thefictionvixens Page 121
Page 121
After a warm welcome, everyone left the airport and returned to the Tohsaka family home for a family dinner.
It was both a welcome-back dinner for family members who had been away for a long time and a welcome-back dinner for new members Karen and Grey.
After this incident, and with Kallen joining the family, the girls often got together, which brought the Kirei family into the Holy Grail Alliance. The families frequently interacted because of the children.
The suspicious people around Fuyuki left, and Fuyuki enjoyed a period of peace.
Until this day, Fuyuki's peace was finally broken.
That morning, Mordred was secretly hiding in his room, playing video games all night. He was hungry and looking for food when he saw the Lion King coming out of Marne's room.
The Lion King also saw Mordred and was shocked by Mordred's expression, creating an extremely awkward atmosphere.
Just then, Ma En also came out of the room and naturally hugged the Lion King from behind.
"Lia, why are you in such a hurry to leave? The children have a day off today, they'll sleep in, we can..."
As Ma En was saying this, preparing to persuade the beauty to go back and do something beneficial for her physical and mental health, he also saw Mordred and was immediately embarrassed.
Mordred was completely stunned.
If she could have said earlier that it might just be the Lion King calling Marne to wake her up, then Marne's actions now confirm it.
These two are actually having an affair?!
My father has a man?!
I cannot accept this!!!
"It's fake! It must be fake! It's all an illusion!"
Mordred, whose worldview had collapsed, shouted in a panic and turned to run away, disappearing in the blink of an eye.
"Mordred! Let go of me now!"
The Lion King called out, but received no response. Just as he was about to chase after him, he found that Ma En was still holding him, and immediately gave him a reproachful look.
She was just thinking of an excuse when Ma En suddenly appeared, made such an intimate gesture, and said such ambiguous things, which made her prepared excuses fall flat and confirmed their relationship on the spot.
The main reason she was so resistant was that she was afraid Mordred would find out.
She has her pride too, you know. If acquaintances find out about this, where will she put her face?!
Now it's clear that Mordred really knows.
"Oh? Oh!" En was still a little dazed, not yet recovered from the shock, and when she heard the Lion King say that, she let go of her.
The Lion King ignored Marne and chased after him.
Watching the two run off, Ma En stood there somewhat bewildered.
At that moment, Nero, who had heard the commotion, came over.
"Player, what happened just now? I saw Mordred run out, and Arthur was chasing after her."
"It's nothing, just a little disagreement between father and son, it'll be fine in a bit."
As Ma En said this, he thought about it and finally decided not to get involved. He would let the "father and son" talk it out themselves, and he would step in if things got really bad.
Thinking this, Ma En changed the subject: "Let's not talk about that for now, is Orange ready?"
After returning to Fuyuki, Maen began preparing for his trip to the parallel world.
There's nothing to prepare for the trip itself; all the conditions are met, all that's left is to set off.
However, it wasn't so easy to get Ma En to leave Fuyuki; there were too many things to consider.
Needless to say, there's the Greater Grail, the safety of the Tohsaka family and the Einzbern family, and the studies of the young girls.
Sakura Tohsaka and Gray are both disciples of Maren, so they need Maren, their master, to teach them.
Rin Tohsaka and Illya also need someone to tutor them in learning magic.
Although Karen doesn't need Marne, Kirei Kotomine and Rissei Kotomine are responsible for her education. However, her masochistic spiritual medium tendencies still need to be addressed, otherwise they will cause many inconveniences to the child's daily life.
There are other things to handle, such as asset integration and management, and in short, a whole host of things need to be dealt with before Marx and Engels can set off.
Asset management is alright, with the help of the Einzbern homunculi, and it can be handed over to Hisayu Maiya for supervision.
Karen's problem was easy to solve. Maren simply gave her a self-healing ability, allowing her to recover quickly after being injured. Adding a spirit-exorcising amulet would basically solve the problem.
Other security and educational issues require Marx and Engels to leave some people behind.
Moreover, this person must be one of the three people connected to Marne: Nero, Aozaki Touko, or the Lion King; otherwise, Marne cannot be at ease.
After some discussion, it was finally decided that Aozaki Touko would stay.
Because traveling to other parallel worlds might lead to encounters with Aozaki Touko on the other side, Ma En couldn't guarantee that there wouldn't be any problems if the two met, so he could only ask Aozaki Touko to stay behind temporarily.
Furthermore, Aozaki Touko's main ability lies in her ability to infinitely revive spare doll bodies. If she goes to other parallel worlds, there may not be as many doll bodies for her to use, which is equivalent to losing one of her main abilities and making her safety more threatened.
Furthermore, Nero 407 and The Lion King cannot be too far from Marne; at least, being separated by a parallel world is definitely not an option.
Nero is part of the Cup of Fortune, the precursor to the Forge of Desire.
The Lion King, on the other hand, is currently being supplied with the magic of desire by Marne to suppress her deification problem.
Although Aozaki Touko felt helpless, she did not refuse and was willing to stay for one more time.
To this end, Maren also built another shuttle and navigation system for her, as well as a locator modified from a Wanhua compass navigator, so that she could find them at any time based on her location.
This is just in case something happens to them or here, so that Aozaki Touko can contact them immediately and ask them to come back, or she can go over to provide assistance.
However, the latter is probably not needed. If Aozaki Touko misses him, she can go after him to find him.
But even this wasn't enough to reassure Aozaki Touko that Ma En was going on a time-travel trip.
After all, with that prophecy still around, she always felt that if Maren left her side, he might never come back.
So she made some preparations herself, but she didn't tell Ma En what they were. To put her mind at ease, Ma En had no choice but to wait.
A month has passed since then, and Aozaki Touko still hasn't said she's ready. Ma En is also losing patience and wants to ask about the situation and urge her on.
Chapter 177 Orange's exquisite craftsmanship, Mo Zai has run away?
"Orange? I don't know either. I haven't seen her yesterday or today. She's probably staying at the Magic Workshop again."
Seeing this, Ma En didn't say anything more. Before the children woke up and before breakfast, he went to the Magic Workshop to ask Aozaki Touko about the situation.
If we're talking about the most unsociable person in the Fuyuki Grail Alliance family right now, besides Gilgamesh, it would be Aozaki Touko.
It's not that she's antisocial, but her behavior is rather unconventional. She prefers to stay in her magic studio, researching her puppets and magic tricks, so she rarely gets to be in the spotlight with others.
But I still have regular contact with other people.
Yes, mainly to help Marx and Eng tutor the children.
It's not that Marx and Engels couldn't teach people, but rather that they were quite busy. Besides handling various matters, they also had to deal with interpersonal relationships among other people, acting as a relationship lubricant.
Of course, there's also the private time he spends with his several concubines.
This resulted in Maren having very little free time to tutor his children in magic, and he often had to find someone to substitute for him. The most suitable substitute was naturally Aozaki Touko, a Grand Magician.
Although Nero also possesses considerable magical knowledge among the others, it is all rather ancient and not yet suitable for modern magic novices like Rin, Sakura, Gray, and Illya to learn.
In this large family where nearly half the members are children, Aozaki Touko, who serves as a substitute teacher for the children, is naturally integrated into the family, although she doesn't usually show her face.
When Ma En arrived at the Magic Workshop, he saw Aozaki Touko there, fiddling with a tiny object on her workbench.
Maren recognized this device; it was the parallel spacetime locator that he had improved using the Wanhua compass.
Seeing that Aozaki Touko was working diligently and improving her product, Ma En didn't rush to disturb her. He watched quietly from the side, wanting to see what she was doing.
Then, Aozaki Touko engraved a new magic circle on the locator. Ma En was very familiar with this magic circle, because it was another of his creations, a simplified version of the teleportation circle.
After watching for a while, Ma En couldn't help but admire Aozaki Touko's skills.
Because this locator is very small, only the size of a thumb, while this teleportation array, even if simplified, would normally have a diameter of about two meters.
However, Aozaki Touko is now using the incantation on the shrinking magic circle to shrink it to less than the size of a thumb in a very hardcore way.
All I can say is that this doll maker is truly remarkable for being able to replicate even the capillaries one-to-one. His skillful hands are simply magical, turning the ordinary into the extraordinary. His craftsmanship is ingenious and incredibly reliable.
Seeing that Aozaki Touko had flawlessly imprinted the magic circle, Ma En couldn't help but applaud her in amazement.
"Alright, just say what's on your mind."
Aozaki Touko was not startled by the sudden applause. Instead, she calmly put down her tools and looked at Ma En.
She already knew that Ma En had arrived, but she was busy and Ma En hadn't said anything, so she didn't pay attention to it for the time being.
"Is this all the preparation you need to do?" En asked, looking curiously at the locator that had been processed on the workbench.
Aozaki Touko slowly lit a cigarette, then raised an eyebrow and said, "More or less. We're still waiting for the trial run, so you're here to urge them on?"
Ma En scratched his head: "Pretty much. I saw that I hadn't heard from you for a long time, so I came to see if you were having any difficulties. If so, I'll help you out."
As he spoke, Ma En reached out and snatched the cigarette from Aozaki Touko's hand, put it in his own mouth, took a small puff, and said, "You should smoke less, lest you corrupt those kids."
"Who says it's bad for girls to smoke? Besides, I've basically stopped smoking in public."
Aozaki Touko pursed her lips, retorted a couple of times, and then said nothing more.
Actually, she has improved somewhat. Although Maren didn't say he disliked her smoking, she has tried her best to restrain herself in order to avoid Maren's impression and to maintain good relationships with the people around her. At least she doesn't smoke in front of others, especially in front of the children.
This is already a huge concession compared to her previous blatant behavior.
As for quitting?
It's impossible to quit; this kind of addiction is very difficult to break.
Furthermore, withdrawal symptoms could negatively impact one's life and work. One can only try to control oneself. If smoking causes serious harm, like lung cancer, then one would have to replace their body. (Cherish life! Stay away from smoking!)
Ma En didn't say anything more, after all, it was Aozaki Touko's own business, and he didn't want to interfere too much.
If Aozaki Touko changed because of him, he might feel happy and moved, but Ma En didn't really want that.
Everyone has their own unique characteristics, and that's part of their charm.
Moreover, if each of his confidantes were to change according to his wishes and become what he desires, then each of them would become identical.
Marx and Engels did not want that, because it was too boring.
It is precisely because each of them is different that life is so exciting.
"How much longer?"