470 Chapter 470: Mission Accomplished (2/2)
”I have no idea how you managed to fit all that amount of food into such a relatively thin body,” he moaned.
”Magic,” I replied, without a trace of irony, and then stuffed the last piece of cake into my mouth. I liked the ice cream more, so I rose from my seat to grab another helping of mango ice cream. Sorry, but mango was my jam, if you know what I'm saying.
”Seriously?”
”No, I wasn't being serious.” Obviously. I tried not to roll my eyes as I scooped a bunch of mango ice cream onto a bowl, and then returned to my seat. ”I used up quite a bit of magic yesterday, so I needed to restore my energy. And the best way to do that is by eating. A lot.”
As if to emphasize my point, I pushed my glasses up with one hand, my lenses shining, and grinned. Then I stuck my spoon into my ice cream and began to eat it. Well, ice cream was one of the best foods to restock my energy, considering the amount of glucose it provided. So it wasn't as if I was pulling this one out of my ass.
That said, some readers might claim that I didn't use that much magic yesterday, though. Yeah, I did. I had summoned Corvus and maintained the entire flock for hours on end. Hell, I summoned them the entire night, for eight to nine hours straight, so admittedly that was pretty draining on me. I was fortunate that Corvus was a tiny, low-ranked Constellation spirit that didn't require a lot of mana – I would never have pulled it off with most of my other Constellation spirits. They cost too much mana to maintain their existences in the material world. On the other hand, Corvus was pretty cheap in terms of mana consumption. Even then, it was no joke to maintain their existences physically for almost ten hours straight. And that included the several hours of summoning them while I explored the sewers before camping out in the Shrewsbury neighborhood to watch out for the Cyclops Rats.
So…actually, now that I thought aout it, I did use quite a lot of magic yesterday. In terms of mana consumption, I had spent plenty.
”Oh, that's right.” Adrian completely bought what I said with a straight face. Well, it was the truth, and Adrian was intelligent enough to know that I was right. Melina, on the other hand, looked curious as she tried to calculate my mana expenditure, without much success. She had little experience with summoning magic, and thus wasn't sure how it worked. Adrian didn't pay any attention to her and beamed at me. ”You've worked hard, Brother Richard.”
”Those crows cost quite a lot of mana to summon?” Melina asked, bewildered. ”Even though they are so small and have not much combat capability?”
”It's not the quantity or size, but rather the length of time I summoned them,” I explained, and reminded her of the number of hours I spent to keep them in existence. She fell silent and nodded in understanding.
”Oh, so that's why.”
”Yeah. That's why I need all this food to recharge!” I ate another spoonful of ice cream and almost swooned over how the sweet mango taste melted across my tongue. Damn, I love mango ice cream.
Also, this was a rare chance to get a free meal – I rarely had the chance to dine at such restaurants that provided all-you-can-eat buffets, so I was more than happy to devour everything in sight. It had been too long since I last had such a feast.
With that basic need of humanity fulfilled, we then returned to our rooms to rest for the night.
*
”Everything in order?” I asked the two kids as we prepared to check out of the hotel the next day. We didn't bring much stuff – all of our belongings could be squeezed into a single backpack. I never thought I would be staying in Lupin City for any period of time longer than a week, after all.
Adrian and Melina nodded. They had less stuff than I did, because they stowed away without my knowledge, and were less prepared. Nothing to worry about in the end, since we ended up staying for a grand total of three days and two nights, so they didn't really need much necessities and clothing. And the hotel provided them clean clothing for free, since it was under Adrian's uncle.
It was nice to have all these family connections…
”How are we going back?” Adrian asked and he glanced about, as if expecting a taxi to show up and bring us somewhere. ”By train?”
”Normally, yeah, but…I've friends here.”
”Friends?” Melina repeated with a puzzled frown. I raised an eyebrow at her.
”Did you already forget my friends?”
Before she could reply, they arrived. And in style too, in the form of a huge hovercraft that descended upon the parking lot.
”Hey, Richie!” As the ramp lowered, Redfield poked his head out of the passenger bay and waved at me. ”I figured you needed a lift back home! Since we're heading west, we figured we might as well drop you off at Flandor City along the way!”
”That would be much appreciated!” I called out to him. Then I turned to the two kids, who were gaping at the huge transport in astonishment. Why were they so surprised? This was the same way we got here. Did they think Redfield would abandon me to my own devices after my mission here? Well, come to think of it, it was quite the coincidence that he was heading west exactly on the same day we were slated to leave the hotel and return to Flandor City. Maybe that was why they didn't expect him to show up at precisely this time. Not that I was going to enlighten them on whatever arrangements we had, so I just smiled at them and gestured toward the hovercraft. ”All right, guys, let's hop on. We're going home.”