"Welcome home!"
The moment Chiba Yeyou opened the door, a cool, mature woman's voice reached his ears.
Chiba Yeyou froze for a moment at the sound before remembering that Tiffany had already moved into his home.
"I'm home."
Chiba Yeyou smiled at Tiffany, who was lying on the sofa with her face turned toward him.
Chiba Yeyou's home was a Chinese-style building, so it had nothing like an entryway, which meant he could see the entire living room as soon as he opened the door.
Speaking of this house, which had over 170 square meters of floor space and grounds extending nearly a kilometer around it-well, calling it a small manor would hardly be an exaggeration-he had earned the money for it from the older woman before him.
The two-story building was Chinese-style throughout, with the living room and kitchen taking up most of the first floor and bedrooms occupying most of the second. There were three smaller bedrooms and one large master bedroom. No one currently slept in the master bedroom; it was too big and was only used to store some things, though it was not messy.
For now, Chiba Yeyou mostly slept in one of the smaller bedrooms, with Tiffany right next door.
There was also a basement level, an even larger experimental area where Chiba Yeyou conducted his magic research.
"That sounded just like a family greeting. You actually caught me off guard for a moment."
Looking at the older woman before him, he could not help chuckling.
In the past, there had never been anyone else at home, so naturally, no one greeted him with a welcome home when he opened the door. Silence could be called the sole constant of Chiba Yeyou's home life.
Having grown accustomed to the quiet of an empty home, it was only natural that this sudden greeting left him momentarily startled.
"Family?"
Tiffany could not help murmuring.
"Dinner's ready. Hurry up and wash your hands so we can eat!"
But when she saw Chiba Yeyou about to reach the other end of the sofa and flop down, she hurriedly spoke up to stop him.
"Oh!"
Chiba Yeyou could only abandon his plan to lie down for a while and head toward the dining table in the adjoining room.
"Whoa!"
"So much good food!"
"Looks like I'll be eating well while you're staying here."
Looking at the assortment of Chinese dishes before him, Chiba Yeyou could not help swallowing.
"You make it sound like you can't cook yourself."
Tiffany rolled her eyes at him. During the short time after the two of them first met, he had always done the cooking, tempting her with delicious food every day. How could she not know how good Chiba Yeyou's cooking was?
"Mmm, nice. Delicious. This is authentic!"
Chiba Yeyou kept praising the food as he ate.
"Is it really as good as you say?"
A little puzzled, Tiffany picked up a bite with her chopsticks. It tasted just like it usually did. Nothing had changed!
"You certainly have a sweet tongue!"
Tiffany set down her chopsticks, propped her elbows on the table, and cupped her face in her hands as she watched Chiba Yeyou wolf down his food.
"Oh, right. Give me the ring on your hand later."
Chiba Yeyou spoke after inadvertently catching sight of the ring-shaped CAD on Tiffany's right ring finger.
"All right."
Tiffany merely agreed softly. As for what Chiba Yeyou wanted to do, she had no desire to ask. Knowing that he would not hurt her was enough.
"You'll need to come along too. Although its system is already built, it still needs to be adjusted to your actual circumstances. I'll need to do a full-body scan."
"Then I'll add some things unique to me, so you can use magic faster, more conveniently, and more discreetly."
"Including some quantum-system magic exclusive to me."
At that point, Chiba Yeyou stopped talking and continued eating his rice.
He offered no warnings about this involving his secrets or anything of the sort. Just as Tiffany trusted him, he trusted that she would not do anything to harm him, so neither of them brought it up.
In fact, the development and publication of new magic were currently presented in the form of academic theory, but putting it into practice was another matter entirely.
In many cases, theory was merely a castle in the air. Only once it was brought down to earth did it become a complete system.
Even the usable new magic published by renowned scholars was restricted to themselves and their small circles. After bringing that castle down to earth, they merely showed others what it looked like on the ground without explaining how to put it into practice. Even so, this pointed many people in a new direction.
But that did not mean there would be little difficulty in following their research direction to do the same thing. Quite the opposite: if your research direction was similar to theirs, things were a little better, since at least you knew what you were doing could succeed. Otherwise, it was rough, with difficulties everywhere.
"Will my Purple be able to perform to its fullest?"
Tiffany nodded, then asked another question.
"Yes."
"I'll load an ability unique to me into your CAD, so you won't have to worry about it being unable to process an excessive volume of Psions. It won't overload again."
Chiba Yeyou offered an explanation.
He knew what Tiffany was worried about. Her Purple was exceptionally powerful, but the limitations of the era meant that magical technology could not yet support her enormous computational demands. As a result, Tiffany replaced her CAD quite frequently-provided, of course, that she used Purple often.
When she was not using her own particular magic, the CAD could still handle it. Her magic was simply rather unusual.
"That's wonderful!"
Tiffany was delighted. This problem had troubled her for a long time, and she had not expected Chiba Yeyou to solve it.
"You really are my lucky star!"
Tiffany could not help saying.
"Speaking of which, where's that little maid who's always with you?"
Chiba Yeyou asked curiously.
He remembered that the maid had always been inseparable from Tiffany, yet she had not come along this time.
"Her? She's at a hotel in the city."
"Why stay at a hotel?"
"It's not like I don't have room here."
Chiba Yeyou said.
"It's nothing, really. That hotel belongs to our family anyway, so it's practically like being at home."
Tiffany spoke unconcernedly.
"Uh..."
Well, what else could Chiba Yeyou say?
This damn rich woman!
After dinner, the two went down to the basement, and Chiba Yeyou placed Tiffany's CAD on the workbench. This was different from the situation with his own CAD. He did not need to load these cumbersome magic domains to cast magic himself, since they were built in.
But Tiffany had none of those things. He had to convert them and integrate them into the CAD's system environment without any errors, so Chiba Yeyou was extremely focused.
"Little guy, you're not just doing this because you want to see my body, are you?"