Blackie tilted its head and ❖ Nоvеlight ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеlight) looked at the woman asking it for a favor—Penia Crysinne.
Her expression was a little strange.
There was a little guilt and shame, and yet also a little faint hope and an odd desire, along with several other emotions visible on her face.
Of course, Blackie naturally had no way of reading Penia’s complicated state of mind.
To begin with, the only things inside Blackie’s head were the beef she was holding and the sweet-potato occupation that had begun the day after they left on their journey.
And so—
Nod—!
Blackie nodded without thinking much about it, bit into the beef Penia was holding, and soon began devouring it right there in front of her.
“You really do eat well, now that I’m seeing it again......”
Penia was briefly surprised by the sight of it absorbing food far too quickly for a small cat.
Soon after, Blackie finished eating everything Penia had given it, then lightly swayed its head side to side as though it felt extremely pleased.
“You ate well, right?”
[Kyuu!]
“Then I’ll be counting on you?”
When Penia carefully spoke, Blackie nodded once.
Of course, as a matter of fact, it had never once transformed into Alon before.
Naturally so.
To begin with, there had never been any need to transform that way, and it had never been given any particular order to do so.
But for Blackie, briefly turning into its master was an extremely simple matter.
Woooong—!
In an instant, Blackie began wrapping itself in a black shadow.
At the same time, Blackie slowly grew larger, and its form began turning slime-like.
Not long after, the body that had not held any particular shape slowly began taking form.
And what appeared—
was Alon.
“Hah—”
Penia let out a short breath without realizing it.
Of course, she knew the being before her was Blackie.
Hadn’t she even handed over the reserve meat she had been saving to make it transform?
Even so, the reason she helplessly made that sound was—
‘......It looks real?’
Because Blackie’s transformation had shown a spine-chilling degree of reproduction far beyond Penia’s imagination.
And so, covering her parted lips, Penia carefully asked,
“Can you speak, by any chance?”
[Kyuu?]
“......Let’s keep your mouth closed.”
The sight of Blackie, in Alon’s form, tilting its head seemed rather cute to Penia, but separate from that, its voice was still Blackie’s, so after making sure of that—
“Wow......”
She carefully approached Blackie, who was in Alon’s form, and examined it here and there.
Then, very subtly, she began touching Alon’s clothes in different places.
Mm— ah, oh...... Penia let out little exclamations like that as she touched Alon’s collar and clothes here and there.
How long had passed like that?
After touching Alon for quite some time, Penia cleared her throat awkwardly and said,
“Ahem. The thing is, you see? I was actually thinking of giving Lord Alon some clothes as a gift this time.”
[?]
“Th-that’s why I asked you to transform this time, you know?”
[......]
Blackie did not bother answering Penia as she suddenly poured out all sorts of scattered excuses.
Communication was not impossible, but it was incapable of deducing why she had suddenly started saying things like that.
More than anything, Blackie, who had accepted Alon as its master, had taken after his personality and generally tended to grant the client’s requests.
“Ahem. Could I maybe...... hug you?”
And so, at the request that ultimately came out, Blackie nodded without the slightest suspicion.
“Really? Th-this is only part of the process of taking measurements for a clothing gift, so—”
Just as Penia gave that explanation and naturally tried to spread her arms—
“Hm, I see. So mages need to hug people in order to measure them for clothing gifts?”
A voice rang out.
Penia swallowed the scream that was about to burst out of her and, like someone caught doing something she should not have done, creakily rolled her eyes to the side.
“How fascinating.”
“Uh—”
Rine was there.
Perhaps because of the blue moonlight falling over her, she looked a little colder than usual.
“No, this is—”
The moment she discovered Rine, Penia desperately tried to come up with an excuse.
However, Rine looked at Penia with a somewhat cold expression, then soon approached Blackie, who had transformed into Alon, as if she found this absurd.
“Th-this is only, how should I put it, really for the sake of giving him clothes as a gift—”
“If it is for taking measurements, should magic not be enough?”
“No, that— how should I put this, this is only a copy, so just in case—”
“You cannot possibly be saying that seriously, can you? And no matter how interested you may be in Godfather, an approach like this is—”
Clicking her tongue, Rine spoke while looking at Blackie in Alon’s form.
“An approach like this is—”
Looking at Blackie, she spoke—
“......An approach, you see.”
......As she spoke, Rine subtly moved her fingers and quietly took hold of the front hem of Alon’s coat.
Rub, rub.
Rine stood still, fiddling with the front hem.
“......The reproduction rate is incredible, isn’t it?”
Penia seemed to have grasped what Rine was thinking without difficulty.
Rine did not answer at all and simply continued fiddling with the coat hem she had grabbed, over and over.
Of course, Penia could guess what Rine was thinking without difficulty.
She too had been surprised by Blackie’s reproduction rate at first, and then a thought had naturally occurred to her.
What would Blackie’s skin be like?
And so, after Penia subtly watched Rine’s reaction for a moment—
“Ahem.”
Rine, who had been rubbing the collar until just a moment ago, cleared her throat.
“It is certainly a little different from the real thing. If it is for giving him clothes as a gift, then I suppose there will inevitably be some ‘unavoidable’ contact.”
She said that.
And Penia, being smart, understood why Rine had said those words.
“Right?”
She nodded.
“Yes. For reference, I had also been thinking of giving Godfather clothes as a gift. Custom-made.”
Through the brief conversation that followed, the two reached a dramatic agreement.
They did not need to say it aloud to each other.
An alliance.
[......Kyuu?]
Naturally, Blackie still did not understand the situation at all.
A few more days passed after that, and by the time Alon’s party was flying along the edge of the wasteland—
“Lord Alon.”
Evan suddenly spoke.
“What is it?”
“No, something feels a little strange.”
“......All of a sudden?”
Alon looked puzzled at Evan’s sudden words.
However, Evan continued as though he still found it strange.
“Yes. I mean Penia and Rine.”
“......What about them?”
“No, do you really not feel that something is strange? Recently, both of them have looked extremely cheerful, haven’t they?”
“......?”
At Evan’s words, Alon turned his gaze and looked at the two of them.
Certainly, Penia and Rine’s expressions looked quite cheerful.
If there was anything that bothered him a little, it would be the dark circles under their eyes, visible only after looking closely.
“......Well, I do not think that is enough to call it strange.”
That was Alon’s answer.
But Evan continued as though Alon knew nothing.
“Do you really think so?”
“......I do. Is there something else strange?”
“Of course there is.”
“What is it?”
“Those two have been eating nothing but sweet potatoes lately, yet they still look happy, don’t they?”
“No, are sweet potatoes that serious?”
“That is not all. The last time they ate meat instead of sweet potatoes, they actually looked worse the next day.”
“No, what I am asking is whether liking sweet potatoes is really such a strange thing.”
“Is that not obvious? They have been eating them every day until they are sick of them.”
“......”
Of course, Alon did eat a lot of sweet potatoes.
As a result, there were times when the group’s food ended up unified around sweet potatoes as well.
But even so, he found it a little strange that they would dislike them that much.
To begin with, sweet potatoes were not bad food, but delicious food.
On top of that, as far as Alon knew, their nutritional balance was not bad either, so he suddenly felt a little wronged.
“......”
But then again, if he thought about it coldly, it was also true that on the day they had eaten meat instead of sweet potatoes, the two of them had looked somewhat unhappy, almost as if they had planned it together.
‘......What is going on?’
Just as Alon was thinking that to himself—
“Ah, Lord Alon. We’re about to reach the border. What should we do?”
“Mm......”
At Evan’s next question, Alon’s attention quickly shifted.
In truth, if they flew, they could cross without going through the border, but since he had manners, he knew it would be rude to hop over someone else’s fence as though coming and going from his own home.
“......Let us descend.”
At Evan’s words, Alon answered that way.
And as Alon looked ahead—
his expression soon turned surprised.
Of course, there was nothing in the sky Alon was looking at.
All that could be seen was the blue sky and the border far in the distance.
But that was only on the surface.
In Alon’s eyes, something fascinating was reflected.
“......That is—”
It was a massive curtain spread out from the border as its dividing line.
On the surface, it did not look particularly threatening.
A shallow curtain, to the point where one might wonder whether something like this could truly block Divine blood.
“......That must be it.”
“Mm—”
Just as Penia and Rine also seemed to recognize the curtain ahead and each gave their own impression—
[I will descend—!]
As the defensive barrier drew closer, Basiliora slowly began descending toward the ground.
Not long after, once Alon’s group had landed completely, the first thing they did was check the faintly visible defensive barrier.
“Mm. It’s fascinating.”
At Penia’s murmur as she examined the defensive barrier, Alon found himself agreeing without realizing it.
Certainly, as she said, Alon also felt fascinated by the curtain spread before them.
The defensive barrier currently spread across the Empire looked exactly as Alon had predicted earlier: it did not seem to have been created to block anyone in particular.
If he had to evaluate it, it felt more like the inside and outside had simply been divided so only mages could see the boundary.
Other than that, there did not seem to be any difference at all between the inside and the outside.
‘......How does this block Divine blood?’
Alon stared at the defensive barrier with that thought for a moment.
Then he soon felt a slightly strange sense of incongruity.
A sense that he had seen this power somewhere before.
“Hm.”
But he could not just keep looking at the defensive barrier forever.
At the same time, if they crossed the border, there would be people he could ask about this barrier.
“For now, let us move.”
“Yes.”
Alon soon began moving toward the inside of the border.
And when not much time had passed before they reached the border—
“Hm?”
Alon encountered a truly unexpected connection.
It was—
“......Deus?”
“Lord Alon......?”
Deus.
More accurately, Deus Makalian standing there after single-handedly smashing apart a border guard force that, at a glance, looked to number well over several hundred.
“......”
What on earth is this situation......?
Alon’s thoughts began growing complicated.......

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