly breaking the rules of... everything," she grumbled, admittedly to a pitiful degree even by her standards.

  "So, what do you plan to give Lizu for your honeymoon and her birthday?" Nuenala asked while slipping in a little jab to Inkaro's side as she mentioned how hilarious Lizu's flabbergasted expression was when Inkaro proposed to Lizu on her eleventh birthday. All because he forgot to get her a proper gift, much to present-day Inkaro's embarrassment.

  "Are you still bringing that time up?" Inkaro asked in a somewhat exaggerated tone, "Besides, I don't plan to make a repeat of that. I had the beegirls whip up a new flavour of soda-honey that tastes extra fizzie."

  He assessed that the alteration would be the perfect surprise, given how insistent Lizu had been on having some more of it. He figured his short gift checker would agree as he turned to her, only to be greeted by something he hadn't anticipated. "What's with that look?"

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  With an unquestionably surprised look of disappointment plastered on her face, Nuenala raised her hand to her face, pulled at her cheeks, before deeply groaning. Inkaro and Grimoire Galore flinched on the spot; not even their shared lack of common sense could shelter them from realising Nuenala's opinion on their idea. At times like this, she could only wonder what Lizu found so endearing about Inkaro, because if it was his ability to not grasp the most common parts of common sense, she didn't understand how. Then again, it is Lizu, who herself was hardly in her right mind either.

  However, Nuenala knew one thing she and Lizu had in common: they loved getting gifts or free stuff.

  "Trust me, as a girl, I think you should get her something a little less fleeting, you get?" Nuenala mentioned as she gestured to the numerous stores around them, basically begging for Inkaro to buy something from one of them. Inkaro slowly nodded, obviously not comprehending Nuenala's words the way she intended, but at the very basic level: that being of food not making for a good long-term gift.

  He looked around. Then he looked to Nuenala. Back to the bakery. Finally, onto Nuenala again as she glared at him for looking exclusively at places that solely offered food. She eyed him with a fierce glare, sending a clear message: "If you look at another bakery or cafe, I'll deck you."

  As she kept her eye on him, Nuenala gently rubbed at the swirls on her cheeks, trying to ease the pain left from how hard she pulled them. Cautiously, she allowed herself to shift focus from observing Inkaro to fully on her pain-nulling efforts.

  Inkaro deeply hummed.

  Nuenala grimaced the moment she heard that all too familiar tune, the one that only rears its disastrous head when Inkaro intended to do something objectively outlandish. After much contemplation, Grimoire Galore practically rocketed itself up with the chain in tow before zipping in front of Inkaro, acting like the guy had actually said something so ridiculous even the artificial intelligence couldn't believe it.

  "I got it!"

  Seeing the dazzling sparkles radiating from Inkaro's eyes, Nuenala slumped her shoulders, dropping them so aggressively it wasn't impossible for them to get dislocated. "I regret saying anything."

  As she murmured in regret, Nuenala covered her face to hide its slow loss of colouration and saturation. She couldn't even begin to imagine what possibly could've been the idea she'd inadvertently put in Inkaro's head. She slackered her tail limply around the base of her left leg, preemptively putting it in a position so it couldn't lash out and cut anyone when she heard the idea to end her days as a free person.

  "Don't worry, it'll be nothing destructive," Inkaro said cheerfully. He had meant for his resort to bring relief and a sense of ease to his friend; however, the look of concern informed him his words had, in fact, had the opposite effect. Shocker.

  Resigning herself to accepting responsibility for being the trigger for what every disaster is to occur, Nuenala weakly sighed, much to Inkaro's confusion. "And somehow that's worse... just make sure the environment isn't changed beyond recognition, you hear?"

  Feeling the need to defend himself, but totally understanding where she was coming from, Inkaro defensively raised his hands and did little jazz hands. The hand motion got a snicker of pity out of the girl.

  "I wouldn't say what I plan to do would have that much of a scale," Inkaro swiftly remarked as G.Galore earnestly bounced behind the guy's head like a mini cheerleader. The sight of the grimoire was truly bizarre, in an oddly cute way, which brought the blacksmith an odd sense of reassurance. With that, Nuenala allowed herself to relax. Sadly for the girl, her abrupt ease on her tensing caused her tail to spring back to life.

  Nuenala winced as her tail dug into her leg, breaking past her skin and drawing a little dark blue blood. Gingerly lowering her hand to touch and check how bad the damage was, she sighed, not feeling the urge to waste her little energy on bothering to get mad.

  Watching her tempered and lack of reaction, Inkaro questioned if she wasn't hurt, which was hard to deny with Nuenala's sudden addition of a hobble in her walk. But the swift smell of blueberry and ash hitting his nose quickly confirmed the girl had certainly injured herself.

  "You want me to heal that?". Asking calmly while he crouched down to pull her tail out of her leg, Inkaro gestured for G.Galore to bring out one of his other grimoires.

  The mini grimoire reluctantly bounced, simulating a nod, before fluttering its mana ribbons into the chain-adjoined gem.

  She remained still, not moving in the slightest, knowing Inkaro would hold her down like that time when they were kids, without hesitation. So left with nothing else to do but wait, Nuenala briefly wondered what the grimoire was reluctant about; she considered jealousy of Inkaro having other grimoires out to be the most likely answer, if her observations of the thing were anything to go off of. It seemed dumb, in concept. An artificial intelligence having such emotions, Inkaro would never program such a thing: mainly because he wouldn't know how to simulate an emotion he'd never experienced firsthand.

  Although as she thought about it more, Nuenala did recall Lizu mentioning something about Inkaro making some adaptive/stimulative upgrade to Grimoire Galore's AI a month ago. If that were the case, that would explain why she'd seen G.Galore floating around the village on its own. Then proceeded to stalk her for a month, until Inkaro tagged along and it went back to acting like it did initially.

  Nuenala swiftly shook her head, deeming it all too complicated. She lowered her gaze, not by much, given Inkaro was basically eye level with her. Pushing past the pain once it returned to the front of her mind, she forced a smirk when a teasing remark came to mind.

  "Now who's asking the trick questions?" Nuenala whimpered playfully while her broken smile constantly shifted and twisted even further as she tried to keep herself from drawing any attention by making a weird noise.

  Her lips faintly quivered against her will.

  The tattle-tale signs that the effects of her biological ability were already taking effect faster than she expected, no doubt from her having pricked herself earlier to go to sleep for a bit. If she didn't focus, her tail would pump all its stored up toxins right into her bloodstream, and she'd be out well beyond the window of the entrance exam.

  So she had to will herself to stay awake with all her might, until Inkaro freed her from herself at the very least.

  "Touché," Inkaro muttered smugly as he managed to remove the girl's tail from her leg, getting a fizzle of a moan out of Nuenala before she flopped into Inkaro. She was out cold, headbutting Inkaro in the forehead as she collapsed into the guy's arms. "Huh? And she says I'm the odd one, falling asleep out of... oh yeah, her tail contains sleep-inducing substances."

  A moment of silence followed as Inkaro rose to his feet while carrying a napping Nuenala in his arms, curled up like a baby ready to be put to bed.

  "Wait, is that how she goes to sleep so quickly?"