SHHHHHH

Amelia activated the magical device that served as a shower and washed herself alongside the slime.

"Phew..."

The magical device even let her adjust the water temperature. Washing in warm water seemed to ease some of the fatigue that had built up during the journey.

'So... I have to spend the next month at the Mage Tower, right? What if all the other mages are as talkative as Gracie?'

If they suddenly barged in and started explaining magic or something else, she felt they would drain every bit of her energy.

Besides, she had the slime with her. Since it was so rare and intelligent, wouldn't it attract even more attention from the mages?

"Haa..."

As Amelia sighed, the slime bounced up onto her shoulder.

"Sorry. I'll wash you too, Quivery."

Amelia picked up the showerhead and sprayed the slime on her shoulder.

It quivered all over.

'It's warm!'

The shower water was just the right temperature for the slime, too.

Once she finished showering, Amelia moved to turn off the magical device.

'Let me do it!'

The slime sprouted a tentacle, extending it toward the device's power button.

"You want to turn it off?"

'It looks like you've gotten hooked on playing with magical devices.'

It reminded her of the children at church delightedly playing with a new toy, and a smile naturally came to her lips.

"Then could you turn it off for me, Quivery?"

'Sure!'

The slime moved its tentacle and switched off the device, quivering with delight. Simply being able to operate a magical device as it wished made it happy.

While the slime was delighted, the viewers felt little excitement about merely operating a magical device. A new device might have been another matter.

[Noblesse Fire]▶Squishy gets excited over the smallest things.

[Gothic Luxury Bone]▶Ho ho ho. Isn't it pleasant and heartwarming? Well, I suppose asking a loser dragon with no sensitivity to feel that way is a tall order.

[Noblesse Fire]▶This fucker's trying to start shit again.

▶So are we just going to bed now? No eating stream?

▶New area means you gotta film a new eating stream!

▶But looks like the hooman's tired and gonna sleep first?

▶Tsk tsk tsk. Totally lost the touch.

▶"Lost the touch" my ass lmaooo

After washing up, Amelia picked up the slime and was about to go straight to her room.

"Amelia, aren't you going to eat?"

"I'm so tired I don't even feel like eating. I just want to get some sleep."

"I see. Sleep well. Oh, I already spread your comfort blanket out on the bed."

"... Thank you."

"So hand Quivery over here."

"What? Quivery's going to sleep with m—"

"Ha ha ha! Quivery trains with me. There's no way it has such lousy stamina as you, Amelia!"

"L-lousy stamina...?"

"We haven't even done today's training yet. So hand it over."

Amelia hugged the slime to her chest as if protecting it.

"Quivery needs rest too! Mindlessly training every single day isn't always good for you!"

"Of course training without a plan is bad for the body! But my training is systematic, so it's fine!"

Paulen grinned, baring his teeth.

"Come here, Quivery! Once we're done training, let's take a walk and look around the Mage Tower!"

'A walk!'

The slime popped out a tentacle.

"W-wait, Quivery! Ah!"

It slipped out of Amelia's arms using its tentacle and bounced over to Paulen.

"How could you!"

Amelia's jaw dropped, her face a picture of despair.

▶Lmaooo Squishy got stolen.

▶Ahahaha new content beats a good night's sleep lol

▶Even getting NTR here lmaooo

+++

Having finished guiding Amelia, Paulen, and the slime, Gracie had returned to the Mage Tower and was giving her report.

There was nothing particularly special to report: she had escorted them to the villa and finished explaining the magical devices inside. She also mentioned that the Saintess had a slightly unusual slime with her.

"Yes, understood. Well done, Gracie. You may go now."

"Yes, Tower Master."

Gracie bowed to the current master of the Mage Tower, Brooks Besilza, an old man with a smooth bald head and a long beard, then headed home.

The moment she opened the door with a creak and stepped inside, her collection of magical devices greeted her.

"Have you all been well?"

Greeting the devices with a smile, Gracie began her usual inspection.

"My little beauties... Big Sis will give you a nice, thorough checkup~ Heehee. Hee. Heeheehee."

Gracie Frail owned more magical devices than any other mage at the Mage Tower. The other mages disparagingly called her a magical-device addict.

Yet hearing that never made her angry or humiliated.

'If they don't like it, they can buy some magical devices themselves! Getting angry over every pathetic whine from those broke losers would be ridiculous, wouldn't it?'

A descendant of Ventus Frail, The Mage of a Thousand Spells.

To be precise, Gracie Frail was the granddaughter of Ventus Frail's older female cousin.

News that Ventus Frail had suffered a magical accident had caused quite a stir at the Mage Tower.

To think that hero had died in an accident.

Still, no one had seriously questioned it.

"I suppose even that hero was helpless against a magical accident."

Magical accidents happened so frequently at the Mage Tower that they were practically taken for granted!

In fact, the leading cause of death among mages wasn't dying on a commission, but an accident during magical research or experimentation.

Naturally, Ventus Frail's fortune passed to his surviving family—his relatives. But his older female cousin was the only relative he had left, so she inherited it.

Having earned renown as a hero, Ventus Frail had amassed a considerable fortune. The Mage Tower also provided regular consolation payments in his honor.

Suddenly finding herself with a huge sum of money, Ventus Frail's older cousin—Gracie's grandmother—had a thought.

'I don't really... need to work so hard at magical research, do I?'

She had been a mage with a fair amount of enthusiasm for research herself. Another mage dying in a magical accident hadn't been enough to dampen that passion.

But when the victim was not a complete stranger, but a relative she knew well, it was bound to hit her hard. All the more so when it was her illustrious younger cousin, Ventus Frail.

If even a great hero with such achievements could suffer an accident, what about her, with her lesser abilities? Wouldn't she be even more likely to have a magical accident?

Those thoughts led her to abandon magical research. Living peacefully on the inheritance and support payments, she married an ordinary man who wasn't a mage and had children.

She instilled the same outlook in her children as she raised them.

There was no need to become a great mage.

They had plenty of money anyway.

Just do something safe, nothing dangerous.

But no matter how she raised them, that outlook couldn't carry on through every generation. Gracie Frail was the one who hadn't inherited it.

Gracie Frail admired The Mage of a Thousand Spells, Ventus Frail—her grandmother's younger cousin, the hero who had defeated the calamitous black dragon. She wanted to become an outstanding mage like him.

Naturally, her family initially opposed her declaration that she would become a mage. But her grandmother, who understood a mage's passion, was the first to accept her wishes.

With a condition, of course.

["You mustn't perform dangerous magical experiments."]

["Yes!"]

Following her grandmother's teachings, Gracie had no intention of performing dangerous magical experiments.

But something happened that even Gracie hadn't anticipated: her magical talent turned out to be thoroughly average.

It wasn't so abysmal that she would wash out. Nor was it outstanding enough to make her an elite.

Her mana reserves, understanding of magic, and skill at controlling it were all utterly ordinary.

For a mage from another family, or a commoner-born mage, that would have been no problem.

But her family was the Frails. She had been born sharing the blood of that famous great hero. Moreover, her parents hadn't become mages at all, instead working ordinary jobs.

When Gracie Frail appeared, most mages assumed that another child blessed with magical talent had been born into the Frail family and had come to the Mage Tower. Naturally, she drew attention.

And after seeing her abilities, most of those mages were disappointed by the expectations they had imposed on her, or laughed at her.

Gracie Frail was sick to death of those reactions. She, too, took pride in having the blood of the glorious Ventus Frail flowing through her veins!

She was tougher-minded than one might expect.

Rather than blaming her lack of talent, Gracie explored ways to infuriate the bastards who had laughed at her and gotten disappointed over their own arbitrary expectations.

The answer was magical devices.

Not enough talent?

She could make up for it with tools.

Not enough mana? An external mana-storage device.

Not enough power? A power-boosting device.

Having trouble operating multiple magical devices? A device to help with that.

Of course, collecting those devices wasn't easy.

The Mage Tower had many shops dealing in magical devices, but most sold devices that merely helped with everyday life. Unlike devices that only needed a simple spell formula imbued in them, devices that helped with actual spellcasting required complex formulas and the techniques to imbue them. Their prices reflected that.

But the Frail family had the inheritance and support payments to cover those costs.

With the aid of countless magical devices, Gracie gained the power to compete even with the highly talented mages considered the Mage Tower's elite.

They looked down on her as a magical-device addict who relied entirely on her devices. Yet when they actually tested their skills in a spar, Gracie won.

The twisted expressions on the faces of those who had laughed at her and been disappointed by her were immensely satisfying.

Of course, collecting magical devices hadn't gone smoothly from the start. At first, her family opposed it, grilling her about what she intended to do with so many devices and whether she should be spending so much of the family's money.

"If I don't produce some results, they're going to cut off our family's support payments!"

Indeed, people had begun questioning whether they should continue sending support payments to a family that, despite sharing a great hero's blood, had produced no magical achievements.

"Our support payments...!"

"Cut off...!"

Even if their ordinary jobs let them make a comfortable living, they couldn't stand by and watch that steady income disappear.

Around the time she resolved her family's objections, the master of the Mage Tower had summoned her personally.

Gracie had been terribly nervous, wondering whether he would scold her. She feared he might turn out to be one of those hidebound so-called natural mages.

What if he said, "What? Getting stronger with magical devices? Bah! I refuse to recognize a mage like that! You're expelled!"?

But contrary to Gracie's expectations, the master of the Mage Tower, Brooks Besilza, reacted positively.

"So, you want to grow stronger through magical devices? Rather than purely through your own skill?"

"Y-yes!"

"But your family... Ventus Frail became a great hero through his own abilities alone. Don't you want to be like him?"

"Of course I would if I had that kind of power... but I'm genuinely ordinary! I'm not a genius like Lord Ventus! So I have no choice but to struggle using magical devices if I have to! I-I th... think..."

"Heh, heheheheh. Yes, yes! So that's how you see it! Good! Very good!"

"Pardon?"

Holding back his laughter as much as he could, as though he had witnessed something utterly hilarious, Brooks spoke to Gracie.

"If there's a magical device you want, come and tell me sometime. I'll help you, too."

"Th-thank you, Tower Master!"

Gracie bowed and left his room.

Hearing Brooks Besilza's loud laughter from beyond the door, Gracie had thought:

'The Tower Master isn't some hidebound natural mage! He's open-minded!'

'To think that Ventus's descendant is such a pathetic device-doped mage! It's too funny! I want to keep watching that ridiculous spectacle!'

Their thoughts had been entirely different, but the situation had worked out in Gracie's favor all the same.