Chapter 005: A Convincing Strategy

“Magic?” Nest raised his brow in surprise.

The little angel nodded her head furiously. “This great me is a genius! I should have realized sooner that you humans have such narrow minds. The first thing I need to do is widen that puny brain of yours. Although you’ve given me quite some trouble up until now, none of that matters anymore! Hehe, even if you don’t believe me, I’ll force you to believe me!”

“And how exactly does magic play into all that?” Nest skeptically questioned.

“Simple, easy, I’m glad you asked! In order to convince you of something that you previously deem unbelievable, I just need to show you something you would consider equally unbelievable. I will indirectly prove to you the existence of the great calamity!”

“Oh, I get it.” Nest nodded. “It’s sort of like ‘if this thing exists, so this other thing must also exist’, right?” Niphilili was using a version of indirect proof in order to prove her theory. In this case, her ‘theory’ would be the validity of the Great Calamity that she kept rambling on about.

“Yes, exactly!” The little angel happily exclaimed. The two wings on her back slightly fluttered, an action reminiscent of a dog wagging its tail. “So, what do you think? Isn’t is a genius idea? Well, it is only natural. After all, it was this genius me that came up with it.”

Nest stopped and thought about it for a moment. It might work, but then again, it might not work.

His subsequent reaction all depended on the type of ‘magic’ she performs. If it was something like creating lights from her hands or really anything that Nest can’t directly interact with, then he would not be convinced. Even if he could interact with it, he might still not be convinced.

In a sense, if it was more realistic than fantastical, then he would have a higher chance of believing.

Nest inwardly shook his head. He felt somewhat silly for thinking about all this so seriously. Deep down, he knew he shouldn’t be doing this. Entertaining this delusion of his would only worsen his current mental state. Rather than nodding along and listening to this little angel, he needed to find a way to suppress his hallucinations.

Still, he had to admit, there was a tiny, minuscule part of him that wanted to believe. Of course, the moment he believed, Nest would be no different from any of the other schizophrenics that they kept locked up in various psych wards.

Hiding the doubt in his heart, Nest turned back towards the eager angel. After a quick bout of hesitation, he flashed an ugly smile.

He wanted to say no, but Niphilili, this girl, she made it extremely difficult to do so!

This damn angel’s face, why does she look exactly like a kid who just heard from her parents that they were going to Disneyland! It was a dangerous combination of childhood innocence and adorable enthusiasm. Nest secretly cursed his own imaginative subconscious, before he bitterly nodded.

“It’s a great idea. You’re pretty smart.” He praised.

Niphilili’s haughty smile turned even haughtier! She raised her nose high in the air and chuckled loudly. If it weren’t for the fact that only he could hear her, then surely even the arguing duo beside him would have heard the high-pitched laughter.

“Of course I’m smart. It’s only natural for the great me to be so great!”

Hearing her words, Nest felt somewhat amused. She did not even attempt to hide her arrogance. In fact, her entire face was screaming, “Praise me! Praise me some more!”

After some thought, he added. “I see. You’re just a naturally great person, huh? I wonder if all the other angels are like you?”

She hesitated for a moment. After some time, she eventually nodded her head. “That’s right. Angels are pretty great in general, much better than humans. Still, I am just slightly better than everyone else. In the end, I’m still the greatest!”

Ah, so she’s arrogant not only towards humans, but also to her own kind… I seriously wonder if all angels are like this…

Nest felt somewhat worried about the future of the angel race.

Still, Niphilili’s arrogance wasn’t exactly a bad thing. In fact, it made her just a little bit easier to deal with. As long as he kept praising this little thing, then she’d remain relatively docile. Nest was learning fairly quickly that a docile angel was infinitely better than an angry angel.

But all of that was an issue for another time. Nest thought back to her words. He felt a tiny sliver of excitement within his heart.

To be honest, he was sort of curious. How convincing could his imagination really be? In a battle between his rational mind and his subconscious insanity, who would win out on top? Either way, Nest was already slipping from reality. He kind of wanted to see how far he could fall.

“Then, what sort of magic trick are you going to show me?” He asked.

Niphilili smirked in response. She suddenly pointed a slightly chubby finger his way. “It won’t be me who does it, but you!”

Nest widened his eyes in surprise. “Me? Really?”

After seeing his reaction, the little angel grew even haughtier. She had already felt the disingenuousness of his enthusiasm. Still, Niphilili was vain by nature. Even if it was fake praise, it was still praise nonetheless.

His reaction right now was one hundred percent genuine.

“Hehe, do I have your attention now?”

Nest mutely nodded his head. Although it was coming from his own subconscious, the prospect of learning magic still excited him. Even if it wasn’t realistic, even if it wasn’t plausible, even if it sounded impossible, as long as there was a tiny sliver of a chance that it could be real…

Seeing the interest hidden beneath his eyes, Niphilili secretly breathed out a sigh of relief. With this, the first part is done. Now on to the next step…

She nodded to herself, before she said, “Good. Now, wait for a while.”

“What?”

“I need to do something first.”

Without bothering to explain, Niphilili suddenly closed her eyes. A deep crease formed between her brow, as she abruptly jabbed both of her pointer fingers towards the base of her skull. “Gununununu” noises leaked out from her clenched teeth.

“What—what are you doing?” Nest stared in fascination. As the seconds ticked by, the flush that crept up onto her cheeks only intensified.

“I’m… looking… don’t disturb me…” She slowly spat out. The strain in her voice was almost palpable.

Niphilili remained like that for what felt like a long time. She was like a stone statue. The little angel remained still and unmoving, with only the occasional grunt or groan to differentiate her from any of the other nonliving things scattered throughout the kitchen.

Left with no other option, Nest patiently waited for her to finish.

“Young Master?” Just as he settled down, a soft voice suddenly called out to him.

He almost jumped up in surprise. Nest quickly turned his head, only to see a pair of familiar faces looking at him with concerned expressions.

“When did you guys stop fighting?” He furrowed his brow. The two of them were staring at him as if there was a giant spider on his face. “What’s wrong with you two?”

They briefly exchanged glances before Hilda stepped up and said, “Well, for some time now, you’ve done nothing but stare out into space.”

“You were also mumbling to yourself,” Anya added. “Very crazy-person-esque, if I do say so myself, Young Master. If that was the type of look you were going for, then I’d say you succeeded.”

“Are you really okay, Nest?” Hilda asked. Unlike Anya, who hid her concern through multiple layers of biting remarks, Hilda wore her emotions on her sleeve.

He hesitated for a moment, before he suddenly let out a chuckle. “I’m fine. You worry too much, Hilda. You two were just so loud that I couldn’t even think straight.” He casually waved his hand. Unlike his real emotions, his face was the perfect picture of calm and composure. “Get out of here, both of you. Let me finish my meal in peace.”

Anya and Hilda did not look as thoroughly convinced as he would have liked, but after staring at Nest’s face for a while, they eventually complied. In the end, they both had some self-awareness. Nobody liked waking up in the morning to an argument, even if you were simply just a spectator of said argument. This was especially the case for a person as lazy and irritable as their young master.

They both left the kitchen.

Still, just because they were willing to make a few concessions for him, that did not magically mean that their relationship was now suddenly fixed. Not a second after the doors closed shut, Nest could already hear both maids arguing with each other.

He let out a weary sigh. As the muffled voiced from behind the door intensified, Nest returned to his meal. After a while, Niphilili jumped up in the air and shouted. Even at a glance, the satisfaction on her face was apparent.

She wiped a bead of sweat from her little forehead and breathed out a sigh of relief. “It took me some time, but since I’m such an amazing me, I finally did it.”

Of course, the first thing to come out of her mouth were words of self-praise, but at this point, Nest had grown used to her odd mannerisms.

“What were you doing?” he curiously asked.

“Scanning this world for magical artifacts.” She explained.

“Oh? What did you find?”

Instead of straightforwardly answering, Niphilili let out a disgruntled sigh. “This world is so barren that there are hardly any artifacts here! To think, only nine artifacts! Nine! For a world as big as this one, nine is simply too little!”

“I see. Sounds like a real problem, huh...” Nest had no idea what she was talking about, so he simply nodded in agreement.

“It is a real problem!” She shouted.

Niphilili hesitated for a moment, before she corrected herself, “Well, it is a problem, but it will only be a problem for a short time. After the Great Calamity occurs, that should all change. Still though, Earth is somewhat pitiful.”

She bitterly shook her head and let out another sigh. Nest found it somewhat amusing. Her expression was like that of a mother who had given up on her disappointing son.

“Enough about that. Since I already went out of my way to find them, I can now show you the power hidden within the artifacts of this world.” Her attitude immediately shifted. “Without a doubt, after witnessing something as amazing as this, you’ll surely believe in the coming Great Calamity.”

“Right…” Nest slowly nodded his head. His pensive expression looked as if he was seriously digesting her words. After a while, he broke that illusion and said, “That all seems like a bit of a hassle. Why can’t you just perform a magic trick here? Do you really need those artifacts? If you want, I can probably get you a deck of cards or something.”

“Don’t mess with me, you stupid…er, stupid!” As expected, she immediately flared up in anger. “The body you see right now is merely an avatar created by my great master. My current body does not possess the strength to perform magic.”

“But weren’t you just scanning the world or something? Isn’t that magic?”

“Idiot! That’s not magic.” She shouted in a huff, not bothering to explain.

“Right, right. My bad.” Nest lamely responded.

She shook her head. “Enough nonsense. For now, we need to go get an artifact. Let’s start with the strongest artifact on Earth.”

“Oh? What’s the strongest artifact?”

“Hmm… it’s something called ‘Joyeuse.’” Niphilili muttered as she crossed her arms and tilted her head. “Let’s see… it is somewhere in a place called Lub, Louvre.” She stuttered.

“Joyeuse?” Nest thought about it for a bit. The name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite remember where he had heard of it before. Maybe it appeared as a weapon in a videogame he had played in the past or maybe it was something from history, it wasn’t really important, although not remembering did bother him a bit.

“How are we supposed to get it?” he curiously asked.

From his memories, he knew that the Louvre was a rather famous place in Paris. It was one of the world’s best museums. Thousands upon thousands of tourists swarmed the area nearly all year round. In fact, Nest had been there a couple of times himself. He wondered just how exactly was this mini angel going to get her chubby little hands on what he could only presume was one of the museum’s centerpieces.

She blinked. Niphilili stared at him as if he were an idiot. “We take it, obviously.”

Nest’s expression dimmed, dark lines ran down his forehead. “You… you want me to fly all the way to France and steal something from one of its national landmarks? It’s not my place to ask this, but are you alright in the head?”

She tilted her head to the side. “No good?”

“No, of course it’s no good!”

She let out an irritated sigh. “Fine, we can pick something else. How about the seventh strongest artifact? It’s just in some grubby antique store. You can definitely take this one.”

“And where exactly is this place?”

“Um… a place called Reno.”

“Reno? As in Reno, Nevada?” He thought about it for a moment. To his own surprise, he nodded. “Alright, let’s go.”

It was somewhat ridiculous. Most people would hesitate when their hallucinations told them to travel across the country, but Nest was different. Despite his obvious misgivings, he felt inclined to humor his hallucination. This was a privilege only available to all the insane people in the world with fat pockets. Being a spendthrift came naturally to him.

If anything, it would be a somewhat interesting deviation from his normal monotony.