72 — 8-6 Touya, The Little Fox Boy

His name was Touya.

A six-year-old little fox boy.

Yes—he was that fox beastfolk kid I first “caught” with udon.

Huh? What was “little fox boy” supposed to mean?

If a girl was a little girl, then a boy was a little boy, right? (pure personal bias).

Since the gender-neutral term was “toddler,” and we had terms like “boy” and “girl” for children, there had to be a boy-specific term for little kids too.

He had beautiful fur—fox-brown, or more like a clean ochre color.

And this kid was a pretty serious “dismantler.”

If something caught his interest, he always took it apart to check what was inside.

Of course, none of it ever went back to how it was.

Well, that kind of thing was common with kids.

Especially boys.

I did it all the time too.

Watching him like that, I thought maybe I could aim him toward becoming a workshop master someday.

If you knew his aptitude from the start, aiming in that direction was not a bad path.

My older sister’s eldest boy was also a “dismantler brat,” and he never did anything remotely sensible.

But he went into industrial studies in high school and college and eventually became a technical professional at a top company.

It would be nice if Touya could go down that kind of path too.

At the very least, I wanted him to study a lot while he was here.

Luckily, he was extremely eager to learn.

It was a minor flaw that he was also extremely eager to dismantle objects, but I would call that “healthy curiosity” and let it pass.

Most of the items at the Beast-Ear Garden had copies saved by me anyway, so even if those got taken apart, it was not a problem.

The real problem was if someone’s personal belongings got disassembled.

I warned the staff not to leave too many personal items lying around.

For now, I decided to take him on a field trip.

First stop was the familiar weapon shop in the Royal Capital—Old Man Gobson’s place.

He readily gave permission for the tour.

While I was at it, he ordered ten mithril swords, and I handed them over on the spot.

There really were rich people in the world.

In yen terms, that was a product with a purchase price of one billion yen per sword.

Naturally, the selling price was double that.

And he had just bought the same number not long ago.

Well, apparently it was a rare item that almost never circulated.

Back at the beginning, even the Adventurers’ Guild only had used mithril knives.

Even those were worth the equivalent of two hundred million yen.

Touya immediately started fiddling with everything and bombarded the old man with a storm of questions.

Even Gobson, with that prickly personality of his, answered with unusually polite care.

Maybe, because of his work, he did not dislike kids with that kind of temperament.

Yeah… I kind of understood that too.

We took our leave of the weapon shop, and the little fox waved cutely at the old man while following after me.

Next, we went to a leatherworker.

This was the shop that made my marquis-grade equipment.

The fox boy’s brown eyes were glued to the craftsmanship of a true top-tier artisan.

He focused with every sense a beastfolk had, ears standing straight up and pointed at the craftsman.

The craftsman, probably not displeased by the child’s honest admiration, showed him several products and demonstrated various techniques.

I filmed that work from multiple angles as teaching material.

While I was at it, I picked up my marquis mantle and boots, and the leather top and bottom as well.

The leather clothing was light and soft.

A vividly dyed crest was stamped in with style.

The crest featured a hawk—fitting for Alphonse’s name, “Divine Hawk.”

And flamboyantly painted crimson flames—no, explosive flames—asserted their presence with shameless intensity.

Apparently just seeing it made even foreign nobles run away.

Maybe my misdeeds had come back to haunt me a little too hard.

How rude.

This director was not so idle that I could waste time dealing with every last one of you.

I was busy escorting kindergarten kids on a field trip today, too.

I thanked the staff politely and left the shop, but they also sold leather-care tools, so I bought those as well.

I also bought him a tough-looking children’s bag.

It was a shoulder bag with a design perfect for a kid.

It was a little oversized so he could always inspect the construction, and so he could practice maintenance on it.

I told him not to take this one apart.

“Touya, this is for reference—like a model. Do not dismantle it, okay?”

“Okaaay.”

He answered well, but that did not mean I could trust him at all.

Oh well.

I had made a copy in case he dismantled it anyway.

Next was the carriage shop.

Right now I was considering whether we could build springs—or a suspension—into the carriage body.

There were simple spring-like things, but…

The ride comfort was terrible.

I showed them both my car’s suspension as a finished unit and also disassembled, but they said there was no way they could make something that precise.

Well, that was fair.

It was far beyond this world’s technological level.

Even at the material level, it was probably impossible.

I told them to explore what might be possible within the range of their existing technology.

They were already in the middle of brainstorming ideas.

And that fox boy—he started firing off questions again.

The engineer was wide-eyed and flustered.

But it seemed to give him a useful hint, because he sent us off with a smile.

The fox kid did whatever he wanted, and they let him handle carriage parts and tools to his heart’s content.

For lunch, we went to a bakery said to be delicious even by Royal Capital standards.

We bought a bunch of different things, including some for souvenirs, and ate together on a bench in the plaza.

A relaxed blue-sky lunch like this was nice once in a while.

At the Beast-Ear Garden, meal time was always a battlefield.

When I looked up, I noticed three- to four-year-old kids coming over, sucking their fingers while watching us.

Even in the Royal Capital, there were kids like Adros had.

If they were here, their parents had probably once been ordinary citizens of the capital.

Maybe adventurers or something like that.

They were probably siblings.

They were black-haired, black-eyed little cats with matching faces.

It looked like another scruffy stray was about to become one of ours.

Touya walked over, took them by the hand, brought them back, and invited them to eat with us.

They happily dug in.

They must have been really hungry.

I stopped them gently and said, “It is not good to suddenly gorge yourselves—take it easy. Come with us. You can eat as much as you want at our place.”

Their eyes went watery, and with a “Really? Really?” kind of vibe, they clung to the food even harder.

I calmed them down by giving their ears a proper pampering, and both of them were wonderfully fluffy.

Since this was an unexpected incident, we headed back to the Beast-Ear Garden with the two of them even though we were still in the middle of our outing.

When I returned holding the hands of two lucky cats—not “flowers in both hands,” but “fortune cats in both hands”—Mari was holding a new kid of her own.

We stared at each other and, without meaning to, spoke in perfect unison.

“You too?!”

I laughed, but the kid Mari was holding was shy and grabbed Mari’s clothes tightly, burying their face.

For a street child, they were unusually shy.

Over there was a cute three-year-old little bear.

A small kid with brown hair and blue eyes.

Mari hugged them lightly and soothed them gently.

The two of us brought all three into the garden.

I had already used purification on the new kids, but we changed their clothes, brushed them properly, and then took them to the dining hall.

Now that they were tidied up, they all looked much cuter.

I asked Chef Rand-san, who was prepping dinner, to bring out a set of soup, bread, and peeled fruit.

I told them to eat slowly, and left the rest to Touya.

This kid was good at looking after others.

I had heard from Armon before that fox-type beastfolk were smart and good caretakers, and in beastfolk adventurer groups they often served as leaders.

Touya ended up taking care of the two little black cats.

For the original group that had already been here, the sub-leader kid took charge.

And then the new little bear—Sarnya—joined them too.

That was because it was the only group that already had a bear beastfolk kid.

The two became friends right away.

Since the little bear had been alone until now, the other girl was overjoyed too.

Bear beastfolk were rare.

With the kids’ numbers growing again, the Beast-Ear Garden was lively today as well.