NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 090 – Serious and reasonable
Ellie successfully learned her first real bits of magic and successfully created a floating orb of water without any help whatsoever from Sophia or Blu. To celebrate this massive accomplishment, they returned to the cottage to organize some cake that was promised to the princess as an additional reward.
“Cake!” The duo entered the group's cottage inside Sophia's domain, and the princess immediately made her presence known.
“You’re the best!” The blonde was her biggest fan.
"Eh…?" Sounding rather confused, Maya and Ari stuck their heads out of the kitchen.
“Hey~.” Sophia waved at the duo. “I promised our little tiger cake if her training went well.”
“Training went well!” The princess gave them a thumbs up.
“My dear, your birthday was yesterday.” The jaguar lightly shook her head. “There’s still lots of cake inside your belly, isn’t there?”
“So?” Ellie didn’t see the issue.
“Fair point.” Maya saw no flaw in her argumentation.
“Oi!” Ari glared at her. “Don’t enable her bad eating habits!”
"But cake is cake." The cat-girl, who had a big sweet tooth, wasn’t on her side.
“Exactely!” Maya won a lot of points in Ellie’s book.
“She’s earned it, though.” Sophia smiled at the jaguar. “Our little princess already managed to use magic without any help whatsoever.”
“Water ball!” Ellie was quite proud of herself, too.
“Wow!” Ari seemed impressed. “Okay, fine, cake it is.” In the end, she also felt like this achievement needed to be celebrated. “We don’t have any cake here, though. Making one will take too long, too.”
“To the capital!” Maya energetically grabbed the jaguar’s hand. “Let’s go and buy one!”
“Yay!” Ellie liked the plan.
“Just how much do you want cake?” Ari lightly rolled her eyes when looking at the cat-girl.
“Yes.” She wanted it a lot. Afterward, she dragged the jaguar away to buy a cake in the capital by taking one of Sophia's portals.
“Alright, let’s wait in the living room for them.” The blonde faced Ellie next to her.
“Okay!” She simply nodded.
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“Oh, would you look at that? My favorite sister has come to visit!" In the living room, Anna, who had been in there together with Steph and Chloe, greeted the little princess.
“Isn’t Ellie the only sister?” She tilted her head in return.
“That’s why you’re my favorite~.”
“Ohh!” She seemed to understand her. “Anna’s Ellie’s favorite sister, too!”
“You cheeky little…”
“Come on, you did that to yourself.” Chloe had no sympathy for her.
“Sisters do be sisters.”
“Yup.” Steph and Sophia seemed to get it, though.
“By the way, how is the training going?” The tall tiger had already discarded the teasing. "I still can't believe my sister's magic awakened this early! I think it took me like two years longer!”
“Not to mention that she has like twice your current power already~.” Sophia had to do it.
“…”
“Ellie’s the bestest, after all!” The little tiger had an easy explanation and got closer to her sister to show her a V-sign with her hand.
“True.” Everyone except Anna agreed.
“You little rascal!” The tall princess grabbed the short one and placed her on her lap.
“Hey!” Ellie struggled for a moment, but once she noticed that she was unable to escape from Anna’s arms wrapped around her waist, she gave up. “Fine.”
“Ehehe~.”
“They totally get along better now than they did before we left the capital, don’t they?”
“Sisters sometimes need a time away from each other to notice how close they actually are.”
“…” The blonde awkwardly scratched her cheek while listening to her sister.
“Hit a mark, huh?” Steph just smiled at her.
“Ahaha…” She only got more awkward. “W-Well, it’s great you get along again.” The blonde focused on the tiger sisters instead.
“Yes!” Anna thought so, too.
“Could be worse.”
“Oi!” The tall tiger lightly shook the cheeky princess on her lap. “Have you been secretly hanging out with Maya?”
“I thought the same not too long ago, too!” Sophia also had been out-sassed by the little tiger, after all.
“So, how’s the magic going?” Ignoring the older tigers, Chloe smiled at the younger one.
“Amazingly!” She smiled back at her. “So…phia taught Ellie how to make a water ball!”
“So quick!” Anna got loud again. “Why’s my little sister so much more talented than I am?!”
“To be fair, you’ve been taught magic the wrong way for your entire life.” Sophia tried to cheer her up. “The way it has been taught until now was the worst and needlessly complicated. If Fenny hadn't been my teacher and I'd attended the magic academy like you did, I probably still wouldn’t be able to use magic. Ellie never had to go through any of that and is just, well… using magic.”
“So much wasted time!” The tall tiger hung her head.
“Ahaha.” Knowing a thing or two about having wasted a lot of time in the past, basically her entire life in the previous world, Sophia returned to her awkward laughter.
“How much did she learn today?” Chloe also got interested in the topic.
“Water ball!” Ellie immediately got excited again.
“Yeah, I taught her how to create a floating sphere of water.” The blonde nodded.
"That's amazing! Good job!" The fox-girl praised the princess.
“Ehehe~.”
“Did you tell her anything else about magic beforehand, or did you jump right into creating things?" The fox was interested in Sophia's teaching methods.
“I gave her a general rundown of what magic is and just how vast her new powers really are. Afterward, I made sure to teach her the dangers of magic and how you have to be careful when using it.”
“…” Everyone except the princess just stared at her.
“What?!” The blonde didn’t like how they were all looking at her with a condescending expression while lightly shaking their head. “I am perfectly capable of doing such things!”
“Do as I told, not as I do, huh?” The pink girls seemed to understand her way of doing things.
“Exactly!” Sophia agreed. "Also, you three have no right to give me any flak when it comes to the topic of being careful or not.”
“…” They went silent rather quickly.
They chatted about Ellie's magic teachings for a bit longer, but when Ari and Maya returned, the topic was immediately dropped.
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“We’ve got the cake~.” The duo entered the living room, and the cat-girl energetically announced their arrival.
“CAKE!” Ellie was very happy about that.
“Cake?” Anna tilted her head while looking down at her sister.
“She made me promise her cake when she learns the water ball magic today, and, well, she did learn it.”
“Ohh!” The tall tiger could follow that logic. “Well, it’s always time for cake, so I fully support this.”
“Exactely!” The little sister was happy she understood the importance of cake. Afterward, everyone got a slice of the chocolate cake Ari and Maya had gotten in the capital while chatting some more.
“By the way, as Ellie will have my undivided attention for the next week at the very least, does anyone intend to continue the exploration of the outside world, or what’s the plan?” Sophia addressed the others.
“We’ll be staying in the domain.” Anna, Ari, and Maya replied together.
“Because we’re still in the snowy mountain range?” The blonde took a wild guess.
“Because of that!” The trio nodded in response.
“Chloe, Aura, and I wanted to explore more of it.” Steph was more open to the idea.
“We’re thinking about recreating a mountain range biome and wanted to get some more inspiration.” The fox nodded along.
“And maybe borrow a few things.” The dog-girl naturally had some ulterior motives. “Sis, can you liberate a mountain for us?” She smiled at her with puppy eyes. "It won't take long, after all! Just a quick massive portal, and we're good!"
“Alright, fine.” Sophia reluctantly agreed. She liked the idea of having a mountain range in her domain, but she had a bad feeling about what those three would turn it into. “On one condition, though.”
“Yes?” Steph tilted her head.
"You three will also traverse the rest of the mountain range so that all of us can continue traveling on the other side where there’s not even a hint of snow left!”
“A great plan!” The other cats supported the blonde’s condition.
“Sure.” Chloe had nothing against it. “We might be taking our time to enjoy the snow as much as possible, though.”
“We don’t care!” The cats unionized again.
“Also, make sure to notify me if you stumble across anything interesting, like that cherry blossom forest that absolutely didn't belong there." Sophia added an extra condition.
“Of course!” Steph, a fellow lover of all things interesting, had no intention of cheating her sister out of such a thing.
“Thank you!” The blonde smiled at the dog-girl before facing the little princess again. “Ellie!”
“Hmm?” She lazily looked towards her while continuing to focus on the cake she was munching on.
"We're going to continue your training tomorrow, so make sure to get plenty of rest tonight, okay?"
“YAY!” The princess was looking forward to it already.
“There’s one rule I have to give you, too, though.” Sophia suddenly sounded a little more serious. “You are not allowed to use magic on your own yet. Only when I or your parents allow you to do so. You did well today, but you need to get used to it more first. Soon, you can use magic whenever you want, but only after you get better control of it. It’s too dangerous for now.”
“Okay…” Ellie sounded a little pouty.
“If I find out that you broke this one rule, I will immediately stop teaching you and will never return to doing so either. Do you understand?”
“YES!” The little princess reacted with a big nod. “Ellie understands and will never use magic on her own until she’s allowed!”
“Good girl.”
“Wow!” Ari seemed impressed. “Serious and reasonable Sophia is always a sight to behold!”
“Shush!” She glared at the jaguar. “If it’s important, I’ll be the most reasonable person in this group! Things just usually aren’t serious enough for me to care!”
"I wasn't making fun of you," Ari shook her head. "It's just that it's a rare side of you, and it's great that you have it."
Once the topic was dealt with, everyone finished their cake, and Sophia brought Ellie back home to let her get some rest after an exhausting day. There, she also gave Kira a quick update on the progress and told her she'd pick up the princess again the next day for more training.
