Milka’s Talent

Milka looked fixedly at the fragments from above.

She sometimes moved in closer or moved away when looking, without any regard for the smell.

Her expression was seriousness itself.

“Milka, what is it?”

“This and this, right? And then you put these together, and these two, here and here…”

Milka started to quickly put the pieces together.

There seemed to be a few pieces missing.

However, at least 80% of it was complete.

“…That’s amazing.”

“That was great, Milka!”

“Cluck-cluck!”

Luchila and Serulis were impressed.

Even Gerberga was clucking from a short distance away. He was probably praising her.

“Ehehe. It’s nothing at all!”

“No, that’s really amazing. I never would have thought you had such a talent.”

“Oh, you.”

Milka looked very embarrassed. Her face was all red.

After that, I inspected the finished object.

It was the size of an adult man’s hand.

“What is it? It’s such a hideous shape. Is it a cursed item?”

“I don’t sense the power of a curse.”

“I see.”

As the material was similar to the medals in vampires, I had feared a curse at first.

However, it did seem like it wasn’t actually filled with curses.

That was a small relief at least.

“Hmmm. Maybe it’s an octopus. No, it’s not.”

“Hmmm. Serulis, you think these look like legs? It does look like an octopus if you see it like that…”

“If these are legs, then is this part the body? I can’t tell what it is at all.”

Serulis, Luchila, and Milka were unable to figure it out.

Serulis had speculated that it was an octopus because it had something like octopus legs. But there were more than eight of the things that looked like octopus legs.

“Hmm. Let’s count the number of legs then.”

“There are seventeen.”

Milka said just as I suggested it.

I counted them and she was right.

“Milka, that’s amazing. You could tell at a glance?”

“Though it’s a little hard if there are more than a hundred! But I used to separate vegetables as my job a long time ago.”

“Milka. You’re a genius!”

“Oh, you.”

Well, this was a surprise. Maybe she was actually very smart.

Milka looked embarrassed as she continued,

“Bu-but what about this upper part? It doesn’t look human. Is there such a creature as this?”

The upper part of the body was quite humanoid. However, it had seven arms.

And it had bat-like wings on the top.

“And this thing doesn’t have a head, does it?”

“Yes. But you can see that it was broken, so there must have been something there.”

Serulis and Milka discussed this seriously.

Luchila said,

“Mister Locke. Do you know any monsters like this?”

“I’ve never seen any.”

“If Mister Locke doesn’t know, then maybe this monster doesn’t exist.”

“Hmmm. I don’t know.”

Then Serulis said,

“It’s interesting that it broke away like this in spite of being metal.”

“Well, metal does usually bend.”

Maybe it was a hard yet brittle metal.

Just like some swords break instead of bending. There was obviously some kinds of metal that broke.

“In any case, shouldn’t we wash them?”

“That’s a good idea.”

“Then I will go and wash them.”

“No. Milka, you can clean the desk.”

“Understood!”

While I had no choice, the desk had become quite dirty now.

It would be quite gross until it was cleaned.

I took the strange object to the kitchen.

And then I washed and scrubbed it to take away the blood.

After some time, the smell started to disappear.

However, it still felt quite unclean, and so I put it into a wooden box.

Now it would not touch anything directly.

“I cleaned the desk!”

“Thank you, Milka.”

And then we washed our hands.

“My hands got all stinky!”

“Yes, washing your hands is important.”

As we washed out hands, Grulf started looking at me.

“What is it, Grulf?”

“…Grrr…”

He wasn’t satisfied. I washed my hands more thoroughly.

“How about now, Grulf?”

“Groof!”

With Grulf’s seal of approval, I ended the hand washing session.

I had Grulf smell the artifact as well.

Apparently, it was good enough for him.

I carried the wooden box and returned to the drawing room.

Luchila, Serulis, and Gerberga were waiting there.

Gerberga was sitting on Serulis’s lap.

“Lord Gerberga is so cute!”

“Cluck.”

Serulis gently petted Gerberga.

Gerberga closed his eyes and cooed softly.

Luchila nodded with satisfaction.

“Lord Gerberga is not only the embodiment of dignity, but he is also very cute.”

“You’re so cute, Lord Gerberga!”

Milka said as she petted him as well.

In the meantime, I place the wooden box on the desk.

Luchila saw me and said,

“I guess there is nothing to do but ask the palace alchemists to look into it?”

“Hmmm. But I don’t want to bring such a suspicious object into the palace.”

“That’s true…”

Serulis nodded gravely.

The magic summoning circles had allowed vampires to enter before. There was a possibility that this was a similar item.

It was also possible that it could disturb the barrier of divine protection.

It was too dangerous to bring to the palace.

As I was thinking this, Shia’s voice rang from the front door.