A Surprise for Machi

After learning exactly what the Set-Building Machine could do, Ian looked around the room they were in.

"Ian, do you know how to use that item now?"

Machi watched what Ian was doing and asked, a little curious.

The corners of Ian's mouth lifted slightly as an idea came to him. He winked at Machi and chuckled.

"Machi, I think you'll really like what this item can do..."

"Have you ever thought about what kind of room you'd like to live in someday?"

Hearing Ian's words,

Machi paused, touching a finger lightly to her cheek as her gaze went distant.

"A room? I've never really thought about that. Isn't it enough for a house to keep out the wind and rain...?"

Ian couldn't help but smile wryly.

I almost forgot...

Machi and the others had grown up in Meteor City.

Their expectations for life had always been based on survival.

"My question was too strange. To apologize, please enjoy the magic trick I'm about to perform for you, Machi."

As the boy's clear, gentle voice faded in the room,

Ian placed the Set-Building Machine in front of him and looked around. A cloud of white smoke rose out of thin air.

As Ian's Nen Ability was consumed,

"Poof!"

On the once-dilapidated wooden roof, layers of clouds as white as curls of wool appeared, stretching toward an endless blue horizon.

Across the walls surrounding the room lay a vast, lush grassland. All sorts of cartoon animals from nature looked this way from near and far, as though they were real.

Antelopes with round eyes bounded about, clouds beneath their hooves.

A lion hid itself from view, lazily looking over as it raised a paw to scratch its mouth and yawned.

An elephant with ears like palm-leaf fans stood by a river, smiling as it sprayed water into the sky with its trunk, forming a rainbow.

In the center of the room was a bed as soft as a white cloud fallen from the sky, inviting one to sink into it.

Seeing the scenes before her,

Machi's little mouth fell open and her eyes widened as she stared in disbelief at everything happening in the room.

"Wh-where is this? It's amazing..."

A grassland landscape she had never seen before had suddenly appeared before her, and the adorable animals around her looked as though they had stepped out of a fairy tale. Machi could scarcely believe what was happening before her eyes.

Ian, too, looked at his handiwork in considerable surprise.

The corners of his mouth lifted.

At that moment, Ian shed his calm maturity, revealing a trace of youthful innocence and surprise.

It had to be said:

Ian himself was stunned by the effect the Set-Building Machine had produced.

The scene before him was like a dream, an image that could only be imagined in the mind, one that no famous painter or master architect would dare claim they could bring to life.

Whether it was the vast expanse of grassland before him or the materials used to create it, there wasn't the slightest flaw to be found.

And with the Set-Building Machine, he had truly recreated the image in his mind perfectly.

The two of them stood amid it all, as though they were really on the grassland.

They had completely forgotten that they were inside a tiny, dilapidated wooden house of less than ten square meters.

"This is a grassland... Machi, no, to be precise, we're still in your house. I just made a grassland set."

"Do you like this kind of scenery?"

Ian looked at Machi beside him and asked with a soft laugh.

For the residents of Meteor City, perhaps the only scenery they saw in their entire lives was yellow sand filling the sky.

Machi's round eyes were wide as she looked around and said joyfully,

"It's hard to imagine. Is this what a grassland looks like? I love it..."

"Is all of this real?"

"Not all of it, but at least everything except the scenery around us is real, like this bed."

"I think after today, we can finally stop sleeping on wooden boards. Go on and try it. It looks pretty comfortable..."

Ian explained with a smile.