“Like…this…?”

“Yup, exactly like that! You really are a natural at this, aren’t cha, Neo?!”

“Ehehe…”

Watching the spatial coordinate cube gradually stabilize on top of Neo’s little fingers, I took the opportunity to pat her head a couple of times while relishing in her shy but proud expression.

A silly smile mirroring hers unconsciously made its way to my face as I reminisced on our short time together.

It has been a week since I rescued her, granting her a much needed fresh new start, and six days since we set off on our journey to the labyrinth town, Gerya.

 

The church’s intelligence network turned out to be incredibly well developed for a medieval theocracy, once again reminding me of how marvelous the results of adding magic to a world setting can be.

Only half a day had passed since I rescued Neoma when I was astonished to detect the first suspicious traces closing in on our cozy little room.

Despite the flawless act of being an ordinary person on the surface, the magic power hidden in those men’s bodies was anything but ordinary– for a human anyways.

Compared to everyone else in town though, they might as well have been fireflies flying in pitch black darkness.

At first, I was confused as to how the church folks learned about my raid this quickly, even going as far as to send people to this remote, barren country when it hasn’t even been a day yet.

However, I soon realized that I fell into a misconception without knowing it.

The old mage Ronandt was the only space mage shown in the anime except for Kumoko herself.

So I unconsciously thought Spatial Magic was some kind of top tier skill that’s impossible to acquire without reaching a very high talent benchmark.

However, that’s clearly not the case.

Let’s exclude myself since I most likely have full affinity for the space attribute, Kumko was able to acquire it with relative ease.

Thus, Spatial Magic might not be as rare among humans as I believed it to be.

In fact, it might be pretty common, just at a low average skill level due to the total lack of any systematic proficiency training methods.

The church mages are a different story though.

As an old organization with a history that goes back a few centuries at the minimum, it would only make sense that they had more than one space mage amidst their ranks in the past, right?

And nothing’s preventing said space mages from just scribbling whatever magic construction they got from the system on a notebook.

In fact, I’d be more surprised if that ‘manipulative pope’ D spoke of didn’t force them to record the entirety of their magical expertise for future members of the church to learn from.

This entirely negates the skill level requirement since you can cast any magic as long as you can successfully construct the magic construction.

Any issues can be solved through sheer brute force if you add more mages.

Quality can be compensated for by quantity sometimes, and vice versa. You don’t really need to make a choice.

After the first church pursuer passed through the gate guards unhindered, a few more followed after him at a rate of at least one every two hours.

And this rate kept on increasing until there were a total of twenty freaking church pursuers in town in less than half a day!

Our inn room ended up getting searched over ten times, all resulting in nothing at all since they completely ignored Neo’s presence.

We might’ve been discovered if it wasn’t for my split-second decision to transfer Mischief's effect to Neo the moment I detect a naughty lolicon peeking at us.

Soon, I had enough of this blatant breach of privacy, checked out of the inn, and left the city with little Neo tightly clutching my hand.

Her… not so nice experience made her into an introverted child who hates communication with a passion, meaning I had to deal with her pretty much dragging me back while hiding in my shadow unless we’re alone.

Although I know the only reason she can even communicate with me is due to the wonders of Naming, I still try to think of myself as someone special to her.

Nah, I’m definitely special! …Yeah, definitely.

Leaving that aside, I was able to leave the city with her completely unnoticed and started our long journey towards Gerya on foot.

I didn’t bother to hire a carriage nor pick a specific road, opting to just travel in one long straight line to Allieus’s nearest border town instead.

That way we can arrive in a much shorter time while also throwing off any curious followers we might have.

No one in their right mind would believe that a child is taking their target, which also happens to be a child, on a walk through the arduous, monster infested terrain, y’know?

That would just be delivering two snacks to whatever lucky monster that happens to stumble into them, after all.

During our long trek, I made sure to let Neo walk on her own as much as possible to exercise her body while also teaching her magic.

Food and water were the least of our concerns considering I have a large stock of seafood and water magic, so I made sure she gets in as much of both as possible.

Naming her made it so that she’s always excited to live up to my expectations and get my praise though, which led to her often overexerting her body and fainting the moment I took my eyes off of her.

I mean, I am very proud of you for having such a strong will and all, but… would it hurt if you at least gave me a heads up before doing something like that, Neo?!

My MP bar is enough for me to effortlessly heal you up to full a hundred times over, y’know?! And not only is it free, but I can also gain proficiency in related skills through doing so as well!

Well, I guess a child will always be a child… which is a good thing.

The fact that Neo can still show excitement means that her situation might not be as hopeless as I thought!

Taking care of a child and teaching her has been an interesting experience, though I sometimes doubt if my methods are correct.

But! Self confidence is the key to success!

So even though mom always forbade me from going anywhere near the kitchen, I’m positive there’s nothing wrong with teaching Neo Fire Magic!

I’m also thinking about creating her an exclusive weapon for self-defense soon… It’s not like I’m gonna let her fend for herself, but better safe than sorry anyways.

 

Feeling a tug on my sleeve, I look down to see Neo pointing at something with a timid expression.

“...What… is that?” She asked, her words coming out as a barely audible murmur.

“Hmmm?” Following the direction of her finger, a tall, majestic wall enters my sight. “That would be a city wall, little Neo. Just like the one we passed through a few days ago.” I explained.

It seems we’ve made it to our first stop, border town Foren.

After knowing about the church’s solid external intelligence network, I gave up on any plan that included being too lazy to interact with other humans.

If their external network is this strong, who knows how strong their internal network is? It could be stronger than a modern one for all I know.

Telepathy is basically an upgraded form of phone calls, y’know? Not only does it not require any hand-held devices, but it is also completely free.

If I show up unannounced in the middle of their territory, I WILL most certainly be labeled suspicious and draw some very unwanted attention to me and Neo.

So while the first half of our journey was basically a straight line towards Alleius, we will be taking the normal route in the second one.

Tightening my hold over Neo’s hand, I gave her a reassuring smile and slowly treaded towards the town gate.

I made sure to activate every single Magic Tool I had created and covered Neo’s body with.

Including but not limited to a Concealment necklace to hide her race and a pair of earrings enchanted with Heretic Nullification and Danger Perception to protect her from any elusive attempts at harming her.

The previous bracelets I created for her had their skills upgraded into a Suffering Nullification and a level 10 Healing Magic spell, along with an independent magic battery where I input about three times the capacity of my MP bar’s worth of magic.

…Yeah, I might have gone a bit overboard with all that. Just a teeny tiny bit!

But hear me out for a sec! Everything’s worth it for little Neo’s safety, so I see no issue whatsoever with doing so!

I’m sure if I told anyone about it, they wouldn’t find me –D forbid– overprotective or anything… This is just the bare minimum!

Joining the line in front of the city gate, I withdrew my adventurer card from my Spatial Storage and patiently waited.

When it was finally my turn, I coolly flashed my Adventurer Card to the gate guard, who in turn nodded and let me through without much obstruction.

Thank fucking D for this! My sleeve was about to get torn by Neo’s nervous clutch.

…Alright, I’ve had enough of this!

Halting my steps, I crouched and adjusted my posture before expertly heaving Neo onto my back.

“Eeep…!” She yelped in surprise, but I ignored it and devoted my utmost attention to my quest for a suitable inn.

I got a few chuckles from the roadside stall merchants and the passer-by aunts, which finally woke up from my focused state.

Realizing what kind of position I’m currently in, my face flushed in embarrassment.

For everyone watching, our current image must seem like that of an older sister trying to act mature like her mother by carrying her shy younger sister.

If it wasn’t for my body not being much bigger than Neo’s, this might’ve made for a very heartwarming scene.

However, I can’t picture our current appearance being anything but comical right now… Ugh!

This is nothing compared to my usual cringe, childish disguise, but the fact that I’m acting this way subconsciously makes it much worse in my head!

Uuuuuu….! I really hope D wasn’t watching that!

I hastily lowered Neo off of my back and naturally went up to a fruit stand, pretending as if nothing happened.

“Two of those, please!” I said, handing the merchant a few coins and pointing to a fruit. “Do you know about any safe inns around here, Mister?” I inquired.

“Right on it, little missy!” He chuckled while reaching forward. “There’s one at the end of this street to the left. Should be just fine for a pair of charming young ladies like you two.” He winked, handing me two giant berry-like fruits and my change.

“Great! Thank you, Mister!” I gave him a childish smile while handing one of the fruits to Neo. “Come on, Neo! We could really use a bit of rest.” I said, noticing Neo’s drooping eyelids.

Neo, who was right back in her exclusive spot behind me, nodded timidly in response.

I nodded to the merchant and began leisurely strolling around the street.

Now that our shelter for the night has been secured, there’s really no need for me to go there in a hurry.

Instead, I believe it’d be better for me to let Neo experience more human interactions, steadily grinding the tough steel shell she has surrounded herself with.

Also, I need to keep a close eye on Alexia’s side since she’s about to go on a lil’ hostage rescue heist with a high chance of going awry.

I’d really rather not lose my free dedicated employee that never rejects… Yeah, that’s a nice way to put it, though you could argue that the job description is rather misleading.

Anyways, I separated my thought process into two, the main one responsible for watching over Alexia and the other responsible for getting us safely settled in the inn.

Parallel minds is quite the nifty skill, I tell ya. It’s just that its side effects are as strong as its utility.

I mean, it’s literally split personality disorder with an on off button, y’know? You get what you’re asking for.

It’s fine if you use it sparingly. But the more time your split personality stays active, the more it would diverge from the main personality.

Luckily, I have Sage to regulate all that stuff. I can even let it suppress my emotions until I gain ruthless machine-like rationality, let alone deal with a tiny piece of my soul rebelling.

I kept my eyes peeled, watching every single step of Alexia’s preparation in an effort to learn some real life rogue skills.

Unfortunately, it was boring as fuck!

She just tightened the strings of her crossbow, sharpened her dagger, carefully filled the bottom of her little bolt quiver with paralyzing poison, and readjusted a Stealth enchanted cloak to fit her body frame.

But she actually wasted over two freaking hours on these miscellaneous tasks!

I’m not even kidding you right now. By the time she took her first step out of her hiding place, we had made it into our inn room, and Neo had already drifted into dreamland!

It was only now that I realized just how convenient my skill set actually is.

Everything she did in those two hours, I can do in a matter of seconds mid-battle without getting distracted from the fight.

I can even create brand new weapons and poisons effortlessly while being attacked from all sides.

For real though… Just how good is my skill set?

I’ll probably have to wait until I meet an Arachne version of Kumoko to get the answer for that.

For now though, I’d better get my snacks ready ‘cause I’m in for a potentially real life spy movie!

---