Otherwise, you can find another savior.

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"No, it's just an example," Shiomi answered frankly. "So how much further? I want to go back to the ship to take a shower and change my clothes..."

Ash looked at him with a helpless yet doting expression: "You really are a child. We've arrived."

She parted the broad branches and leaves of the banana bushes in front of her, and the enormous figure of Storm Border appeared between the gaps in the forest foliage.

"No, no, no, this has nothing to do with whether a child is little or not. The main thing is that there haven't been any decent rivers along the way." tide Jian shook her head. "Otherwise, I would have jumped into the river to take a bath first."

Scáthach then asked, "So when we get back to the ship, who would you like to bathe with, my beloved student?"

"Huh?" tide Jian was dumbfounded again.

“After all, with my husband in this state, it would be really dangerous if he accidentally drowned in the bathtub,” Ash said thoughtfully. “So someone has to be with him.”

"Sigh..." tide Jian said with a troubled expression.

If choosing someone to carry you on your journey was already a life-or-death dilemma, then this is a question that needs to be addressed.

Choosing two people to bathe with you now is as difficult as regaining your powers.

"It's not a question that requires so much thought, is it?" Ash turned around and walked up to tide, "pressuring" her.

Shiomi scratched her cheek: "Actually, I can take a shower by myself... really..."

"Absolutely not."

Then, his attempt to use a clever answer was unanimously rejected by the three of them.

Chapter Twenty: Is shrinking a good thing or a bad thing? (2)

As expected, when Shiomi returned to Storm Border and met up with her companions who were setting up camp and preparing their positions outside the landing site, everyone was surprised and surrounded her.

"Who is this child?" Leonardo da Vinci pretended not to know.

Leonardo da Vinci pushed up his glasses: "He looks a lot like Mr. Shiomi. Is he his illegitimate son?"

"You bastard, my foot!" tide Jian was unusually rude.

“Aside from that possibility, the only other possibility is that he turned into a child for some unknown reason or due to a curse.” Romani stroked his chin, scrutinizing him as if he were looking at a rare creature.

tide Jian nodded: "I'll explain the details later. Can I go back to my room first, take a shower, and then find some clothes that a child can wear?"

"Among the villagers brought out from the Nordic Lostbelt, there are children of similar size to you now. Take a few pieces of their spare clothes for you," said Da Vinci. "However, there's really no way to get the combat suit. I can only ask Habertlot to help with the rush ordering."

“Let’s leave it at that for now.” tide Jian thought it was feasible. “This problem is quite serious. If I can’t regain my powers in time, the battles that follow will become extremely difficult.”

Even so, Shiomi tried his best to speak calmly, and Romani and the others surrounded him as if he were a small animal, looking him over from all sides.

The mission continued until the director and Skadi heard the call, ran out of the cabin, and pushed them aside.

What should have been a joyous moment turned into a feeling of utter despair for Xijian.

"Teacher, it's your teacher, right? Do you still recognize me? Can you understand me?" Olga Marie waved to Shio, her tone filled with an extremely stereotypical way of greeting a child.

It was as if she had known Shiomi as an infant before, and was only asking this question out of politeness.

"I've shrunk, not become stupid," tide Jian chuckled dryly. "Should I perform a rune magic trick to convince you that I'm just as good as the best magician right now?"

"But it's inconvenient for your body to shrink, isn't it?" Orange said. "Should I make you a new doll body now so you can move around?"

“Let’s forget about it.” Scáthach waved her hand. “After all, my beloved disciple is the creation of the goddess Nuwa. Even if you have learned the technique of the great god Odin in creating Valkyries, it is still not enough.”

Orange laughed non-stop: "That's a real shame, I wanted to give it a try."

"Hey……"

tide Jian really wanted to complain, but she didn't know what to say.

After all, everyone was both happy and curious.

He could feel Skadi poking his face, and she'd been doing it for a while.

"What...what's wrong now?" tide Jian asked, a little concerned.

“It’s nothing.” Skadi reached out and pinched his cheek. “I just didn’t expect you to turn out like this. You’re just too... pitiful.”

Romani crossed his arms: "That's true. Compared to before, now you can really do anything wrong and people will forgive you. Why don't you stay like this after you regain your powers?"

“Well said, I’ll eat all your strawberry cake later.” Shiomi threatened Romani as she went to Skadi’s arms. “Oh, right, and I’ll replace all the sugar in your tea with salt.”

"...He seems even worse than before. Is it just my imagination?" Romani said weakly, his shoulders slumped.

Skadi carefully felt Shiomi's weight, then chuckled and teased, "Because you just treated him like a child, he's going to show you some of his childish wickedness."

“That’s right, that’s right. I also really didn’t want Romani to treat me like a child, but Romani just thought I was a child,” Leonardo da Vinci said.

Romani looked troubled: "But you're still a child..."

"Keep it up, Romani. It's very important to learn how to get along with children," Leonardo da Vinci advised gleefully.

Soon, Romani had lost count of how many times he had started arguing with the two Leonardo da Vincis.

This allowed tide Jian and the others to escape.

"Shouldn't I hug my teacher for a while?" Olga Marie asked from the corridor of the cabin.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Skadi said. "I'll hold you a little longer."

Orange, who was one step behind, looked at Shiomi thoughtfully.

When I first met him, we were about the same age.

If we could truly meet in this way in our childhood, perhaps...

"Thinking about him?" Ash suddenly asked.

"Have we been found out?" Orange asked, a little embarrassed.

“Because we’ve all thought about this before.” Ash shrugged. “I guess you’ll probably think of something similar.”

Orange was astonished: "Even Scáthach thought of that?"

“What I’m thinking is, if he came to the Land of Shadows at such a young age and I adopted him,” Scáthach said, pondering, “would I then be able to rightfully be both his teacher and his mother?”

“How greedy,” Artoria said.

“This woman has always been so greedy.” Ash looked at her with amusement. “If my beloved disciple didn’t have those missions to carry, she would probably never have been able to leave the Land of Shadows.”

Scáthach feigned distress: "Not necessarily. I might personally send him out to gain experience until the end of his life, so that his soul can return to the Land of Shadows."

"What a devil!" Orange exclaimed.

“While it might be delicious for my beloved disciple to become weak, it is only by becoming stronger and more powerful that he will benefit the most,” Scáthach said matter-of-factly.

“Weak—” Orange was taken aback.

Artoria seemed thoughtful: "—Tianxi?"

Thinking back carefully, it seems that I have never seen him show any weakness since the first time we met.

Even though he had been weakened for a year due to the battle at the Temple of Time, he never showed any weakness.

“Um… what unhealthy things are you guys fantasizing about?” Shiomi peeked out from Skadi’s shoulder. “It’s not that I don’t want to be weak, it’s just that there’s no need to be weak. Because for me, although the road is not always smooth, there is always a solution, and I can always find the answer I want.”

As he said this, he looked at the open door to his room.

“Although I’ve thought about relying on you more, the love you’ve given me has exceeded my expectations, and that love has in turn made me stronger.” Xi Jian pointed to her heart. “No matter what, I will never bend.”

Morgan, who was the last to enter the room, locked the door from the inside.

"Now, let's see just how strong my husband's heart is."

"what?"

tide Jian suddenly realized that they would have to shower together next...

Chapter Twenty-One: Crushing Victory

In the past, Shiomi had described Artoria's body as soft as a ball of warm water. Even though she was taller than her, when they made love, it felt as if her body was sinking into her.

This impression was now reinforced, and he felt as if he had ascended into a soft, heavenly realm.

He slightly raised his head and looked across the steep mountain peak at Artoria's flushed face, where she was breathing slightly heavily.

In the end, I did it anyway.

Shiomi, somewhat amused and exasperated, lay down and buried her face in Artoria's chest, savoring the faint scent of milk.

Then he felt her stroking his hair.

“So, shrinking in size doesn’t necessarily mean losing function.” Ash sat on the edge of the bed with a water glass in hand, playfully patting Shiomi’s little bottom. “I was thinking of using magic to help my husband, but it seems we don’t need to.”

“Even though her body has shrunk, she can still function in this area. It seems my beloved disciple is more suited to be a god in charge of matters between men and women.” Scáthach lay on her side on the bed, grabbing a strand of her hair and scratching Shiomi’s ear.

"Stop messing around..." Shiomi supported herself on Artoria's supple abdomen. "I'm exhausted right now. If you want another round, you'll have to do it yourselves."

Artoria slowly sat up, propping herself up with a pillow: "After all, Tianxi has worked very hard."

"Can this be called hard work?" tide Jian couldn't help but shake her head.

It started out as a bath, but things took a turn for the worse halfway through.

First, the body reacted in a way that was not appropriate for the posture, and then it turned into a chaotic scene.

Olga Marie is still there, lost in thought, looking very exhausted.

This made Shio somewhat worried after she caught a glimpse of it.

"Let's get to the conclusion first." Orange casually tidied Olga Marie's hair. "Tianxi took a lot of magic from us. The director fainted because she lost too much magic."

"As expected..." tide Jian covered her face.

He felt a little weak in the waist and was tired even sitting like this, but the flow of magic in the magic circuits was better than before he entered the room.

“Don’t worry about it. We usually draw magic from our husband, and now it’s our turn to give back. We can’t be stingy.” Ash hugged him from behind as he sat on Artoria’s lap. “In your current state, your body will unconsciously seek out the missing magic.”

“No, I’m more worried about what’s to come,” Shiomi said. “If this situation continues to worsen, something like what happened today might…”

"Will it really get worse?" Ash's fingers casually traced lines on Shiomi's tender chest. "In my opinion, as long as my husband is careful, he won't cause us any harm."

tide Jian closed her eyes and examined her own condition.

Clearly, Ash wasn't just offering empty words of comfort; the Fairy Eyes' insight into this matter was truly unparalleled in this room.

"Whether there's a problem or not is another matter." tide Jian put aside her worries and rested her head on Shan's chest. "You all seem more excited than usual today. Does turning me into a child make you that happy?"

Ash rubbed his chin against Shimi's hair, burying half his cheek in the ends of his hair, inhaling the scent: "What else? My husband has never let anyone see his appearance, or even a stage of his life, but now he's appearing before us. It's a blessing in disguise."

“A blessing in disguise…” Shio felt helpless, but still smiled. “If I had been raised from infancy, perhaps I would have been assigned to a magician’s family or an ordinary family.”

Before she finished speaking, Orange held up a finger to indicate to herself.

"No chance. Unless Mooncell's calculations suggest that the Misaki Mayor's Conference would be better." Morgan said sarcastically, seeing Orange's reaction.

tide Jian chuckled dryly a few times: "I also know about Chengzi's bold words and deeds when she was a child... In order to eat a piece of pizza that appeared on TV, she disregarded the rule of equivalent exchange and used up a lot of chickens, ducks and cows to make it. Only your sister can tolerate that. Most children would be scared away."

“No, I mean if Tianxi had been by my side when I was learning magic from a young age…” Chengzi adjusted her glasses, “perhaps I wouldn’t have lost the right to inherit magic so easily.”

"Isn't the result 'maybe they won't care so much about losing their eligibility'?" tide Jian was almost speechless. "Or are you expecting me to secretly get rid of your sister for you?"

"I didn't say that."

Orange remained calm and composed, as if it were just Xijian making random guesses that had nothing to do with her.

“Then we won’t be able to come to the Land of Shadows,” Scáthach said. “Just thinking about it makes me feel lonely.”

"Ugh, this is such a hassle. Maybe I should just do what Master said before and have Orange become an apprentice with me." tide Jian couldn't stand this hypothetical situation.

If the premises are not set sufficiently, you may miss the chance to meet one of them.

This is an unacceptable situation for Shiomi.

"I don't have such an extraordinary fate as you." Orange, who had sensed his thoughts, was amused by these words and smiled broadly.

She grabbed the cigarette pack from the bedside table to light one, but then hesitated when she saw Xijian's expression.

"Go ahead and smoke, you always want to smoke after you're done." tide Jian waved her hand.

“I was just wondering if it would be bad for your health,” Orange said. “After all, you’re still a child.”

tide Jian's eye twitched: "Why didn't you treat me like a child earlier?"

“That’s true…” Orange said with a wistful look. “He’s clearly a child, but he’s full of masculinity. It’s really fascinating.”

“It really feels different from usual,” Skadi said. “Seeing Tianxi trying so hard to make us happy, and actually succeeding, gives me a strange feeling… a feeling like that of a mother.”

“Oh? The Mother of the Norse Lostbelts would think that way?” Scáthach said. “My beloved student always says you are gentler than me. I really wish I could have some of that maternal instinct.”

"No, no, no, Master, it's better this way." tide Jian quickly stopped her. "Just thinking about Master's maternal appearance makes me feel scared."