Congratulations on 400 chapters!
The story jumps several years into the future from the chapter before last.
A rare guest visits Kousuke, who is engrossed in researching magic tools in his laboratory.
“Father!”
Kousuke looks up in surprise at the voice and smiles as he sees who it is.
“Mia… and Luca? What’s up?”
Seeing Kouhi beside the two, he immediately figures out that she brought them to the management layer.
Kouhi wouldn’t bring the children without their parents’ permission, so he assumes she got their mothers’ approval.
By the way, Mia is Floria’s eldest daughter, now eight years old, and Luca is Silvia’s eldest son, now five.
Floria has three children: two sons and one daughter. Silvia has two children: one son and one daughter.
Currently, Luca is Kousuke’s youngest child.
Mia looks a little sulky at Kousuke’s reply.
“Do I need a reason to visit, Father?”
Mia looks dejected, as if disappointed she came all this way for nothing. Kousuke chuckles and picks her up.
“Of course not? …Here we go. Oh, you’ve gotten bigger again.”
Kousuke lifts Mia, narrowing his eyes as he feels his child’s growth.
Luca, who has come to his feet, also seems bigger than when he last saw him.
However, it’s only been about half a month since they last met, so it’s not like he can see obvious changes.
It’s purely a feeling.
He can’t possibly pick both of them up at the same time, so he pets Luca’s head with his free hand.
***
His research was reaching a natural pause, so with Mia in his arms and Luca’s hand in his, he was about to head towards the lounge space when Mia stopped him.
“Father, can you show me the control room again?”
“The control room? Sure, but you really like it, don’t you?”
“Yes!”
Mia replies with a radiant smile.
“Is that okay with you, Luca?”
“Yeah!”
When Kousuke looks at him, Luca nods enthusiastically.
It seems both of them came with the control room in mind.
Mia is particularly fond of the three crystals in the control room.
The first time Mia entered the control room, her eyes shone as she looked at the crystals.
The crystals, when viewed in a certain way, sparkle like jewels, so it’s understandable that children would be drawn to them.
If the crystals were fragile and easily broken by children’s handling, he wouldn’t allow them to see them, but since they are impossible to move no matter what, he always lets them have their way.
As for Luca, it feels like he’s more interested in Haku, who often visits the control room, than the control room itself.
Once inside the Amamiya Tower’s control room, Mia heads straight for the control panel.
Initially, Mia’s interest was drawn to the crystals, but for the past few times, she seems to enjoy looking at the control panel.
She seems to find it fun how the information displayed changes with each touch.
Luca seems to feel the same way, his eyes sparkling as he stares at the screen.
Unfortunately, Haku wasn’t there, but they didn’t seem to mind.
Of course, since they don’t have the authority, they can only view things; they haven’t been granted any permission to make decisions.
Still, Mia enjoys changing the displayed content on the control screen, playing with it.
He had wondered about this before, so he asked Floria how much Mia could read, and she can apparently read normal words that children usually use.
She can read numbers normally.
Most of the text on the control screen consists of nouns, so she understands most of it.
Luca, on the other hand, can barely read words yet, so he’s purely enjoying the screen transitions.
He sits in another empty seat, happily running his finger across the screen to switch between displays.
He probably just finds the movement itself amusing.
“Father, what is this?”
“Hmm?”
Kousuke, who had been watching Luca, approaches Mia.
“Ah, this is a screen where you can place things on various floors.”
“Floors?”
Luca tilts his head, and Kousuke hesitates for a moment on how to explain.
“Do you know that the place where your castle is, where Mia, you live, is a small area compared to the outside of the tower?”
“Yeah!”
If she didn’t know that, he would have struggled to explain.
“The tower is made up of many such places, like the first and second floors of a castle.”
“Hmm…?”
Even so, it was difficult, and Mia tilted her head.
Kousuke, pondering how to explain, decided to use the screen Luca had opened.
He displays the fifth floor, where Mia’s castle is located, on the screen.
“This is the fifth floor, where your castle is located.”
“Dai… go… sou?”
“Yes. See. This is where the castle is.”
The management screen allows him to zoom in and out to some extent on each floor, like a map on the internet.
Using this function, he zooms in so that the castle is visible.
“Oh, the castle is so tiny!”
“That’s right. If I zoom out a bit… this is where the castle is, and this is the town. You can see the fields around it, can’t you?”
“Yeah!”
Mia sometimes goes on tours of the town with her siblings, accompanied by her retainers.
The spatial relationship on the screen matches her memories.
“Now, if I zoom out even further…”
“The castle keeps getting smaller!”
“That’s right.”
Mia watches with wide eyes as the castle visible on the screen gets smaller and smaller.
Before long, Luca also comes over and stares at the screen.
The screen is now zoomed out to show the entire fifth floor.
“See. This is the castle, and around here is where the town is.”
“Wow. It’s small.”
Mia is delighted that the town, which she normally perceives as vast, appears small on the screen.
Luca, sitting next to her, also watches with wide eyes.
By the way, although Mia is calling it small, the town on the fifth floor is already quite large.
Initially, when displayed at maximum magnification, it was barely visible, but now the townscape alone takes up considerable space.
When the surrounding fields are included, it’s clear that it’s quite extensive.
This screen alone shows considerable development.
“This is about how wide the area where you and Mia live is now.”
“Hmm… if I ran, I don’t think I’d reach the end very quickly?”
“That’s right. At your current speed, Mia, it would be difficult.”
As children, they wouldn’t be able to traverse the entire width of a floor.
Of course, it’s a different story for adult adventurers.
Still, Kousuke thought it was quite impressive that she could imagine that just by looking at the screen.
“What you see on this screen now is the first floor. No matter how hard you try, you can’t go any further than this. If you try to force your way through, you’ll get lost, so you mustn’t go alone, okay?”
“Okay!”
“And the tower is made up of many floors like this, all gathered together.”
As Kousuke said this, he manipulated the screen, changing between floors one after another.
Among them, Mia reacted most strongly to the desert floor covered in sand.
“Is there nothing here?”
“It’s not that there’s nothing, it’s just that there’s almost only sand… Shall we go together sometime?”
“Really?!”
“Of course.”
“Yay!”
It would be difficult to stay in a desert-like environment for an extended period without any preparation, but a short time should be fine.
Perhaps exposing them to the desert heat alone would be interesting.
Of course, he has no intention of making them do anything reckless and plans to return immediately.
It might be interesting to show them the familiars as well.
Watching Mia and Luca raise their hands in excitement, Kousuke pondered such things.
And with that, the gifted education (?) was complete lol.
I’m looking forward to seeing how Mia and Luca grow from here.
Explaining floors to children is very difficult >_< For the next chapter, I plan to take the children (five of them) on a tour of the tower. *** Reference materials for the next chapter: Floria Wife #5. Towa (Eternity) Floria's first child. Eldest son, born in spring of Year A. Mia (Sea and Sky) Floria's second child. Eldest daughter, born in summer of Year A-1. Riku (Dragon Sky) Floria's third child. Second son, born in autumn of Year A-3. Silvia Wife #2. Kokoro (Kind Heart) Silvia's first child. Eldest daughter, born in spring of Year A-2. Luca (Flowing Sea) Silvia's second child. Eldest son, born in winter of Year A-4.
