302 Cats, Dogs, Dreams

"But, Mentor, I feel like I've already succeeded," Redbird said, taking out several sheets of draft paper. "These are calculations I ran inside my Magic Matrix. They're the computational problems Sophia and Johnny encountered while designing their array, and this one is the problem Firefly ran into when drawing Magic Patterns on the curved underside of a white porcelain body."

Sophia, Johnny, and Firefly held the sheets handed to them, too shocked to speak. They had originally planned to ask Tania for help with the calculations, only for Redbird to have solved them.

"My Lord, I don't have much talent for casting magic. Helping everyone with calculations suits me better."

How is that no talent? You've turned yourself into artificial intelligence, Landen thought.

Late at night, a fox was gnawing on a chicken leg in a lavish room. Not far behind her, a girl was quietly approaching.

Ever since Fanil Fox had been brought back to Night-Kirin City by the magic Great Fairies, she had been locked inside the underground Ruins. Every day, only Tania or Redbird came to see her. But what made the Fox Girl happiest was that these days of confinement were practically the best-fed days of her life.

By relying on acting cute and wheedling, Fanil could get a share of Magic Beast Meat every day. She could eat meat sausage and vegetables, drink meat soup, and here there were pickles, tofu, Soybean Paste, and mushroom that could not be found anywhere in all the Beastmen and Barbarian territories. Though the food given each day was not much, the variety was rich and the taste was excellent, so much so that after finishing dinner at night, Fanil was still savoring it in her dreams.

In her dreams, she was not a human-shaped girl with only