Strawberry Devil in a Fantasy World

"You'll be making beverages with me. It's quite simple."

And so, I explained to Smoothie the basics of fermentation and how that applied to what I desired.

"You're just making use of my ability though... No?" She asked.

Always the smart cookie, as expected.

After a pause, she added cheerfully, "But I'm okay with it! I'm ready whenever you are!"

"Oh, that's good."

I produced several bottles of strawberry flavored sweet water. Obviously, there were neither fungi nor bacteria in anything I created. This was where Smoothie came in handy, that was, to search for appropriate microbes and added them in these drinks to ferment the sugar properly.

"Now, it's your turn."

My gaze landed on her only for her to return that same gaze.

"I need mana."

"No massage this time." I answered her flatly.

"Aww... I didn't even ask though!"

Since she was cute even with her pouty sad face, I decided on just a regular hug.

Who wouldn't want to hug a cute little fairy? This was a real fairy, not like Vorte that old crumbly man. Fairies should be small with pretty wings. As for me, I graduated...! Though, if I wished, I could adjust my appearance to some degree. However, whether that new appearance could be considered cute or not was not strictly under my control.

I squeezed her tightly in my arms. At that moment, my hands were itching to lightly pinch her wings, but I held back. My self-control was exemplary to say the least.

After the hug, I examined everything that was transferred to me.

Great, memories were transferred, knowledge acquired. Good, good.

"By the way, what will you evolve into?" I asked. I wasn't that curious but the likelihood of her special ability evolving with her was quite high. If that was the case, I wanted to be the first to know. But to be honest, I was kind of afraid she would obtain an ability similar to mine in terms of authority, that being [creation]. 

"It will be different from yours."

"Obviously, your current one is already different from mine. Tell me something I don't know."

"No! I'll surprise you!"

"Fine, fine. It better be an interesting surprise."

There really wasn't anything interesting for us to do here. To combat that, I created an uncheckered board, 8 by 8. Then I created a total of 126 black and white pieces that could be flipped for either color. Basically, I copied a board game in my previous world. It was a game anyone could learn easily and play.

"Ta-da! I'm amazing, right?"

"A game?"

"Yes, a strategy game! Let me teach you how to play."

There really wasn't much to explain at all. One player used white pieces on top and the other used black pieces on top. Two of them took turns to put down pieces, and opponent pieces that were caught directly in the middle of a move were flipped. Winner was the one with majority of pieces in their own color.

"You lost again. Heheh..." She beamed victoriously.

"Smoothie, stop using that cheat ability! I didn't give you mana for this! Let me win for once! No [soothsayer] or I won't play with you anymore!" I cried out. I definitely wasn't throwing a tantrum because I couldn't beat her even once. Seriously, that ability was a cheat.

"Finee..."

She reluctantly agreed. However, in the following game, it was as if she was purposely trying to lose to me. I nearly got a perfect win and yet I was completely unsatisfied.

Note to self, never play strategy games with Smoothie...

Actually, let me try something more difficult and see how advanced [soothsayer] is with its calculation capabilities. It can't be that powerful, right? There has to be a limit.

"I'm done with this game. Let's play a different one!"

No, I definitely wasn't being a sore loser, not at all! It was calculated loss, kind of.

There was one type of game that would likely throw her off. That would be games of probability. However, if she somehow learned probability manipulation after a few rounds of simple board games then I wouldn't know what to do with her. There were just two of us here after all.

For the new game, I asked her to design it with me after I explained the basic rules. It was a life themed board game where we would roll dices to move our characters or figures. Points could be earned or lost on various tiles. These points would be used to exchange for things like immunities and benefits. Whoever reached the end would win the game. Since we had too much time on our hand at the moment, I decided to have a total of 200 tiles.

Empty tiles were created separately that could connect to each other. To split them evenly, we each took 100 tiles to design.

[Creation] needs word fonts, seriously. I demand you to give me that function.

However, even after I waited for a few minutes, no new function came.

Hmm... Does it need me to add fonts first? Gah, whatever, fonts or not isn't going to change the game.

My handwriting wasn't that pretty even in this world. To be honest, it was already quite a strange feeling to be writing in a language I had never studied. Yet when I was writing these symbols, it also felt quite natural to me.

"Smoothie, don't make them too brutal or too easy."

"Okay."

I took a peek at some of the tiles she wrote.

Someone secretly trimmed your body; lose 5 points.

A thunderstorm appeared; gain 3 points and skip a turn.

You meet a demon and forged a soul contract; return to starting point after 30 turns.

That last one was pretty ominous. Though, the first one I saw sounded familiar to me for some reason. Anyway, I wouldn't want to land on any of those tiles. 

"No peeking!" She tried to hide what she wrote.

"It's called quality assurance! Even Kanako had someone like that when I was creating stuff." I rebutted.

"Fine! I get to peek at yours too!" She argued back.

"Alright."

Most of mine weren't that much better, or rather, they were far worse. In fact, at this rate, the game would be unbeatable.

After she checked my tiles, she exclaimed, "You're such a brute!"

"No I'm not... Uhh... I think we should add more player friendly tiles."

In the end, there were around 50 negative tiles, 90 neutral tiles, and 60 positive tiles. Most of the negative tiles and positive tiles were designed by me whereas Smoothie designed majority of the neutral tiles. Neutral here just meant that they weren't dreadful like skipping a turn or returning to starting point.

"All done!"

It was still too early to celebrate. We had to lay the tiles in their tracks to complete the roadmap.

We each took turns to lay down the tiles. Because certain parts of the roads had to branch off, I had to create directional tiles. Basically, we would roll the dice to determine which path to take. Moving backwards was also possible when it came to those directional tiles.

It somehow became a brutal board game.

Since neither of us had duties or work to attend to, we had plenty of free time. Of course, I knew I still had things I had to do such as following Vorte's advise and whatnot.

I just finished fighting a war; a short breather shouldn't hurt anyone! It was important to separate work from play. If I overworked myself to death, that would be the end of things. No one wanted that, right?