The Magician of Sound

After returning to school, Kai and the others bid their goodbye to Rick before making their way to Sanae.

Kai did all the report he needed to and submitted it to her within an hour, so they could go home before night fell. He also needed to prepare for tomorrow… for the next three days. Luckily, there was a lot to do for the rest of the year, so he didn't mind having fun for three days straight before continuing his research.

Kai even told Evan and Sanae he wouldn't be able to come to this room after classes. Evan only shrugged his shoulders as a response while Sanae clicked her tongue in annoyance.

Michelle, of course, already prepared herself for today. She wore a smooth white sweater with a black skirt to show the contrast.

"Let's go." Michelle smiled.

"I need to change my clothes first." Kai looked at his school uniform and said.

"It's fine. We can get one on our date." Michelle said nonchalantly, thinking it wasn't a big deal to buy clothes for a day.

Looking at her smile, Kai felt that he couldn't reject her. He nodded his head. "Sure."

They began walking to enjoy the rest of the day. Per their previous conversation, the place they first visited was none other than a clothing shop. It was only for Kai to change his uniform though, as they left the shop as soon as he got changed.

They then went to a restaurant to discuss what they were going to do today... though, the talk became derailed after a while.

"Kai… What is he planning for the raid mission? Does he want you to take command again?" Michelle asked while leaning on the chair.

"Probably. I can picture a few of my tasks already, but only Sir Nathan can confirm which tasks I'll need to do." Kai paused for a moment before saying, "There is one task that I absolutely need to do…"

"And that is…" Michelle narrowed her eyes.

"To make the map for this underground nest. It seems that the nest itself is really big to the point that the scouts couldn't explore everything. Because of that, I'll need to make a map so we can see the extent of their nest. I just hope that this cave isn't too big." Kai sighed.

"Can you even draw?" Michelle looked at him dumbfoundedly before making a weird smile.

"No. If it's some bad sketch, I can… since my drawing skill isn't really that bad. As long as they can differentiate the depth and such, it's not a problem, I guess?" Kai shrugged while sipping his iced tea.

"True enough. But the problem is still their number… How many lives does the nest host there?" Michelle asked.

"I think it won't be too much of a problem if we don't go too deep since we can secure the tunnel. Although the sound would echo like crazy, I wouldn't let such a thing pass me again." Kai said with a serious expression. He couldn't help but recall the time where he missed a single centipede in the training session with Ayaka.

Although one of the reasons for that blunder was because there should have been no underground creature, making him lower his guard against underground creatures, it could still be considered his mistake.

There was only a serious expression on Michelle. She stayed silent because Kai had told them about that, and she was happy because it was only in a simulation room and not the real world.

She gave Kai a minute to think about it. He would be like this when he wasn't satisfied with his efforts, so rather than telling him it wasn't his fault, she chose to wait.

Kai noticed that he had thought for a few minutes and left Michelle in suspense. He made an awkward smile as he said, "I'm sorry."

"It's fine. You can think more if you want to, I can wait." Michelle placed her hands on the table while supporting both cheeks, looking at him with a big smile. "Besides, your ability is really going to be useful in this mission… No, I can say that your ability is very useful in general. I'm afraid that someone might even target you."

"Haha… I can't say anything about that." Kai rolled his eyes away, precisely knowing what she was implying. In fact, not all the people who attacked his family were targeting his sister, Tasha. There were some who were after his ability and wanted to train him as a spy. Luckily, Ria Ross's training was proven to be effective.

"Anyway, we shouldn't talk about this on our date. Let's talk about other things." Michelle grinned.

Kai shook his head helplessly. He couldn't win against this girl. "Yeah."

...

The next day passed like yesterday, but with Tasha instead of Michelle. However, he was kind of amused when he looked at Tasha. They might have come to a similar place, but their tastes were different. He realized that they might be similar, but they weren't the same.

The date went smoothly like yesterday. Shopping, talking, and having some fun while strolling around. In fact, Tasha preferred walking around and chatting with him to watching movies. There was only a single reason he didn't like watching movies. They would need to focus on the movie instead of their partner… and this was particularly what Tasha hated.

On the other hand, when he was with Ayaka, the latter asked more personal questions… though they ended up talking about her current fighting style. Kai gave some advice about her current fighting style according to his observation.

He felt that Ayaka relied on her spear too much and neglected the speed from Wildebeest Blood, though Ayaka said she was fine because Ria Ross already gave some advice on them. Her current fighting style was only to let her get accustomed to the abilities of her current body.

After all, Ayaka was also slow previously. To ask her to jump around at a fast speed was impossible. It might even become her weakness if she did it recklessly. She asked Kai to wait for her until the new year since by then, she should be able to start using her new fighting style that incorporated her speed, power, and magic.

Kai nodded and said she could take her time. In the end, they were so invested in talking that they spent almost the whole day talking in a restaurant. Kai laughed at that part. Even so, Ayaka didn't regret today's date. At the very least, she learned a lot of useful things about herself and him.

After three days, Kai finally showed up again. Sanae greeted him with annoyance, saying words like normies and such before complaining about how they had an eight-year gap but she didn't have a man yet. She even said that there was a conspiracy about this, especially when there were fewer males than females in the population.

Kai and the others were speechless to the point they gave her alcohol to make her drunk. At first, Sanae refused like a proper teacher before finally falling into temptation.

At this time, someone opened the door and came inside. All the people in the room thought it was a teacher or something along the line to check on them. Their faces began to pale because they thought that they had stepped on a land mine… or at least that was what they thought.

Kai was sweating profusely as he sat weakly on his couch, but he let out a long breath of relief upon finding who the person was. He had heard footsteps outside, but he didn't expect that the owner of those footsteps would come to their room.

After all, it was normal to think that no one would enter after hearing so many footsteps pass their room but have no one else aside from them enter for a few months.

Michelle's body shook while trying hard to wipe the sweat on her forehead. She exclaimed out loud, "Grandfather!"

They thought that if a teacher came in, they would be doomed, especially Sanae. Sanae might get penalized, and her teacher qualification might get revoked, while they, who fed her alcohol, might get a lighter punishment or two.

Who would ever think that the person in front of them would be the general in charge of the raid mission, Michelle's grandfather? Even Kai couldn't differentiate which person was who unless they spoke and he recognized their voice.

"Grandfather, what are you doing here? No… let me hit you first!" Michelle corrected herself.

"My cute granddaughter, I know that you like to joke around, but you still shouldn't say you want to hit your grandfather like that, you know." Nathan looked down with a sad look, appearing like he had been wronged.

Sadly, the only thing he got was Michelle's clicking tongue. In his vision, Michelle crossed her arms while glaring at him with annoyance. "You haven't explained why you're here."

Looking at her expression, Nathan knew he had to stop joking around. He straightened his back, closed his eyes, and raised his left hand to his mouth, appearing more serious. "Cough. I have two reasons to come here. First of all… Kai, happy birthday to you. I hope you can give me a great-grandchild as soon as possible."

"Tha-" Kai wanted to thank him, but he lost his motivation after hearing the second sentence. He took a deep breath and acted as if he didn't hear that before smiling at Nathan. "Yes, thanks."

"Then, what's the second reason?" Michelle narrowed her eyes.

"Hmm… I informed you two weeks ago, didn't I?" Nathan looked into her eyes with a playful smile.

"Informed me two weeks ago?" Her eyebrows twitched as she thought Nathan was playing with her before Kai suddenly recalled the memory of two weeks ago. He asked, "Is this about the raid mission?"

"As expected of my grandson-in-law… That's right, I want to talk about the raid mission, the extermination of the underground nest in Canada." Nathan nodded before his expression turned serious.