PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

Her short metallic black hair, torso like white jade, and an obsidian-black skirt seemed to absorb the light around her needle-like legs and circular face; Estela had a beautiful and cartoonish appearance.

As a creature born to serve, Estela was incredibly adept at whatever task she was given, as long as she was to help the entity that gave her life; the maiden of jade and steel was always helpful.

Estela’s life cycles were far from the ordinary as a singular life form fundamentally different from human beings. She did not sleep or need to eat; Estela only needed to absorb the mana around her to stay functional and only needed brief periods of latency to keep her mind fresh.

Though similar to the golems of legend, Estela was a life form, so she still needed her own form of rest and nourishment. The curious thing was that, despite her lack of need to eat food, Estela could do so if she wanted to, and even she had some kind of sensory organ that allowed her to taste food; hence, Estela could cook.

According to what Kryzsha explained to Desmond, much of Estela’s form, personality, abilities, and even some biological characteristics would be influenced by the Natura that gave birth to the maiden of jade and steel.

Of course, it was difficult for Desmond to determine precisely how Estela was adapted during her revival, as it wasn’t him or Kyuru who brought Estela to life; at least, that wasn’t exactly what happened.

Whatever the case, Estela had proven on countless occasions how useful she was to the Astryd family; her mere presence had lifted a great weight off Desmond’s shoulders. Were it not for Estela, it was questionable how much Desmond had been able to achieve in the last few weeks while still taking care of the household chores.

As usual, Estela started the day coming out of her dormant state, her pretty eyes always full of a beautiful mineral shine looking with an always permanent calm around her.

.....

For some reason, Estela did not like to spend her dormancy inside the house, and she always did it in the little stone kiosk in the center of the courtyard. Both Claire and Sasha always believed that it was because, in this way, Estela would be surrounded by the garden that Estela took care of so much, but Desmond had another opinion. Desmond believed that the explanation given by Claire and Sasha was only part of the reason. Desmond was almost sure that Estela’s real reason was that this was the place where she was born, where she first opened her eyes to the world, where Estela met the reason for her existence.

Ultimately, it didn’t matter; Estela always gave a little oriole song at the sight of the scenery around her as soon as she came out of her dormant state.

From then on, Estela spent the morning taking care of the housework that Desmond had done in the past. Initially, Estela would directly use the mana to carry out her tasks, but this led to most of her duties being completed in just an hour, leaving Estela with nothing to do for the rest of the day. Nobody would have thought that Estela’s solution was to stop using mana and do the tasks manually so that she could spend more time doing those tasks.

It couldn’t be helped; Estela enjoyed doing these tasks that, to others, might seem mundane. She patiently swept every corner of the house, always with a soft smile on her jade face.

Sweep, clean every piece of furniture in the house, water the plants, put away the books that Sasha left lying in the living room, pick up Claire and Sasha’s dirty clothes, program the washing machine, and prepare breakfast. When the sun was barely reaching a low point in the sky, the always efficient Estela had proudly fulfilled her tasks.

A gleam of realization filled Estela’s eyes; walking with calmness and grace strange for a creature made of such heavy materials, the little maiden went to Claire’s room to carry out one of the tasks entrusted to her by her master.

Being, to a certain extent, designed with a particular intention, Estela’s anatomy complied with specific essential characteristics that allowed her to serve her master; for the specific case of Estela, her humanoid form was part of these characteristics.

However curious as it may seem, Estela could use her small white jade hands to open doors. Still, she always used a small gesture and a small amount of mana to open the door, something that Estela probably inherited or learned from Kyuru.

Entering her master’s room, Estela only had to take a couple of steps inside it to see a semi-naked Claire lying indecently on her master’s bed.

Barely covered by the sheets, Claire’s bareback was fully exposed, showing her velvety smooth skin, but Estela had no particular reaction.

Even as Claire moved to show off some of her luscious curves a little more sensually, Estela’s expression stayed the same, and the light in her eyes kept that pure air as always.

Estela simply had no notion of eroticism, sensuality, or sex, nor did she need one. Such concepts were foreign to her on such a fundamental level that she would not comprehend them no matter how many centuries passed.

Therefore, Estela did not stop for a microsecond in her path and continued with her current task; waking up a lazy woman in bed. Unfortunately, Estela was taught by Desmond to do all her chores around the house, so Desmond’s bad habits of overindulging Claire carried over to Estela.

In the same way that Desmond did in the past, Estela first found a complete change of clothes for Claire but was oblivious to the concept of fashion or aesthetics. Estela only picked up pieces of clothing that looked like; so Claire’s clothes the last few days seemed pretty monochromatic.

Of course, Claire could have changed her clothes, and that’s it, but then she wouldn’t be the lazy creature that she really was. Besides, although Estela used to choose clothes with very uniform colors, she seemed to have good taste in general; As strange as this seems.

Leaving a cup of hot coffee on the nightstand next to the bed and a set of clothes ready on a hook hanging in the closet, Estela was satisfied with her performance, and after nodding to herself, she proceeded to take Claire from bed.

Unlike Desmond, who was very patient with Claire and affectionate with her while waking her up, Estela lacked such subtlety, so the little maiden just pushed Claire’s shoulders repeatedly until the girl woke up from her.

With tangled brown hair and a sleepy expression on her face, Claire reluctantly got up from the bed and rubbed her eyes lazily. “Is it morning already?”

Estela could not answer the question, so she just nodded and used her short arms to bring the cup of coffee closer to Claire.

The aroma of freshly brewed coffee was enough to clear Claire’s mind a little, and with a satisfied smile, she stroked Estela’s metallic hair, causing her to smile naively.

“Is Sasha awake yet?” Having taken a sip of coffee, Claire let the bitter taste and invigorating feeling wake her up some more before waking up to the other girl in the house, but Estela only shook her head in response.

“That girl, she’s been spending a lot of time in her lab lately. I understand that She misses Desmond, but she might as well spend time with me.”

Estela could not understand the resentful pouting expression made by Claire, who seemed to want to spend more time with Sasha. But Estela still had other tasks to complete, one of which was waking up Sasha, so after bowing adorably to Claire, Estela stalked out of the room towards the basement lab.

Contrary to the mad scientist expression and air that Sasha could have when she locked herself in her work, her work area was always pristine and well-ordered; one would wish the same could be said for Sasha herself.

Sasha was sleeping on a couch, her clothes in disarray and lying in an even more unseemly fashion than Claire. Her messy hair fell from the edge of the sofa to the floor, a pair of deep circles under her eyes, and the small blanket she used to cover herself had long since fallen to the floor.

Like many other people obsessed with her work, Sasha tended to neglect her hygiene and health when she locked herself in her lab, so Estela’s job included waking up, feeding, changing, and bathing Sasha. Otherwise, God knows what state Desmond would find Sasha in when he returned.

Sasha woke up to be carefully attended to while her brain was still coming out of her dream state, repeating the usual routine, a cup of tea on the table, a change of clothes, and a hairbrush for her.

Drinking tea with mechanical movements and a still sleepy expression, Sasha just sat on the sofa while she let Estela take her time brushing her hair. Estela used her delicate little hands in conjunction with an ivory brush to slowly untangle Sasha’s hair, sometimes using her fingers to smooth out the already untangled parts.

This was a quiet morning, no different from others in the past, a smooth and peaceful routine that had been repeating itself since Desmond had left for Serefia’s world. But no matter how cheerful the day seemed to start, everyone in the house could only miss Desmond as they went about his day.