Norton leaned back in his seat, having remained in the room. Traces of Ye Muo’s psychic power lingered after the soothing session. He was still too young to control them properly.
Like a playful kitten, he rolled all around the room and left his scent in every corner.
The entire room was filled with Ye Muo’s ‘scent’ right now.
Finally granting Norton a brief reprieve from the agitation building up within him since returning from the graveyard.
Under normal circumstances, leaving one’s psychic power in the territory of another person would be impolite. Individuals even slightly sensitive to psychic power couldn’t even use shared simulation pods.
The Grantz were even more sensitive to psychic power than the average person, and less tolerant as well. They were extremely repulsed by places with any lingering traces of psychic power. Even among their family, their tolerance only extended to the common areas.
Bert didn’t even allow his children to enter his study and bedroom until they became adults. A large part of the reason was because their aggressive psychic power was too obvious, especially when mixed together.
Even after ‘cleaning’, the Grantz could still detect lingering ‘scents’.
Even little Grantz that couldn’t perfectly control their psychic power were intolerant of each other.
Norton would never allow any of his siblings to leave psychic power traces in his own territory, especially his bedroom. His senses now were even stronger than when he was a child. Staying in a room with the ‘scents’ of other would more or less irritate him.
Ye Muo was the only exception. His psychic power was exceptionally quiet and put people at ease. Even so, Norton was unused to it at the beginning. He ‘cleaned’ the room after the first time he provided Ye Muo with soothing, but he was still unable to fall asleep that night.
Even Norton himself didn’t remember the exact moment he shifted from being unused to it to naturally overlooking traces of Ye Muo’s psychic power. In fact, those traces actually helped Norton calm down.
Ye Muo would seek Norton out whenever and wherever he needed soothing, visiting the living room of Norton’s private quarters or his study several times. Once, he even went inside Norton’s bedroom. They started out on the sofa in his living room, but Ye Muo fell asleep halfway through on the somewhat thin carpet. Thus, Norton brought Ye Muo to his own bedroom after finishing the session.
It all happened so naturally.
Norton’s eyes slowly closed as he leaned back in his chair. He took a short nap, which was rare for him. He normally didn’t show any signs of fatigue when awake. After all, it was hard to tire out with the Grantz physique.
It wasn’t long before Norton opened his eyes again.
He stood and quickly worked out the kinks in his shoulders before heading for the door with a rare sense of ease.
The leisurely time he spent this afternoon made him relax a bit. For once, he didn’t use his psychic power to keep a constant eye on Ye Muo.
Norton’s tension was at an all time high since his return from the graveyard. He had even been keeping an eye on Ye Muo practically every second of the day.
Norton headed downstairs. He stopped on the second floor.
The gaggle of Grantz gathered in the little half-open living room to the right of the stairs caught his attention.
It was quite lively with all those Grantz gathered around bickering. Ye Muo, who was surrounded on all sides, leaned on Ano beside him.
If Norton tuned into the psychic channel, he would have found that it was even noisier in there.
[This is the second round, right?]
[It’s my turn now! This all is your fault for squeezing his cheeks too long, Dylan.]
Helene leaned over and cupped both of Ye Muo’s cheeks, squeezing and rubbing them from time to time.
“They’re still a bit cool, ah. Let Auntie Helene warm them up a little for you~”
Ye Muo tilted his face up and said indistinctly, “F-fine, but hurry up, Auntie Helene. I still, still have stealth lessons.”
He finished talking as quickly as possible before Helene squeezed his cheeks again.
“Good boy. You’re such a good boy! Auntie Helene will take you to stealth class, alright? Auntie Helene can even sneak past king insects! Why don’t we head out to the Exile Sectors to find an infested planet. We can sneak into their nest and steal their eggs, alri–”
Norton suddenly spoke, “You guys seem rather idle.”
As soon as those words fell, even the air seemed to quieten. Everyone froze except for Ye Muo, who seemed relieved. He greeted his father before quickly removing his face from Helene’s hands, letting go of Ano and hurrying over to Norton.
Norton glanced at Ye Muo who was sticking to his side. The child’s cheeks were flushed from being repeatedly rubbed and squished.
Norton turned back to Helene and the others.
Helene turned around stiffly and feigned calm. “We’re not that idle, Big Brother. We’re discussing what to do for Xavier’s stealth lesson!”
“That’s not necessary. However, Secretary-General Lin will be bringing over some documents later that require your attention.”
Helene was incredulous. “What? Haven’t all the documents today been taken care of already??”
“There will be more after I contact him later.”
Helene shut up. Norton looked like he was itching for one of them to challenge him so he could beat them all up.
Norton glanced down at Ye Muo. “Come on. Your class should have started five minutes ago.”
He escorted Ye Muo all the way to the classroom on the first floor and opened the door for him. Ye Muo’s first class was literature. His teacher was already inside. When he noticed Norton, he quickly got down from the podium and bowed to Norton and Ye Muo. “Your Majesty, Your Little Highness.”
Norton made a sound of acknowledgement. He made to leave after casting one last glance at Ye Muo until the child called out to him, “Father.”
Helene’s words earlier were still on Ye Muo’s mind. “Will I have to go steal insect eggs later on in stealth class?”
He had never heard a word about that before. Ye Muo tensed in advance, just like he would before combat class as a child.
“If you want to.”
Norton hesitated before looking down at Ye Muo. He was unsure whether Ye Muo wanted to learn stealth from Helene. He was at the age to be curious about such things already.
He comforted quietly, “But not right now. It’s still a little too early for that.”
Ye Muo’s situation was unique. Due to his psychic power, he matured much slower than the average Grantz. The Grantz were renowned for their psychic power. Since Ye Muo was still in the midst of his development period, the majority of his psychic power remained within his psychic domain, meaning his level couldn’t be accurately measured.
Yet as Norton soothed Ye Muo, he could sense that Ye Muo’s psychic power was even greater than that of him and his siblings at the same age.
Therefore, even if Ye Muo’s psychic power possessed a mild quality, he had almost no control over them and had to shoulder an immense burden instead. His psychic power desperately absorbed most of the nutrients, leaving little room for him to develop.
Despite that, his physical condition has improved significantly since Ye Muo accidentally went missing in the Exile Sectors. As his body and psychic power became more in tune, Ye Muo was slowly becoming stronger.
Norton didn’t plan on letting Ye Muo out of his sight or territory until he was fully grown.
Even if Ye Muo wanted to go, it should be with him. After all, if his companions weren’t reliable, even if they were Grantz, it was easy for accidents to occur. Ano had gotten his arm bitten off because Bert misjudged the disparity in strength between Ano and the king insect.
Norton would take Ye Muo to hunt king insects one day, but not now. He was still a bit too young.
Before that, it would be best to give him something else to divert his attention, perhaps a planet flourishing with vegetation.
……
Meanwhile, on the second floor after Norton and Ye Muo left, the remaining Grantz had obviously wilted a bit as they went back to the study.
It was Helene who finally broke the silence with a cold snort, “It’s just some documents. We’ve handled them before. This isn’t anything new.”
Ano nodded. “If every day can be like this, I’m willing to push some paperwork.”
“Did you record all that, Aria?”
“Of course. It’s all on my handy portable camera in full holographic glory.”
“As expected of Aria.”
“Here we are. The documents have probably arrived already. Secretary-General Lin is truly terrifying… Does he live out of the adjacent office or something?
They continued complaining as they entered the study.
Inside, Secretary-General Lin adjusted his glasses with a stack of documents in his arms. “I regret to inform you that I strictly follow established Grantz worktimes and holidays outside of emergencies, Your Highness.”
Adrian was indignant, “That’s not fair! We had to burn the midnight oil so many times before!”
Bert unceremoniously chuckled on the side.
Secretary-General Lin set the documents down on the desk. They were almost out of important documents lately, so he had to request quite a bit of work from closely related departments.
Adlet poured tea for the Grantz with practised motions.
Secretary-General Lin quickly took his leave.
Ano opened a random file. It was a funding application from the robotics research institute. He suddenly shot to his feet. “Ye Muo mentioned that there seems to be something wrong with his robot before. He told me to bring it to be inspected and repaired.”
Apparently its battery couldn’t hold a charge and its reactions were more delayed than before.
Ye Muo fretted over it for quite a while. When Ano volunteered, he repeatedly reminded Ano to be careful.
Jacob lazily raised his hand. “I can take a look for him, ah.”
Jacob has always been interested in robotics since childhood. His strong psychic power allowed him to get a clear picture of the inner workings of any machine as he learned, practically halving the effort.
Adlet was aware of this as well. The original plan was to send the robot to the research institute “I’ll bring over His Little Highness’ robot then.”
Adlet was followed by an old-fashioned nannybot when he returned. It had a protruding stomach and looked quite rotund and bulky.
“Why is it so…outdated? I remember that technology these days is way better than this. Why don’t we buy him a new one? I still have several of the latest models. They’re good at housework while also possessing a certain level of firepower.”
Ano watched from the side. “No way. This robot is very precious to Ye Muo. He’s been using it since he was little. Not even the chassis can be swapped out. It has to stay the exact same. It even has a name, Mumu.”
As the Grantz gathered around it, Ano couldn’t help but remind them, “Be careful. Don’t break it.”
Jacob crouched down in front of the robot and delved in with his psychic power. “Got it.”
“The hardware is fine for the most part. A few loose connections here and there that I’ll take care of later. Let me inspect the core.”
The robot was shut down and rebooted.
Jacob carefully monitored every change.
“The core is relatively new and of an advanced model. Was it swapped in later? The charging interface isn’t that efficient and needs to be replaced. Also, the storage near the core is overheating. Is it not overwriting old footage?”
Nannybots would automatically record their little charges as long as it wouldn’t violate their privacy.
“Only the core was swapped, so it’s still running on the original storage. The videos over the past few years haven’t been cleaned out. We can either delete unnecessary footage or copy it onto new storage and swap that in.”
Jacob retracted his psychic power.
Ano barely hesitated, “Let’s swap in a new one.”
Aria nodded. “I have a lot of good quality storage. I’ll go get you a replacement.”
Her storage units were all used to store the videos and photos she took. She made sure they were the best.
Dylan stood there with crossed arms. The motion caused his shoulders to become more defined.
He had been keeping quiet as this wasn’t his area of expertise. But when Jacob stood to take the robot with Aria to get new storage…
Dylan suddenly interrupted them, “If none of the footage over the years has been overwritten, does that include the ones from when Ye Muo was younger?”
Every Grantz present turned to look at him before turning their attention in unison to the robot standing there.
