(Risa POV)
"Huh?" Chia looked at the plate in front of her, prodding the plate with her hands.
"Hmm…" I stared at my own plate, trying to solve it like a puzzle. The fact that Milim was silently eating, stifling tears as she stuffed a raw carrot down her throat, simply didn't compute for me.
"...Why is it raw?" Chia stole the question right out of my mouth before I could actually ask it, nibbling on a small piece of lettuce, the only thing that she could actually bring herself to eat, now that she'd gotten used to Shuna's cooking over time.
"The bounty of the gods should never be desecrated by altering the food's natural state!" Middray proudly announced, Milim quietly parrotting it word-for-word from the chair as he spoke, making it clear that she'd heard this reasoning hundreds, maybe thousands of times in the past.
"But… this is a leaf." She told him blankly.
"That is a leaf of lettuce, young lady! Packed full of nutrients and other good things for your development! You should make sure to eat all of it!"
"BUT IT'S A LEAF! JUST A LEAF! LEAVES COME FROM TREES! THEY'RE BORING! I DON'T WANNA EAT A BORING LEAF! I DON'T WANNA! I DON'T WANNA!" As it could be expected, Chia threw a massive fit. Eventually, I had to slide the girl a cookie under the table to placate her, before Spatial Transporting her back to Tempest.
Naturally, while I managed to fool Middray into not noticing the cookie, Milim demanded her own once we'd both managed to placate the High Priest by stuffing all of the raw vegetables down our throats.
I made sure to not simulate taste buds as I chewed on a raw potato, not even bothering to take it bite-by-bite like Milim did.
…
"Why don't you have someone else make your meals, Milim?" I asked later on, sliding into the office with Milim and Frey.
"Middray can be… rather stubborn. He rarely listens to others, especially when it comes to things like that. Sometimes, he can be more infuriating than even that kitten." Frey admitted.
I could read between the lines there. In Freyspeak, that was essentially the same thing as saying that Middray's incredibly stubbornness was even worse than Carillon, who was essentially her exact opposite in just about every way.
"Sure, but that's not really why. He's a good guy, who really listens to me, and he really believes in this thing with the food. If I were the one to tell him that I didn't like it…" Milim explained.
It made sense. Milim knew what it was like to be truly alone. As such, she really cherished her friends. The idea of hurting Middray's feelings, criticizing his beliefs, probably caused the girl even more pain than scarfing down all of those raw vegetables.
…But that didn't mean that I couldn't be a bit annoyed on my friend's behalf.
The next day, a harpy woman under Frey's command snuck up in front of Middray's temporary apartment before the break of dawn, and placed a small statue that I'd made right above his doorway.
When Middray opened the door later on, her heard, "I AM MELONFACE! EAT MORE ORANGES!"
Middray's head snapped to the source. It was a small statue made of wood, a near-perfect replication of him, except for the shrunken watermelon slowly changing color back to green from the red that it'd become when it spoke.
Without hesitation, Middray punched the stupid Melonface statue into dust, forgot it, and continued on with his day.
But when he opened his door to go to bed that night… "I AM MELONFACE! SLEEEEEPY CHICKEN!"
Naturally, Middray punched it into oblivion again. This time, he made sure to gather the shards and burn them, so that it couldn't rebuild itself.
And the next morning… "I AM MELONFACE! I WAKE WITH VALOR!"
After three days, Middray had figured it out. No matter how he destroyed it, the next time he opened his door, Melonface would return. It was like a spell, or some sort of natural law. No matter what he did, Melonface would simply return the next time.
Even when he finally lost his temper and destroyed the entire wall, Melonface still returned, the entire door rewinding the next time he tried to cross his home's threshold.
Eventually, Middray simply ended up demolishing his entire home and having it rebuilt from scratch. It was only then that he figured it out. There was a magical stone buried beneath the house, one of Risa's computerized, three-dimensional magical circles, designed to ensure that no matter what he did, that stupid Melonface statue would tell him something similar to, "I AM MELONFACE! FEEL THE VEIN ON MY FOREHEAD AND TREMBLE WITH IT!"
Naturally, Risa and Milm got an earful for that little prank. Somehow, though, the one who'd actually placed all of the required artifacts, Frey, got off completely scot free.
…
"How come we got yelled at and you didn't, Frey?" Milim complained later.
"Well, perhaps you simply didn't cover your tracks well enough, Lady Milim. That's your own fault."
"No fair, Frey! You just dumped all of the blame on us! I didn't even really do anything!"
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I received this letter from Dhistav just the other day, Lady Milim. It gives an intriguing reason for you to take some time off of work in the near future."
"Wait, time off?!" Frey hooked Milim hook, line, and sinker.
Apparently, Iroh and Ira had finally finished an account of the various treasures that Clayman had been hoarding in Dhistav. It was a rather impressive list, and though it all belonged to Tempest by conqueror's right, we were diverting a large portion of it to Milim, since she had to not only rebuild Eurazania, but also deal with housing and all of the related expenses for the various majin who currently lived in Dhistav.
But there were certain treasures that existed in the land itself. Specifically, various ruined cities that'd laid there for centuries, guarded by the local Dark Elves once under Kazalim, and later under Clayman's rule.
In other words, secret gold mines all along the country.
So, Althea had done the responsible thing.
Dumped it all onto Frey's lap. Not our problem.
Instantly, Milim and I were completely entranced by the idea of visiting cities that'd been lost to time for centuries. Just imagining how the place must've changed due to magicules and time gave me goosebumps. We instantly made plans to go check it out at the soonest date possible.