After the temporary gathering ended, everyone left the room.
As the host, Asakura was naturally the last one to go downstairs.
"Yo~ boss-san~"
Behind the bar counter, Momoka was wiping a goblet with a rag, looking quite like a professional bartender, while casting a playful, flirtatious wink at Asakura: "Even though it's not the first time, every time I see you hiding in a room with so many girls not knowing what you're doing, I worry about your body~ in more ways than one."
"No matter what you say," Asakura flipped her a middle finger in irritation, "I am not going to play rock music with you."
"Tch."
Momoka also flipped him a middle finger back.
"Asakura-kun... what is your relationship with those girls?"
Shiina, who was originally cleaning the storefront and seeing this kind of grand display for the first time, was still holding a broom in her hand. She asked with a bit of curiosity and apprehension, then immediately added considerately: "Ah, of course, if it's inconvenient, you don't have to say..."
"There's nothing inconvenient about it, this is just part of our club activities." Asakura replied.
"Club activities?"
Shiina tilted her head in confusion: "What kind of club? Is it a literature club? Exchanging thoughts on books everyone read during the summer vacation on specific days or something? That actually sounds quite interesting."
"No," Asakura shook his head: "It's the Magic Club."
"...?"
The girl had a face that completely read, 'What on earth is that?'
In fact, Asakura originally wanted to answer "Service Club" just to see how the two of them would react, but he felt that explaining it afterward would be too troublesome, so in the end, he didn't say it.
"Kids nowadays all like these things—black magic, skulls, magic circles, and stuff like that, right?" Momoka, on the other hand, didn't care that much and said: "They really just can't grow up."
"Ahaha, I think that's also very... well, childlike innocence. He's a person with a pure heart." Shiina smiled faintly, speaking in a way that made Asakura feel as refreshed as a spring breeze.
"...Mahiru, you must have a lot of boys confessing to you at school." Asakura sighed and said.
"While there are indeed some... but how did Asakura-kun know?" The girl asked with a little nervousness.
Because the way you speak to someone with that kind of gentle smile on your face is simply too lethal to many innocent boys. I'm afraid quite a few people, after being treated so gently, would develop the illusion of 'unless she likes me', and thus be ruled by hormones, letting their brains get hot and confessing to you on a whim.
Asakura didn't answer, but just smiled and shook his head.
"Mahiru, you're just too nice of a person, you don't need to specifically look for nice words to praise the boss boy."
Momoka said with a grin: "You can just directly say it's childish."
"No, you've got it wrong. Our Magic Club is a club specifically dedicated to researching urban legends, spiritual phenomena, and supernatural events."
Asakura rolled his eyes at the disrespectful Momoka, and only then explained to Shiina.
"Then why isn't it called the Supernatural Club?" Shiina asked in bewilderment.
"Because the predecessor of our club was called the Chiba Magic Society." Asakura replied as if it were a matter of course.
"I see... Is it to inherit this name passed down from the senpais? Asakura-kun really is very gentle." Shiina looked at Asakura and said softly.
Asakura smiled without a word.
After all, there were no such things as senpais; the Chiba Magic Society was also created by him.
"Does the boss have anything else to do next?"
Momoka put down the goblet and asked Asakura.
Asakura thought for a moment and replied: "Not really..."
"It just so happens that I've learned a bit of a new bartending technique..."
"Ah! I suddenly remembered that I forgot to do something very important! Sorry, I can't stay with you!"
Asakura slapped his head in a look of sudden realization. Without waiting for Momoka to stop him, he had already sprinted out of the shop in a flash.
"..."
Momoka shook her head with regret, and then her gaze turned back to Shiina, who was cleaning the storefront.
"Mahiru-hiru~"
Shiina: "Eh?! ( ﾟдﾟ);"
☆
After leaving the Rabbit House, Asakura ran to a nearby gold jewelry shop, bought a few small gold bars and silver bricks for collection purposes, and only then returned to his home in a leisurely manner.
Taking out a crucible and putting a small gold bar into the pot, Asakura then activated the magic spell [Candle].
And then the gold bar vanished into ashes.
"Huh?"
Why was it a bit different from what he had anticipated? Even though he had consciously weakened the firepower, the gold bar was still burned away completely, instead of being melted down as he had expected.
Could it be that the targets chosen by the magic spell [Candle] can only be directly burned to ashes? But considering that candles also have candle tears, theoretically, melting things down should be achievable too.
However, Asakura tried a few more times, burning away all the gold bars and silver bricks he bought without succeeding once, only causing his wallet to bleed severely.
Originally, he had also wanted to try making a new Golden Snitch. Although he didn't have the dragon-hide gloves mentioned in the notes, he figured the protective capability of the magic spell [Scale] should be up to the task. In the end, he got stuck before even reaching that step, and now he was completely out of luck.
"Damn it, expensive materials mean the number of experiments is limited... I might as well not consider gold for now and just buy some cheap silver ornaments to experiment with... No, if I just want to 'melt metal', maybe even scrap iron could be used to do similar practice..."
While cleaning up the messy scene after the failed experiment, Asakura muttered to himself, summarizing the reasons for his failure: To be honest, he didn't know the answer to the latter yet, and could only slowly try and filter things out using the control variable method in future trials.
Just as Asakura had finished cleaning up most of the room, a clinking, crisp sound came from the window, as if someone was throwing small stones against his window pane.
Asakura drew back the curtains—obviously, refining the Golden Snitch just now was not something that could be made public with the curtains wide open—and then saw outside the glass window, a tiny golden ball with wings was lightly bumping its body against the glass, making a crisp sound.
It seemed that the Golden Snitch unexpectedly possessed a bit of intelligence: judging by this thing's speed and power, directly smashing through the window to run into the room wouldn't be a difficult task at all.
Asakura grabbed the nimble Snitch in one go, gently opened its cranium, and then saw a slip of paper inside.
The slip of paper was naturally written by Ayase, and on it was an invitation for him to attend her birthday party (Note).
Probably afraid that Asakura wouldn't come, the girl also specially noted that the birthday party would only invite a few friends and would not be held at home, so he wouldn't need to face her parents directly. In addition, she also intended to make up with Kirino on that day.
Asakura thought about it, then also wrote a slip of paper, agreeing to the other party's invitation, and let the Snitch take it back.
Note: In the original work of Oreimo, Ayase's birthday is in May, but the plot required a change here... By the way, Ayase was actually born in 1995 (looks into the distance)...