Chapter 734 Fifteen
??Kaur Family Summer Home
Treeson City
Vathax
October 16th
Year 1053
The gentle chirping of morning birds gradually nudged Evan awake, their cheerful melodies filling the air. The boy sleepily reached out with his hands, as if trying to grab something but all he caught was a pillow.
Eventually, he groggily got up to his feet and looked around the empty bedroom with sleepy eyes.
|Reincarnated Hero System Wishes the Host a Happy Birthday. |
|For today, all the Host''s Powers and Abilities are enhanced. Enjoy your special day! |
"…right, today is the 16th."
The two notifications snapped thest bit of sleep out of Evan''s eyes and he moved to the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth.
After this, he raised his hand and roused a bit of his magic power to see how good the enhancement was. It was then that he noticed something strange.
"Huh? No presences?"
Evan instantly expanded his aura perception to a radius of 500 metres around him but the only presences he could sense were those of birds.
Not a single humanoid presence, except for the one downstairs.
''Just what is Liz nning?''
He was quite surprised that none of the servants and guards he had seen the night before were present.
''Did they leave overnight or something? It''s barely 6 am.''
He tossed on a shirt and went downstairs, heading straight to the dining area where he saw Eliza setting down what appeared to be breakfast.
He stopped for a moment to scan her appearance, confirming that the shirt she had on was indeed one of his own.
She was wearing one of his in grey shirts and a ck skort, along with a pristine white apron.
"Where''d everyone go?"
"I gave them a day off."
The girl replied to his words before walking up to him and patting down his bedhead. She then moved her hands to the side of his face and pulled him in for a kiss.
"Happy Birthday."
She wanted to pull away after but Evan pulled her back and kissed her again, only stopping when sheined about his mouth tasting like mint.
"I mean, I just brushed…"
He shrugged his shoulders as he let her go and the girl quickly escaped his range before her desire would win over her reason.
She still had things on the gas in the kitchen, after all.
"How does it feel to be 15."
"The same as it felt to be 14."
Evan replied as he took a seat at the table and picked up one of the sandwiches present while Eliza brought in two cups of coffee.
"You''re no fun. Most people would feel overjoyed to be a step closer to adulthood."
"Not me…"
''This is my second 15th birthday, after all.''
He kept that little line to himself and proceeded to dig into his breakfast. After that, he took a quick shower and returned downstairs to see Eliza moving some wrapped boxes around the living room.
"Oh, you''re done. Let''s go through this stuff."
Evan looked at the multitude of boxes stacked up and muttered something about this taking all day before moving to join Eliza in moving them around.
These were the presents that people had sent for Evan, along with some of Eliza''s birthday presents she had not yet opened since she and Evan had been travelling around since then.
Of course, not all the presents given to Evan were brought to this manor. Just the ones from people he knew personally; like Laurene and the like, not from random Nobles he had strictly political/professional rtionships with.
They sat on the floor in the middle of the boxes and began unwrapping them one by one, trying to guess who sent what present based on the contents.
Evan picked up a random box and shook it lightly, but he could not feel any shaking within.
"It''s fairly heavy too."
The moment he opened up the box, a spring-loaded fist shot out of the box and straight towards his face. If not for his kic vision, he would not have been able to see it!
"Yup, this is from Laurene."
"Pfft…"
Eliza chuckled when she heard him identify it based on the fact that he nearly got punched, and from the card inside, she discovered he was correct.
"Just what did you do when you went into that Dimensional Rift?"
"Some Side Quests. Dunno why but she''d been wanting to punch me in the face after."
He shrugged as he spoke, acting like he didn''t get the three of them chased by a Peak Sovereign and an army of thousands of monsters.
Opening the second smaller box that came along, he saw her actual present—a small grey brooch that emanated a staggering amount of magic.
"…I''m low-key scared this is a bomb."
"It''s not."
They moved on to the next box and opened it to find a book. The two of them looked at each other and echoed the same name.
""Roselia.""
Indeed, only she would send Evan a book as a birthday present. It was a miracle she even sent a present considering how little she cared for things like that.
The next box made a clinking sound when they shook it, and upon opening it, they were met with the shine of gold.
However, it only took Evan a second to discover this wasn''t real gold but gold-ted iron. It was too light to be real gold.
Searching the box, he found an apanying note which read:
[If you haven''t realised, those gold coins are fake! Did you really think I''d actually give you some of MY money?]
"Nadarus?"
"Well, he IS the ''Demon of Greed''. This much is expected."
Evan chuckled as he put down the note, casting a nce at the gold coins and realising something different about them.
"Wait a sec…these things have my face on them!"
"And have ''Happy Birthday'' as the denomination."
Eliza smiled wryly as she put the birthday coins back into the box and moved it over, before moving on to another box.
They opened other presents, ones from Milena, Ka, David, Amelie and surprisingly, even Hydran sent a gift through Luke.
As they were talking, Eliza suddenly realised that there was something new in the room.
"That box…"
"What box?"
Evan followed her gaze to a small rectangr box on the centre table. She was certain it hadn''t been there earlier when they started opening gifts, and since she had gone through all the boxesst night, she was sure it wasn''t there then either.
As she reached out and picked it up, a strange energy tingled in her fingers. When she handed it to Evan, a sh of recognition crossed his eyes.
"Oh, this is from Artemisia."
He recognized the goddess'' divinity immediately, but before he could open it, Eliza called his attention to another box that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.
The two looked at each other before reaching out and opening it, meeting aplete Three-Piece suit set, ck gloves, a long jacket and brogue shoes.
"Ah…this is EOTD."
The shoes were simr to the ones the man wore when Evan saw himst so he quickly figured that it came from him.
After setting the suit aside, Evan returned his focus to Artemisia''s gift and opened it up. Inside, was a box filled with choctes and seeing them filled Evan with nostalgia.
"Never seen this brand before…"
Eliza certainly would not recognize this brand of strawberry choctes; it was from Earth V, after all. Artemisia had gotten him a pack of his favourite choctes from his home world for his birthday.
"They''re very nice. Here, have one."
He picked out one and fed it to Eliza whose eyes sparkled with light when she tasted it.
"Gimme more!"
"Huh? Girl, chill!!"
Evan barely managed to stop Eliza from wrestling the entire chocte box from him, saved only by the ringing sound of the oven that came from the kitchen.
"Oh, it''s done."
Eliza got up and rushed over to the kitchen, and curiously, Evan followed her while asking him what she was making.
"What sort of birthday would this be without a cake?"
That was her reply as she put on her apron before bringing the cake out of the oven. Seeing her moving around the kitchen with a little skip in her step and her ponytail gently swaying with each movement, Evan smiled lightly as a thought came to his mind.
''This situation. It''s like I''ve got a wife or something…''
The moment he had that thought, Eliza suddenly froze and turned towards him with narrowed eyes.
"Why do I have a feeling I know exactly what you''re thinking right now?"
"You probably do, but I''d rather you don''t say it. You''re the one who''d get embarrassed in the end."
Evan''s words had Eliza fall silent. A momentter, her cheeks turned red and she looked away.
"So, you still got embarrassed even if you didn''t say a thing?"
**WHOOSH!!
A spat came flying towards Evan''s head the instant he spoke; however, it was quite ''slow'' so he caught it with ease.
"Oy! Wait a sec! This is a spat? Aren''t you icing a cake? What the hell are you using this for?"
Evan was more concerned about why she had one on hand rather than the fact that she threw it at him.
"It was the nearest thing my hand could reach."
Eliza replied as she went back to her work while Evan left his seat and went to put the spat back in ce, before peeking over her shoulder as he spoke.
"I smell strawberries…"
"Evan, do you want to join the second cake in the oven?"
The hidden threat behind her words was clear but Evan only chuckled in reply.
"Fire is my best element."
"?"
At first, Eliza was confused about what he meant, but a secondter she understood—Evan''s fire resistance was great enough that he wouldn''t even feel the heat of the Oven.
She silently pushed him away and then put the cake into the oven, before turning around and seeing Evan ying with the extra dough.
"Let''s have a bakingpetition."
"Why are you setting yourself up for failure?"
The teenage blonde was genuinely confused as to how Evan even arrived at such a thought. Although she knew Evan wasn''t hopeless in the kitchen, she was confident he could never be her match in baking.
"Is that overconfidence I hear?"
"No, it''s a fact. I''m better than you in everything Kitchen-
rted. You''re decent as a cook but you don''t know the first thing about baking."
"You have this little faith in me? I''d prove to you how wrong you are!!"
Evan dered defiantly, before proceeding to bake the ''best shortcake ever''. When he was done, Eliza tasted it and she fell silent for a moment.
"They say you learn new things about your partner every day. Today, I learned that you cannot bake and you mustn''t eat that."
The girl smiled as she spoke, and put down the fork beside the cake, knocking Evan''s hand away when he tried to take up the fork to taste it.
"Come on, it''s not THAT bad. It should at least be edible."
Evan wrestled the fork out of her hands and took a bite, going silent for a second before asking.
"Did I mix the salt and the sugar?"
"I think your problems are much more fundamental than mixing the salt and the sugar!"
Eliza pointed at the bag of flour that was lying on the counter as she continued.
"You emptied half a kilogram of flour…into a shortcake!"
"…that may have been ''a little bit'' too much flour."
"A ''little bit''??!!"
At this point, all Eliza could do was just roll her eyes and move to toss the abomination Evan had created into the trash.
"You only made one cake and your whole body is stained with flour."
Her mutter caused Evan to realise that despite the fact that she had just baked two whole cakes, her hands were the only part of her body stained by anything, and even those were covered in transparent gloves. Her white apron waspletely spotless as well!
Seeing this, Evan grinned mischievously and Eliza felt a chill run down her spine. She immediately tried to put distance between them but Evan was faster.
He grabbed her with one hand while the other grabbed the shortcake she was about to trash before he proceeded to do the ''unimaginable''.
**SPLAT!
"Now, we''re even."
He spoke with a satisfied smile on his lips, but that smile broke in the next second when a bag of salt smacked him in the face.
"Oh my, was that the salt? I meant to use the SUGAR!"
Eliza proceeded to score a hat-trick with three bags of baking sugar to his face, not caring for the fact that they burst open and sprinkled their contents everywhere.
Evan sneezed to get the sugar and salt in his nose out, before looking up at Eliza''s cake-stained face as he spoke.
"Oh, it''s game on now!"