Vol 2 Chapter 6 – Simple Gifts Are More Appreciated Than Practical Items

That day, when I woke up gasping for breath…

“Mmm♡ Smooch♡ Mwah♡”

My wife—Yumeba—was in the middle of kissing me.

What’s more, unlike her usual self, this wasn’t a passionate kiss but rather a hesitant one—careful and gentle.

It wasn’t bad, but compared to usual, it felt a little lacking.

So I secretly wrapped my arms around Yumeba’s back, pulled her close, and extended my tongue to shift into a more proactive and passionate kiss.

“…!”

Yumeba stiffened for just a moment, probably surprised that I’d woken up, but…

“~♡”

She immediately melted into a smile and continued kissing—just like usual, or rather, even more proactively and passionately than usual.

For a while, the only sounds echoing in the room were our lips meeting and our tongues intertwining—until I couldn’t hold back anymore and pushed Yumeba down onto the bed first thing in the morning.

“Ahh… Lio♡”

Yumeba seemed fully aroused too, already in complete agreement.

◇◇◇

After the fact, I had to hear the full story.

“Mmm~ I woke up early this morning, and I was just watching you sleep. Then this overwhelming feeling of love welled up in my chest, and I really wanted to kiss you.”

“O-Oh.”

My wife is still super cute and super beautiful as always, but when she says things like this, I feel like I might lose my mind.

“So I was kissing you while trying not to wake you up, but gradually I got more frustrated and couldn’t hold back anymore… and then you woke up and gave me exactly the kiss I wanted♡”

“Ah, yes.”

It was completely coincidental, but Yumeba was looking at me like she’d fallen even more in love, so I kept quiet about that.

Well, last night I stayed up late developing new magic after Yumeba fell asleep, which is why I woke up late, but since I got to see cute Yumeba, I’ll call it a happy accident.

“Changing the subject, I finished the magic for underwater walking that I mentioned before, so I’d like to test it out while experimenting with various things.”

“Ah. So that’s what you were making when you stayed up late last night.”

(She knows…)

I was secretly developing it to surprise Yumeba, but I never thought she’d already figured it out.

My wife is too sharp—I can’t keep any secrets. What am I supposed to do?

“But what kind of experiments are you doing?”

“For now… the bath first, I guess.”

“…Lio, you pervert♪”

“…”

Ah, yes. Since we already did it first thing this morning, I thought we might as well take a bath together and experiment while flirting.

Yeah. Of course I was thinking about doing naughty things too.

◇◇◇

I had considered several approaches for magic that would let us walk underwater, and I was testing them in the villa’s large bath.

First was magic that covered the body with a membrane of air to allow breathing underwater, but…

“This won’t work.”

“Right. You only have oxygen from the air you initially wrapped yourself in, so there’s a time limit. Plus, wrapping yourself in air makes you naturally float up, making it hard to move, and more importantly…”

“The bathwater overflows.”

Yeah. Wrapping yourself in air doubles your body volume, causing the bathwater to overflow—that was the biggest drawback.

It might not be a problem in a large lake, but emotionally speaking, this was a no-go.

Next was a method similar to how fish breathe through gills, wrapping yourself in oxygen-rich breathable water while diving, but…

“Cough Cough This is fine while you’re underwater, but having to expel the water when you surface is rough.”

“Cough Cough I agree.”

Even if you could breathe, filling your lungs with water was completely different from normal life, and since it was before breakfast, we were lucky, but having to swallow a full stomach of water and then expel everything was painful.

In terms of underwater activity, this was the easiest method, but the risks when surfacing were too high, so this was also rejected.

And finally, the method of using air stored in my Dimensional Storage Item Box.

When you inhale, air is supplied from the Dimensional Storage Item Box, and when you exhale, air is stored back in the Dimensional Storage Item Box.

Of course, I wasn’t using the Dimensional Storage Item Box with each breath—it was magic that automatically synchronized with the Item Box to allow natural breathing.

I’ll name it Aqua Breath or something.

I gave Yumeba a second bracelet set specifically for air storage.

“Couldn’t we have just done this from the start?”

“…I’m thinking the same thing.”

Since I came up with the magic last night while sleep-deprived, I must have gotten a bit lost in the process.

Now, if I incorporate magic that applies the flying spell but uses water magic for propulsion instead of mana, we should be able to move freely underwater.

Let’s take Yumeba to the lake right away—but before that.

“Kyaa♡ Geez, Lio, you pervert♪”

After flirting with Yumeba in the bath and washing each other, it wouldn’t be too late to have a slightly late breakfast.

◇◇◇

My newly developed Water Jet allowed underwater activity even while clothed, but since our clothes would still get wet, we decided to wear swimsuits.

“…My wife is the best.”

“Ehehe♪”

Since it was autumn and the season was a bit chilly for swimming, I developed magic to adjust the temperature of the surrounding air and water so we wouldn’t be cold—Warm—and engraved it into Yumeba’s bracelet.

Incidentally, I engraved three spells—Aqua Breath, Water Jet, and Warm—so by worldly standards, this became national treasure-level equipment.

In any case, Yumeba in a bikini swimsuit, just as I requested, was as attractive as could be.

Of course, I had no intention of letting anyone else see her, so I’d already deployed barrier magic.

And so, we finally entered the lake…

《Wow~ So this is what it looks like underwater.》

Even though we could breathe using the air in the Dimensional Storage Item Box, we couldn’t speak normally, so we had to use thought transmission devices.

Instead of actually speaking out loud as usual, we communicated through the thought transmission device’s original telepathy function.

《Whoops.》

《Ahaha♪ Lio, over here♪》

I was still getting used to Water Jet and struggling to balance underwater, but Yumeba was already moving freely through the water and helping me out.

Of course, she didn’t forget to casually press herself against me and push her breasts into me as a service.

What a wonderful wife.

Yeah. Yumeba-san looked so fantastical, like she could be mistaken for a mermaid, that not photographing this would be an insult to beauty itself.

《Good, good! This is the perfect situation!》

So I took tons of photos of Yumeba happily moving around underwater.

I’m glad I prepared an underwater camera just in case!

《~♪》

Yumeba seemed to be in a great mood, sending cheerful telepathic messages to me—and then suddenly cut down a shark-type monster that attacked us in one stroke.

《What a tactless monster. Interrupting a husband and wife’s loving conversation deserves a thousand deaths.》

Ah, yes. As I thought, this woman is from a family of the world’s strongest creatures.

Mother and daughter do the exact same things.

I had prepared magic for underwater use the moment I spotted the monster, but it turned out to be completely unnecessary.

My wife is strong even underwater~

《Lio. Let’s swim together♪》

《Ah, yes.》

And then Yumeba-san invited me on an underwater walk as if the monster attack had never happened.

That monster must have been one of the lake’s powerhouses following the water dragon or something, because no other monsters attacked us after that.

Or rather, they probably hid in fear of Yumeba-san.

Whether it’s a monster or whatever else, picking a fight with a woman from the Saionji Duke family is a thousand years too early.

◇◇◇

After fully enjoying our underwater walk in the lake, when we surfaced…

“Looks fun♪”

“「…」”

The genuine world’s strongest creature was waiting for us.

Yeah. I was naive to think that barrier magic would stop this woman.

Yukina-san’s request was simple: she also wanted to enjoy an underwater walk with her husband, so I needed to prepare two more bracelets for underwater activity.

Yes. I’ll be delighted to prepare them for you.

◇◇◇

“It might just be my imagination, but I feel like Mother and the others are enjoying the trip more than we are.”

“…No matter how you look at it, it’s not your imagination.”

Without a doubt, Yukina-san and the others were enjoying the trip more than us.

“Uuu~ But it’s our honeymoon…”

“Now, now.”

It’s true that Yukina-san and the others were having more fun than us, but that’s because they’re already at a higher level as a married couple, so it can’t be helped.

We’re still newlyweds, so it’s wrong to compare ourselves to an experienced couple.

“Yumeba and I are going to be together forever, so there’s no point in rushing.”

“That’s right♪”

The word “forever” must have pleased her, because Yumeba’s mood improved.

◇◇◇

Sweet.

Not sweet flavors—the air was sweet.

The atmosphere was filled with air like sugar coated in honey, so sweet that just breathing felt like it could give you diabetes.

Yumeba’s improved mood made the atmosphere so sweet that even my thoughts felt like they were melting away.

We weren’t naked and intertwined in bed at night, just sitting next to each other fully clothed on the sofa during the day—and yet it was more than sweet enough.

Just leaning against me, Yumeba had a face that said “I’m the happiest person in the world.”

In situations like this, there’s usually some tactless interruption—but that day, nothing happened.

After that, Yumeba and I spent the whole day flirting, eating meals while flirting, taking a bath together while flirting, and getting into bed while flirting to make love.

It was truly an uneventful day, and precisely because of that, it was a special day.

I felt like just today alone, Yumeba’s and my love had advanced one or two steps.

◇◇◇

Though reluctant to leave, the honeymoon period we’d planned came to an end.

“That was so much fun♪”

“Yeah. It was fun♪”

Yukina-san and Yumeba, who had thoroughly enjoyed the trip, showed no signs of regret or dissatisfaction when it was time to return to the Imperial Capital.

Well, since I have teleportation magic and teleportation gates, we can come back anytime if we want to.

◇◇◇

And so we returned to the Imperial Capital via my teleportation magic, but…

“The bustle feels fresh somehow.”

Since we’d been in the quiet countryside, just being in the urban Imperial Capital felt noisy.

Was the commotion really that loud, indicating some abnormality in the Imperial Capital? No, I’d been in regular contact with Sally, a female staff member at the Adventurer’s Guild, and apparently there were no abnormalities.

The Saionji Duke family didn’t seem to be cursed enough to get caught up in trouble every single time.

And so we returned to our daily lives.

◇◇◇

“…This is hard.”

I muttered unintentionally, but it wasn’t because I’d eaten something spicy—it was because I’d been with Yumeba constantly during the trip, and now that Yumeba had gone to Royal Guard training, it felt like there was an empty space in my heart.

Yeah. The Imperial Capital’s public order had calmed down considerably, so the Emperor’s guard level was lowered and the Royal Guard resumed normal training.

Well, even though things had calmed down, apparently they were still struggling financially.

But just having Yumeba not next to me made me feel severely deficient in sweetness, to the point where even the air felt bitter.

“…Guess I’ll develop processing magic or something.”

To kill time, I’ll develop magic to process the mithril that had become deadweight in my Dimensional Storage Item Box.

◇◇◇

Although I called it processing magic, I wasn’t using magic to transform mithril into the desired shape—first, I started with the process of heating mithril with magical high heat to melt it and remove as many impurities as possible.

Mithril’s melting point was incomparably higher than iron, but since it was a temperature magic could easily produce, I actually needed to be careful not to exceed the boiling point and cause evaporation.

After removing impurities this way and liquefying the mithril, I shaped it into the desired form, but this was where trial and error began.

Metal is fundamentally a flexible substance, unlike ore.

To put it simply, if you have a rod-shaped piece of iron and a stone, the iron rod can be bent, but the stone rod just breaks.

This proves that metal has flexibility, but this causes inconveniences when making swords, so there’s a process called “quenching” to harden the iron.

Japanese swords use a technique where only the blade is hardened during quenching, leaving both flexible and hardened parts.

While mithril is a metal that doesn’t exist on Earth, it’s still metal, so I assumed it would harden through quenching—but since it’s already a high-hardness metal, generally just shaping it is considered sufficient.

Or rather, there are no blacksmiths who can secure the high temperatures needed to quench mithril, so of course not.

But since I can generate high temperatures with magic, I needed to investigate the optimal temperature for quenching mithril and how its properties change when quenched.

Basically, quenching is achieved by rapidly cooling from a heated state, but—crack—the mithril shattered before my eyes with a sound.

“That figures~”

I knew that applying too sudden a temperature change would cause it to shatter due to expansion and contraction from the temperature difference.

It was the same phenomenon as when you heat a clay pot at high temperature and then rapidly cool it—it cracks. The same thing happened with mithril.

Well, this happened because I used magic to drop the temperature too rapidly from high to low—it’s not a phenomenon that would normally occur.

Yeah. Temperatures ranging from high enough to low enough to shatter mithril are only possible with magic.

That said, learning that even mithril shatters when you rapidly change the temperature this much was valuable information as part of the experiment.

◇◇◇

After that, I figured out the temperature for quenching mithril and also investigated how much the hardness increased through quenching.

As a result…

“How did it turn out like this?”

In front of me was scattered fibrous mithril.

Yeah. By liquefying the mithril, I tried to see how thin I could make it, stretching it thin and long like making glass fiber—and ended up with a large amount of fibrous mithril.

“What should I do with this?”

I made it for now, but there wasn’t any particular use for it.

It was so fine that it bent like regular thread, yet the mithril’s strength remained intact, making it extremely hard to break.

For a moment, I thought about making clothes with it, but if bundled together, it would just be clothes made of metallic thread, resulting in a gaudy, tacky finish no different from that mercenary group’s full-body coating.

“Thread… thread, huh.”

The problem was that the mithril fibers were exposed and conspicuously shiny, so I should just cover them with fibers made from mana.

And so I completed a large number of thread spools in various colors with mithril cores, but…

“Clothing magic and the skill to make clothes are two separate things, huh.”

I could materialize and create finished clothing products with mana, but I didn’t have the skill to make clothes from thread.

Of course, when completing the tailoring magic that was the prototype of clothing magic, I investigated various clothes, researched how they were made, and examined clothing structures in detail.

That’s why I could make silky smooth underwear made of silk for Yumeba, but that was just knowing the structure—I’d never actually made it.

In other words, even with lots of thread spools, considering all the troublesome steps of turning them into fabric, then clothes, I didn’t feel like doing it manually.

“In that case, I have no choice but to create true clothing magic.”

Huh? Why not just make mithril-embedded clothes from the start?

Mithril is a metal unique to this other world, and I don’t know its atomic number, and since I don’t know its structure, there’s no way I could create it with mana.

I can only create substances by materializing mana into substances whose structures I know.

In other words, I can’t create mithril whose structure I don’t know.

◇◇◇

Using true clothing magic—or rather, weaving magic—I wove the thread into fabric.

This magic had a higher difficulty than I expected, so even just weaving thread into fabric required considerable concentration.

With this, I didn’t feel confident I could make clothes with complex structures.

“…Maybe I’ll make a ribbon for Yumeba.”

That’s about all I could manage right now.

“But since I’m at it, maybe I’ll engrave some inscription.”

Inscription magic convenient enough not to interfere with Yumeba’s combat.

Yeah. Yumeba’s combat ability is so high that it’s beyond my comprehension, so if I tried to provide poor support, it would just get in the way.

Considering that, among the magic I have available that could be added to a ribbon…

“Translation magic, maybe.”

It was magic I’d developed before because I thought it would be necessary for exploring a different new continent, but I’d been too busy with various things, so it just got shelved after development.

Come to think of it, I’d also been thinking about exploring with Yumeba, so this would be perfect.

Yumeba’s symbolic color would be red, but red hair with a red ribbon seemed odd, so I decided to use white fabric with red thread for the inscription.

If worn near the head, this would automatically translate any language into words Yumeba could understand, and furthermore, translate Yumeba’s spoken words into any language—convenient magic.

I got so absorbed in making Yumeba’s equipment that I worked hard, ignoring my own equipment.

◇◇◇

“I’m home~”

Thanks to that, the ribbon with translation function was completed by the time Yumeba returned from Royal Guard training.

Yeah. I tested it a bit, and mithril had higher affinity with mana than expected, absorbing surrounding mana to create high-performance equipment with semi-permanent effects.

“Welcome home~ It just finished at the perfect timing.”

“…What’s that?”

“A present.”

“Wow♪”

When I immediately handed her the ribbon, Yumeba broke into a full smile and tied the ribbon in her hair.

“How is it? How is it?”

“Yeah, it looks perfect on you. You’re beautiful.”

“~♪”

“…”

Yeah. She seemed happier than I expected, and it felt tactless to mention that the ribbon was made with mithril or had translation magic enchanted on it.

“Thank you, Lio♡”

“…You’re welcome.”

Yeah. I decided not to say anything unnecessary.

I’ll just consider this ribbon a simple present from me as her husband to Yumeba as my wife.