Fantastic Dream Upon This Wonderful Existence

It's been a week since the completion of Paradox's mission. Life has slowed down considerably. Megumin, Darkness, and I went back to teaching at the Guild. Aqua returned to her duty as a healer. Yunyun and Elena works part time at Wiz's store. Liz, Iris, and Komekko continued their studies in the capital.

Right now I'm going over the diagram of the nest for Zell kun. The mad goddess was kind enough to tone down her creativity and made a normal sized nest for Zell kun. But still… the component for the nest is.

"Yggdrasil twigs, Quetzalcoatl's Feather, Dimension Shards, Queen Arachne Silk…" I listed off the ingredients for a divine artifact. "Aqua, we're trying to make a Chicken Nest, not a Divine Artifact…"

"I don't care, you said I can make it out of anything you want right?" Aqua said while caressing her precious egg.

"I don't even know where to find half of these ingredients!"

"Look for it then! You have until tomorrow because I have a feeling that Zell kun is going to hatch next week,"

"Okay, how about this…" Please let this work. "We'll ask Zell kun himself what kind of nest he likes…?"

Aqua narrowed her eyes. "So we're going to wait until he hatches and develop critical thinking?" she pulled the egg closer into a hug. "I can't let him stay homeless for that long!"

"I can make him a temporary cage and nest in your room. I'll make one out of Queen Alraune twigs, some heat stones I used in my kotatsu, and a Dakimakura of Eris I got from Alcanretia the other day, what do you think?"

"Hmm… that doesn't sound so… wait," Aqua narrowed her eyes. "What was that last one?"

"The plain white pillow I bought from Alcanretia?"

"No, I think you said something else back there,"

"I think you misheard,"

"No, I'm pretty sure you said…"

A knock came from the entrance and the door opened. Megumin and Darkness stepped into the mansion, the latter looked out of breath.

"Welcome back, Megumin, Darkness," I greeted them.

Megumin waved at me while Darkness forced a weak smile.

"I'll be in my room…" Darkness said in exhaustion before going straight for the stairs.

Megumin sat down beside me and sighed a little.

"Do I want to know what happened?"

"I was meaning to have a private chat with Darkness and practice explosions. But then, Lord Dustiness summoned Darkness to the mansion. He told Darkness that from this point on, she is the Official Landlady of Axel City,"

"Wow! So Darkness is an actual noble now?"

"Yes and she will punch you if she heard you say that," Megumin then turned towards Aqua who's still tending her chicken egg. The Crimson Demon has that look of curiosity on her face.

"Ne, Aqua, can I hold it for a moment?"

Aqua turned to Megumin and reluctantly handed her the egg. "But be very, very gentle alright?" Aqua said in worry. "You're famous for destroying things…"

Megumin grabbed the egg with one hand and took a close look at it. "Ne, Kazuma, can you feel it?"

"Yeah, the amount of mana in that egg rivals an actual dragon egg," I took the egg out of her hand. "What do you think will hatch out of this egg?"

"A chicken,"

"You sure?"

"Well, it's a chicken egg,"

"But it has a combined mana of all the most powerful magic caster in the Kingdom,"

"Yep, but it can't use it,"

I blinked a little and looked at the egg for a bit. "Can't it learn how to use it?"

"Of course not, it's just a chicken,"

"Hmm…" I closed my eyes a little and tried to detect the magic inside it. "Can't we do something about its stat?"

"Huh?"

I opened my eyes and grinned a little. "I just got a brilliant idea…"

---

Aqua, Megumin, and I stepped into the Adventurer Guild. It's weekend now so the place isn't that crowded. A waitress welcomed us as always and I told her to prepare a seat for us.

"Good Afternoon Kazuma sama, how can I help you?" Luna greeted us with a kind smile.

I smiled back at her. "Actually, I want to make do an experiment, is it okay if I borrow a blank Adventurer Card and the Detection Crystal?"

Luna raised an eyebrow. "Blank Adventurer Card," she took out a stack of thin cards. "How much do you need?"

"Just one, thanks Luna!"

With that, I led everyone to our table. I put down the scanner crystal on the table and tweaked around with its settings.

"Ne, Kazuma, are you going to make Zell kun into an adventurer? Not that there's anything wrong with him being an adventurer, but I rather if he make his own choices in life…"

"No I'm not making him into anything," I sat down on the table beside Megumin. Aqua sat facing us, holding the egg carefully in her hands. "Now… put him here…" I took off my cape and make a makeshift nest with it on the table.

Aqua put the egg on the makeshift nest. Then I took out a blank adventurer card and put the card below the scanner. "Okay, first off, the obvious thing to do with this," I picked up the egg and held it above the crystal.

A blue magic laser shot out of the scanner and began writing stuff into the adventurer card. It kept going for a while until the crystal dimmed and the adventurer card stopped glowing.

I put Zell back on the makeshift nest and picked up the card. Beside me, Megumin is already leaning forward in curiosity.

"Huh…" Megumin muttered to herself. "I mean, it is an egg…"

All of its stats are only single digit number except for its magic that's already above average. It's currently level one with zero skill points and no skill. Exactly what you would expect from a chicken egg.

"Ne, Kazuma, let me see," Aqua said in slight curiosity.

I handed the card to Aqua for her to see. "Hmm… He does have a talent in magic…" she muttered. "But, why are you so impatient? We can wait until he's hatched to look at his stats."

"You know… Adventurer Card is capable of manipulating your skill, what's stopping it from manipulating stats?" I picked up the egg. "I mean, if we let this be, he'll be a regular chicken when he hatch."

Aqua bit her lip a little. "I don't want him to get hurt…" she muttered to herself.

I closed my eyes in concentration. "I am now going to gently tweak with his magic and you will pay attention to all its stats."

"W-wait! Are you sure this is necessary? I don't want him to get hurt,"

"Don't worry, there's a chance he will survive this,"

"That only make me more worried! Ne, Kazuma, let's think about this some more…"

I just chuckled silently and began my manipulation. The card in Aqua's hand glows and Aqua snapped her attention to the card.

"Ah! The magic stat just decreased"

Noted…

"Wait stop! That's his HP!"

Okay…

"That's his MP,"

Hmm…

"That's his strength… Ah! Careful! It was zero for a moment there…"

With that, we spent like twenty minutes tweaking around with a chicken egg. It took a while for me to get a hang of it. Unlike manipulating magic patterns, this felt more like trying to tweak around with a bunch of strings.

It's incredibly loose and simple. Probably because it's literally just a chicken egg. I don't even want to begin to imagine the complexity of a human being. I actually think that it's extremely impossible.

After a while, I managed to get a hang of it and can freely change the egg's stat by sacrificing some of its magic and my own vitality. Though try as I might, I cannot change its physical appearance or its species. So yeah, this guy will definitely hatch as a chicken.

I looked at Aqua and saw her staring between me and the card intensely.

"So, what should we do with him Aqua?"

"I'm planning on giving him the finest of all education. That means, I want his intelligent stat to rival yours,"

"My intelligent stat is glitching, at best, I can get him to Darkness's level of intelligence,"

"Only Darkness? What about my level?"

"I'm not that cruel Aqua…"

"Wh-what do you mean by that? Anyway, just make him smart,"

I poured some of its magic stat into its intelligence stat, making it around Darkness's level.

After that, I handed the egg back to Aqua and saw her sighing some more in relief. She hugged the egg a little and cooed softly. It looks equal parts weird and wholesome. I mean, I never thought that Aqua of all people could look so… motherly…

Yeah, is this her motherly instinct acting up?