Boosted Restart – A new chance in a different world

Chapter 353 – Throwing the towel

The sisters visited Ellie after she had run away from Steph once she had seen her, to find out that it was just a misunderstanding. The little princess wasn’t scared of her in the slightest and merely wanted to make sure that her dog plushie was still in her room because Steph looked so similar to it, and she thought her plushie had turned into a girl. Afterward, the duo went to the other girls, and Plushie, the dog-girl’s new nickname, immediately befriended Anna and Ari as she was incredibly sociable.

“It’s beyond amazing that you managed to find each other again, and I’m incredibly happy for you, but…” Ari looked a little awkward after having listened to the tale of the sisters. “Maya already warned me, but it actually does feel like you have even more magic than Sophia… Much more, in fact… D-Does that mean you’re even more ridiculous than her when it comes to that…?” She sounded pretty worried while facing the little sister.

“Hmm…” Steph tilted her head. “That’s hard to say, actually… To be perfectly honest, even though I have that much of it, I don’t really know how to use magic.”

“E-Eh?!” Anna and the jaguar got loud while staring at the dog-girl, who had gotten comfortable next to Chloe on the sofa after the sisters had arrived earlier.

“Well,” She scratched her cheek, trying to come up with an explanation. “I’m aware of my magic at least as long… as I remember having a tail, but… I somehow only became able to actually able to use it like yesterday…”

“Why?” The princess naturally couldn’t understand that kind of explanation.

"That's an excellent question!” The dog-girl scratched her cheek.

“Why are you sisters so complicated?!” The jaguar got loud. “Well, it proves that you are sisters, but still!”

“Ehehe~.” In one way or another, the two took it as a compliment. “We do know how to make things not boring, after all!”

“Oh no…” Ari’s face paled a little. “From the sound of that, there definitely will be even more chaos from now on…”

“Sounds fun!” Steph liked the idea.

“Maya, Chloe… I hate you…” Looking utterly defeated, the black-haired girl glared at both of them.

"A-Ah…” They had nothing to say in their defense.

“S-Say,” The jaguar looked at the new girl with slightly upturned eyes. “How do you feel about catastrophes caused by magic and or lack of common sense…?”

“I do feel like I’ll relate a lot to the lack of common sense part, but…” Naturally, as Steph had just arrived here a day ago, her common sense would be even worse than that of Sophia or Chloe. “How do you define catastrophes? Something world-ending?”

“NO! I-I mean, yes! B-But… urgh!” Her expression turned desperate. “W-Why is something world-ending your first thought?! What’s wrong with you sisters?!”

“I think the sisters are perfectly fine!” Chloe disagreed with her. "One's amazing, and the other's even amazinger!”

“You’re part of the problem!” Ari just glared at the fox.

“Ahaha…”

“…” For a moment, Sophia wanted to complain about clearly not being the amazinger sister, but after seeing the nice smile of her while glancing at Steph as she said that, she decided against it.

“Anyway,” The dog-girl faced Ari again. “I can promise that I have no intention of destroying the world because I love it too much, but I need some examples for regular catastrophes.”

“Sophia, please explain everything you did lately…” The jaguar had a handy example ready.

“Did you forget to tell me some stories?” Steph glanced at her sister.

“I might’ve skipped a minor detail or so, but I think I mentioned everything of interest that happened lately.” The blonde tilted her head.

“Hmm… The war thingy was quite unfortunate, but were the other things really catastrophes?”

“The magic accident Fenny and I had that created the lake we visited earlier definitely was.” She could admit to that, at the very least.

“Ah, right! That was pretty baffling, true.” The dog-girl had forgotten about that for a second. “Alright, ignoring the war, and that… Ah, I might be able to see a slight pattern.”

“T-Thank you!” Ari was happy that she could understand her.

“Still, for the most part, nothing seems like catastrophes to me. Just a girl having a ton of fun~. Sure, a mishap or two might’ve happened, but there was no actual harm, was there? I’m all for that! Sorry…”

“Wow, you really are absolutely amazing!” Chloe liked her reply a lot.

“Ehehe~.” Steph let out a happy giggle before focusing on the jaguar again. “Sure, I’m sure it can be a bit of an inconvenience at times, but… Depending on what happened, maybe also embarrassing for a moment. Even so, everything I heard from Sophia’s adventures lately sounded extremely fun! The bits Chloe told me were amazing, too! If you think having a great time in life is a catastrophe, I’ll be an absolute disaster!”

“I want to change my previous statement from you being amazing to you being perfect!” The fox-girl's opinion of her got even better.

“T-Thanks…” The dog-girl took a bit of damage from the increasing praise and started blushing a little.

“W-Well, it’s hard to come up with a counter if you word it like that…” Ari wasn’t sure what to say in return. “Okay, to be honest, I’m not good with public attention, and all those flashy things gather a lot of it… So, in a way, it is a catastrophe for me…"

“I think I can get behind that. I like attention. Like, a lot, but I can respect that. Are you actually not good with it, or is it maybe more of a question of getting used to it first?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not an… Okay, sure. I used this reply more often than I count myself, so…” Steph couldn’t blame her for that. “In the end, you aren’t really against it, but the attention bothers you as you have a hard time dealing with that because you aren’t used to it?”

“Uhh…” The jaguar tilted her head. “I have a rather big connection to the royal family, now more than ever after Anna and I… I'm also the only jaguar around with black hair, so I am used to attention in a way, but I really don’t enjoy it…”

“I see…”

“Steph,” Sophia then looked at her. "Ari used to think that she was getting all the attention because people were gossiping behind her back because she’s the only one of her type with black hair. She thought everyone would dislike her for that because she’s different and it’s ugly…”

“…” The jaguar went silent.

“Are you stupid?” Steph didn’t and looked right at the black-haired girl with big eyes. “Seriously now? How could you think anyone would be able to hate that gorgeous hair of yours?!”

“Exactly!” The tigers nodded a couple of times as they felt the same. Anna’s nodding was especially vigorous.

“…” There was still nothing Ari could say in her defense. “I’m sorry…”

“You might be okay with my current number one wish for an activity! It’s kinda ridiculous, but it’s also super fun and will happen far away from any witnesses!”

“I’m not sure about that…” The jaguar had some doubts about how she worded it. “What do you want to do?”

"I want to create a MASSIVE world tree-like thing in the middle of a jungle and turn everything around it into a magic forest!"

“Oh my gosh!” Chloe liked that idea a lot. “Let’s go immediately!”

“I knew that I could count on you!" Steph reacted with a big smile while looking at the fox-girl.

“A what now…?” Ari was just confused instead.

“It’s, more or less, just a massive tree that is a couple of kilometers tall, super thick, and has magical capabilities!”

“I-I see…”  Judging by her expression, she had some mixed feelings about it. “It does sound a little intriguing to look at, though…"

“It sounds amazing!” Anna corrected her. “I want to do that, too!”

“I welcome anyone that joins in on the idea!”

“Wait a moment…” The princess eventually tilted her head. "A few days ago, father mentioned something about being able to see some massive trees in the far distance from his office windows. He also swears that they haven't always been there…"

"Sophia?" Hearing that, Ari immediately stared at the most likely culprit.

"A-Ah.” She looked somewhat awkward for a moment. “M-Maya’s the one who started it! She’s the one who grew the first tree!”

"H-Hey!" The cat-girl got loud. "I mean, it's true, but that was just to prevent you from going insane with it! It was all your idea!"

“Technically, it was Chloe’s idea…”

“I have no intention of apologizing here.” The fox-girl took the blame much better than the couple. “It was glorious what you all did.”

“See?!” The blonde looked back at Ari.

“See what? I already know that Chloe's as much, if not even more, of a lost cause, and Maya just did it to ensure you don't overdo it. How tall was your tree, Maya?”

“Uhh… Something between 200 and 300 meters tall…” The cat-girl’s reply was more of a mumble.

“E-Eh?” The jaguar hadn't expected that.

“It, uhh… It was an accident…” Maya scratched her cheek. “I had planned for half the size because that still sounded fun and wasn’t completely unreasonable! It seems like Sophia messed up my magic a little, though, and it’s now twice as effective, and the tree turned twice as tall because of that…"

“So, in the end, it IS your fault!” Ari went back to staring at the blonde.

“Ah.” She had no excuse this time.

“How big was your tree, then?! There's just no way she would've kept it at that, after all!”

“T-Twice the size, I guess…”

“T-That would mean around 500 meters! Seriously?!” The jaguar raised her voice. “Wait, actually… I mean, it's still completely over the top, but I was expecting more. D-Don't tell me you held back?!"

“Could you not be so shocked?!” Sophia didn’t like her reaction.

“Impossible!”

"Don't I have the best friends?" There was the slightest hint of sarcasm in the blonde's voice while she glanced at her sister.

“Absolutely!” Steph only showed her a massive smile in return, though. After all, it was perfectly obvious that the group was really tight, and she was incredibly happy about that.

“I promised Maya to make a tree twice the size of hers, so…”

“Ah, that’s the reason, I see.”

“You should see the trees of Fennyfenny and Aura!” Sophia tried to divert the attention a little. “They each created a tree that’s over a kilometer tall! Those are probably also the ones that can be seen from the king’s office!”

“Fen being the one who taught you magic really had an effect on you…” Ari could only roll her eyes.

“Hehe~.”

“I wanna make such a tree, too!” Anna apparently liked everything she had heard so far.

“Oh, speaking of,” The blonde then faced Chloe. “Have you already heard what the trees have done to the surrounding forest?”

“Hmm?” She just tilted her head.

“It seems like the trees we grew completely work on magic now. From the looks of it, they need neither water nor nutrients anymore.”

“S-Seriously?!” The fox-girl got loud.

“Even more, they also radiate magic. So much actually that you can see it with your bare eyes in the air.”

“Wow!”

“It also had an effect on the surrounding forest. Every plant grew a good bit bigger, and everything's green again! The trees and all are full of leaves even though they should’ve long fallen off!”

“It turned into a magical forest!” Steph summarized it in an easier way. “It’s beautiful there!”

“Oh my gosh, that’s amazing!” Chloe’s expression changed into an even bigger smiler. “Mythical magic mega jungle, let’s go!”

“Let’s go!” The dog-girl was a big fan of the idea.

“Those two get along quite well already, huh?” Anna tilted her head while watching the duo. “Also, let’s go!” She also was looking forward to it.

“It’s official... I give up, Maya.” With a defeated expression, Ari then looked at the cat-girl. “I definitely don’t get paid enough to deal with one more. I quit being the voice of reason from now on! Steph also said some very nice things about it, so I’ll give it a try!”

“Always happy to help!” The cause smiled at her.

“...” The cat-girl wasn’t smiling, though. “S-She definitely has a point and all, and I look a little forward to the jungle, but... BUT! At least when we’re in public... At least assist me there!”

“Hmm...”

“Please!”

“Alright, fine…” Ari felt bad about leaving her hanging.

“Wait!” It seemed like Chloe was listening in on them. “Does that mean we can officially go nuts when it's just us?!”

“…” The duo didn’t answer her.

Once that topic was taken care of, the girls returned to chatting again, and Steph was already fully integrated into the group.