Chapter 18 – The Evil Dragon Implements an Automatic Son-Recovery System

A week had passed since his mother put a stop to the romantic comedy.

In the forest in the early afternoon.

Ryuuji was in the middle of a gathering quest, but he felt that something was off.

“This is weird… Something’s not right.”

Crouching down, Ryuuji searched for medicinal herbs.

“What’s so strange?”

Sheila, grunting with effort as she tried to pull a plant from the ground beside him, asked.

“Lately, don’t you feel like you’re in almost too good of shape?”

At Ryuuji’s question, Sheila gave a final tug and yanked a medicinal herb free, the momentum sending her toppling over backward.

“Ouchie… Now that you mention it, it certainly does feel that way.”

answered Sheila, sitting on the ground with her legs tucked out to her sides.

“We’ve been gathering herbs since this morning… and I’m not tired at all!”

“Yeah, that’s exactly it.”

They had left the house for the forest this morning, and about five hours had passed.

They had taken a single lunch break, but otherwise, they’d been working nonstop.

They hadn’t rested simply because they weren’t getting tired.

At first, Ryuuji had figured that since it was just pulling up herbs, they naturally wouldn’t get tired.

But even a simple task like that would make some part of your body ache after five hours.

…And yet, that wasn’t happening. He couldn’t help but find it strange.

“So strange…”

“It is strange!”

Hmm. The two of them tilted their heads.

“Sheila learned something recently!”

Ooh, ooh! Sheila shot to her feet and raised her hand.

“When something strange is going on… Karma-san is involved!”

…As expected, Sheila had spent enough time with his larger-than-life mother that she could now immediately put two and two together.

“Right. I think so, too.”

“But what do you think is happening?”

Hmm. They tilted their heads, but the cause remained a mystery.

“Let’s just get back to work for now. We’ve almost hit our quota.”

“Okay!”

Seeing Sheila reply with such childlike innocence, Ryuuji felt a warm, fuzzy feeling, thinking how cute she was.

That aside.

Ryuuji and Sheila split up to continue picking herbs.

While Ryuuji pulled up herbs with crisp efficiency,

“Nnngh, hnnngh, heave-ho!”

Sheila, however, seemed to struggle with the physical work.

She seemed to be having a tough time just pulling them up.

“Hiyah!”

It popped right out of the ground, but the momentum sent her tumbling backward with a heavy thump.

“Ow, ow, owww…”

He thought he should go rub her back… and just then.

A soft, green beam of light poured down from the sky above!

…It was over in an instant.

The light vanished in the blink of an eye.

“Huh? Hey, what the—the ouchie is all gone!”

Bathed in the light, the pain from Sheila’s fall seemed to have vanished completely.

“I feel a hundred times stronger! Sheila’s gonna do her best!”

A silent, swift light poured from the heavens…

And somehow, Ryuuji realized the truth behind the phenomenon.

“…Mom, you’re watching, aren’t you.”

Ryuuji muttered, looking up at the sky.

Then, using 【Teleportation】, his mother appeared right in front of him.

“You called for me, Ryuuji-kun!”

said his mother, Karma, practically vibrating with restless excitement.

“…What was that green light?”

At that, Karma’s expression absolutely beamed.

“You noticed! Wonderful! That’s a new feature I’ve added to the Sky Castle’s surveillance system!”

Karma explained with the fluency of a salesperson.

“My son… and Sheila, too. When the system detects any physical abnormality, a healing light is designed to pour down.”

“A physical abnormality?”

“For example, if your stamina is getting low, or you get injured, or sick—the system detects any such physical issues, and it’s programmed so that recovery magic comes flooding down from above!”

…So that’s it, Ryuuji realized.

This was the reason he’d been feeling so good lately.

In other words, before they could even start to feel tired, that green light would rain down and restore their stamina.

He probably hadn’t noticed the new system’s implementation because they hadn’t been on any subjugation quests lately, so he hadn’t taken any real damage or gotten injured.

“I’ve decided to name it the Automatic Recovery System: 【Mother’s Love】.”

Karma revealed the system’s name, not that he’d asked.

“The name for that last surveillance system was very practical; you knew what it did just by reading it. But I felt it lacked a certain emotional flair! That’s why I spent three whole days coming up with this name!”

“…Out of curiosity, how long did it take you to implement this new system?”

“Five seconds.”

…How does it take longer to come up with a pointless name than it does to develop a system that insane…?

“Well, in any case, this will allow you to adventure more safely, Ryu-kun. Fufu, what do you think? It’s an incredible system, isn’t it?”

To Karma, who was looking at him with the eager expectation of a puppy waiting for praise,

Ryuuji could only let out a long, deep………… sigh.