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Translator: Kazumi
Editor: Silavin
A corner of the relaxation area of the Administration Floor was bustling with the voices of children.
Sylvia was taking advantage of her day off to bring her two children to the Administration Floor.
Kokoro and Luka were playing with a puzzle that Kousuke made for fun in between making magic tools.
“Ah! It’s done already! How does Luka figure it out so quickly?”
“Well, why is that?”
The puzzle they were solving was an Embedded Puzzle.
In Kousuke’s world, these were the type of puzzles that children play with, in which objects of the same shape fit together perfectly when they were inserted into each other.
However, Kousuke did not create the puzzle as it was.
The background was a magic circle, and a part of the pattern was hollowed out to fit the correct pattern.
When someone inserts a pattern into one of the spaces and presses the ‘confirm’ button, it glows blue if the pattern was correct, and red if wrong.
The reason why Kousuke made such a thing was to strengthen the player’s mind.
The higher the difficulty, the more answers there were. In short, there were multiple answers.
At first, Kousuke made it for himself for a change of pace, but he soon tried to make a simple one that could be used as a toy for children.
Incidentally, the thinking circuit developed by Kouhi and Mitsuki for Golems was used to judge the correct or incorrect answers. So, there was definitely advanced technology used to make this puzzle game.
It would first start off with simple puzzles, written with lines, circles, and other basic shapes.
Kousuke was somewhat amused by the puzzles he had made for beginners, so he went on to make more and more puzzles to learn about various magic circles.
Furthermore, although he made them, he never showed them to Shrein because they were just puzzles that he made from his own curiosity. As a result, there were piles of unused puzzles in Kousuke’s laboratory.
Sylvia knew this and pulled them out as toys for the two children, who had come to the Administration Floor and had some spare time on their hands.
Of course, she had Kousuke’s permission.
Kousuke had completely forgotten that he had made such a thing. It was only when Sylvia asked him about it that he finally remembered and took the puzzles out of the lab.
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At first, they were both doing beginner puzzles, but they soon outgrew that.
Perhaps it was Sylvia’s educational policy. The two of them had a strong background in magic.
One of the things they learned was the basics of magic circle. The beginner stuff was straightforward for them, so they cleared it right away.
However, Kokoro’s success did not end there.
When she started trying out the beginning of the intermediate level, she started to make mistakes because it was outside of what she had learned so far.
On the other hand, Luka, who was younger than Kokoro, had initially picked up the puzzles much slower. However, now, he was getting the correct answers one after another.
While they were happily playing, Kousuke turned his gaze to Sylvia without them noticing.
Sylvia met his gaze and gently shook her head from side to side. Surprise was written on her face.
“You two, your father and I will be going away for a bit, so can you play with that for a while, okay?”
“Yes!”
“En!”
The two, engrossed in the puzzles, replied without looking at Kousuke.
When Kousuke came to a room one door away from the relaxation area, he immediately checked with Sylvia.
“You didn’t tell them, did you?”
“Yes. It’s a wonder how Luka can solve puzzles that Kokoro can’t.”
Luka was solving intermediate puzzles one after another, much to the surprise of the both of them.
The puzzle they were working on now was at the level of a child who had just learned to do additions. In arithmetic terms, it was like solving a single-digit multiplication that multiplies two numbers.
“Sure, what he is doing now is not impossible if one learns the basics, but…”
Kokoro’s rate of getting the correct answer was already quite high, and Luka was already reaching her level.
“But maybe he just guessed the right ones?”
“If so, that’s great, but…”
Beginners’ puzzles, however, have numerous combinations, and the intermediate level puzzles have even more combinations. It was quite a challenge to find the correct solution among them.
In fact, Kokoro’s number of correct answers was already lower than Luka.
There was a higher probability that Luka could actually solve the puzzles than guessing the answer.
“Call me a foolish father, but…. Luka might just have talent for this.”
“A talent that I didn’t expect… that might actually be the case.”
Kousuke said, slightly shocked, and Sylvia almost nodded. She then looked at Kousuke.
“Sylvia, I doubt it’s genetic, you know? I at least have nothing to do with it, okay?”
Kousuke waved his hand impatiently as he added, ‘I most likely don’t have anything to do with this’, in his mind.
“Is that so? I for one don’t think so.”
“Ugh…”
Kousuke was at a loss for words when Sylvia said that to him with a serious expression.
As long as he was a living god, such a possibility might not be inconceivable.
“…I’ll check with the Goddesses.”
As Kousuke said this, Sylvia now looked slightly panicked.
“Well. It’s not that big of a deal…”
To Sylvia, this was just a normal conversation between a married couple. She thought it was not important enough to bother checking with the Goddesses. However, Luka definitely had the blood of Kousuke, a living god.
If there were certain consequences due to this, it would be better to know in advance.
Reconsidering this, Sylvia eventually paused and rephrased her words.
“Yes. If you can, may I ask you to do so?”
“Yeah. Well, I’m probably overthinking it.”
If Kousuke was just overthinking it, then so be it. There was nothing wrong with a parent getting worried for their child.
In regards to his own children, he did not feel like he was relying too much on Asura and the other Goddesses. To begin with, Asura was also paying close attention to Kousuke’s children.
Right now, Kousuke was the one who wanted to ask them for their advise over this.
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[You’re thinking too much.]
This was the first thing she said when Kousuke contacted Asura.
[Oh, you knew?]
[Don’t get me wrong, okay? Luka definitely inherited your talent. But the way she inherited it is not special, it is still within the normal range.]
[What? What do you mean by normal?]
[It’s not that unusual, is it? A child who has the gift of genius.]
From God’s point of view, a child who was a genius fell within the range of ‘ordinary’.
Kousuke thought about what kind of existence a child who deviates from that range would be.
[I mean just what a living god is in this world.]
The answer that he had been thinking about firmly, though he did not say it out loud, came back to him from Asura.
[Ugh. What a terrible thing to say.]
[It can’t be helped, can it? Because we are creating something that didn’t exist in this world, such as <status>. For us, that’s what it means to be a deviant.]
[I see. Well, leaving me aside, Luka is not deviant, is he?]
[That’s what I’ve just said. But who knows how Luka will grow up after being raised by you?]
[Well, I don’t know the result either.]
Kousuke’s open and honest reply was met with laughter from Asura.
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