Lilia's Tale

Chapter 34: Improvements

"Good morning," I said.

"Good morning," he replied, obviously tired.

Father came to sit with us and I served him before going back to my seat and myself eating.

"Lilia," he suddenly said after I started eating.

"Yes?"

"I figured I should tell you what happened last night."

"Last night?" I repeated, as I noticed Kyo looked suddenly worried.

"You were right, some knights from the town came to the house. If it wasn't for your advice, Holy Knight would have attacked them. They were mostly worried because two men claimed to have seen a yokai in the house, but also admitted to being thieves. They asked me whether or not I was indeed housing a yokai, and what type it was if I indeed had one here. I said I wasn't, and that I didn't know thieves had entered the house. We ended up talking about security a lot, and they insisted on keeping guard of the house. I had to deny quite extensively, explaining that Holy Knight would do a great job on its own."

"I'm surprised I was right," I said after a short silence as I was rerunning the whole story in my head. "Although, in a sense, it's better that way."

"Thieves entered yesterday night?" Kyo repeated, obviously worried.

"Yes. Please don't beat yourself up over it, however. As I said, Holy Knight will keep watch from now on," Father replied.

"Won't having a summon at all times tire you out a lot?" Kyo asked.

"It will tire me out, yes. However, Holy Knight is completely immobile, so I'm not using too much magic to maintain it. As such, I won't run out of magic."

"Has there never been thieves in here ever before?" I asked, curious.

"No. Nothing has ever been stolen here before, partly because I had to make sure everyone was aware that my laboratory has a magic item as a lock, rendering it near impenetrable."

"That makes sense. But then, why would thieves try now?"

"I do not know, I'm sorry."

"Maybe they tried before but couldn't get into your laboratory, so they gave up?" Kyo offered.

"But then why wouldn't they steal the other things that aren't in the laboratory?" I asked.

"Maybe it's not valuable enough for them, considering they expected things such as artifacts?"

The mention of artifacts made me think about the one that bound to me. Its name was the Cataract, if I recalled correctly. I ended up drifting my thoughts towards it, losing track of the conversation.

Eventually, Father and Kyo finished talking and cleaned their plates. I was left behind because I was too busy thinking, so I rushed in order to not make them wait. Father went to his laboratory, while Kyo went out to town to supplies. I followed upstairs once I was done, knowing we would have water magic training today.

When I entered, I noticed Father was cleaning one of the more isolated tables out. When he noticed me, he asked:

"Oh, Lilia. Can you help me clean this table so we can use the Cataract for practice?"

"Eh, sure," I replied before helping him.

I mostly carried the heavy items that he couldn't carry on his own, and moved the Cataract to the center of the table.

"So, what do you want to try?"

"I was thinking of using the Cataract to have you get used to water magic so that it doesn't hurt you. From there, we can work on having you not take control of water magic instinctively."