Not too long after Lizu learned the dire lack of time before her first day of school started, Inkaro briefly returned a drowsily flustered Enetha to her, much to the personal maid stationed there's relief. She gave him a bow, asking Inkaro if he could wait just a moment before hoisting the princess onto her shoulder and leaping to the balcony of the temporary home. So, with nothing else to do, Inkaro waited outside in the sun, deciding to bask in its early morning radience once again, despite the tanless state of his skin suggesting a more avoidant relationship with the molten ball of fire up above.

  And, he waited, roughly three and a half minutes; enough time idling that Moridore poked her head out of the crystaline crown attached to her Grimoire Galore body. With a quick, methodical eye scan of the surroundings and finding nothing worthy of inspection, the sentient grimoire huffed in disappointment before slinking back into the crystaline key chain.

  "Hmph, how boring...," G.Galore whimpered, projecting the voice of her Morilore form from her crystalline accessory. Wanting to get a better view of her surroundings with the sense of view she was more accustomed to, G.Galore began to rise from her resting position, detaching from the chain on her creator's coat, before spinning her new accessory like a child after finding some nunchucks.

  "Perhaps giving you that keychain so soon was a miscalculation. Now I have to share the privilege of hearing your pouting with others," Inkaro remarked teasingly as he watched his bratty creation's lack of care for her newest addition.

  Somehow, her lack of carelessness was, in itself, a sign of G.Galore's faith in his handywork.

  That comment from her creator didn't go unscutinized by her, as she slowly hovered her book-bound body up and got right up in Inkaro's face. If she were in her other form, she'd unquestionably and unreservedly be glaring at Inkaro with a bratty accent to it. "Unit thought we agreed this curio would be called [CROWN TO TRUE EMBODIMENT], not [KEYCHAIN]."

  "If by agreed, you mean displayed your fully human-processing ability by perfectly mimicking how the beegirls cry when not getting their way?" Inkaro teased, his tone even more jovial than the last time, as he booped the grimoire's spine like that spot was her nose.

  His hand became ensnared by multiple purple mana ribbons that housed a faint red glow deep below the surface. What could possibly be the source behind such a physical reaction? Inkaro could only wonder. The clinginess of G.Galore's ribbons tightened; anyone else would've been down a finger.

  "Your... phrasing suggests it wasn't you who put the proposal of me proving my upgrades worked... and giving me free rein on its name as a reward," G.Galore mumbled meekly, in artificial/recreated mimicry of the true thing. Using a projection of a mini Morilore, G.Galore acted out all manners of timid displays: from a head held low with hands behind her back, wiping tears from her waterwork-ready eyes, and even the fabled dramatic fall, from which the projection finally fizzled away.

  "Such a long-winded way of saying I'm a sore loser," Inkaro teased, not showing the slightest sign that the grimoire girl's sulking had any effect on him. She didn't like that one bit. With only an indignant huff as a final retort, G.Galore dived into Inkaro's hood before setting a tiny, purple mana-made sign that read: Do Not Disturb!

  The guy felt the need to sigh contentedly as a wave of euphoria coursed through him, born from the brattiness and shyness G.Galore inundated him with. Some had to wonder, was the grimoire's brattiness really simply mimicry of Lizu and Nuenala?

  Who could say?

  As he waited outside by himself once again, Inkaro took the little pause from the early morning rush to check out Enetha's home away from home. Looking at the home from the front, he would describe its appearance as a supersized rook chess piece made of golden brick with a sandstone lighthouse-like treehouse on top. The base of the house sprouting up from inside a half-open sandstone flowerbud structure: something the beegirls would unmistakably believe to be a real golden flower.

  If anything, from what Lizu told him, the building style of Enetha's homeland was a blend of sustainable and two old-world architectural styles: Sumerian and Tudor(revival).

  Clings and metalic clanks gracefully chimed their way from the base of the tree house, catching and tearing Inkaro's attention away from his house watching. That was the biggest reaction Inkaro bestowed upon the source of the noises as he layed his eyes on the tall woman cladded in metal, who was currently leading a barely earthbound Enetha from their home. The princess, once again dressed in an identical attire to the one she wore the previous day, hobbled her way under her maid's lead. She put up no resistance; her mind was still reeling from the shell shock that was her time in the bath with Lizu.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Inkaro was sure it would've taken way longer than it had for the princess to be put into her usual attire: he realised this maid was no joke. The tall maid moved with renown-worthy grace, despite her knightly armour trying in vain to ruin her maidly visage.

  "Mr Inkaro, could I trouble you with taking her lady to the academy on my behalf? I have some errands to run," the maid in full-plate steel-like knight armour requested, even if her tone made it sound less like a request and more of a demand, as she transferred hand ownership of Enetha from herself to Inkaro. "And, apologies for any impudence the princess showed during her visits or in the future."

  The maid gave a courteous bow as a preemptive apology.

  Employing his non-Enetha trapped hand to do a little bit of jazz-hands playfully, Inkaro showed off how little offence Enetha's presence had on him. "Oh, it's no issue, and I appreciate the sentiment; however, it's not like my night would've had any more sleep had she not visited as much as she did."

  Finally managing to break free from the confines blocking the front door, Lizu galloped across her new front lawn's tiled path with Nuenala riding on her tail like a horseback rider.

  Many beegirls lined the front windows of the house, their faces smushed against the glassy surfaces as they all waved the girls goodbye. As she reached the public pavement, Lizu spotted Inkaro standing in front of and, more importantly, talking to Enetha's maid. If but briefly, Lizu frowned before shaking her head, knowing it was too early to be getting jelly of Inkaro helping people other than her.

  "Inkaro, stop flirting with Enetha's maid, we're going to be late!" Lizu requested teasingly between frantic, muffled breaths as she downed the honey-coated slice of toast she had. "Oh, and I have a few things I want... need to talk to you about, so keep up."

  Lizu turned on her heel, giving the many adoring beegirls a farewell wave, getting many happy cheers from the fuzzy beings as they clambered over one another to get a chance to wave back. Nuenala also managed to get a few waves out of her raised hand before it was followed by the dragolyte booking it down the street at such a rapid pace that it left trails of contrail-like wind disturbances in her wake. Nuenala had to use every ounce of her might to keep herself from having an untimely encounter with the paved ground.

  Inkaro simply stood in place and watched the girly pair hurry off, while the knight maid headed off in the opposite direction.

  The out-of-left-field comment stumped Inkaro, and he raised his free hand to his head in confusion, like messing with his own hair would help his rationality; he was baffled why she said something so factually incorrect, and without the slightest shred of evidence at that. Truly a mystery beyond his comprehension. He slumped his shoulders as he used a little spatial magic to raise Enetha onto his back, with which the girl wasted no time in wrapping her cloth-like appendages around the guy and herself. In a flash, she'd turned herself into a cocoon and backpack hybrid.

  "Would you like to apply so-.". Inkaro was briefly enveloped by a bronze flash, cutting off whatever request Inkaro intended to ask as the expression on his face made it abundantly apparent he'd already got what he was intending to ask. "Thank you, Daughter."

  All the grimoire gave as a response was a pitiful, heart-piercing hmph that was mostly comprised of sheer, unadulterated embarrassment that her processors couldn't process.

  The processor weren't processing.

  Following a soft snicker, Inkaro tapped his foot against the ground, seemingly checking something, and kicked off after Lizu and Nuenala.

  As she walked, the maid peered back briefly before joking about how girls like Lizu usually get defensive about those sorts of childish things. Oh, how she envied youngsters. But other than Lizu's refreshing youthful attitude, Enetha's gaze lingered on the guy currently backpacking the one she'd been ordered to serve. She couldn't help but snicker at the sight. "Well, I believe I see it now. To think there'd be someone with so little passion for decorum as Princess Enetha. Truly peculiar."

  Further down the road, where it crossed into a part of the commercial belt, two speeding objects raced down the obsessively maintained streets. They were like blurs; blurs so fast, no normal person could possibly make out who they were, let alone register they were even people before they had already passed them by several city blocks.

  The only thing they comprehended from start to finish was, of now, a distant... runaway chuckling.

  "Why didn't you tell me we'd been in there for almost four hours?" Lizu wailed as she insensitively poked Inkaro in the cheek, having to jump off the ground to reach her target. Lizu's pouting about something so seemingly common for her only served to bolster Inkaro's snide snicker. Lizu pouted, explosively. The thought did cross her mind many times, bonking Inkaro on the head, that is. But even in her pouty state, Lizu knew better than to risk knocking Inkaro off balance and having Enetha eat the curb. The last thing she needed was a national bounty on her head.

  With no opportunity presenting itself at present, Lizu decided to wait for a more opportune time to get back at Inkaro for his grievous offence of letting her soak in the bath for a schoolless night worth of time.

  Hopping off the ground and flipping around to face Lizu as he maintained his momentum, Inkaro directed a question of his own at his recident bed claimer, "Weren't you the one who wanted to indulge in a Uythunova custom because you've always wanted to experience bathing with someone other than me or your sisters?"

  "That's not what I said at all!" Lizu bellowed with a pitch-shifted squeak to her voice as her plated dragon horns turned so irrationally red they were functionally iridescent. She sounded like a certain household appliance ready to boil.

  On that day, a rumour of a speeding kettle found its way into the news page.