"I'll fry the little devils!" Flora groaned fifteen minutes later and pushed a snowflake off her head.

As the door had closed behind Isabella, the mini elementals scattered into the eight cardinal points. To be more exact, in a flowerbed in every direction.

Immediately afterward, Kaytsak had demanded to be banished. Flora received the vague impression that he was an older brother and had experience with baby elementals and dodging babysitting duty.

Flora summoned Bliz instead, which might have been a mistake. Now she had eight overexcited icy babies and one overexcited icy adolescent. She hadn't realized it before, but all her elementals didn't feel like adults, more like teenagers.

Basically, Flora had channeled repair the entire time.

The elementals grew bored with random destruction and switched to another favorite pastime of weak individuals, bullying. Bliz laid on the frozen floor, and five snowflakes danced on her. One crawled on Flora's head, but she flung it away with telekinesis, and now, the others had recognized Flora's hair as a worthy challenge.

"Gather some snow, Golly. These poor evil babies have no constructive way to channel their energy. We will build a playground."

While Golly packed the snow into a ramp, Flora coated the top with ice.

!

!

Flora threw the smurf to the ramp, and it slid down.

Bliz transmitted pleading, cool emotions.

"Sure, dear. Test it out."

Ignoring the three snowflakes that had attached themselves to her, Bliz hurried up the slide.

Flora stretched the upper part of the slide to the hedge, then she curved it back to the garden and used the E-rated Wood as the final pillar and ladder.

Enthusiastically, Bliz and the snowflakes scaled the tree trunk. Only the smurf had problems. It could use its icy cap like a hook to hold itself and even swing, but a passing snowflake shoved it, and it had to start from the bottom again.

Flora levitated Smurfy to the top of the slide and told Bliz to look out for it.

One of the Snowflakes rammed into Flora's legs and scaled her robe. She caught it and tickled its liquid core. "So, you think you can get a shortcut by bothering me."

The cute snowflake squirmed in Flora's arms, and the water in the core bobbed up and down, which Flora interpreted as 'yes'.

"Wrong, sweety!" Flora moved it to the other end of the garden.

Next, Flora built a seesaw out of a bale of snow and an ice-plank. Smurfy loved it because, with its superior weight, it could finally bully the snowflakes back− at least until they convinced Bliz to come over to their side and leave Smurfy stranded high in the air.

Flora created an arc out of ice and used ropes from her inventory, tied to an ice bowl, to make a swing.

Finally, Flora could lean back and watch the children play. The slide was still the most popular toy, but now and then, one of the bigger snowflakes would go to the other two, and suddenly, the swing or seesaw would be contested territory.

Smurfy used those short phases to attempt to climb the ladder of the slide. It nearly reached the top one time, but then a snowflake with sharp jags hurried up just to shove it down.

The flowerbeds still hadn't lost their attraction to the unruly infants, but now Flora banished every destructive baby to the opposite end of the garden, and her repair load sank.

Flora enjoyed the peace. She remembered Robby's terrible twos and frantic fours, and somehow, her eagerness for grandchildren decreased.

Not five minutes later, one of the snowflakes decimated two flowers. Flora was pretty sure it was the same one that pushed Smurfy because she recognized its sharp spikes. She levitated Jaggy to the other end of the garden, but the punk cartwheeled through the flowerbeds to return to the playground. So, Flora banished it again… with the same result.

"Golly, hold Jaggy tight. I'm building a time-out corner."

Flora cleared a circle, surrounded it with tiny flames, and sat Jaggy in the middle.

"Listen up, dear babies. You are forbidden to destroy the Dean's flowerbeds. Anybody who destroys a flower will be banished into−" Flora paused for dramatic effect. "The Flaming Hell Prison!"

Flora pushed her mana into the flames, and they flared up from candlelight to Tikki torches. All the infants took a step back.

"Did you learn the lesson?" Flora asked Jaggy.

Its liquid core bobbed up and down frantically, which was enough for Flora to release it. She ordered Golly to be the jailer and assigned him Repair and Telekinesis.

Now, Flora had time to learn all the other elements for Conjure Element and even integrate the Summoner skills with the Driver skills.

The elementals still approached her often, but now they wanted to show off their might. The snowflakes cartwheeled, and Flora praised them. Smurfy attempted one, but his frozen cap hindered it.

"Maybe you could try a backflip instead, dear?" Flora showed it how to flatten itself to jump high. When it mastered the technique, Flora demonstrated how to spin in the air. After a few tries, the little smurf was able to front and backflip, which dazzled its peers.

Flora was impressed by Smurfy when she saw it using the technique to scale the slide on its own. Playfully, she pulled its hat towards her and made it sway like the Stehaufmännchen. Air bubbles rose in its drop-shaped body. Flora felt it was its way of giggling.

When Dean Isabella Ghiaccio returned, the elementals played harmoniously, the Flaming Hell Prison was empty, and the flowerbeds pristine.

First, the Dean inspected Flora's remodeling of her garden with raised eyebrows, but gradually she relaxed. "Maybe flowerbeds aren't the most child-friendly form of garden ornaments."

Flora said nothing and just nodded.

"I like it. You used only Conjure Ice for it, right? Do you mind if I make your changes permanent?"

"Not at all," Flora answered. Her greedy side complained about the air infused wood and the ropes, but her rational side reminded her that those items were just pocket money, and it was totally worth it to give them up for the cute elementals.

Hidden Quest completed: Babysitting Hybrid Ice-Water Elementals

Reminder: Don't share the contents of a hidden quest.

Reward: Variant for Summon Elemental: Summon Hybrid Elemental

Additional Reward: One harvesting permit for an ice-infused Oaktree as compensation for used materials.

Difficulty: C

Rating: S

Flora grinned sheepishly when she read the additional reward. The System or the dean didn't short change her.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" The dean asked out of nowhere.

"Yes, thank you. I have an appointment in an hour, but a cup would be nice." Flora didn't expect the invitation at all.

When the dean brought ice tea and a plate with caramelized fruits, Flora knew that the lady had a sweet tooth and fetched some Nutella toasts out of her inventory. She introduced it as an Earthling specialty. This led to a chat about local cuisine.

When Smurfy came to Flora and pressed its hat into her hand to get tumbled, they switched to children, childrearing, their own kids, and boasting about them.

"My daughter hasn't inherited my talent for ice at all. No wonder, she is a Fireling like her father. I'm sure she'll make her way, she is already a professor at the Halls of Magic, but it would be nice to see more of my interests live on."

"I know exactly what you mean. My son isn't drawn to engineering at all. Sure, he has built up his company from scratch, so it's nice to see him succeed in his own field. However, just like you said, sometimes…"

Shamelessly, the two elder ladies humble bragged until even Golly couldn't look straight at them.

When the time to go came, Isa invited her back, and Flora accepted. She had fun. The infant elementals assembled for a group hug around Flora and Bliz. Jaggy and Smurfy had to be levitated away because they didn't want to let go of Flora.

Because time was tight, Flora didn't look for an S-rated ice infused tree. Instead, she jogged to the metal domain of the forest. After combing through the shiny, angular trees, she found only one S-rated tree. An angry elemental guarded it again.

Cleared infected trees: 25/25

Harvested healthy trees: 3/5

"Milady, we have a situation with the training boxes," Aidan said as Flora ran south to the earth domain because she didn't want to waste her contingent on subpar trees. "People return them and want refunds."

"Oh, dear. We should have expected that, now that the exploit doesn't work anymore. Stop the production of the boxes immediately. What is the refund policy in the Cetviwos?"

"If the product is faulty, you have one week to demand a refund. In any case, at least one day. Medium and big shops may offer credit, whereas all other shops have to directly pay back the customer. We count as a small shop. I already refunded 100 boxes."

"Do we have enough savings? I spent some on the Mover and materials, but I believe it was more than a day ago. Oh, no all the containers I have bought! Good, that I was too preoccupied to go on a major shopping spree."

"Yes, Milady, thanks to the sales of the Multitool-Scepter, we have barely enough if everyone wants a refund."

"I wouldn't have thought that we are that tight with money. However, I don't think everybody is so shameless. There are always some people who return the gown the day after the ball, but I refuse to believe they are a majority. What can we do to count as a medium shop? I prefer to give them a voucher. Although the margin of profit on the boxes was godly, with them only using tier 0 materials. It will be hard to design a comparable product."

"We have to offer at least 100 different products. We fulfill the other requirements for a medium shop, like sales numbers. At the moment, our portfolio includes two boxes and eighteen rune schemes, two toasters, five skins, and the Mulitool-Scepter, that’s 28 products."

"Alright. Let's add the Rat-Climb, give Aito half of the profit for its sales because she designed it, and the acid-pool. Include the household appliances I created to raise the printer's rating and the three robots for Evailyn's quest. Can we cheat by providing different designs for the Spring Rolling Coins?"

"No, Milady, that would only count as different versions of the same product."

"Nonetheless, add them and all the elemental foci, too. Exclude the Onyx Lightning. Price everything with T0 materials like the boxes, and we overcharge everything with T1 materials until I have time to review them." Flora bombed the trail of mushrooms and elementals she had collected. "It's time to start our toast business."

Flora surveyed the earth domain with Astral Vision while she talked to Aidan. "First, we'll test every A and S-rated bread with every toaster we have. We start with four toppings: cheese, peanut butter, chocolate, and jam−use the cheapest A and S-rated. That should be enough combinations to fill in the missing slots. Notify me, if we need more. Price them so that they have a similar margin to the boxes. Please include reviewing their performance, stats, and prices on my to-do list."

"Yes, Milady."

Finally, she found the sole S-rated specimen and harvested it after defeating its guardian.

Cleared infected trees: 25/25

Harvested healthy trees: 4/5

"The respawn rate for the trees is one hour according to the forum, Milady. The S-rated wind infused tree might have reappeared."

"It doesn't have to grow?"

"Not according to the forum."

Flora shrugged and ran all the way back to the north of the bay. The tree's former place was still empty, but she spotted the angry guard in the distance and next to it a brand new S-rated tree.

Cleared infected trees: 25/25

Harvested healthy trees: 5/5

Of course, Flora didn't hand in her harvest when she finished the quest. Even if she wanted, she couldn't because she left one of the trees at the Dean's garden as the slide's ladder.