Chantora grinned lightly, cupping his chin with one of his hands. “Just a simple crispy lesser drake.”

  Ryan raised his eyebrows. “Lesser drake? Oh, man, that sounds good.” Already feeling his stomach growl, he let out a slight sigh. He would have plenty to eat downstairs later, and all the food on the menu was amazing there as well, but just the idea of eating lesser drake prepared by an Awakened chef seemed amazing. With a laugh, Chantora patted Ryan’s back.

  “I’ll make sure to put some aside for you.”

  “Awesome, thank you.” Ryan smiled broadly, stepping out of the living room with Chantora right behind him. Standing in the hallway, leaning against a wall, was Runar. Of course he was there; Ryan knew that. Runar was the one who had opened the door for Chantora in the first place. But they’d been avoiding each other all day, and it didn’t seem as though now was the right moment to actually talk about it, so both of them just decided to look away from each other. Runar focused on Chantora, while Ryan headed toward his bedroom. He expected his mother in here, taking a break, but instead, she did something that instinctively made Ryan’s stomach drop.

  Mary was cleaning Ryan’s room. And it wasn’t even like his room was particularly dirty. Of course, it wasn’t perfectly spotless, but it was totally fine.

  “Mom, what are you doing?” he asked with a slight groan, watching as his mother rearranged his shelves and cabinets.

  “Just organizing things a little better! It’s such a mess in here,” Mary pointed out, and Ryan looked at her with a blank expression.

  “ … Mm-hmm. I guess, whatever. Just please leave the models as they are; they’re all grouped together by era, so—”

  “But they look so messy like that; wouldn’t it be better if—”

  “Mom, please, just don’t …” Ryan sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He really didn’t feel like dealing with this right now. But at least his mom was listening to some degree now.

  “Yes, yes, fine, if it’s so important to you that they stay so messy, then …”

  Ryan sighed lightly. While his mom was turned around, he quickly took a picture of his wall with model figurines so that he could re-sort them again easily later should his mom mess with where they were standing right now.

  Either way, for now, Ryan grabbed his backpack. He had a few things in there that he needed to bring downstairs with him. Luckily, his mom hadn’t looked into his backpack, at least. Ryan pushed his feet into his sneakers and walked back out into the hallway. “Yo, Liam!”

  The young vampire slowly pulled open his door and peeked out from the room’s dark interior. “Thou hast called for me?”

  “Wanna come with?” Ryan asked, glancing around to make sure nobody would see what he was about to do, which was to point downward at the ground. It seemed like Liam immediately understood what he was trying to ask, though, and hurriedly nodded.

  “Yes! Hold on!”

  “No need to rush. Just put on some shoes and we can head out.” With a slight yawn, Ryan looked back down at his phone. It was a different, newer model that he wasn’t quite used to. But this one did have mana-sensitive cameras, so mana distortions wouldn’t disrupt pictures anymore. Though that had kind of saved his ass a few times so far, so maybe that wasn’t the best choice. Either way, it was better than not having a phone at all.

  As Ryan stood there, waiting for Liam to get ready, Runar walked into the hallway again. Chantora was in the kitchen, and Mary was in Ryan’s room. The uncle-and-nephew pair stared at each other for a few moments until Runar pulled out a small metal card with some patterns on the front.

  “Just put this into the case of your new phone. It’s the signal transmitter,” he explained, and Ryan slowly nodded, looking away from his uncle. For the most part, he just wanted to avoid making eye contact right now.

  “Thanks,” he said, grabbing the small metal plate. He quickly opened his phone case and placed the plate inside. This would now allow him to head downstairs and actually use his phone from there by transmitting the phone’s signal from downstairs to a point on the rooftop and vice versa.

  A few moments later, Liam came out of his bedroom, wearing his shoes, a backpack strapped to his back. He immediately rushed toward the door, and Ryan followed. “See you guys later. Have a fun night,” he said loud enough for everyone in the flat to hear, but he didn’t wait long enough for an answer. Instead, he and Liam made their way into the café and then downstairs into the hidden underground village. This time around, the celebration was already well underway. After yesterday, they had gotten into a proper Spirit Week mood and decided to cook and eat together all day, like a massive feast. Ryan had come down there earlier today as well to check on them, and everything had seemed fine, so he decided to just come back around now when the main part of the celebration was supposed to happen.

  Ryan and Liam walked into the cave village’s main plaza and could already see dozens of tables set up where people were sitting around and eating, at least those who ate solid biological food. The dryads lived off light, fertilizer, and water, so they didn’t really eat, and the geodes also didn’t need to eat, sleep, or even breathe, though the majority of people still did.

  “There’s some kids your age over there; want to go say hi?” Ryan asked, looking down at Liam. He was a bit hesitant, but Ryan was sure that they were going to get along fine. He had already told the other kids living down there about Liam, and they seemed pretty excited to meet him.

  “Do I have to?”

  “No, not at all.” Ruffling Liam’s hair, Ryan smiled down at the young boy. “You can stick to me if you want, but I’ve got some slightly troublesome stuff to take care of. So, if possible, you’d still need to wait for me a bit, okay?”

  Grumbling slightly, Liam nodded. “I shall … greet my people, then!”

  “You do that, my liege.” Ryan nodded, giving the boy a slight salute. Liam had met some of these people before; he just hadn’t spent any time with them. And considering that there were some kids who were stuck down there, Ryan would really like it if they could all get along a bit better.

  That being the case, there really was something he had to take care of, and his first stop was on the other side of the cave. He slowly approached the stairway. There were actually still some splatters of his blood that weren’t properly cleaned off. Ryan should get to that later.

  Either way, his destination was at the top of the steps. He slowly pushed the door open, seeing a wardrobe in the center of the room, as always. But the wardrobe was different from before. It was much, much … prettier. Like it had been repaired or refurbished somehow. Rather, this seemed like what the wardrobe had been supposed to look like back when it was first made.

  “Kindly, you in there? How are you feeling?” Ryan asked, stepping up to the wardrobe. He couldn’t feel even a bit of corruption, so he felt fairly confident. But once Ryan was close enough, the doors of the wardrobe opened up and half a dozen large tentacles shot out, pulling Ryan toward the dark grey mass that was Kindly the mimic, covered in bandages and smelling of rubbing alcohol.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Bricks

  Ryan pushed himself off the dark grey mass that was embracing him completely right now. Kindly’s tentacles were slung all around his body, getting tighter as if he wasn’t planning on letting go anytime soon. And maybe he really wasn’t planning on letting go, either. It must have been quite a while since Kindly was able to actually touch anything or anyone with even an ounce of mana within them, so now the mimic probably had a lot to catch up on in that regard. Even so, Ryan wasn’t the kind who liked being held like this.

  “All good, bud; you can let go of me now!” He laughed awkwardly, trying to push himself off the mimic. Realizing that he wanted to be let go, Kindly did as asked and carefully retracted his tentacles. As he pulled back a bit, Ryan was able to get a proper look at the mimic like this. He was clearly doing a lot better than he had been just yesterday. His mimic shell, the wardrobe, had been repaired pretty well, and his wounds were treated thoroughly, though the wardrobe was probably fixed by Kindly himself.

  Being an awakened mimic, it seemed as though he had gained the ability to better modify his body and shell, basically allowing him to change the appearance of his shell to whatever it needed to be. A standard mimic really just used something like this as their home in the way that they found it, but Kindly was different in that respect. Looking Kindly up and down, Ryan tried to make sure that the mimic was still cured of the corruption. The idea that the corruption could somehow come back was a little bit worrying, but it didn’t seem to be the case.

  Kindly pulled his tentacles back into the wardrobe, closing the cracks in the wood. Now the only thing that Ryan was able to see were Kindly’s eyes peeking out from the cracks of the wardrobe’s doors, looking Ryan up and down excitedly.

  “Did Rose do a good job treating you?” Ryan asked. He sat down on the ground, leaning backward onto his hands. Kindly replied with a soft, happy chirping.

  “Do you think you want to come downstairs with me?” he suggested. Now that Kindly wasn’t corrupted anymore, he should be allowed to be with the others downstairs. Of course, at the end of the end of the day, mimics were considered animals, so maybe bringing him downstairs so easily was a little reckless, but Kindly was an awakened mimic. Ryan didn’t know what sort of abilities he had or what his innate stats were, but he seemed to be incredibly intelligent and responsive compared to what Ryan would expect from an animal. Maybe part of it was Ryan’s sociability stat doing its job, allowing him to talk to Kindly and be actually understood, though whichever it was, Ryan felt bad for the mimic.

  Kindly’s wardrobe slowly pushed itself off the ground, revealing those spider-like legs that it had turned some of its tentacles into. Parts of the wardrobe’s front opened up, revealing large, round eyes. Ryan stood up off the ground and walked toward the door. It was large enough for Kindly to get through, but the steps were still a bit of an issue. Trying to properly guide him downstairs, Ryan placed his hand on the front of the wardrobe, pushing back against it whenever Kindly was about to make a misstep.

  “Take it slow; there’s no need to rush. We’ve got all the time in the world,” he explained, carefully guiding Kindly and making sure that he wasn’t misstepping. If Kindly fell there, he would completely destroy his wardrobe, and that definitely wasn’t good for him. Apparently, the stress of not having a shell starkly reduced a mimic’s lifespan, and Ryan wasn’t sure if there was anything else there that he could use as one. Not to mention Kindly was already pretty hurt, so falling down wouldn’t be great for him.

  But luckily, the two made it down the stairs soon enough. The mimic seemed a bit nervous walking around there, since he wasn’t allowed to ever leave the room at the top of the stairs. Walking around there and feeling something else besides old wooden floorboards below him was certainly exciting. Ryan guided Kindly to where the others were celebrating. The smell of food was already filling the well-trodden village paths.

  Ryan turned the corner of a building, soon bumping into someone he had been looking for earlier. Rose looked up at Ryan, startled. It seemed like she was looking for him as well. “Oh! That’s where you are; I heard you went up to see Kindly! He—” she started, though she stopped herself when she saw what was standing behind Ryan right now.

  The fancy, clean, and new-looking wardrobe definitely hadn’t been there before. “Wait, is that … Did you bring Kindly down here?!”

  Ryan turned around to look at the mimic with a smile, though he was surprised to see that Kindly had retreated into the shell completely. “Yeah, I did. He’s not corrupted anymore, so I figured he should get to join everyone.”

  Nervously, Rose looked around. “Ryan, I adore Kindly as well, but he’s still a mimic, and a pretty large one as well … I’m not sure how safe it is to have him here.”

  With a scoff, Ryan shook his head. “He’s fine; don’t worry. He’s more shy than anything.”

  “Yes, I know that, but the others don’t. Plus, there’s a lot of extremely curious kids here. Who knows what they might do if they see a walking wardrobe? I don’t want to stress Kindly out too much …”

  After a bit of contemplation, Ryan patted the side of the wardrobe. “We can find a spot a bit of a distance away. I just don’t want Kindly to be stuck all alone up there. I figured that now that he’s cured, we could find him a new home. Somewhere that’s still a bit away from others but where he can get used to being around people again slowly but surely.”

  Rose thought about it for a moment. “Well, most places here are already being lived in right now, and we can’t just leave him outside … What about with the Forge elemental?”

  “A Forge elemental that melts metal with a single bite and a mimic with a wooden shell?”

  “… Good point.” Rose hummed slightly, thinking about what to do. “Then we could have him live in Runar’s office, maybe? Not many people go in there besides you and Runar, it’s pretty central so Kindly could hear people and get used to being around them, and the doors and steps are large enough for him to get in and out easily.”

  Ryan thought about that for a moment. It didn’t seem like the worst place. Plus, most of the time, mimics were completely stationary and in their hidden form anyway, so Runar shouldn’t be bothered by him either.

  “But what about Penny? I know that she’s not supposed to be in there permanently anyway, but right now, her nest is still in the office.”

  “… Right, that could be an issue … but one that we could solve if we could get Penny to move somewhere else. We’ve been trying to find her a spot she might like, but she doesn’t really listen to anyone besides you.”

  “That’s fine; I can help her find a spot for her nest,” Ryan replied. His hand was still on the side of the wardrobe. He carefully nudged Kindly forward. “But for now, let’s try and see how Kindly will do around everyone. As long as we’re here, I’m sure he’ll be okay. Plus, I’d love to let him eat something tasty as well. Wait, what do mimics eat?”

  While he couldn’t see her face perfectly through the dark visor of her hazmat suit’s helmet, Ryan could swear that Rose was smiling.

  “Fine. Let’s go.”

  “Okay, let’s do this, and then this … and then …” Modak grumbled quietly, chewing on the end of his pencil as he entered different values into the software on his computer, trying to adjust the audio output of the speakers. Once he was done, he pushed himself over to the adjacent desk with his chair, turning a knob at the speaker’s side until it reached the exact level he needed. He then grabbed a small band of crystal tape lying next to him and pulled it into place. To his left was the inscription machine, and to his right were the data reader and speaker.

  One last time, Modak made sure that everything was properly in place, then looked around to the cyclops. “Is everything in place on your side?”

  Marge quickly nodded. She had different cameras set up, each with different levels of mana sensitivity and filters to ensure that they could capture everything that they needed. Plus, there were a number of other sensors set up to track the experiment further. All of the sensors and cameras were pointed at the pile of toy plastic bricks in the center of the room. They were thrown together onto the pile without much thought and without being snapped together.

  “We’re ready to go on my side.” An excited smile formed on Marge’s face as she stepped back, just waiting for Modak to start. And he promptly did just that.

  “Perfect,” he replied, carefully looking back over at the screen. Taking a deep breath, Modak clicked on one of the tracks that he had prepared. The crystal tape started turning along with the playback speed of the song, and the soundwaves were soon placed onto the tape through carefully pulsated mana signatures. Then, on the other side, just ten centimeters along, the reader lifted the mana off the tape and translated it into sound. The mana that had been placed onto the tape earlier was infused into the sound that the speaker finally let out. It was a simple rhythmic tune that was set to a loop. As the sound hit the toy bricks, they carefully started to tremble. A few of the bricks higher up on the pile were pushed to slide down the side.

  So, Modak carefully got started with the rest. He adjusted one of the dials on the control board next to him. It was like what a music producer would have, allowing him to adjust many different values easily. For now, he adjusted the mana levels of the track, which was set to increase the amount of mana that was placed on the tapes. When the toy bricks began to shake more vigorously, Modak increased the speaker’s output volume. Now, instead of just shaking, they were being lightly thrown around, almost floating for a few moments, like gravity became weaker for them.

  “Changing amplitude,” Modak said to warn Marge. She took a slight step back, watching as the plastic bricks weren’t just thrown around but were carefully lifted off the ground, weightlessly moving along. Some of the bricks were still shaking a bit, but Modak was able to fix that by carefully adjusting some of the other values. By changing the pitch and playback speed of this track in particular, he was able to just have the bricks stay stationary in their position, like someone paused time for them as the pile was thrown to the ground.

  “Perfect. Playing 2Mu7.” With a grin on his face, Modak carefully started up another track to play simultaneously with the first one, carefully ramping up the volume. It was only a minuscule addition to the initial track. As he did, each of the bricks started rotating around their own axis until they were oriented in the exact same way, lining themselves up in a grid. Each brick was an equal distance away from its closest neighbor. Modak muted that track again, and then instead started up another one, “Switching out 2Mu7 with Ik91.”