Leon Greyrat: The Second Son – Mushoku Tensei OC

Chapter 77 – Failed Experiment

— Leon Greyrat —

While I had intended to leave for the Sword Sanctum by today, I remembered that Rudy’s fifteenth birthday would be in a week, so I decided to put my departure off until then.

I would definitely be cutting it close, as the trek to the Sword Sanctum from Sharia was around a month and a half, but if I used the trick I used back when I used to travel between Roa and Buena Village in constantly healing my horse, I should be back in time to see the birth of my child.

Usually, I would either be training in my backyard, spending time with my parents, or sitting around with Roxy, but for now, I was asked to come along with Rudy to help Nanahoshi with her experiments.

I knew that this was a long process with the final goal to return Nanahoshi to her homeland, but when I asked where exactly that was…

“Ah… I’m… from another world,” she said evenly.

“Oh… I see,” I said, nodding.

I certainly should have been more surprised, but for some reason… hearing that didn’t shock me in the slightest.

In fact, it only seemed natural to me.

I wonder why that was…

“So, what are you trying to do today?” I asked. “More specifically… why does it concern me?”

I knew nothing about summoning magic nor magic circles, and while I had mana unlike Nanahoshi, I would be out after a few circles, while Rudy had enough to do this like it was nothing.

“We’re summoning an object from my world,” she explained as she laid out the large magic circle. “And as for why we need you, Rudeus mentioned that you had a Demon eye that allows you to see magic. I want you to watch the experiment and see if you can tell what is happening.”

“I understand. And I’m guessing that I’ll also be telling you if something goes wrong?” I asked.

“That… won’t happen,” she said, clenching her fist. “This formula is the pinnacle of summoning magic. Everything is as perfect as possible, so… it won’t happen.”

“Including another teleportation disaster, right?” Rudy asked.

Uhh… what?

“I am sure,” she replied. “The conservation of energy applies, so the mana will be used up in the teleportation. The only reason that happened before was due to having no way to control the extra mana, hence the magic circle and your controlled mana input.”

I already knew that Nanahoshi appearing in this world was the cause of the Displacement Incident, or at least an after-affect of it, but it was nice to know that it wouldn’t happen again.

“…Alright then,” I nodded.

And with that, the experiment started, with Rudy crouching down to feed his insane amount of mana into the formula.

It was so damn bright… but with how much I’ve been using my Demon eye, I’ve been able to block out certain sources if I really focused.

After all, without being able to do so, I would be blinded by the latent mana in the air whenever I tried to use it.

So, I saw it.

I saw the mana flow and churn through the magic circle, speeding up in some places, jittering in another, and as it crossed a certain line of ink… it escaped.

Boom!

A small explosion erupted on the magic circle, leaving a large gash of singed paper, the smoke rising in a disappointing black plume.

“So… it failed,” Rudy said, frowning a bit. “But we were making some good progress, even if I didn’t understand it… What do you think, Nanahoshi?”

We then both turned to the girl, who was simply looking down at the paper with a blank expression.

“Leave,” she said coldly.

Rudy and I then turned to each other, sharing a glance as Rudy then turned to the door.

Well, Nanahoshi was Rudy’s friend, so I would follow his lead, but… I really didn’t want to leave her alone.

She seemed so… devastated.

“Alright, but if you-”

“I said leave!” she shouted, cutting off Rudy’s words.

“I… got it,” he said, opening the door.

We then walked down the stone steps of the tower in silence before hearing a bloodcurdling screech accompanied by the sound of papers being thrown.

“Uh… let’s…” Rudy said, turning to me with a worried frown.

“Yeah,” I said as we then both sprinted up the stairs.

Once we reached the top, I then opened the door to her study to see Nanahoshi in the midst of a breakdown, tossing anything she could get her hands on as she screamed and sobbed.

“Naze da? Kanpeki datta noni! Zenbu kanpeki datta! Kore made no shikou wa subete umaku itta noni, naze da! Naze shippai shitan da!?” she shouted in that unfamiliar language.

Right… she was obviously not in a good state.

I then went over to her, grabbing her hand as she was reaching for a bag of magic stones and stopping her meltdown.

“Nanahoshi, stop this!” I said, holding her firmly as she tried to wrestle out of my grasp. “It’s only one failure! You can try again!”

She turned to me, giving me a cold glare as a few tears poured down her face.

“Like you would understand!” she said, turning her focus from trying to escape me to instead pound my chest. “Like you would ever understand! I! I…!”

Her voice petered out as I pulled her to my chest, patting her head to calm her down in a way that simply felt… natural.

“Watashi… kaeritai,” she said, a tone of defeat heavily laced into her voice as she began to cry into my chest.

Continuing to pat her head, I looked over to Rudy, who was looking at the two of us with a forlorn expression.

“Nanahoshi, she… really didn’t take that well, huh?” he said sadly.

Well, that was quite obvious, Rudy.

But at least he didn’t say something stupid like, ‘I’m going to tell Roxy and Sylphy.’

If he did that, I think I might have punched him.

“Leon… do you know what happened? Did you see anything?” he said, looking at the broken magic circle.

Nanahoshi didn’t even seem to care… that ambitious girl… she was in quite a bad state.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It just kind of… got caught? I don’t really understand how, but it got trapped in the line before shooting out and, well… you saw the result.”

I felt Nanahoshi sink in my grasp, and looking down, I saw that her eyes were glazed over as she leaned against me, giving me an eerie reminder of how Mama and Zenith looked just after they had woken up.

I… really didn’t like that look.

Especially on her.

“I see… well, I think I have an idea of how to move this forward, but for now…” Rudy said, looking at the two of us. “Do you think you could take care of her? I… don’t think she should be alone right now.”

Hmm… I don’t think Roxy and Sylphy would mind, as they had already interacted with her whenever she came over to use our bath, but… I just hoped that it wouldn’t take too long to get her back to normal.

I had to leave soon, after all.

“Alright, I’ll take her home,” I said. “Just… try to help her out, okay? I trust you.”

“You got it, brother,” he nodded, giving me a thumbs up.

And like that, it seemed that we had gained a house guest.

I would say that it was getting crowded with Ariel often visiting, but for better or worse, the troublesome princess seemed to like sleeping in Sylphy’s room instead of claiming one of her own… and she had also been avoiding me lately.

Was my teasing really that bad?

Perhaps I should apologize sometime.

— Leon Greyrat —

It had been a few days since Nanahoshi’s breakdown, and in that time, she had been… indifferent.

Yeah, indifferent was the right word.

She would still come down to eat, and she would still use the bathroom and bathe, but she never came out of her room otherwise.

And she also never talked, save for apathetically nodding or shaking her head to a question.

It… hurt me, to see her like this… and I still didn’t know why.

Another world… the fact that she never aged, which I had recently learned… and then that odd feeling of familiarity with the inexplicable need to protect and comfort her…

Nanahoshi was definitely mysterious.

But hopefully, with this, the mysterious girl would get back to her usual earnest ambition.

“Look at this, Miss Nanahoshi!” Zanoba said, pointing to a diagram of magic circles. “As I have recently discovered, magic circles can overlap! Look! With multi-level magic circles, the efficiency is multiplied!”

Apparently, with the Miko engrossed in the moving doll that had come with my house, he had discovered quite an amazing thing about it.

It was made of magic circles, just like I had seen.

But they were incredibly complex, and according to Cliff, completely redefined the natural thinking of them.

I didn’t know exactly what was going on, as I left everything to Rudy as he had told me to, but with Zanoba’s recent findings, and Cliff’s natural genius in the realm of magic circles, Rudy decided that the two of them might be able to solve this problem by themselves… or at least give Nanahoshi the motivation to continue.

Speaking of Cliff, I had meant to spend more time with him, considering he was now Lina’s lover, but from what Rudy had told me, he was definitely a happy man.

And to be able to keep that Lina satisfied… he had my respect.

“And no offence, but your original circle was quite messy,” Cliff added. “While I know we worked on the base circle together, with multi-level circles, there is a new realm of perfection that is needed.”

“With this, don’t you think we can continue?” Rudy said, looking over to me and Nanahoshi with a smile.

“Ah… I guess,” she said emotionlessly.

Turning to the side, I saw as her dull eyes started to gain a bit of life.

“Yes, that… it might just work,” she said, going over to the proposed magic circle. “If it’s here… connecting this way through the z-axis… multi-level structures! How did I not think of that!”

Hearing the excitement, and most importantly, ambition in her voice, a calm smile came to my face as I went over to Rudy.

“Good job,” I said, patting his back. “I’m going to leave them to their work, but tell Nanahoshi she’s welcome to stay as long as she wants.”

“Ah… got it, brother,” he said, nodding. “And thank you for taking care of her.”

“…It’s only natural,” I said.

‘Only natural’… I don’t know why that felt so right to say.

But looking at how happy she seemed, spreading out the circles on the floor as she rambled on… well, I couldn’t help but want to protect that smile.

Ah… I definitely deserved a slap from my two ladies, huh?

I’d service them to my best effort tonight as repentance.

— Leon Greyrat —

A few days had passed, and from the bags under Nanahoshi’s eyes, she seemed to have stayed up most, if not all, of the nights fixing her magic circle.

I would normally say that this was a bad thing for her health, but her eyes… they were still shining with life.

That was good.

And as for why I was here? Well…

“Now… let’s try this again,” she said.

She had completed her new magic circle with the help of Cliff’s smarts and Zanoba’s multi-layering magic circle discovery, so obviously, we were here to test it.

“Got it,” Rudy said as he began feeding the magic circle his mana.

The same blinding light appeared as I saw the mana flow through the ink, but this time… it didn’t stop.

Instead, as the entire magic circle filled with mana, it then all compressed to the centre, disappearing into nothingness a moment later as a clear glass bottle took its place.

Wait… that wasn’t glass, was it?

“Most impressive!” Zanoba exclaimed, clapping his hands.

“What is this?” Cliff said, hesitantly touching the object. “It’s clear like glass, but much softer… how confusing.”

“That… is a plastic bottle, I believe,” I said, furrowing my eyebrows.

“Hm? How… do you know that, brother?” Rudy asked, looking at me with confusion.

“I… don’t know,” I murmured. “I guess it’s because of my Miko knowledge?”

“Ah, that explains it,” Rudy nodded to himself.

Still… why did I know of such a thing that was not from this world?

How confusing…

“Yes… I did it,” Nanahoshi murmured to herself.

Rudy then walked over to her, lightly patting her back.

“It seems you succeeded,” he said gently. “Congratulations.”

“Huh? Yes… I did,” she nodded. “Now, with the layered magic circles at my disposal, I should be able to summon anything without the previous limitations I had expected to run into! Depending on how much I can stack it, they should be able to… I… I might be able to go home!”

She then turned into Rudy’s chest, wrapping her arms around him as she exclaimed in happiness, “Finally! I can see an actual path! I can-”

Her brain seemingly catching up with her actions, her words froze in her mouth as she suddenly backed off, pushing Rudy away as she frantically turned away.

“S-So… thank you… Rudeus…” she murmured.

That was… quite something.

Well… I guess I couldn’t exactly disparage Rudy, since he did a good thing for a friend and was completely innocent…

But he better watch himself.

I wouldn’t be happy with him hurting my Little Sis.

— Leon Greyrat —

It was only a few days after Nanahoshi’s successful experiment that Rudy’s fifteenth birthday came about, and with such a large family and a good amount of friends, it was quite a big celebration, with us renting out an entire tavern for the night.

It also somehow ended up being used to celebrate my birthday as well, even though it was two years late, as I had been on the road towards Asura during the actual day.

But nonetheless, it was quite fun.

No presents were exchanged, but drinks and stories were aplenty.

There were Zanoba and Cliff, who I felt a bit closer with after they helped out with my house and the Nanahoshi stuff, and then there were those two troublesome beastfolk princesses, who hadn’t seemed to have changed at all since I last saw them.

There was also Nanahoshi herself, who had been acting weird around Rudy and me since she summoned the water bottle, but after a few drinks, she came to us and apologized for being annoying, and asked us to call her Shizuka, which I guess was her actual first name.

For some reason, though, Rudy seemed a little flustered at this.

How odd.

It was just a name, right?

Anyway, Suzanne and Timothy also visited along with their kid, and while they didn’t spend a lot of time with the students, the two did talk with Mama and Lilia, where Mama also thanked them for looking after Rudy while they were adventuring together.

But just like the other two big celebrations we had, I mostly stayed off to the side, sometimes telling stories of the Demon Continent when I was asked, as well as a few fights, while my father acted like an idiot with his party tricks and tales of clearing labyrinths.

Lina and Cliff left early to do their… stuff, Mama made me sit near her so she could pat my head, Sara kicked my father’s ass in darts… the regular happenings.

And there was another thing I had only seen once before, and something I was eager to see again.

A drunk Sylphy.

As it happened, she was extremely weak to alcohol, and as she became increasingly intoxicated, she became increasingly cute, begging for affections as she stayed glued to my side or my lap, asking for a kiss or a hug at least once a minute.

And then, as everyone went back home, I learned that a drunk Sylphy, while cute, was equally active… active in bed, that is.

Well, before she fell asleep, that is. 

But she was awake long enough for the eroticism I had caught glimpses of during our nights together to come out full force.

So, with the pleasant memories of last night in my mind, I prepared to depart to the Sword Sanctum.

Unfortunately, there were no teleportation circles for this trip, but if I rode constantly through the day, as long as I could, while healing my horse to keep it at full stamina… it should take three weeks, and with an estimated week of staying there, I should be back a few weeks before Roxy is due.

Definitely cutting it close.

But still… now that I was about to leave… I was hesitant.

“Leon… we’ve already been expecting this,” Roxy said, holding my hand as she looked at me with concern. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s just… I don’t know if you should be watching the house by yourself,” I said, moving my hand down to caress her belly. “I don’t want you feeling lonely, and you shouldn’t be pushing yourself physically…”

“Leon,” Sylphy said, shaking her head. “While we love you very much, we also have been monopolizing you for the past five months, and Roxy has for even longer. I would feel bad if Eris didn’t get to see you too.”

I knew that, dammit, but…

“And it’s not like I’ll be alone,” Roxy added. “Zenith and Lilia said they’d help, along with your sisters.”

“And me too,” Sylphy said. “Just because I am Ariel’s guard doesn’t mean I can’t come home once in a while.”

Right…

They were right… 

“I’m sorry,” I said, leaning down to kiss the top of Roxy’s head. “I… promised I would see Eris, and I don’t want to leave after the baby is born, but I don’t want to leave you alone right now-”

“Shh,” she said, tilting her head up to kiss me, her hand moving up to caress my cheek. “I would much rather you be here for when the baby is born, and helping me take care of it. So go. Just be sure to stay safe, and come back in time for the birth to comfort me.”

To think Roxy would say something so selfish…

“I promise,” I said, looking into her eyes. “I’ll come back as quick as possible.”

“That’s all I ask,” Roxy said, smiling as she got on her toes to kiss me once again, this time a bit longer than the other gentle one.

Mmm… if she wasn’t pregnant… I would be doing many things to her right now.

Many bad things.

“Haa,” she sighed, face flushed as we separated. “There… now go before I change my mind.”

“I got it,” I said, turning over to Sylphy. “And I’m guessing you want a goodbye kiss too?”

She simply raised her eyebrow before taking a few steps forward and wrapping her arms around my neck, pulling herself up to kiss me with extreme passion, as if trying to exchange all the kisses we could have with our expected two months apart in one moment.

Needless to say, it was exciting. And if she didn’t have to go guard Ariel right after this, I may have given both of us a parting gift in the form of a reenactment of last night.

Wait… these thoughts… I really was a lustful bastard, huh?

Perhaps I truly was a Greyrat…

But how could I not think of doing those things when Roxy and Sylphy were so cute?

And they were mine, right? So it was allowed.

“There,” she said, breaking our kiss apart. “T-That’s what you’re missing, so… come back soon… please.”

Ah, and now she was meek again.

Such was the endearing dichotomy that was my Sylphy, soon to be Sylphiette Greyrat.

“Yeah… well, after that, I can’t exactly lag behind anymore, huh?” I said, stepping away from them as I walked down the porch steps toward my horse. “I’ll be back soon, okay? I love you two.”

“And we love you as well,” Roxy said, smiling softly as Sylphy simply nodded behind her.

“Then… I’ll see you soon,” I said, hopping onto my steed.

And with that, I departed from Sharia once again, this time to see my third beautiful lover, and hopefully… also gain some insight into my swordsmanship.