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Yui Yuigahama worriedly picked up the small snake from the ground, which seemed to have been thoroughly shaken up. After checking it over and confirming it wasn't injured, she finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Meanwhile, the bristling Gokou Ruri also managed to calm down—most people would instinctively shake their hand if a snake suddenly crawled onto their arm. The level of horror is second only to a flying cockroach crawling on you.
She trembled with anger, both from the lingering fear of being startled and from the displaced anger at her own loss of composure in front of Asakura: "Can't you control your snake properly!"
"Sorry, most of the time Napoleon acts on its own. Although I can control its movements if I concentrate, it's very tiring and I can't maintain it for a long time..."
Yui Yuigahama quickly apologized: "But Napoleon is very well-behaved and won't hurt anyone casually."
Kuroneko looked at her and the limp small snake in her hand with suspicious eyes.
"It's not that it's well-behaved, but rather that you unconsciously gave the command 'do not harm others,'" Asakura interjected, "Generally speaking, there are two ways to control a familiar: one is to give a vague command verbally or telepathically, and different familiars will understand and execute it based on their own intelligence. The other is what you mentioned, completely controlling its every move, which is essentially taking over its consciousness."
"Is...is that so?" Yui Yuigahama tilted her head, not quite understanding.
"Feeling mentally exhausted from completely taking over its consciousness is due to insufficient integration," Asakura continued, "Further training is needed."
"Then how do I train it? Coach!" Yui Yuigahama asked excitedly.
"We'll talk about that later. Before that, how is your integration with your familiar? Has it had any unnecessary impact on your daily life?" Asakura asked.
"No, Napoleon is well-behaved and smart, and not just that—"
Yui Yuigahama said happily, pulling out a transparent plastic bag the size of a baby's fist from her pocket, filled with irregularly shaped small cookies.
Gokou Ruri noticed that while Asakura showed no expression, his body seemed to tense up suddenly, and his posture changed from casually sprawling on the sofa to sitting upright, as if his body instinctively reacted to be able to escape danger at any moment.
"You haven't delivered your homemade cookies yet?"
"It's complicated. I guess I'm still a bit unconfident about my baking skills, or perhaps my state of mind isn't up to par yet..."
"It's mainly that the food safety isn't up to par, isn't it?"
"That's not true," the girl complained, "These past few days, I've had Napoleon help me taste test... Oh no, I mean taste!"
You just said taste test!
Perhaps sensing Asakura's glaring attack, the girl chuckled, trying hard to justify herself: "Although at first Napoleon would flip over after eating, the batches baked since yesterday have been fine, it even wags its tail at me after eating!"
"I wish you would have mentioned this when we were in the Service Club room."
Asakura sighed.
After all, back then, Yukino Yukinoshita could help with the taste testing.
Hmm, come to think of it, it seems he's not the only victim in the Association Clubroom now.
"What's wrong?" Noticing Asakura's gaze on her, Gokou Ruri asked curiously.
"Nothing." Asakura smiled politely, then pondered how to get Gokou Ruri to eat the cookies first.
Perhaps to strengthen the persuasiveness of her words, this time Yui Yuigahama didn't directly let Asakura and the others taste test. Instead, after shaking the small snake awake, she first gave the small snake a cookie.
The small snake swallowed the cookie, which was bigger than its head, in one gulp, then obediently wagged its tail at Yui Yuigahama.
Because it behaved so unusually meek and well-behaved, even Gokou Ruri's gaze towards the small snake lost its initial wariness, becoming more like observing a pet.
..."So, the taste buds of snakes are that pathetic, huh?" Asakura remarked with emotion.
"That's not true at all. Asakura-kun is a bit mean," Yui Yuigahama puffed out her cheeks.
She was clearly older than Gokou Ruri—both in age and other aspects—but she acted much more childish than Gokou Ruri. However, because she was cute, it was fine.
"That's just how it is. It's like if someone who can heartily devour fermented herring tells you a certain dish is delicious, you'd be suspicious, wouldn't you?" Gokou Ruri firmly stood with Asakura: "Snakes themselves like to eat raw mice and such, their sense of taste is quite unreliable."
"Then you two try eating them yourselves."
Saying this, Yui Yuigahama handed the cookies in her hand to Asakura and Gokou Ruri.
Asakura carefully examined it for a moment and came to a preliminary conclusion: putting aside the taste for now, judging by the weight in hand and the size of the cookie itself, this cookie would likely be quite—
"So hard..."
Gokou Ruri, whose teeth ached from the impact, pinched the cookie and looked at its perfectly intact surface, without even a tooth mark. She immediately doubted the very definition of a cookie: "It feels more like biting a small pebble than a cookie."
"Hmm, actually, I was planning to call them 'Rock Cakes' and make them into a series," Yui Yuigahama said earnestly.
"It's not a naming issue, and I feel like you'll go bankrupt, so stop it!"
Asakura retorted.
But then he became slightly curious about the small snake that could apparently relish such a cookie: "Yuigahama, let me see your familiar."
"Go, Napoleon! Use Hydro Pump!"
Asakura: "..."
Stop playing, Napoleon will cry.
Taking the small snake handed over by the girl, Asakura directly pinched it at what seemed to be its seven-inch mark, and with his other hand, pried open its mouth, deeply inserting his finger.
I see.
He had a rough assessment in his mind.
"Do you remember that space from before?" she asked Yui Yuigahama.
"I definitely won't forget it until I can eat toffee and French caramel almond brittle," the girl replied with a troubled expression, "But didn't it collapse?"
"That's right, although it's not complete yet, that space has regenerated," Asakura said, pinching the snake's seven-inch mark and handing it back to the girl, "It's inside this guy's belly."
It would be better if he could confirm it with Truth Vision, but firstly, Asakura hated the feeling of a red-hot iron rod being inserted into his eye socket and stirred around in his brain, and secondly, this wasn't a dangerous situation for now. Letting the girl slowly develop it herself might deepen her bond with her familiar.
"The cookies you fed it, it didn't eat a single one; they were all thrown into that space."
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