"Hey, I’m just asking this but what presents did you guys get for Lucy? I wanna make sure we don’t have any repeat gifts."
"You sure it’s not because you want to steal ideas from us?"
Noelle ignored that light banter from them. For she already knew. She had the best gift.
Not that it was a competition or anything, but if it was. Then she would win.
"I don’t need your ideas. I already have the best idea."
The seven of them, Raymond, Ellen, Noelle, Thomas, Zachary, Arthur and Lin Qingyi. Were all currently sitting around a round table, discussing on an extrely important upcoming event.
That being Lucy’s birthday.
Just so you know, they had to do this almost once every two months each year just for each of their birthdays. So this was routine behavior at this point.
Well, except for Thomas and Audrina. Thomas participated when it ca to giving gifts, but he didn’t exactly have a birthday. Sa thing with Audrina, who didn’t participate in either gift giving or celebrating.
Even when they bought her presents. Quite hurtful honestly.
She didn’t celebrate her own birthday that is. Thomas managed to find a way to drag her out of her bed each ti. No matter how hard she glared at him, he remained as insistent as ever. She just remained gloomy and glary the whole ti. Her only words said being about wanting to go back and sleep.
To be fair, she had glared at each of them hard enough to turn water into ice the mont they brought up the idea to her. So maybe she didn’t really enjoy her own birthday...
"Wait. Guys, raise your hands if your present is related to her pets."
Six of them imdiately raised their hands up in the air, with the exception of Lin Qingyi.
"Lin, is the present that you bought for Lucy related to her pets?"
"Yes."
"Raise your hand."
Now all seven of them had their hands up. Arthur’s impromptu question imdiately pointing out the glaring issue.
"Keep your hands raised if your present is pet food."
"..."
"..."
Both Raymond and Ellen turned to stare at each other.
Damn, and they were the only ones who had bought pet food as a gift as well.
"Raymond? You too? I expected better."
"Dude, Lucy has like forty pets I think this will help with how much points she spends on them."
"It’s only Sparky and Vesper that are expensive. Plus Cador always shares his points with her."
Taking inspiration from Ellen’s strategy of moving into Raymond’s apartnt. Lucy had now fully renovated her own apartnt into basically a zoo at this point. Choosing to reside in Cador’s apartnt instead. More butterfly effects of his presence he supposed. Although Lucy entering the academy was already a butterfly effect.
Plus, Lucy and Cador actually had a normal relationship of pet and owner. Not like his and Ellen, which was more like...pet and owner...
No! If anything, they were just roommates was all!
With Raymond and Ellen outed, Arthur focused his attention onto Thomas and Zachary.
"If your present is so sort of animal toy raise your hand."
Bang. Bang.
Another two out, both Thomas and Zachary shafully raising their hands.
"How are you managing to read us so easily? I can understand the very first one but how’d you know and Thomas got animal toys?"
He waved his hand, "You guys are just too easy to read."
Getting animal food was the bottom rung option for soone like Lucy, getting animal toys for their pets would be the middle rung option.
"Wait actually. Raymond, can you ask Lin what she got? I don’t think she understood anything."
"Yes. I know."
"What present did you buy for Lucy?"
"Bird...thing. Bird food. Bird eat."
She struggled to get a few words out, gesturing at her own mouth. Before eventually giving up and turning to Raymond.
"How do I say animal feeder? The automatic ones for birds."
"She got Lucy an automatic bird feeder."
"That’s actually pretty good. Not bad Lin."
"What about you Noelle?"
"I got a saddle for Vesper."
Now that was a truly luxurious present. Only possible because of the money that she had, and not the points.
"Custom made for her size, it’s enchanted to never fall off, and was made by so of the finest leather workers available."
"How do you know her size?"
"She’s almost the sa as ."
A saddle for Vesper, that was actually a really good gift idea now that he thought about it.
Lucy didn’t really get to fight alongside her pets currently, choosing to instead fuse with them and gain their abilities. In the future however, such a gift would be invaluable for her.
***
"Surprise!"
Lucy recoiled slightly at the sudden noise and lights. Seeing them all wearing cone hats with magical party poppers in their hands, she gave them all a confused glance.
"Shouldn’t you be doing this at night? Why now when it’s barely even the afternoon?"
"It wouldn’t really be a surprise now would it."
They already knew it was her birthday, and doing it at night was an easy way for her to predict it in advance.
That aside, staring at the massive box in her hands. They clearly weren’t the first ones to get her presents yet. There were also several other small piles of items laying around in her apartnt, indicative of the gifts she bad been receiving throughout the day.
Arthur was the first to ask, "Whose gift is that? It looks like you can barely lift it."
"My dad’s. Help bring this inside will you?"
Lucy was still a ’mage’ who had ford circles rather then undergo temperings after all, her strength only ca when she activated her Art. Without it, she was only slightly stronger then the average person.
With Thomas helping to lift one side, they barely managed to squeeze the box through her front door. Any bigger and either the wall needed removing, or the present needed to be squished.
"Whew. Thanks, but also can this wait until after I’m done showering? I just got back from training so I’m all dirty right now."
This was a very anticlimactic surprise birthday if Raymond had to say so.
Ahem, but Ellen was right next to him and the last ti he spoke his mind was when he asked her whether she could even defeat Zachary.
Fast forwarding into the future slightly, when Lucy finally got done showering. The nine of them gathered around her as she blew her candles and cut into her cake.
Moving onto the gifts however, after randomly picking out one of the gifts and opening it up. She raised an eyebrow at it, turning to Arthur.
"Was this one from you?"
"How could you tell?"
It was a replica plush of Sparky, except it looked...dented? It was barely even recognizable as Sparky.
As Lucy continued to open her presents and thank each of them, Ellen quietly nudged him from behind.
"What?"
"Don’t forget."
"I’ve never even forgotten once!"
Rembering their birthdays was a piece of cake for him.
With his mory, he could still rember every single past birthday that they celebrated in the previous tiline as well. Although they really only celebrated it in the academy. Afterwards, the group briefly split up before reuniting again. At which point however, the ongoing war made it not very suitable to celebrate birthdays. Sotis they weren’t even aware of their own birthdays passing since they were still busy fighting.
Even then, he still docunted it whenever their birthdays occurred.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t actually include it inside his novel each ti a birthday was celebrated.
Sure without Lucy and Cador, it was only the seven of them. But that was still a whopping seven birthdays each year, with the entire novel playing out the events of their first year until the end when they defeated the demon king. That was dozens and dozens of birthdays combined together and if he wrote a dedicated Chapter to each of them everyti it happened. His readers would probably mutiny.
So he wrote one for each, and that was it. Every other ti, it was rely ntioned in passing.
For the first ti in a while, Raymond felt a lot of nostalgia for his past life on Earth.
It may have been worse, or better depending on your point of view. But for Raymond, it was calm and predictable. He didn’t have to deal with demons or fighting. With his main struggles being getting up early enough for work. Even if there was no one to welco him back ho, like a certain red dragon did every day.
Hmm...but abandoning Erin wasn’t sothing he was planning on doing anyti soon.
Raymond didn’t have any actual children, and he technically didn’t really have any real obligation to take care of Erin, or Anna. They weren’t even his real children after all. The reason for him doing so was purely because...well even Raymond didn’t know why himself.
"Here."
Raymond was broken out of his pondering by the sa voice and person. Smiling as she handed him a slice of cake.
"Thanks."
"You looked a bit distracted. Were you really thinking about my birthday so seriously?"
He smiled back, "Guess?"
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