"Mrs. Misaka, if possible, I hope you can allow your two distinguished daughters to be left in our Research Institute for long-term cultivation. We will provide the best resources to raise them..."
"That won't be necessary, thank you."
Misaka Misuzu shook her head, firmly refusing the invitation from the Research Institute. She believed that children should be children; depriving them of the right to play happily during the time they should be enjoying a wonderful childhood was, for a parent, the greatest dereliction of duty.
"But!" One Researcher began to argue further, but was interrupted by the arm raised by another Researcher beside him. He wore a smiling expression and said in a calm tone: "We respect the lady's choice, but if you change your mind, you can come to us at any time."
Feeling the smiling expression and the subtle aura emanating from this person, Misaka Misuzu frowned slightly, took Chinatsu and Mikoto by the hand, and turned to walk out of the Research Institute.
When the three of them walked out of the Research Institute, she immediately opened her mouth and let out a long sigh. The stern expression on her face changed instantly, and she looked down at Chinatsu and Mikoto with a smile.
"It's almost lunchtime. What would you like to eat later? Anything is fine, I don't have any ideas, so I'm listening to your opinions." Misaka Misuzu asked with a smile.
Mikoto: Fish dishes! Fish dishes!
Chinatsu: Steak or pizza.
Mikoto liked to eat relatively light food, though she certainly wouldn't refuse desserts like crepes or small cakes; she just disliked having them as a main meal.
In comparison, Chinatsu preferred food that was simple, hearty, and filling. Steak and pizza were more familiar to her; if Chinatsu weren't in the state of a child, privately she would likely choose Chinese cuisine more often.
Listening to her two daughters' answers, Misaka Misuzu pretended to be troubled and lifted her head, raising a finger to gently poke under her lip, as if thinking very seriously.
"Hmm~ Let's compromise and go eat ramen!"
"..."
"..."
Misaka Misuzu pulled the two of them to a nearby highly-rated ramen shop. To make up for the damage caused by the compromise, she bought each of them a crepe as compensation before arriving at the shop.
Of course, she also bought one for herself.
"Is it really okay to eat a crepe before eating ramen..." Chinatsu murmured while looking at the crepe in her hand. Misuzu, with cream on the corner of her mouth, answered with a giggle: "Isn't that what everyone says? The sweets you eat go into a separate stomach~"
The two beside her didn't care at all and started eating frantically on the way to the ramen shop.
When they arrived at the ramen shop, the crepes in their hands had been completely devoured, except for Chinatsu, who sat in her seat at the shop, gnawing on her crepe somewhat unhappily.
Misuzu's fingertips tapped continuously on her phone, and it was quite obvious that her anger level was rising bit by bit. It turned out that their father, who had lost his sense of presence, couldn't return as they had previously agreed.
Their father was named Misaka Ryogake, a henpecked husband whose wallet was strictly controlled by Misuzu. He claimed his profession was that of a comprehensive consultant, a job where he told others what this world was missing.
In reality, it was just someone who provided various money-making business opportunities to others. However, his scope of business was quite vast, his reputation in the surface world was quite impressive, and in future events, he even furiously confronted a certain Board Chairman of Academy City.
"Aleister, I don't care if that's how you want to put it. Anyway, I never believed your words from the very beginning. But there is one thing you must remember: if you truly lay a hand on my wife and daughters, and this matter reaches my ears, then just think about what will happen if you become enemies with a boring father like me!"
"Your dad said someone else is consulting him, so he has to take a detour to go there before coming back. That guy's personality is just like that. Fortunately, I was mentally prepared for it... Forget it, never mind him!"
Misuzu's strong psychological fortitude allowed her to immediately put the matter of her husband behind her. As bowls of hot ramen were brought over, the three of them began to eat the steaming noodles.
Mikoto was innocently and earnestly eating her ramen. Misuzu was eating ramen while scrolling through her phone. Compared to them, Chinatsu was calm on the surface but complex on the inside.
If possible, she did not want to be targeted by a certain Board Chairman of this city. After all, not only now, but for quite a while in the future, she was an existence that could be pinched to death by him with two fingers.
Perhaps slacking off and wasting the Gemstone's talent in this way would be a choice to avoid being in the limelight. Although the Gemstone's talent was not really a powerful capital to show off in the eyes of those real big shots, since she had the "initial capital"...
This is a high-stakes gamble, my friend!
Thinking this, Chinatsu held the large bowl of ramen with both hands and gulped down all the ramen soup. In her previously naive and romantic childish eyes, a moment of maturity and seriousness flashed.
Misuzu, touching her phone, looked at her daughter's unusual behavior. She raised her head in confusion and asked: "What's wrong? Your bowl of ramen wasn't spicy, right... Wait, why did you drink all the soup? Do you like eating ramen this much?"
After saying this, Misuzu took the opportunity to raise a hand, wanting to call the clerk to bring another serving, but was hurriedly stopped by Chinatsu before she could.
Although she admitted that her taste buds were a little more developed than her peers, she didn't have the appetite to stuff her stomach until it was huge right now.
Beside them, Misaka Mikoto saw that Chinatsu had actually drunk all the soup, so she hurriedly turned her head back and began slurping noodles at full power. Although she didn't drink the noodle soup clean like Chinatsu, she did eat all the noodles.
"I'm done! I want to go to the amusement park!"
Mikoto, with soup on the corner of her mouth, raised her arm high, stating that today was a good day, you are not allowed to disagree, I want to have a good time.
Meanwhile, inside the Windowless Building in District 7 of Academy City, the Academy City Board Chairman Aleister was suspended upside down in a life-support device made of tempered glass, four meters in diameter and ten meters long, filled with red liquid.
He had handed over all his life activities to machines to execute on his behalf; according to calculations, he still had about 1,700 years of life left.
His entire body, including his brain, was in a state of hibernation. Most of his thoughts were assisted by machines, and he collected information through the approximately 50 million nano-sized machines scattered throughout Academy City known as the "AIM Dispersion Network," which allowed him to know everything within the city even while remaining in this life-support device.
"Gemstone, this one is a bit strange..."