"Naoki."
"Yes, I'm here, Master."
"Try explaining to me, what exactly is this thing you've made?"
"It's a doll, Master."
A doll?
Looking at the messy structure on his desk that could almost be described as just a bone skeleton, without the slightest external form, Touko took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes several times before staring sharply at Naoki.
"Naoki, if my memory serves me correctly, my request to you was to make the simplest doll, wasn't it?"
"As you said, Master. Isn't this the simplest doll?"
"But I didn't tell you to use the leftover ribs from the past few days' meals to make the doll!"
It was now the fourth month since Naoki had officially become her disciple. After receiving three months of theoretical doll knowledge training and watching her make nearly ten dolls, Touko, feeling she had taught enough, gave Naoki his first task.
—Make the simplest doll with any materials.
After all, the materials for making dolls were not fixed; clay, wood, metal... even water could be made into a doll, it just required a very high level of skill.
Naoki was still a beginner in doll making, so Touko didn't intend to set too high a standard for him, as long as he could make something roughly correct, it would be considered passing—but she absolutely didn't expect Naoki to directly use the leftover bones from the past few days' meals to make it!
The four limbs were the leftover chicken wings from two days ago, the body was carved from the large ribs from last night's dinner. And surprisingly, the shape was quite good. Although it took the form of a flying dragon, which was a high level of difficulty, the resemblance was very high.
It could even move!
"I... ah, I don't even know what to say anymore."
After restraining herself for quite a while, Touko finally sighed helplessly, "Couldn't you have used normal materials?"
"What's wrong with the materials? Aren't they all animal bones? Since the Magus of the Age of Gods could use dragon bones, there's no reason for modern Magus like us not to be able to use cow bones, right? And I've also processed them well with Magecraft, everything is according to what Master taught. Besides, using cow bones is also more economical."
"..."
Touko really wanted to refute, but logically, her disciple hadn't said anything wrong.
Taking a deep breath, barely suppressing the urge to continue commenting, Touko picked up the flying dragon doll on the table, "Alright, I'll give you a passing grade. Next time, it would be better if you could use normal materials."
"I understand."
"But where did you get the skeletal structure of a flying dragon?" Touko observed the doll while asking, "This structure isn't entirely the same as the skeleton of various existing living creatures, you couldn't have actually found a dragon, could you?"
"Hmm... it's just my imagination."
While saying this, Naoki took out Logos React.
"Even so, relying solely on my imagination, there are many things that can't be confirmed, so I connected my mind to Logos React and let it reproduce the skeletal structure of the dragon species I imagined."
An unprecedented operation.
Touko couldn't help but be surprised, "This thing can do something like that?"
"Only I can do it, after all, its usage permission is limited to me, and the feeling of mental connection isn't good either, there's a kind of vibe like playing computer games all night and then having to go to college."
"It will strain the brain, huh, that's true, after all, this action is the same as directly reading your mind, you could say you're lucky your brain didn't have any problems. Naoki, don't use this method often in the future, even if it's just an estimate, but if used frequently, you might get early-onset dementia."
"Okay."
Although he agreed verbally, Naoki actually didn't plan to stop using it. According to his idea, if he could complete the personification of Logos React step by step, then the mental connection would almost have to be maintained all day long.
'Mental strength training should also be included in the schedule... finding Merlin directly later should be enough.'
If it was that lewd incubus who was very skilled in illusions and dreams, he must have a lot of experience on how to train mental strength.
"Then this task ends here. It's almost lunchtime too, who's going to cook today?"
"It should have been me, but I have business after this, so I'll have to trouble Master to cook herself."
Business?
Touko was immediately a little surprised, "You have business? That's rare."
"Does me having my own business surprise you so much?"
"Of course, after all, young people like you always give the impression of not having much personal business, besides Gray is always with you, don't you almost have no personal time?" Touko laughed, "By the way, why haven't I seen Gray today? Taking a nap?"
"Didn't Master say she wanted lunch? Gray went to the supermarket to buy groceries, if you calculate it, she should be on her way back."
Looking at the clock on the wall, Naoki turned towards the door, "Then I'll go first. Master, remember to tell Gray not to buy groceries tonight, I'll bring them home."
"OK. Ah yeah, buy some alcohol too, we're out at home."
What a drunkard!
◆━⊰✧⊱━◆
Ogawa Apartment.
Riding his motorcycle and stopping in front of this apartment, taking off his helmet, Naoki took out all the information he had collected over the past three months from his backpack.
As Touko said, he indeed had almost no personal time, but that didn't mean there was absolutely none, he just needed to compress his sleeping time a little, and the time available for personal actions would naturally appear.
Time was like a sponge, squeeze it a little and there would definitely be some.
And in these three months, Naoki had also investigated many things, for example, the death of Araya Souren that occurred near the Ryougi family two years ago. And the reason he came to Ogawa Apartment this time was also related to that incident.
Two years ago, not long after Araya Souren's body was found, Ryougi Shiki was confirmed to have disappeared without a trace. For almost two years, there was no news, even the Ryougi family didn't know where she was. The last time she was seen was walking into an alley, and since then, she had disappeared as if swallowed by the earth.
However, a month ago, someone said they saw someone resembling Shiki going in and out of Ogawa Apartment.
Although the truth of this information couldn't be confirmed, but because such information could spread, it meant that Ogawa Apartment was indeed inhabited by someone who caused such rumors to arise.
"Araya Souren died two years ago... with this, the interior of Ogawa Apartment shouldn't have turned into a living hell, right?"
In the original work, due to Araya's experiments, all the residents of Ogawa Apartment turned into dolls, repeatedly experiencing cycles of life and death, its internal environment could be said to be another world's hell. But this time, Araya had already died two years ago.
"Never mind, I'm already here, let's go in and take a look."