Tale of Discovery

"You don't mind it, right?" I say to the dragon whose anger is gradually rising.

This has gotten me curious. What am I able to do with my familiar other than having her train the rest of my underlings?

{Father could 'store' her.}

Store? You mean I can have her 'inside' my body like Ddraig?

{Affirmative.}

Ignoring how wrong that sounds, that could come in handy. Though, there is one problem. She'll be able to see everything I do, wouldn't she?

{That is indeed the case.}

Shit.

At least, she's a female. Nevertheless, I'd feel uncomfortable to have someone peering into everything I do, particularly my interactions with the other girls.

{There is a solution, though it's not a practical one.}

I'm all ears.

{Father could exhaust her to the point that she would need to slumber to recover. Doing so has two merits.}

The first one should be that she won't see what I do. What's the second one?

{She will continuously consume a small amount of Father's energy. The amount consumed won't affect Father all that much and it would be highly beneficial for her.}

Exhaust her huh…

The only two things that come to mind if we're speaking of exhaustion are either beating her up or spend some quality time with her until she's tired.

For the first one, I would rather not hurt her, which I'm sure will take much longer. As for the second one, I don't think our relationship is anywhere near that point yet.

{Father could forcefully take her.}

No. Don't mention such a thing ever again.

{Understood.}

Don't misunderstand me. I would rather get closer to others in more natural ways. Even playing with their mentality is fine if kept to a minimum.

{There is a book available that Father could make use of.}

Oh? What's that?

{"How to Catch Them All 101"}

Yeah, no. Sounds kinda fishy. Speaking of which, since when were you able to give me objects?

{Father has made it so that I can give Father certain objects during specific times.}

That sounds a little too convenient. Leaving that aside, how is that totally-genuine book going to help me out in this situation?

{According to Father, in the book, are several ways to get to the heart of females from all races.}

For real? Interesting. Give me the book; might as well give it a read.

The next moment, a pink book appears out of thin air. Opening it, I see some fancy handwriting.

Who's the author?

Checking the back of the last page, I see two words written extra fancily: Pink Guy.

Seems legit.

Well then, let's see what's on the first page.

"Best pickup line for beast/human hybrids: Hey there, you have a nice pair of really pointy ears."

And that's where I decide to shut the book and use Pyrokinesis to burn it to cinders.

{Did Father find it useful?}

Very. I now know what kind of compliment I shouldn't use, to pick up a girl.

{I'm glad.}

Little do you know, sweetie...

Shifting my focus back to Tiamat who's looking at me incredulously, I realize that I screwed up.

She just watched me go through with all of that.

"Forget what you saw, or else…" I say as I create a soulless lizard before using telekinesis to smash it into the ground.

Understanding what I'm trying to convey, Tiamat nods her head before asking me,

"What am I to do from now on?"

Good question. Thinking about this logically, I should just go through with the exhaustion process and "store" her.

Clearing my throat, I say with a bright smile on my face,

"Dragons desire for strong mates, right?"

The fuck did I just say?

{Looks like the effects of the book are already taking place.}

Huh?! What are you talking about?

{Father burned the book, which was a Craft. Upon burning Crafts, they get bound to the one who burnt them, and sometimes bringing extra effects with them.}

{In this case, Father will have the content of the book memorized semi-consciously.}

NO!!!

"Wh-What?!" Tiamat utters with a meager blush on her face.

You've got to be kidding me. This works?!

"The moment I set my eyes on you, I knew that I saw the most beautiful scales in my life. Their toughness was on a completely different level from anything I've seen before."

I don't even know what I'm spouting anymore, but might as well continue to see what happens.

"I was sure that any other scales compared to yours are brittle and bland looking. Especially so, with the sea-blue color that yours have."

Tiamat sends a punch toward my face, but of course, I wouldn't let that get anywhere near me.

Stopping it with Vector Manipulation, I move forward and embrace her. While enjoying the softness of her melons, I say brazenly,

"You were just really beautiful, so I lost myself there. I hope you can forgive me for that."

Tiamat pushes me away from herself and says with deeper blush now apparent on her face,

"Stop. Don't do this anymore. Just go back to being the douche you were."

Ouch.

How mean… Well, I do admit that my past actions may have been a little too extreme.

Say, Irene, how do I "store" her?

{Father may kiss her.}

On the lips?

{Affirmative.}

Why didn't you say the magical word – 'Negative' this time out of all times?! Ah, whatever. I never cared for such things anyway.

"Tiamat," I say calmly, "I can have you 'stored' within my body and make you appear outside whenever I want to. Would you like that?"

The gorgeous dragon begins to deliberate on her choices in the matter, so I spend some time exploring my Creation database for anything interesting.

After a while, she puts on a serious look before saying, "Yes."

Hearing her answer, I slowly walk toward her and before she's able to react, I place my lips on hers.

Immediately after I do so, I smell something fresh, like mint. The same goes for my taste, as mint is exactly what I taste.

The next moment, the wide-eyed Tiamat turns into motes of light before disappearing into my chest.

I feel a painful sensation on my back as if molten-rock is being poured on it.

Taking off my clothes, I check myself out using Clairvoyance.

As expected, something has changed. On my back, there is a "tattoo" of a blue dragon, breathing purple flames.

All in all, it looks good on my body, so I'll let it be.

"So, Tia-chan, how do you feel?"

[[Don't call me that! And why did you that earlier?!]]

"Well, I did it so that you could become how you are right now. Forget that, how is it inside?"

[[It's like I'm on another planet. All around me are plains covered in grass.]]

"Wow… I was expecting it to be something like an endless dark void or something."

[[And you were going to send me to somewhere like that?!]]

"Hey now, stay calm. I've got a question for you: Are you able to see what I see?"

[[Yes.]]

And thus, begins my painful path to being judged for everything…

---

"The maids have arrived," Nao says to me as soon as I return to the mansion.

Isn't that a little too fast? Now that I think about it, the site didn't display when the maids would arrive.

Anyhow, I'm looking forward to my new maids. I've purposefully chosen expensive ones, as they might be hard-working ones.

That's especially the case if it's their first time doing a "proper" job.

From what was written on their description, I could tell that they've only had practice and not actually worked anywhere.

Although, I find it a little weird that one of the two maids I've selected didn't have any pictures of herself and asked for a permit during certain hours. As I don't mind it all that much, I went along with it.

Well then, time to go welcome them.

I head over to the front door where most of the girls are at, speaking with two fairly splendid girls. I'm pleasantly surprised by the appearance of one of the two.

"Hi there, I'm the owner of this mansion, Haruka Kasuganou," I say in a friendly manner.

They both bow politely before introducing themselves:

The first one to introduce herself is a girl with short black hair and gray eyes,

"Nice to meet you, Master Haruka (Haruka-dono). My name is Siesta Takeo. I'm new to this job, so I hope you can forgive any mistakes I may make."

As for the other one, she surprisingly remains calm as she introduces herself,

"Greetings, Master Haruka. I'm Kristina Parsons. This is the first time that I've worked as a maid, so I hope you forgive any mistakes that I might make."

Who would've thought that she would look for work as a maid? Now, her permit for non-working hours makes sense, as she has to go to school and drive us to and back from school.

"I'm looking forward to your services," I say to the two girls.

Just as I'm about to invite them inside, AI's voice resounds within my head.

{WARNING: Initialized Code detected.}

Initialized Code? It couldn't be Kristina as I've been interacting with her for a while now. Which means it's Siesta, huh?

Anyway, what's an Initialized Code? Is it like literally a just-awakened Code?

{Affirmative.}

Intriguing. I wonder what's her Code…