Tensei Skill Shop Chapter 38

Tensei Skill Shop

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 38:

After the first week, time started to pass more quickly, and September soon gave way to October, drawing close to the time the two other schools were to arrive. 

I was expecting a bit more trouble adapting back to student life after working as a magic researcher in Earth Land and being an Adventurer in Danmachi, but my worries were unfounded. Attending lessons, receiving and handing in homework, doing some self study outside of class hours, interacting with my fellow classmates, it was nostalgic and very enjoyable.

The lessons themselves were engrossing too, but above all, it was the magic that made the experience what it was. A wave of a wand, the pronunciation of the spell, and things would happen. It wasn’t like the personalized multitool of Earth Land’s magic, or the overpowered trump cards that it was in Danmachi; there was a quality about it that made it fascinating to use and explore, even with its potential for chaotic results.

Matsu calling Wizarding magic akin to ‘AI-generated reality warping’ somehow made more sense than most other debated answers in the library books. It followed the garbage-in-garbage-out principle, but if you largely did the steps right, you’d get an acceptable result almost every single time.

As the four of us continued to mix and mingle, we developed reputations among the students of Hogwarts. Given our abilities, it wasn’t surprising even if we were largely trying to downplay them. 

Irene already had an imperious atmosphere around her, and her spellcasting abilities only served to cement her image as a very powerful witch. Not that she had to display them more than once to establish her position; most of the other students who tried to misbehave in front of her reconsidered their decision in the face of her stern glare. Some of the rumors I overheard  compared Irene to Professor McGonagall herself.

A lesser shared tale mentioned a group of Slytherin sixth and seventh years confronting her alone in the dungeons, only for all of them to be soundly trounced in less than a minute. No one actually claimed to have seen it happen, and any questions asked about that matter were firmly denied. Yet some students noticed that some of these supposed girls fled while others hastily made way when their paths crossed with Irene.

Her experience with managing the rough crowd of Hera Adventurers clearly had some influence in her actions. Anyway, even if this world’s magic was quite powerful, these were just students who were facing off against a Level Two Adventurer who specialized in magic. I was surprised that Irene didn’t permanently traumatize them… more than she already had.

In any case, her actions had drawn a group of admirers around herself.

Almost like Tom Riddle in his youth, one would say… 

I turned my attention from the redhead surrounded by girls, to the brunette sitting with a smaller group of friends, her unique clothing standing out among the normal Hogwarts uniform black.

Compared to Irene’s method of gathering others around her, Uzume had achieved the same through her friendly character and having shared hobbies. I know it started with some fashion tips, not just talking about clothes alone, but accessories as well. The novelty of Leafeon as a pet also served as a good attractor. After that, it expanded to preferred spells and charms, and then Wizarding culture, and more. Almost unintentionally, she had gathered a bunch of girls from the four Houses together, fostering amiable relationships between them in a way that defied the usual House barriers.

That sort of behavior was unconventional, and naturally, some tried to do something about it, to force things to continue as they used to be. It was curious that their attempts mostly ended poorly, and the few that worked weren’t very effective, or only lasted temporarily before pushback occurred. Fortunately, the culprits belonged solely to the student body; of the professors, Flitwick and Sprout were encouraging, McGonagall showed quiet approval, and Snape just ignored it. 

Down in the courtyard I was looking at, Uzume put the finishing touches on a hair clip, which she handed over to another girl. As though sensing my attention, she looked up and spotted me watching from the window, and waved with a smile.

Many of her friend group now had similar accessories, but none of them realized that those items carried beneficial effects, ranging from enhanced learning speed, magical protections, and even a small luck boost.

All those spells and charms she’s learning from the library books are doing a lot for her Mystery DA, I bet. And she’s not the only one.

I turned away from the window to look at Matsu, who was examining a blank wall opposite of a tapestry.

“Rick-tan, over here!” The redhead called out, waving for me to join her where she was in the middle of the hallway.

Matsu was the curious learner, seen by the other students as an honorary Ravenclaw for her affinity with knowledge of all sorts, and could usually be found in the library whenever she wasn’t with the rest of us. However, I once overheard McGonagall referring to her as a combination of Hermione Granger and the Weasley Twins, and that was an apt description. Matsu would look up several spells in the library books, break them down and recompose them into something new, and end up causing chaos with those spells. It was only her stellar scholastic performance that earned her some leniency. 

Moving over to join Matsu, I glanced at the tapestry, which showed a wizard attempting to get trolls to wear ballet tutus, and getting bonked over the head with their clubs. Anyone who had read the Harry Potter books knew that this was the location of the Room of Requirement, a magical room that would appear with whatever the witch or wizard who activated it required. The process to do so was to walk back and forth in front of the wall three times while thinking about what one needed, but we weren’t doing that just yet.

The Sekirei had her wand out, making several waving and twirling motions over the wall that seemingly did nothing as there weren’t any visible magical effects. 

“Aha!” One final horizontal flick of her wand, and she casted her adaptation of another world’s magic. “Archivis Datatum Revelius!”

Matsu now had the Archive magic window in front of her, and was busy typing away at the floating keyboard, her wand tucked on top of one ear. The characters flickering across the display screen was fast even for my falna-enhanced reflexes, but she clearly had no trouble interpreting the information they held.

“So much bloatware in this one,” She complained out loud, “It’s gonna take some time to clean it all up!”

My eyes flicked to both ends of the hallway, before I erected walls on both ends to hide our presence. With how the architecture in Hogwarts shifted occasionally, a single hallway being temporarily obstructed wouldn’t raise any eyebrows.

“I assume that there’s some reasoning for having to walk three times, or it being located on the seventh floor,” I remarked.

“Yup, you’re right about that,” She confirmed without looking away. “Oh, come on! I’m trying to help, stop getting in my way!”

Matsu waved her hand, causing the keyboard to multiply itself. At the same time, her hair began to move and morph, turning into copies of her hands that began typing as well. She had practiced a lot to pull off this trick.

“Rick-tan, please!”

“Got it. [Haste].”

Her entire body was now blurring with how fast she was moving, programming spell effects through Archive and activating them to counter whatever it was that was opposing her. The ground was trembling beneath our feet, and there was an ominous groaning coming through the walls.

Ah, they’re gonna come investigate again… I griped in my head, but refrained from interrupting Matsu.

But it was evident that her efforts were paying off, as the protests from Hogwarts gradually faded.

“And done!” Matsu said triumphantly.

With one final tap on the keyboard, the shaking stopped, and a door appeared from the wall in front of us. I could sense some teachers approaching, but it would take time for them to arrive, enough for us to hide. Two quick jabs of my wand set counting down timers on the pair of walls I had raised, and we quickly pulled open the door and slipped into the room, closing it tightly behind us.

The form the Room of Requirement took was rather plain, resembling a living room with multiple doors on the walls. I took a seat on one of the chairs around the low table, and Matsu joined me on my lap.

“So,” I finally asked after we had caught our breath a little, “What did you do to the Room?”

“Tuned up the various mechanisms running it.”

I listened to her explain the details, while my mind focused the majority of its attention on the other concurrent issue. According to her, there were certain things that enabled the Room to perform its function, like a desire sensor and multiple rule-imposing charms, and she made it so that they could work together more efficiently and quickly. Previously, the Room would be ‘locked in’ after it was formed, but now the user could make minor changes as required, as shown by the blackboard she asked for just appearing out of nowhere.

I see, so it’s like a Jujutsu Kaisen domain, combined with something like Ivalice’s Law cards, so even the generated Room would be unable to be penetrated by outside forces if that was what the user desired. 

With Matsu’s assistance, I produced a storage skill to contain the data pertaining to the Room’s functions. It wasn’t something we could use right away without a proper foundation, but there was a high chance that Sano would pay handsomely for the skills we could craft from these.

“Alright, time to make our getaway.” 

“Aww, can’t we stay here longer?”

I pointed at the blackboard, which had several moving dots similar to the Marauder’s Map. “You know they’ll come check up on us next.”

Currently, the dots indicating Professors Flitwick and McGonagall were pacing around the corridor on the seventh floor, while ours were completely missing from the map. Meanwhile, a bunch of students were standing in a row in a classroom on the third floor, which was near our intended escape point.

“Fine,” Matsu said regretfully, getting off my lap. 

She led the way over to the door indicating the third floor, turning the handle and sliding it open carefully. Seeing no one around, she beckoned to me, and we exited the Room, a good distance away from where we previously were. The door itself faded back into a plain wall once it was fully closed.

“Alright, this way.” 

“Yes, ma’am.”

Matsu twitched in a way that indicated she enjoyed that term of address, but continued on. Stopping near the classroom that we saw on the blackboard map, she knocked on the door before entering, while I waited outside.

“Rick-tan, I need to talk to you. Could you come out for a bit?” Her voice spoke from inside.

“Sure,” My voice spoke from the same room, “You all, keep on practicing.”

Matsu then came out, followed by another version of me. Unlike the Time Turner trick that Harry and Hermione did in their third year, this was actually just a thought projection, an imaginary body manifested by a spell from Earth Land to allow one to be in two places at the same time. The moment the door closed, the ‘me’ that had been in the classroom disappeared, its existence as a thought projection having been dismissed. 

“It almost feels like a crime thriller,” Matsu confided in me with a smile, “Except we’re the ones committing them with airtight alibis.”

“I wouldn’t call them airtight.”

“Almost airtight?”

“Mmm… maybe.”

“Alright, I’m going back to the library. Have fun training these kids.”

She gave me a light shove, and walked off down the corridor. Meanwhile I entered the classroom, where several Hogwarts students were casting spells on enchanted target dummies. 

“Sorry about the interruption. Who needs more help?”

One of the girls raised their hand. “Here, please. I can’t seem to cast the jinx right.”

“Alright, please demonstrate while I watch.” I glanced at the young teen nearby. “Keep trying, Mr Longbottom.”

“Y-yes!”

I had no idea why, but somehow I had ended up as a spellcasting tutor of sorts to a bunch of younger students. Given the effects of [Chiron], their rate of improvement was quite evident, and it established my reputation as a good person to learn from. It took a bit of time out of my evenings and weekends, but it certainly did paint me in a good light for the faculty. It also gave me the opportunity to [Appraise] some of them for talents and skills that I could obtain, like Neville Longbottom’s [Green Thumb].

Later, when Professor McGonagall came by to check in on us, she asked if I had been on the seventh floor recently, but my tutees vouched for my presence and innocence. With my alibi established, the teacher left in slight frustration.

With how things are in this place, she’ll give up shortly after.

I was right.

…

Sano waited until I had sat down in the chair facing his desk before speaking. “Glad to see you again. Now, your report, please.”

“Well…” I began to talk.

We had gathered quite a few proto-skills from the magic users here, along with some that managed to be coherent enough to count as actual skills. The latter usually came from some of the magical creatures I got to interact with. At the same time, we made a few discoveries about the world’s system, and how our own foreign skills could be affected by it.

As it turned out, some of the odd occurrences we observed were due to Wizarding World’s magic, which was more far-reaching than we had anticipated. The [Speech] activation, upon closer examination, came about because of a bit of accidental magic on my part. Somehow it just reached into the skill itself to produce the effect. It was only thanks to Matsu’s research into the Room of Requirement’s desire sensor that she was able to figure out what to look for. 

This oddity also worked in reverse. Irene and I already knew that some worlds had fate at play, or plot device-reliant event occurrence, like we had seen in Skyrim. In this example, it was [Chiron] making me stand out as a trainer, somehow arranging events so that I would be on the stage to play that role. Thanks to that, I was able to expand my [Appraisal]’s analysis to discover that Harry Potter had the [Dark Lord’s Nemesis] skill. 

The world itself might not follow game-like rules, but there are definitely triggers around that we have to be wary about activating. Imagine if there was something like destined death…  I shuddered at the thought of losing any of my girls. 

Thankfully, those were the only two big ones, and as expected of the Wizarding World’s magic, once we figured out the trick behind them, crafting a solution was simple. It was very similar to Irene’s enchantment magic; magic that turned A to B could be countered by an anti-’magic that turned A to B’, which in turn could be countered by its counterpart.

The god was nodding in interest after I finished giving my report on everything that had happened so far. 

“I’m curious, are there any gods maintaining this world’s system?” I suddenly asked.

He looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “There are, but they’re not very proactive.”

“...that explains a lot.”

“Anyway, all this is very intriguing. I am really looking forward to seeing all the data you’ve collected when you get back.”

“Any special instructions you’d like me to pass on?”

Sano considered it for a bit before giving his response. “Try to get more skills and data related to this… Transfiguration. And see if you’re able to gain more of the native creatures’ unique skills.”

“Are you thinking about making animal companions with special skills next?” I guessed.

“No, that’s not it. I’m trying to expand more on the summon-type skills. Anyway, just go get more of them.”

Embarrassed at making the wrong guess, I ducked my head. “You got it, boss.”

In reality, I didn’t have to go out of my way to carry out his request. The fifth years were busy cramming to take their OWLs, and the professors were strict in making sure that every student was up to a minimum standard. Given that there was only one teacher per subject for all seven years, they appreciated it when I stepped up to assist without being asked to. 

Snape was the exception though, but neither did he object when Matsu began reaching out to the other students.

“Mr Steel, please stay back for a moment,” Professor McGonagall called out at the end of a particularly stressful lesson.

The girls agreed to wait outside for me, so once it was only the two of us, I approached the older woman. “What is it, Professor?”

“I am impressed.”

I blinked. It was a rare thing to hear direct praise from the normally strict Transfiguration teacher. It took me a moment to realize she was waiting for a response.

“...excuse me?”

“You have a talent for teaching. Many of the poorer students have been performing better under your tutelage. Perhaps you ought to consider a career as a teacher at Hogwarts in the future.”

“Thank you for saying so.” Though to be honest, I owe it to [Chiron].

“I’m sure if you were to take the OWLs now, you would earn an ‘Outstanding’ in Transfiguration, among others.” With a flick of her wand, she gathered all the submitted homework into a neat stack on her desk. “Unfortunately, that is not up to me.”

I waited for her to get to the point.

“What I can do,” She said pointedly, “Is to nurture your talent further. As such, I am giving you a note that will allow you access to any Transfiguration book in the Restricted Section of the Library.”

Professor McGonagall drew a slip of parchment out of her robe, one bearing her signature at the bottom of a statement proclaiming exactly that. She held it out to me, but didn’t release it right away even when I gripped the offered end.

“Do not abuse this privilege. Now, be off to your next lesson.”

“Yes, Professor.” Matsu’s gonna love this. Saves us the trouble of having to sneak into the place again.

“Oh, and I have also advised some of my younger lions to seek you out, so don’t be surprised if they approach you during the next class.”

Of course, sometimes the reward for good work was just more work.

Just like Moody making us his demonstration partners when he wanted us to show how one could react to being faced with curses or jinxes. And it just so happened that he planned to demonstrate the Imperius Curse this week, with Dumbledore’s permission for him to do so.

Going down the class register, he called the students up one by one to cast the Imperius Curse on them, making them act in unusual ways while under its effects. 

“Chie,” Moody growled, calling Matsu forward, “Come up.”

I controlled my breathing as she went into the empty space cleared of desk, standing before Moody who had his wand pointed at her.

“Imperio!”

She twitched a little, before turning around and walking straight towards me. Before everyone present, she threw her arms around me and planted a deep, intense kiss on my lips. There were whispers and whistles from the students watching, along with some mutters from scandalized girls.

“Har har. Very funny. Get back in the center,” Moody ordered, before looking around at the class. “She fought it, better than anyone else so far, and beat it! I’ll do it again. Watch her eyes, that’s where you’ll see it.”

Uzume had it harder, taking a few solid seconds before she could throw it off. When Moody asked her how she did it, my brunette Sekirei proudly declared that it was the power of love, causing her friends to giggle and cast envious looks at me and her. Moody just scoffed, and stressed that ‘CONSTANT VIGILANCE!’ was a better way, before moving on to the next.

Only a few others were able to resist, but most couldn’t. I noticed that most of those who fought well were my students, which indicated that my training skill was having some extra beneficial effects.

“Steel, you next.” Moody waited until I stood there, then raised his wand. “Imperio!”

In the book, the effect of the Imperius Curse was described as making you so relaxed and uncaring of anything, so that you would act on the impulses the caster fed you. 

It certainly did feel like that.

Do a handstand…

Yeah, no.

Do a handstand.

Uh huh. No.

Do it. Now.

So I just have to do a handstand?

DO IT!

But I refuse. 

It did feel like that. For a millisecond. [Full Focus Breathing] was OP. More importantly-

[Imperius Curse] learned!

Moody squinted at me, both eyes locked on mine as I stared coolly back at him. He finally lowered his wand, 

“What’s with you exchange students?” He muttered too softly for anyone without falna-enhanced ears to hear.

Dang, I think he’s getting suspicious of us now. 

Despite his suspicions, ‘Moody’ didn’t take any further actions, so the class concluded without any problems, other than more homework reading on the Imperius Curse. However, the girls and I certainly faced more attention for our relationship being revealed like that, and we had to fend off questions about how we had started dating and all.

That evening, as I was sitting down for dinner with the girls at Hufflepuff table, I found myself approached by Neville, along with the Golden Trio of Harry, Ron and Hermione.

“Rick?”

“Yes, Neville? What do you need?” I addressed the boy with more familiarity now that we weren’t having a tutoring session.

“Um, it’s-”

Hermione stepped forward to take over the conversation in his place. “Professor McGonagall said that you were holding a Transfiguration tutoring session for fifth years and below, and we’d like to join to check out what it’s like.”

Just as Professor McGonagall had warned, except that I was expecting some no-name bunch instead of the main character group. Then again, this could probably be fate arranging for us to become their power-up reason.

Also, bossy sure describes her well. I was about to reply, but Irene beat me to it.

“Your friends don’t exactly look enthused about the idea.”

“We’re not.” Ron muttered. “We already have loads of homework to do.”

Next to him, Harry looked just as uncomfortable at being dragged along by his female friend.

“And you, Miss-”

“Granger. Hermione Granger.”

Irene inclined her head in a clinical nod of acknowledgment. “Aren’t you already busy with this… SPEW?”

“It’s not spew, it stands for the Society for-”

“Ahem.” I pointedly cleared my throat to interrupt the brewing dispute. “It’s okay. It’s their decision on how to handle their time. You three are welcome to join, no problem.”

I gave them the details on when and where the class would be held, and they went back to their table to have dinner.

“Are you okay, Irene-tan? Why were you acting like that towards that girl?”

“Her attitude irritated me,” She said shortly.

Compared to being the target of snide remarks and attitude, when the other members of our group were the ones being targeted, we tended to react more strongly. 

Aww, that’s cute of her. She was trying to defend me. “Well, she is strong-minded,” I replied, matter-of-factly, “So I can overlook that.”

“You shouldn’t let her get away with it too much,” Irene advised.

“Noted. I’ll probably be focusing more on the boys though. But if she acts up, I’ll make sure to discipline her,” I promised.

Matsu winked. “Oooh, I’d love to see that.”

“Stop that.”

Compared to putting Adventurers through their paces in physical activity, teaching magic required more restraint. I couldn’t act like a hardcore drill instructor, because these weren’t monster-slaying adults I was dealing with, but young teens who barely even knew how to handle conflict. In any case, my skill and Development Ability were definitely contributing quite a lot, telling me not just what to fix, but how to do so effectively.

“Fix your grip, your wand’s movements are sloppy because you aren’t holding it right.”

“Like this?”

“That’s it. Now try again. Another five times.” I turned to the next in line. “You’re doing good. Keep it up.”

“Rick, could you help with this transfiguration?”

“Coming. Ah, I see where you’re going wrong. First, you need to…”

When Neville and his three friends arrived, I had them sit nearby to observe while I finished up with the current bunch, before asking them to point out where they needed to improve. Hermione herself obviously didn’t need any help, but the boys would certainly benefit with a proper guiding hand.

“I wrote to my gran,” Neville told me, regarding the issue I pointed out to him in a previous session, “And she agreed to take me to Ollivander’s the next Hogwarts weekend.”

“That’s good. Your spellcasting will improve quite dramatically once you have a proper wand.” And it’s about time. Watching him try to cast with that unmatched wand was like seeing someone try to run Crysis on a potato PC… using [Speech] to make him write the letter was worth it.

As Ron asked Neville what was wrong with his wand, I turned my attention to Harry. At seventeen, he really did look like the teenage version of Daniel Radcliffe, just more lanky and gangly.

“What?” He asked me.

“You play Quidditch, right?”

“Yeah, I’m Seeker.”

“Except you haven’t had any training sessions.”

“Yeah,” Harry responded with annoyance, “Because they canceled the Quidditch Cup in favor of the Triwizard Tournament.” 

“That explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“You’re stressed because of something, but you haven’t been able to distract yourself from it because you normally do so through Quidditch training. That’s affecting your studies.”

Harry looked like he was about to say something, then stopped and considered my words. 

“So I just have to do some Quidditch training?” He finally asked.

“That’s one solution. But I have others if you’re willing to hear me out.”

The teenager wavered at first, but eventually decided to accept my offer.

Just like that, I was able to form a closer connection to Harry Potter, giving me the opportunity I needed to analyze his abilities more deeply. Along with the [Dark Lord’s Nemesis] that hadn’t been immediately identifiable, he carried skills like [Living Horcrux] and [Parselmouth], though I had no plans of doing anything with those just yet. Instead, I chose to focus on the unpolished talent I knew he had, to shape him into a skilled magic duelist. 

So rather than having him stay back longer after the Transfiguration tutoring, I met up with Harry a few evenings a week, where I drilled him in the casting of several spells related to Defense Against the Dark Arts. The Disarming Charm he would be known for, other jinxes and hexes, and how he could defend against them. His friends often tagged along, and I didn’t shy from including them in those sessions. 

It was surprisingly more entertaining than I expected, not just teaching them how to cast properly, but also getting them used to doing so in more practical settings.

“I came up with this idea from the game centers in Japan.” I indicated the setup behind me.

“Game centers?” I heard Ron ask Hermione quietly, who started explaining the concept of arcades.

“You’ll stand here,” I told Harry, pointing to a place in front of a desk, “And when the targets pop up, you have to cast your spells at them. Take too long, and they’ll send soft darts at you.”

The boy steeled himself and nodded, stepping onto the spot I indicated. I had the other two move off to the side just in case.

“Ready? Start!” I activated the setup.

A few wooden targets popped out, and Harry began casting.

“Stupefy! Stupefy! Impedimenta!” 

He managed to land most of his spells, knocking the targets down into their prone position. Some of them missed, and to punish him for that, I activated the other part of the gimmick, shooting the darts I said it would. 

Harry ducked, avoiding some of them, and quickly fired back.

“Expelliarmus!”

The spell struck the flimsy target, causing it to break into two, and Harry to grin at the sight of that.

Several more darts smacked into his body, causing him to yelp and duck for cover.

“Don’t forget about the others~” I sing-songed.

“Bloody hell…” I heard Ron mutter.

“You’re up next,” I told him, even as Harry scrambled to regain the advantage.

“Bloody hell,” The redhead repeated.

Harry lasted another thirty seconds before I stopped the session, but he wore a wide grin despite that.

“Can I try again?” He asked me.

I smiled at his enthusiasm as I fixed the damaged targets with the Repairing Charm. “Take a break first. Let your friend Ron have a go.”

And just as I had said, the sessions proved to be beneficial; Harry grew more confident and smiled more, and his performance in class showed similar improvement.

Interacting with him and his friends more closely also gave me a better insight into their characters. Harry himself was a normal teenager who was moody from puberty, one who usually tried to immerse himself in other things to take his mind off the problems he was facing. Ron was generally lazy and uninclined to push himself, but showed impressive results when he did. As for Hermione, she was the one responsible for pushing the other two into action when they would normally be goofing off, but her forceful personality didn’t make her many other friends. Contrary to Irene’s worries, she didn’t act out after witnessing my teaching method and its effectiveness, so Hermione remained discipline-free.

They got to interact with my Sekireis as well, but Irene’s cool treatment of Hermione seemed to be an establishing moment, and other than an occasional wizarding chess match between Ron and Matsu, both sides kept each other at arm’s length, with me serving as the sole bridge.

Finally, one week before the end of October, a sign went up in the Entrance Hall, announcing that the delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang were due to arrive in the evening on Friday the 30th, and that the students were to assemble to greet them when they did. As though it was a signal, the castle began to undergo an extra-thorough cleaning, from the portraits to the suit of armors. The entire staff grew increasingly tense as the date approached…

But for me and my Sekireis, we were just the opposite.

“Rick-kun, did you finish your homework yet?” Uzume asked.

“Just a bit more… and done.” I added a full stop at the end of my sentence. “Want to take a read?”

“Yup.”

“Rick-tan, if you’re done, want to join me for a game?” Matsu invited from the couch.

“Sure, just let me pack away my stuff first.”

She had further modified Archive’s data processing abilities, successfully using it to emulate a game console system; the screen itself could now be expanded to the size of a large TV, along with making holographic controllers for us to use. As for the game itself, it was a knockoff imitation of Super Smash Bros with hooded and masked characters wielding different types of magics, created by Matsu in the span of three days.

Irene leaned over the back of the couch, watching as we played. She wore a tight sweater that emphasized her chest, and her hair was up in a high ponytail. The strong resemblance to Erza was obvious, but Irene oozed more sexiness.

“Ah.” I got distracted and lost. “Rematch, please.”

“Sure thing.”

“Are you planning to spread this around?” Irene asked as we started another round.

“It might encourage more creativity, but not right now,” Matsu answered absently, “I’m already dealing with a lot of stuff, so I don’t need any more.”

“I see.” 

We settled into a comfortable silence, with only the sound of the game and the fire crackling in the hearth to interrupt.

Matsu was quite right about having a lot to deal with; the data from the Room of Requirement was quite extensive to go through, and she had been experimenting with several configurations to try and produce miniature versions for other purposes. Matsu still made the occasional visit to the Room, to test out what it could make and use those as templates to tinker with. As testament to her efforts, the walls of our room now had several more doors, each serving as an expansion to our living quarters, and a way of replicating the one we had in Sano’s shop.

Almost like the Pokemon move Secret Power, except it comes with automatic furnishing function. 

We now had a bathroom big enough for all of us to take a bath together, a kitchen for Uzume to practice new dishes, a miniature library where we could store the books we copied from the library, a sunny training room where Leafeon could enjoy warm temperatures and bright sunlight no matter how cold it was outside the castle, and a direct link to the actual Room of Requirement.

And all this happened in just two months. 

That’s not to say they could be installed anywhere; there were certain requirements to meet, and those grew stricter with the complexity of the imitations. Matsu was trying to find ways around them, but those had to be specifically customized for each Room, making it hard to find a general solution.

We did our best to assist where we could, and Matsu appreciated that very much.

“And that’s another win for me!” Matsu said triumphantly, before yawning. “Fuaaaa~ I need to sleep.”

Irene nodded. “Agreed. It’s late and we have classes tomorrow.”

Matsu dismissed the screen and controllers, before going over to me and planting a deep, loving kiss on my lips. The same happened for the other two, and we all adjourned to our beds.

As I stared up at the ceiling of my bed, I had to admit that I was having way more fun than I expected in this world. I was looking forward to seeing the actual foreign students arrive, and went to sleep with pleasant dreams.

Afterword: Felt like my muse was struggling a little with this one, with how it kept skipping about the place. I think I might have gotten a bit carried away with exploring the potential of skills obtained from this world too, but I was just having fun writing it out, and I really didn’t want to delete it and start over.

So yeah, a bit of a slow chapter this time, but things should kick off once the foreign students arrive and the Triwizard Tournament is underway. Rick has definitely caused more than a few butterflies now with his actions, and I’m hoping to explore where it goes.

Gonna upload a few pictures of how the three Sekireis look in their younger form.