Pandora's question caught me off guard and was speechless after asking it to me.
"Looks like I did hit something. You are indeed hiding something. I was just guessing but it seems you do have something you are hiding," Pandora furrowed her eyebrows.
"I..." I can't even say something to her about this.
"It's fine. People have secrets. And I think that is fine and all since everyone else, including me, also has some secrets we are hiding. But somehow, it seems like the secret you seemed to have been nervous about was related to the Alternate World."
I don't know what to say. These secrets I have are something that I will have to carry until the end of my life and into the grave. I don't want anyone else to know that the timeline has been changed and reveal it to everyone else.
"I'm sorry, but these secrets of mine cannot be shared by anyone and I prefer it stays as my secret. Perhaps once everything is over and we have reached the end of our journey, perhaps, I might have the courage to reveal it someday. But for now, I like to just keep this secret with me for now."
Pandora looked at me with a stare that seems to burn straight into my soul. It's affecting me but not I will prevail and will remain my lips sealed. Then, she smiled and chuckled.
"Is that so? Then I will not pry any longer. From the looks of it, you are not comfortable opening it up and I don't want to pressure you into revealing it. I am just curious but if you don't want to do that, no need to tell me."
Hearing that, I sighed in relief. "Thanks, Pandora. As much as I don't want to keep secrets from everyone, this secret is something that I can't share with anyone so easily. It's a knowledge that I prefer no one else would know aside from the ones who do know. So please, understand."
"Hehe, no wonder you seemed troubled. It seems it has burdened you too much now. But like you just said, I will not pry on your situation. I am not going to care whether it is a big secret or not. If you want to tell it, then tell it, if you want to keep it private then just say so."
She then finishes the cup of coffee she was drinking before she stood up.
"It's getting late and I am getting hungry as well. Let's go inside now."
I nodded in response and went inside the mansion. Pandora, I am sorry about this, but let's prefer it that way.
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And so, we started a new regimen of workouts for us to combat the fatigue in our bodies that will slowly build up every time we fight. We decided to make some stretches and exercises that will benefit us in the long term and also increase our endurance and stamina. Not only that but we decided to do 10 waves of hunting in the Dark Sea as well since we needed to gather materials. It was a tiresome experience but we didn't regret it one bit.
Slowly but surely, we feel the changes and we are slowly progressing. The materials we gathered have also managed to slowly build up the materials and items needed for our plan to remodel the mansion into a walking one and make it work properly thanks to Almira's genius mind.
Due to her teachings and how frequently we are at creating stuff, my Metalworking skill has increased a lot and I am not even expecting to see things like this. I don't have prior experience regarding metalworking aside from the smithing side but seeing this, perhaps I can remodel the Pain Delivery and a few weapons that I can use as a sidearm in battle. After all, there are times that even with the Versatile Weapon, there are times that I needed to use another type of weapon, and with my Metalworking skills increasing day by day, doesn't that mean it would be useful in the future?
A few days passed by and my father and Rika decided to join us for the work.
"Huh? Dad, I thought you wouldn't bother since you don't want to reduce your relaxation time now?" I asked.
"Ha, I have enough relaxing. After quite some time of being idle aside from hunting monsters, I felt that I needed to change my work. I don't want to waste my time and rely on you to make items. I also wanted to increase my proficiency in it too."
"Well, it's a valid reason. And I see you tinker with a few stuff before back then so I think you will be good at this. However, as for you, Rika, I thought you are more into a household choir and some other stuff related to life skills?" I asked Rika who is glancing at our work.
"I know this might sound stupid but I find it fascinating and intriguing to work in metals before. However, I barely have much talent regarding this kind of thing so I was afraid of trying out. But because I also wanted to do something new that I haven't done in my whole life, I was thinking of taking my chances in this. Besides, the more, the better, right?"
Almira who was just listening on the sidelines, chimed in. "There's nothing wrong with trying out things. But in my days when I was still a wee lad and my master is still a bit younger, he was busy with tinkering stuff. When I came in, he didn't teach me anything as he said that I don't have the talent to do it at the moment but because I was also interested in things regarding tinkering, I decided to learn by myself and look at me now, doing things I couldn't have made before. But of course, I have worked hard on it. So even if you don't have talent, just trying won't hurt you. Now, you two are total beginners so you guys should start here. Manato, take care on that side since you already know some things already."
I nodded in response. While working, I took a glance at how they were doing.
Father is quite natural. After a few instructions, he started to tinker on his own and soon managed to do something that I have a few bit of struggles with during the beginning of the training while my father was already able to do it.
Rika on the other hand is a bit behind compared to my father. Compared to him, Rika is learning but she still hasn't caught the basics here and there. She can do a few stuff that Almira taught her and she was slowly learning. She was slow but I already expected that as I was also slow as well. It's expected. Still, I didn't see any disappointment or boredom in Rika's face which means she was enjoying the experience.
Almira soon dismissed them after we ran out of materials to use. And I can see Almira's big grin.
"Seeing two additional people join in for the work is making me happy. Perhaps we can finish this a lot faster than expected. And I must say, I am impressed with you Sir. You have the talent for this and you are good at doing it."
Father became bashful as he was praised. He is usually like this whenever someone praises him. "Ah, no it's nothing. It's just that I do it sometimes which might be the reason I managed to do better.
"I still see promise in your ability though. If you want to do it again, we are always open to your help. Anyways, as for you Rika-chan, you might just be starting but I can see the spark of motivation and a bit little talent peeking through you. Although you don't seem to have much talent for it, it seems you are not that bad at it. I can understand that as you are just starting. But if you keep this up, you will be able to do much better in no time. Don't worry as you didn't do anything bad, in fact, you did good. Makes me remember my younger days."
Rika was surprised but she smiled and nodded. "I will work hard once more later, please take care of me."
Due to this, Father and Rika both learned Metalworking skills. Father immediately leveled his metalworking skills to level 2 while Rika is still at level 1 but she is halfway to level 2.
"Looks like I didn't make a mistake trying it out, thanks, Son, you inspired me to also do something as well."
"Yes, seeing you able to do something, we also thought that it would be best if we could also help out as well. Without our technologies present here, doing this will slowly replace my interests in things that I couldn't do in real life," Riko added.
In the end, the two became the new metalworking apprentices of Almira. Perhaps the two of them would become more capable in metalworking than me, but who knows? We are just beginning. And we have yet to move from that point just yet.
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