Noelle left, seemingly be filled with ideas. Yes, teammates become more powerful so I don’t have to do anything!

  “What are you thinking about?”

  Uh nothing!

  “How suspicious!” It is what Giana said, but she didn’t seem to try and find out what I was thinking about. “So how are we going to help the expert crack [Hattrick]?”

  Uhh that’s a good question. Didn’t your hint help them enough?

  “I barely knew the basics and I found that out, surely you have added many more nasty surprises in it!”

  Uhh it was my first big project so not really, there are only variable epics, cross referential folds and rune islands.

  “Stop, stop! I have no idea what that means! Are those normal in magic skills?”

  Uhh, well epics are rare in common skills, cross referential folds too as normal skills don’t have many. Rune islands maybe?

  Giana let herself fall backward into my tails, causing her chest to jiggle. “Noelle might be right; you might be the most powerful man on the continent… and you’re all mine!”

  She got up and pounced me. The sound of a doorbell turned her cheerful face in a sour one. “Ugh, whoever is visiting now must have an excellent reason, I won’t forgive her even if it’s Noelle!”

  Giana got up and transformed. Nilah ran over to me and I transformed too.

  “What do you want?” She said as she opened the door and glared through the door crack.

  “Minerva? No Athena? Are you two switching roles?”

  I couldn’t see who was on the door, but that voice sounded familiar.

  “Ugh, good day headmaster, how can I help you? How did you know we were home, actually?”

  “Well, we have a new policy that potion brewing is only allowed with someone attending to the cauldron and your chimney was active.”

  Giana glared at me as I had attempted to test and see what the deal was with potion brewing, so our chimney was currently producing a lot of smoke. I feigned ignorance and started to clean up the living room.

  “Ugh, Minerva and her strange ideas… come on in.”

  The headmaster came in and both sat down.

  “Minerva, come sit down too!”

  Eh? I will leave the serious talk over to you. I have ehh a cauldron to scrub!

  I bumped into the [Ice Wall] Athena placed in front of me. “The headmaster is here for both of us. Come sit down.”

  Athena gestured at the spot besides her and I complied.

  So, you all must be wondering why I’ve gath…

  I got interrupted by an elbow getting jabbed into my side.

  Ugh.

  “I am starting to wonder of what race your father belongs to, you two are quite amusing.”

  Yeah, Athena is amusingly abusive.

  I got hit by her trademark headlock. “Please don’t mind her, Headmaster, what did you come here for?”

  The headmaster put up a gloomy face. “I’ve studied [Hattrick] after the interaction I had with you two… I found out what you mentioned Athena… but I could only access the first ‘compiled folds’ and deciphering it became many more times intimidating… I have sent out a team to attempt and locate the author again…”

  “We decided to call those ‘compiled folds’, ‘epics’. My sister might seem like a jester…”

  Hey!

  “…But her abilities are the real deal, the biggest problem is creating something that can help the experts.”

  The headmaster looked at us in disbelief. “You two don’t want to be the ones that solve [Hattrick]?”

  It would be a bit rude to those experts that have worked on it for 6 years for it to be snatched away by 2 Misha fresh out of our diapers.

  “I see... can you tell me more about how you two are so skilled? You two put the Mishaspire and even Mildowa students to shame, and your age is in the range where the both of you could be human.”

  Now, how to escape this question? I have never thought of an excuse for this. Let’s see if this works…

  Hahahaha! It was me! I created [Hattrick]!

  The headmaster gave me a blank stare. “Athena is her head alright?”

  “I don’t know, I might have been a bit too rough with her…”

  Anyway, jokes aside, I think we should tell her Athena, you see the two of us met the Silver Menace a year ago. We were just unimpressive Misha, cursing our weakness. He had expressed his frustration as the Misha had the means of improving their race but didn’t. They didn’t bother looking for Ayaru Mistflower and relied on another race instead of their own. We who cursed, or own weakness resonated with him, and he threw us a bone. He taught us about how to read and manipulate mana runes and the importance of our hats.

  “Ugh, those tutor sessions were so rough… the headaches are still fresh in my mind, somehow my idiotic sister had a way better affinity for it. He did ask us to merely help out and not solve it, as he believes that the knowledge the two of us possess should become the norm under the Misha. ‘teaching a hungry man to fish, instead of buying him a fish’ sort of situation”

  In the end, this is the only thing we’re good at. Strip this away, and we’re incompetent Misha, it’s unfair toward those who are skilled and got stuck on this. We care more about the race as a whole than us two as individuals.

  The headmaster looked at us wide-eyed with an open jaw.

  Headmaster, your mouth is so wide open that I can see what you ate this morning…

  “Really Minerva? Do I need to headlock you every 10 minutes? And it seems as if the barrier around Mishaspire was made to keep him out, but you still want to find him? Isn’t that conflicting?”

  “Well. I didn’t erect that barrier. I’m an ex-classmate of the previous headmaster, Remillia Dawngale, and I agree with most of her methods, unfortunately the council needs a lot of change. I have some authority, but it’s not all powerful. I at least could add a new law that I as the headmaster can duel council members to gain 2 votes in case of my victory.” She stared at her catalyst.

  “I have won many duels but also lost some I needed to win, and my victory doesn’t guarantee that my extra vote will tip the scale. At least enough council members fear dueling me, which is something I’m currently abusing!”

  Is it safe to say that anything that suggest progress is your doing and anything that retains the status quo is coming from the council? And the Silver Menace mentioned Remi…llia, what is she up to now?

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Well… something happened, causing everyone to forget about the Silver Menace’s appearance. There were some descriptions, but nobody remembered how he looked like which was concerning as this suggested something terrible, but he popped up after the fact.”

  Hmm, we might have met him after that event as we still remember his appearance, how did you remember about his existence? Written records?

  “Oh no, it seemed that the hat security he had continuously released caused our hats to become more efficient at retaining information, so we forgot, but some vague memories lingered in our hats which they dumped back on us.”

  I’m starting to think that amnesia is a scam. It always works in games and movies, but it seems to be quite useless in real life. Then again, Misha are probably the race that’s the closest to attaining a mythical or legendary status, unless I’m ignorant of several more. So, this shouldn’t be unexpected.

  “So, the council wants to keep him out, what is your vision on this?” Athena asked. I was also curious.

  “I think that this purist mindset is poisoning our race. We’re strictly female, so a purist standpoint would never work. I acknowledge that many Misha prefer the status quo, but a compromise could be struck in creating ‘Misha only’ areas, or only have Mishaspire as a city where Misha and other races mix. For the Silver Menace. I would do my best to persuade him to find a research partner. His race isn’t doing great, and we could benefit from his contributions and offspring.”

  I had to calm Giana down as she didn’t like this.

  I might be incorrectly speaking on his behalf, but what would be in it for him?

  “That’s what we still need to work on, but the council won’t let me… They either want to keep him out or force him, which is absurd as he had torched this city when his hand got forced. Why don’t they learn….”

  I felt for the headmaster, she was in a similar situation as Remi. She seemed to bite back more at the council but how long before they are going to replace her too?

  “But… I have my hands full on educating these incompetent Misha. For some reason, they are becoming arrogant, ignorant to their incompetence... I have respect for Remillia for not going insane for being a headmaster for nearly 3 millennia, I’m about to pull my hair out after just 2 years…” She gave us a hopeful look. “Any chance that you two want to become professors?”

  Oh, hell no!

  “We respectfully decline.”

  “Thought as much… if there are any breakthroughs, I would like to hear. I’m… going to study more… Oh if you by any chance meet the Silver Menace in the future… tell him that I would like to meet him.” The headmaster suddenly seemed exhausted, got up and looked around. “A well decorated house, you two are full of surprises.”

  Athena saw her to the door, closed it, locked it and ordered me to stop my potion brewing project.

  “She wants you to get a research partner…” Giana transformed back to a vixen.

  That’s what you focused on?

  I said as I transformed back to a 9t.

  “Well, you’re mine! And I have to imprint myself properly unto you before you can get another one.”

  Wait wait! What do you mean with another one?

  “I am possessive and greedy but…” Giana walked over to me seductively. “I also care about our race and our numbers are low.” She pushed her finger into my chest.

  “We can’t act from a standpoint of abundance, right?”

  And why are you bringing this up exactly? I can’t say that it sounds as an attractive idea, but here is the thing… I don’t like dealing with people. It took this long for me to warm up to you, I don’t want to go through this again, and I’m completely content with just you.

  “Ohh, perfect answer! And that’s exactly why this will work!”

  So, vixens are toxic enough to suggest a harem…

  “Just 1 more, I will be merciless, though.”

  I grabbed Giana and pushed her down.

  Listen here. I know you’re thinking about our race, which I admire but I already told you. I am going to prioritize you. Please don’t force another woman in my life. I don’t have the social competency to deal with that.

  “I see… this makes me happy but…” She flipped me over and pushed me down. “Vixens will poison themselves and die due to their charm magic going out of control. They will be fine if they have a male 9t to continuously pouring their charm magic into like I’m doing now.”

  An enormous amount got poured into me. I didn’t know where it went, but I wasn’t getting oversaturated or overwhelmed by it anymore.

  Wait… so we’re not like other species that can get with whoever, we need to bond with our own race?

  “Yes… and as you know, men are rare…”

  So, by bonding with you, I saved your life?

  “Why do you think the bond between 9t are so strong? You get something out of it too, push me down, please.”

  I flipped her over and pushed her down.

  I don’t particularly care on what I get out of it since I’m happy with you but let me hear it anyways.

  Giana flashed a beautiful villainous smile. “The charm magic vixens pour into the men counteract the side effects of most reckless attacks, even nullifying them depending on the amount of charm magic present.”

  Countless possibilities went through my head.

  Wait what? Doesn’t that make us disgustingly overpowered? Wait… is that why the gods focused on eradicating all the men and sealing the female 9t?

  “I think so… Vixens are more concerned on protecting our race from inside factors while the men from outside factors, that’s why you’re more worried about dealing with the gods and I’m more worried about us going extinct. So, while I hate it… you might need to take another vixen.”

  Uhh, that might literally kill me, you know?

  “I…I’m unsure if this is a good idea after all… I’m sorry! Please forget I brought that up! I don’t want to lose you.” Giana embraced me and I got a warm whirly feeling in my abdomen.

  Don’t worry I’m good at forgetting.

  “Ugh, I’m such a bad partner suggesting that.”

  I could feel that she didn’t feel good at saying that. She normally is quite confident when dealing with me. I thought about it while holding her. It never crossed my mind to take another vixen. I don’t want to, though. It sounds good on paper, but I’m sure it will work out terrible in practice.

  Our party is full, so where would she go. I also can't prioritize Giana with another. No, this was never going to work. The idea only sounded great when I was single. Even if Giana pushes for that idea again, I will fight against it. Maybe in a century or 2.

  Deca, I was thinking… maybe the gender dynamics within our race are similar to those of phoenixes.

  Giana looked up. “I don’t know anything about their ‘bonding dynamics’.”

  I do, as Yuna wouldn’t shut up about finding a hot phoenix dude. She also told me in case I found a hot phoenix chick…

  “Hmm, a phoenix chick, that one might make more sense… but I’m listening!”

  What happened to you dropping that idea?

  “I am! But maybe in a century or 2 when we’re truly inseparable…” She said shyly.

  We’re not that different, eh? Either way, the phoenixes as you know them are all incomplete creatures as a true phoenix is both male and female and this is only created after bonding. Both of them will be seen as 1 entity and if I had to believe Yuna, it would be stronger than the sum of the partners, a bit like what you just said.

  Giana turned red and ditzy. “Oh gosh, you and me are one? My heart isn’t ready for this!”

  Giana who knows more about 9t dynamics and me who knows more about phoenix dynamics. Is it possible to combine these? And about my identity as a 9t/phoenix… is this combo so strong because these dynamics are similar?

  Alright Ditzy! Enough of this overly wholesome moment! It’s time for tutoring!

  “Huh? No! why? I was feeling so great! Do you have to be toxic at this moment?!” Giana said as she started running.

  It seems that my tutoring is also making you faster! Run my cute Deca! Let’s see if you can break a new record!

  “Just wait and see! I will endure all those daggers and then devour you!”

  Do your worst slowpoke!

  ?

  follow if the story is interesting enough.

  Ayaru Mistflower