Fully Automatic Box-Opening Machine

Iver had to admit that he had slightly underestimated "Lu Lu."

...It seemed that his temporary teammate was not as useless as she thought she was.

After taking a small breath, the "Anne Alexander" by the window spoke in a voice as ethereal as crystal.

It was clearly still morning, and the sun had only just risen.

Yet her singing immediately reminded Iver of a summer evening breeze drifting past a window and gently brushing against wind chimes. A carefree peace filled his heart, and the anxiety he had yet to reveal was soothed away.

It was like splashing clear water over a bonfire and extinguishing it.

Iver slowly closed his eyes and gradually relaxed his mind...

"—All right, Mr. Fox."

Lu Lu's voice reached him, and Iver, who had remained slightly wary while leaning against the door and listening to the commotion outside, instantly opened his eyes.

"Mm. Thanks for the effort."

"It was nothing. It was easy. Even if I carried him around while running, he definitely wouldn't wake up for the next two hours."

Confidence gleamed in the beautiful woman's platinum-blond eyes. She said seriously, "As long as he isn't hit directly by a gunshot, he absolutely won't wake up even if he falls to the ground."

...Did you want me to praise you? What a child.

Miss Lu Lu probably wasn't very old.

Iver thought to himself.

He nodded slightly and praised her. "You did very well, Lu Lu. Thanks to you—we've been carrying around a child who was awake, and communicating was very inconvenient. Little Iver was asleep before and didn't hear our conversation. After he woke up, we could only whisper to each other... But we can't keep communicating like that outside.

"Even if he's just a child, his doubts could slowly accumulate until he eventually spots the flaws in our act—and once we're exposed, we'll probably be judged to have lost."

Iver spoke calmly.

There was not the slightest change in his expression. He still wore that composed look of someone who had victory in hand.

But inside, Iver was sweating bullets.

—He had nearly fallen asleep himself.

Even though that was partly because he had deliberately relaxed his mind... the effect of Lu Lu's song was still astonishingly good.

Her voice was exceptionally clear and transparent, with an ethereal, crystalline quality. Even when she sang through Annie's body, it had barely weakened.

...Her fundamentals are this good? Are you really from Avalon? At that thought, something stirred in Iver's mind.

A young girl from Avalon who had mastered the Path of Beauty...

—Could Lu Lu actually be Princess Isabel?

He remembered that Isabel possessed the Path of Beauty, and that her strength in it was considerable. After the "Cruel Autumn" incident in the game, she had fled to the Eternal Theocracy alongside Iver with the Player Character, making her one of the main party members.

Still, whether she was that Princess or not did not really affect Iver's plans.

If anything, if she really was the Princess... teasing her might actually make Iver even more energetic.

—This was easy enough.

Let's probe her a little.

"...What an extraordinary voice." Iver revealed a sincerely impressed smile and praised her from the bottom of his heart. "Even if you hadn't become a Transcendent, you could surely have become an opera singer famous across the continent."

"Really?"

Lu Lu's eyes suddenly lit up. She revealed the innocent, delighted smile of someone being praised by a person she respected. "Compared to painting and sculpture, I actually like singing and dancing more..."

"Speaking of which..." Iver pretended to remember something. "'Lu Lu'... Was that name taken from the opera Lulu's Magic Flute?"

"Mr. Fox has heard of it too?"

Lu Lu spoke happily.

"It's an extraordinary opera."

Iver nodded, praising it sincerely.

It really was extraordinary—there were four spells from the Path of Beauty hidden within that opera. Only Transcendents with a certain level of artistic accomplishment could sense and comprehend them.

—Two of them were even essential skills for the level-thirty advanced class Pied Piper and the level-fifty advanced class Queen of the Night.

"Right, right!"

Lu Lu spoke excitedly, her eyes shining and her expression radiant. "When I was very young... Grandma took me to see the opera. I could sing it after hearing it just once. The part that goes, 'Pa, pa, pa, pa-Papagena!'"

"Oh, I know." Iver nodded. "The part where Papageno and Papagena dance, right?"

—Although Iver answered fluently, he had actually never seen it.

However, his screenwriter friend had told him that the opera Lulu's Magic Flute was based on Mozart's opera The Magic Flute from Earth, and that its plot and melodies were essentially the same.

In this world, though, its creator was not Mozart but a fairy named "Lulu."

Fairies were weak phantasmal beings with wings and a rather childlike nature. Just as demons generally possessed the Dark Attribute, fairies generally possessed the Wind Attribute.

Iver had seen The Magic Flute. He naturally knew some of its scenes as well... He definitely couldn't sing them, but he could bluff his way through a little.

"Mr. Fox is amazing! I thought this opera was obscure in Avalon!"

For a moment, Lu Lu had completely forgotten about the Promotion Ritual, overwhelmed by the excitement of finding someone who understood and appreciated her.

She spontaneously sang two lines. "Will you always belong to me? I will always belong to you! Now you are my wife, now you are my true love..."

Iver immediately felt joy surge into his heart. A light force flowed into his heart along with the music. He even felt that his steps had become slightly lighter and his body more balanced—he was confident he could jump from the third floor without injuring himself.

This was the Path of Beauty's Lively Tune ability. It could grant allies within range the effects of the Haste and Balanced Stance spells, with a strength equivalent to between 1% and 300%.

The enhancement provided this way initially had only one-third of its full effect, then grew stronger the longer she sang.

Lu Lu's strength was probably around 10% to 15%, which meant that her singing could provide everyone with close to a 50% sustained enhancement from both spells. Most importantly, this was an ability—it did not consume mana.

—That was enough. This level of strength was already quite impressive.

Iver was now completely certain that she was almost certainly Princess Isabel.

An ordinary All-rounder could not accumulate such powerful fundamentals. Omnipotence usually meant mediocrity—

But she really was an all-rounder.

With her talent and foundation, she might be able to keep up with Iver's advancement speed.

The only problem was that the little girl was not wary enough.

He had not even set a trap or deliberately lowered her guard. He had merely asked a casual question, and she had chattered everything out.

She was practically a walking fully automatic box-opening machine.

...Hopefully, before he met Her Highness the Princess again in the Dream Realm, her tutor would properly train her acting skills.

If you keep this up, I'll feel bad deceiving you.

Iver never bullied children.

He raised a hand and pressed it down slightly. Like a conductor, he gestured for Lu Lu to quiet down.

As expected, she immediately stopped singing and fell silent.

"Are you still nervous?"

Iver smiled warmly. "Do you feel better now?"

"...Yes, thank you!" Lu Lu suddenly understood.

So Mr. Fox thought I was too nervous, and deliberately chatted with me to ease my psychological pressure!

"—Don't address me so formally."

Iver emphasized, "Julio Alexander. You're Annie. In public, you can call me Julio... or you can call me darling."

"...I'll still call you Julio."

Lu Lu spoke softly.

At that point, she suddenly realized something. "Wait, aren't we going to find Bishop Mathers?"

"No, we aren't."

"Huh... Wh-why not? I know about him. He's very powerful... He's the royal family's gravedigger. He can definitely protect us."

"I believe what you're saying—since you say he's powerful, he must be powerful enough to protect us."

Iver first affirmed Lu Lu's words, then changed the subject. "So, did you bring the letter?"

"...What letter?" Lu Lu asked somewhat uneasily.

For an instant, she wondered whether she had done something wrong, said something stupid, or lost something important...

"I mean the original of that threatening letter."

"No..."

"Exactly. I don't have it either. So we don't know what that person wrote in the letter. At the same time, I don't know Bishop Mathers, which makes it difficult for me to convincingly play his student."

But I actually have a way to make him protect us...

Lu Lu thought about it, but swallowed the words.

She still had some wariness—saying that would be equivalent to revealing her identity in the real world!

Iver narrowed his eyes like a fox and drawled, "You should also have a mission to 'leave the Grand Cathedral,' right?"

"Yes. It tells me to leave the Grand Cathedral and go to Legal Square." Lu Lu immediately responded.

"How many points?"

"One hundred."

"Very low. Mine is the same."

Iver assessed it. "The higher the difficulty and the greater the challenge, the higher the score should be. Since Bishop Mathers is so powerful, why would leaving the Grand Cathedral under his protection and going somewhere dangerous be worth so few points?"

"...Because he can't provide us with shelter?"

Lu Lu held the child in her arms and widened her eyes, as if she could not believe that someone familiar had betrayed her. "How could this happen..."

"It doesn't necessarily mean he refused to shelter us. He might not be there at all. Or some unexpected situation might force us to leave early."

Iver spoke leisurely. "In that case, being driven into the street empty-handed... would probably make things even worse.

"Look. None of these missions deliberately put us in mortal danger, do they? That means these missions are beneficial to achieving our ultimate goal."

"...'One and Done'? Or 'Live Longer'?"

Lu Lu hesitated. "But you're on the Dedication Path, and I'm on the Path of Beauty. Neither of us has much combat ability."

Something stirred in Iver's heart.

Did she not have the mission "The Beginning of Everything"?

"So we need to leave the Grand Cathedral early."

Leaning against the door, Iver explained his plan. "To prepare weapons."

His plan did not require him to hide anything from her—"Lu Lu" would not become his weapon or expendable asset, and explaining it in advance would not make her wary. She also would not speak privately with anyone else, so he did not need to worry about leaks.

Under these circumstances, Iver needed to explain everything clearly. He had to make her trust him, believe in his plan, and understand his purpose.

Only then would she be able to carry out Iver's plan with complete confidence instead of suddenly adding some of "her own ideas."

Iver knew perfectly well how to train a newcomer.

"Weapons... guns?"

Lu Lu looked worried. "Do you know where we can find a gun? If worst comes to worst... I might have a way. I may be able to find a very powerful weapon. But it's fourteen years earlier right now, and I'm not sure whether it exists yet..."

"Of course I know."

Iver answered calmly. "The Pelican Bar is near Legal Square."

"...Ah, I know!" Lu Lu blurted out. "Isn't that the news about Mr. Iver? He... Huh? Iver?"

She froze for a moment, then lifted the boy in her arms and carefully examined him in front of her eyes.

"You guessed correctly. He's that 'Iver.' 'The two of us as husband and wife' clearly died in the original history, which is why he now has the surname Moriarty."

Iver answered lazily. "Or rather, you've finally realized it.

"But you haven't understood my plan. I said we were going to the Pelican Bar to prepare weapons—I never said I was going there to buy a gun."

"...A supernatural item?"

Lu Lu asked cautiously. "Do you... have a contact at the Pelican Bar too?"

"No."

Iver answered softly with his eyes closed. "The weapon I'm preparing is called Sherlock Holmes. You're right—both our Paths are support-oriented, so even if we obtain a weapon, it won't make much difference. What we truly need is a combat-capable companion.

"I believe that even though we haven't communicated or made an agreement... Mr. Sherlock will definitely come to the Pelican Bar to meet us.

"—More precisely, he'll come to meet me and Knight."

Another update of over six thousand words. Please follow the story~ If you spot any typos, leave a comment and I'll fix them when I wake up! Speaking of the day I was muted, I accidentally wrote Serpent Father as the second Constant Self in the ritual. When I woke up at three in the afternoon, I opened my eyes to find over two hundred typo corrections in the backend. It took me five minutes to scroll to the bottom. I was scared to death...