EXTRA CHAPTER - MELSTRAN'S CONCERNS

-- Melstran's POV --

"Geez... Come on Ragna, try a little harder!"

"Easy for you to say, Vel!"

Seeing these kids playing at my courtyard somehow felt that they are the pots of gold in my life.

It gives me a second chance of being a parent.

A few years had passed by and many things had occurred in my life. Most of them were weird...

Let's start from Velthoenne.

Ever since she came here, it felt like we have an additional member in our family.

She is smart, beautiful, and funny. Her shyness fades away as time goes by. The current her would now open up to us adults.

Currently she is living with us, Duke Nelke give me the permission to shelter his daughter after receiving the report where we manage to save the princess from the hands of the criminals. The situation in Strauer Kingdom is still in the balance, with war between successors still going on.

My daughter Yufa is very fond of her. Somehow I could see how she wanted to have a second child, a daughter of her own.

But because she's having difficulty of getting pregnant, Ronan and her can't beget another child.

It scarred my daughter deeply but seeing her how she put much attention to Velthoenne, it made me feel at ease.

Speaking of the princess, I don't know why but she was spouting about becoming a Crusader every time I asked her about what she wanted in the future.

When I ask her about it, she would answer me with--

"It is a class born from the marriage of a Knight and a Cleric, a Magic Knight so to speak. One that could combine the effectiveness of a Knight's melee capabilities with a Cleric's healing, range and support abilities."

"Really? That looks like a weird person to me."

"Not really grandpa. Actually I like the idea, it felt like a powerful existence to me."

"Where did you get this idea?"

"Ragna told me. He said that class would suit me very well."

Haa... that grandson of mine, putting nonsense in the mind of Duke Nelke's daughter.

Really, a class with both capabilities of a Knight and a Cleric...

I never heard such a thing.

Now speaking about the culprit, that grandson of mine.

Strictly speaking, he's the one that brought change and wonder not only to me but also to the people living in this manor.

Where should I start?

When I heard that he pry opened the basement's sealed door, I was shocked. Ever since I discovered that room I tried every means to disable the restriction spell but couldn't yet he manage to disable it in his first try.

Really what is this kid?

Also there was this specific day when he introduced this so-called 'solar-ethereal panel' thing to us. As he explained, it is a tool that absorbs both the sun's rays and ether as a source of energy for generating electricity or heating.

At first I was dumbstruck, to tell you the truth I wasn't able to understand every single bit of it.

When I asked about electricity, he said that it is a small version of lightning.

Small version, huh.

"Don't worry grandpa, this will lit up our house during night time."

Or so he said. Because I was curious what this weird rectangular pieces of metal would do, we helped him mounted it on the rooftop.

From above, one could tell that we have an otherworldly rooftop design.

After that he mounted a huge cylindrical thing at the backyard which he called a 'power collector' which would, as he explained, store excess energy for later use.

Then inside the house, he placed a small rectangular metal box he called 'circuit breaker', some 'switches' and a handful of 'fluorescent light tubes'.

The people living inside the manor began to think that Ragna become an ill-minded child. I thought so too but...

When night time came, the house was lit up with these thing called 'fluorescent light tubes'. Every corner inside the house had light.

That event made everyone of us dumbfounded. Everyone of us looked at him with eyes asking 'how is this possible?' or something similar to that.

It made everyone of us unable to sleep for some time due to the shock.

After a month, he introduce a few of his so-called 'inventions'. Even I don't know where that word came from.

First off, was this 'pressure cooker'. He said that it is similar to a cooking pot but much convenient and advance.

At first I was hesitant about it. It looked like a weird cauldron used for alchemy to me.

But what surprise me is that it took only 20 minutes for this 'pressure cooker' to tenderize a lump of meat that ordinarily would took 3 hours in firewood! Aside from that it can be used to cook almost all of foods.

Second, is this 'refrigerator' or 'fridge' as he called it. It's purpose is to 'refrigerate' or store food by refrigeration or using ice.

When I heard its uses, I was shock. Really, how could this thing create ice inside? Although my grandson explained it to me in detail, I couldn't grasp the entirety of it.

Then they were others like the 'stove' and 'oven'. Because of this weird phenomena happening in my life the words would came out from my mouth everytime he introduce strange things to us was,

"What kind of sorcery is this!?"

Aside from this, he introduced also this strange foods like pizza, donuts, leche flan, halo-halo, hamburgers and other foods that we never heard or seen before.

But I could attest that every food that he introduced to us were very delicious, especially that pizza.

One time I confronted him where did he get his ideas,

"It came to me by a dream."

He calmly said that to me without flinching. I was lost for words for a second.

I really wanted to crack his head open and see how his mind works. It's like his an entity that is hard to comprehend and understand yet not.

Really does his knowledge came from the gods? Or during that time when he was in a vegetative state?

Maybe he is blessed by the gods...

I don't know the answer myself very well but one thing I'm sure, Ragna would bring change to this entire world.

What heights would he achieve after ten years? twenty years? I could only help myself by daydreaming and guessing.

I hope that I'm still alive when that time comes.