I'm such a good kid!

Once Lauren had finished setting out the tea, the other three sat down across from me.

"It's not something we'd discuss in front of the child. We'll save that talk for later... Now then, now then, I've prepared some sweets for you!"

The others chuckled at the sweets shoved right in front of my face. Lauren was clearly insisting they were meant just for me.

I didn’t notice, heart racing with excitement—this was my first time encountering sweets in this world.

This place doesn’t have much of a developed food culture. Sweets are mostly simple, rustic things.

The staple food of the Tembar Kingdom is wheat, and bread. Sweets haven’t really developed either—more like the medieval era back on Earth.

Sweets are usually baked for celebrations, made only in churches or noble houses, and rarely eaten outside of those occasions.

Most of the sweets made were simple—mainly flour, with a touch of eggs, cheese, and spices added.

It was clear what was laid out before me: something resembling a galette de roi in shape.

Galettes come in all sorts of forms. There’s the cookie-style galette bretonne, and other Breton-style galettes, which are the ancestors of crêpes.

The most famous type is a thin, round pastry folded in half, stuffed with eggs, ham, cheese, bacon—then folded again on all sides to form a square.

Lauren cut it open. The piece placed before me looked incredibly shiny.

Since my reincarnation, I hadn’t eaten a single sweet. Or rather, spirits don’t really need food. I had human blood in me, so I had to eat a little. My father, of course, needed food. That’s just how it is.

The spirits, too, occasionally lap at flower nectar or nibble on fruit. But just a little bit is enough.

Since Father and I need proper meals, we sometimes go to the human world to eat.

I must’ve been caught with my eyes gleaming. I realized it when I noticed the adults watching me—smiling like I was some kind of silly child.

Oh no, I thought. This is Grandma testing me again. I froze.

Sit up straight. Snap into position. Act like I don’t care about sweets at all.

...Too late, probably.

“Oh? What’s this? Getting all serious now?”

Mother tilted her head. Grandma, noticing, said, “You can eat, dear,” and nudged me gently.

After Isabella took a sip of tea, I picked up my fork. Lauren, watching, nodded with a quiet, “Well done, then.”

“Are table manners the same in the Spirit World?”

“No~ spirits don’t eat much, so it’s kind of pointless. They don’t even gather to eat. Did you teach her that?”

Mother asked Father, who replied, “I didn’t teach her anything like that.”

I had no idea adults were having this conversation at all—I was too busy savoring my first treat in this world.

(Ohhh sweet!!)

I felt oddly happy knowing there was sugar in this.

The galette had layers like a croissant, and as I chewed, a simple, homespun sweetness spread through my mouth.

I was enjoying it slowly, bit by bit, when I suddenly noticed every adult’s eyes were locked on me.

I panicked—had I done something wrong? My face turned pale, and I flustered, staring at the adults’ faces.

“Haa~… How adorable. I never thought someone could look so sweet while eating…”

I was stunned, staring at Isabella as she cooed, "Mmm~... How adorable. I never thought someone could look so sweet while eating..."

(No, no, she's just a kid—her mouth is tiny, that's all!!)

My flustered reaction seemed to only make Lauren and Isabella's cutesy antics even more endearing, and I found myself pulling back a little.

Maybe it's just something that happens around here—my father does it too, sometimes.

"Come on, Elen-chan, open up... aah~"

Isabella offered me a bite, speared on her fork.

I reflexively gaped open my mouth—then, *kyaaah~ so cute!*—a high-pitched squeal erupted.

"Mother, feeding her like a baby is fine, but if you keep this up, dinner won’t fit in at all. Neither Elen nor I are eating much as it is."

"What?!"

I was just about to close my mouth mid-"aah," when Isabella suddenly flicked the fork away—*paku!*—and I snapped it shut.

"..."

"..."

I hadn’t expected to be left behind—my eyebrows drooped into an instant eight, and Isabella collapsed in a fit.

“Ahah, sorry, Elen-chan! But you’re just too adorable when you’re sad, you know?!”

Father, mother, and Sauvel couldn’t help but shake with laughter at the sudden turn.

Lauren just smiled like always, as if everything I did was utterly charming.

“Well, that aside… What now? Should I help out with the business? I’d prefer not to join the knight’s order, if possible.”

“Brother, you really mean it? You’ll help us?!”

Sauvel latched onto Lovell’s words like a starving man.

“With Orl and Elen here, I can’t stay. I’m planning to commute from the other side.”

“Oh? So you and Lovell aren’t staying here?”

“Circumstances, you see. My wife can’t remain in the human world for long stretches.”

“Oh… really?”

Origin smiles at Isabella’s question like it’s nothing at all.

“With me around, my power’s too strong for the human world. I hold the force of abundance—this whole area could turn into a forest in an instant. So I’ll be heading back soon. Oh, Elen’s fine, though.”

Hearing Origin’s words, Isabella suddenly declares, “You’re staying the night, okay?”

(…Wait, that’s already decided…?)

“Yeah, good idea. You should enjoy the human world once in a while, Elen.”

I glare at Papa, who says it all so casually.

“Since Papa’s being such a clingy little thing, I’m staying the night!”

I did you a favor by reading the room—pfft, I’m brilliant, right?—and Papa sighs, “You’re too clever for your own good!”

＊＊＊

Every now and then, I’m interrupted mid-bite—my mouth full of cake, mmm, mmm—while the adults’ conversation hums along in the easygoing air.

“听说艾伦是精灵？那是什么 kind of spirit? A flower spirit, maybe?”

Before I can even finish my tea, the question comes flying in—right on cue. Oh no. I can feel it. I’m being sized up! I tense up instinctively.

Is it okay to explain this to Isabella, who’s asking so casually? I glance at Mother, and she just smiles, “It’s fine.”

“I govern the elements.”

“…Elements?”

“Well, you know how things break apart or split in half, right?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“So if you keep breaking them over and over again… eventually they turn into dust. Then you crush them even more—until they’re smaller than anything you can see. When they can’t split anymore… that’s what an element is.”

“…So tiny, really?”

I felt like I had to rush and explain, even though it seemed like such a small thing.

(If I don’t show I’m capable, just like grandma said I should!)

"Um, well, mine’s the fundamental structure of all things—elements that can’t be split further, or substances made only of atoms with the same atomic number, like..."

The adults around me just stared, slack-jawed.

Oh no. This one’s impossible to explain properly.

"Ah, how about this!"

I decided to explain using a diamond—just like the one I used at my parents’ wedding.

"This is carbon. It’s just charcoal."

I said, pulling out a lump of charcoal about the size of a child’s palm. The adults gasped at the sudden appearance of the black stone.

"There are three types of carbon... Depending on how the elements are arranged, you get amorphous carbon, graphite, and diamonds."

"Charcoal... and diamonds?!"

Sauvel’s face twisted in surprise.

"Meaning carbon and diamond are the same thing. Just different arrangements of the same substance."

"What... what are you saying... charcoal... as in...?"

"I heard it from my daughter, but even I can't wrap my head around it—so I get why you're shocked."

"We spirits take the essence of things for granted. Explaining it to humans? That's a real challenge."

Mother chuckles.

"I'm the spirit who governs these materials, so I can manipulate their structure at will. Like this."

In an instant, the palm-sized lump of charcoal in her hand transformed into a raw diamond.

Isabella, Lauren, and Sauvel are speechless.

"This is a raw diamond."

I hand it to Sauvel. He stares, wide-eyed, flipping back and forth between me and the stone, over and over.

In the silent room, while I was eating cake and my parents sipped their tea with elegant calm, it was finally Sauvel who broke the stillness.

"...So you can just... summon minerals whenever you want?"

"Can do. Yes, gold."

With a thump, he dumped a mountain of ingots onto the table, then stacked them into a pyramid with a solid *gonk-gonk-gonk!* Each thud echoed the weight, and Sauvel and the others were utterly speechless again.

Incidentally, each ingot was precisely one kilogram—no more, no less.

"Wha—?!"

"Didn’t I say? I don’t want to show this off."

Father chuckled, shaking his head with a sigh.

My cheat was discovered when I was two. It started when I accidentally reshaped matter through structural reconfiguration—started making things out of thin air.

"See? What if the royal family found out?"

When Father asked for agreement, Isabella, Lauren, and Sauvel nodded vigorously, over and over.