Feeling the morning sunlight, I open my eyes.

While yawning, I try to remember the dream I had yesterday.

I still have a warm sensation in my chest, it must have been a good dream, but I can't remember what it was.

Trying to get up, I feel something unusual.

As I force my way, I hear a dropping sound as my body gets lighter.

What happened?

As I look towards the source of the sound, I meet the sleepy eyes of a little girl.

“Luxe?”

Why are you here? Before asking that question, something else caught my eyes and I changed the question.

“Why are you naked?”

“... I can't wear a dress while sleeping.”

Seeing her flopping back down on the bed, I notice something is wrong.

I am in my fox form.

Why was this wrong again?

Ah, that's right. I remember the scared eyes of hers I saw the first time I met her.

Since then, I made sure to take the human form in front of her at all times.

How did this happen? No, before thinking about that, I must do something.

Forcing my brain that is still half asleep, I manage to find a solution.

“I'm going to toilet!”

Reaching upstairs, I catch my breath.

I somehow ran away, but now that I think about it, I could have just transformed back.

Anyways, it was definitely my room that I was sleeping in. So did she come to my room? Wait, does that mean that I didn't need to panic?

I recall what happened yesterday.

It was the first time she glared at me so intensely that I flinched. Did she not like my gift? Does she hate me because she only loves vegetable-looking clothes? I could think of so many different possibilities.

At the end, it appears that she was just worried about me. It might have been a bit dangerous, but it was nothing much, I think. But to be over protective like that, yep, my mother used to be like that.

She now acts properly as a village chief, but she used to be such a doting mother, to an extent where auntie Lisa had to tell her to stop.

For Luxe to show the same kind of affection towards me. It makes me.. happy?

What is this feeling? This squirmy feeling that I have in my chest, I'm not sure.

I think I would like to stay and enjoy this sensation forever.

But for now, I'll go back to my room and wake her up.

I head back to my room just to notice that she is not there anymore.

There is only one way out, so I can't have missed her if she went outside. Could she have gone to another room?

I look for her, but I can't find her anywhere. The only room left is mother's, so I enter her room.

“What's wrong, Rina? You seem to be making quite a ruckus this early.”

“I'm sorry, mother. Did you happen to see Luxe? I have been looking for her.”

“She has not come here, at least. Wouldn't she be outside?”

That's the problem, though! Since I was at the entrance to the den, she couldn't have gone outside, but now she is nowhere to be found.

What is going on?

Thinking about it, Luxe usually just disappears somehow.

I thought she had been just walking outside, but isn't it weird?

This reminds me of how Joel would say “disappear like a far in the wind” as if he is saying something classy.

Oh no, I just compared her to a fart. It can't be done. It's all Joel's fault for saying such unladylike thing.

Yep, it's decided, I'll kick him away next time I see him.

Anyways, I have a way to make her come back.

Just like how she is suddenly gone, she appears when I make food.

Like, when I put dishes on the table and am looking away, or dozing off, the next time I realize she is sitting at the table already eating, as if she always has been.

Yep, I think I'll prepare breakfast for now.

…

The breakfast was toast with fried eggs. I found more human cooking books at mother's library, and while ingredients are sometimes missing, I can just make up with my water magic. I can create it as long as I know how it should look like and have the materials constituting it. Transformation is our tribe's specialty and has lots of applications.

Since I have a rough idea about how much she eats now, I prepared the food and ate with her.

However, I couldn't talk much as she kept reminding me of yesterday's incident.

'I like Rina more.'

With her intense gaze she had told me that.

It made me so happy that I couldn't look straight at her.

And since she is the type to not talk much, the breakfast was silent.

Once she finished her meal, while I was distracted in my thoughts, she had disappeared once again.

I'm now walking around the town in deep thoughts.

This is not good.

I want to be more with her, but she keeps going off to somewhere after eating.

I need to find something to keep her around.

While thinking so, I find Joel running towards me.

“Rina! What are you doing here? Let's go play!”

It seems that he was playing with the other children. Joel is such a kid, after all. I can't believe he is older than me.

“I was looking for Luxe, have you seen her?”

“If it's her, I heard she was at the doctor's office.”

“Auntie Lisa's? Is she hurt somewhere?”

“No, I heard she has been helping her with light magic. It seems she is quite capable.”

So she is not the one that needs to be healed. That's a relief.

I remember her having affinity for light magic, but to think that she is able to help auntie Lisa already, that is quite amazing.

But it means that she has been able to use magic after all, right? She knew about her affinities before checking them as well. I wonder how she has been living?

If I remember correctly, she has been enslaved in a cave. And to have developed her light magic, she must have been using it. Has she been used to heal people, both body and mind? After all, just looking at her would heal people's mind. Yep, that would be popular.

“What are you doing? Come here already.”

“Huh?”

“What are you dozing off for? I said we need a last person to play.”

I see Joel with a questioning look. Why are you assuming that I am coming to play anyways? Ah, I just remembered something.

I kick Joel away. It's for the unladylike joke earlier. Yep.

“What is that for?”

“Well, I'll come play later.”

Leaving him complaining behind, I head over to the doctor's office.

…

I can see a large crowd from afar as I approach the auntie Lisa's place.

It seems that there were too many of them to fit in the office, so they are using the yard as well.

I can see some Tail Foxes, but most of them are from different races.

“Isn't it Rina? Come over here with us.”

It's an old lady fox that plays with the children sometimes. I can see a few other old ones sitting in a corner with her.

“What's with all this?”

I approach them while asking.

“We came to see Luxe, but there seem to be too many patients today. So we are just chatting over here.”

“After all, we just wanted her to give us a massage. It is pretty good for the back pain.”

“I know, right? I felt like I was young once again.”

“But we can't insist when there are so many patients waiting for her, especially those with heavy injuries. So we are just sitting here and talking. Oh, we have some tea as well, do you want some?”

I politely decline and look at the crowd. Most of the races I see are familiar to me, and I can see some heavily wounded ones.

Even though we have auntie Lisa, how much she is able to tend the wounds has a limit as she is just a doctor. For those kinds of injuries, healers or even alchemists are a lot more capable after all.

So all those people came because they heard about Luxe. Since when did she get so famous?

Moreover, I know that she is a little girl that gets scared easily. And the wounds on some of them look quite grotesque, not to mention that some races have an intimidating appearance as well.

Is it because she got used to them that she was okay with coming to sleep with me?

Anyways, I need to go check.

“Excuse me.”

With my small body in the transformed state, I manage to pass through and find Luxe.

She is standing next to a black bear lying on the ground, with her hands on his belly that has a severe cut on it. The sight of it is quite grotesque and even I would hesitate to do the same, but she has her usual expressionless face. I can see red stains of blood on the white one piece dress she is wearing. It is a good thing that it is easy to wash.

After a bit, the mana flows out of her hand, and the wound closes slowly. The black bear's face that was in pain changes slowly to that of a relief.

“Isn't she amazing?”

I turn back, recognizing the voice of auntie Lisa.

“Aren't you supposed to be busy?”

“The patients came to see her and not me. After all, medicines aren't able to heal such heavy wounds so quickly. All we can do is help her by organizing the patients. And the assistants can do that.”

I can see Lisa's assistants running around to get the most urgent ones to be placed first. Luxe moves on to the next patient of her choice as she confirms that the wound on the black bear is closed.

“So, are you just idling around while others are working?”

“Right person for the right job. If this keeps going, I wouldn't have anything to do as a doctor.”

She laughs pleasantly as she says so.

“Aren't you overworking her?”

At my question, her expression turns serious.

“As for that, I wondered what were her abilities, so I let her keep going with the job, and..”

Is she experimenting with her to see how much she can do?

“Well, as you can see, she is still keeping going, and her expression doesn't change a little bit, so I think she is fine.”

“Since when has this been going on?”

“She came here this morning, and then the patients started coming in.”

So, after taking the breakfast, she came here and kept healing the injured from there on, huh?

“But don't you find it weird? If I remember correctly, light magic users shouldn't have this kind of endurance. It consumes quite a lot of mana, after all, especially to heal a heavy injury.”

“Have you seen them before?”

“I did but this is what can be seen only among the high level healers. For her to be like this at her age, her talents must be quite high.”

I look at Luxe who is now next to a black harpy. The harpy is over 4m in height, and she is standing next to her with her usual composure.

Even though she usually doesn't express much on the outside, I know that it doesn't mean that she doesn't feel anything on the inside.

The best example is the food. When I bring her sweets, her eyes almost shine, and I can tell that she is so eager to eat. There have been a few other topics I managed to find that particularly interest her, and those are magic and monsters.

Because I know those sides of her, I can tell that something is off from her expressionless face.

She seems to be eager, but something feels a bit off.

I'm not exactly sure why, but is it because she is tired?

I just hope that she is not overworking herself.

“Thank you.”

The black harpy's child lets out tears of joy as she sees her mother getting healed.

Well, even though she is a child, she is still a lot bigger than Luxe, though.

Expressing her gratitude, she takes out a gold coin and hands it over to her. Harpies are powerful beings, so it seems that their spending is also generous.

However, after Luxe takes the coin and then just throws it away.

“Huh?”

“Sigh, she is doing that again.”

“What was that just now?”

“Well, it seems like she doesn't really like money. Look.”

To the harpy child that doesn't know what to do to her unusual behavior, Luxe starts looking into the small bag she is carrying on her waist. She takes out a dried meat and starts eating it.

“Were you hungry?”

The harpy child is asks, confused.

“Healing consumes energy.”

With just that, she walks over to the next patient.

“She has been taking whatever food they have.”

“But if she got the money, she could just buy them, right?”

“Do you remember how people have been treating her? Especially you, Rina.”

“Ah..”

Now that I think of it, the villagers have been just giving her whatever she seemed to like eating. With that I guess she doesn't need money.

I look at her now eating some fruit that someone must have given her, or she took from them.

“Isn't it fine?”

“No, it's not! It might be okay for now, but think of how she will be when she grows up, and still acts that way.”

I have never thought about that. Humans have a lot shorter lifespan and grow quickly, so she will become an adult before long. I wonder if she will look different then? Will I still be by her side then? I definitely want to be!

Let's see, in 10 years, she will be a 20 years old. For a human that is an adult. And I would be pretty much the same, but I can grow with her with my transformation magic.

As an adult, she would have to get married, and if she chose me as her partner.. wait, we are of different races. But we already slept together, and what if she insists?

“Are you okay?”

“It's okay because I will keep feeding her.”

“What the hell are you saying? There is no way that is okay. Also, your face turned red, just what were you thinking?”

Auntie Lisa looks at me regretfully. Why is that?

“Sigh, you are just like your.. no, never mind. I have work to do, so go play somewhere else.”

“You aren't doing anything though?”

Since she starts glaring at me, I walk away.

Anyways, I knew Luxe was a glutton, but to be this extent, I didn't know. Also, she was so eager to heal people, those are all aspects of her I didn't know about her.

I want to spend more time with her. But how shall I keep her around?

She comes to eat whenever I make the meals, the thing she likes... Oh, I think I just got a great idea.