Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

Winters once again felt startled by this unexpected affectionate gesture, and, being awkward and unsure of how to respond, he simply gently rubbed the girl's hair.

"Ouch, let go of him, let your brother get into the house," a woman in her thirties with high cheekbones, black phoenix eyebrows, and a dignified and graceful demeanor hurried out and pulled the girl from Winters's neck.

However, she herself couldn't help but shed tears, stretching out her arms to tightly embrace her precious nephew.

She grabbed Winters's shoulders and pushed him away, taking two seconds to examine him carefully. Then, pulling Winters close again, she kissed his cheeks. Her crying became more intense; she could hardly speak clearly, only murmuring over and over, "You're back, you're finally back."

Now, Winters felt like a doll being playfully manipulated, being moved around at will, and he responded with a grin, "Auntie, I'm back."

For most people, family members are a gender-neutral presence, rarely described in terms of beauty or ugliness. Although handsome men and beautiful women might attract stares on the street, people seldom examine the faces of their relatives closely.

Even from the everyday proximity to their relatives, they become too familiar yet too strange, their faces fixed in one's mind, but many people would struggle to accurately describe them.

So Winters did not measure these two women by the standards of beauty or ugliness. Although he was feeling out of his element, this was just the normal reaction of an adult being treated like a child. He simply felt very comfortable by their side.

"Mom, let go, let my brother come inside," the girl grudgingly pulled her mother's arm, rescuing Winters from his auntie's death grip hug.

"Right, right, right, look at me," Winters's auntie wiped her tears, laughing as she offered to help Winters with his luggage.

Of course, Winters couldn't let the women carry his belongings. His auntie didn't insist, leading Winters inside instead. The girl wrapped her arm around Winters's left arm and clung to him once more.

The older woman was Kasha Serviati, Winters's aunt, and the girl was his cousin, Elizabeth Selvidi. They named their daughter after Winters's mother using her name.

After entering the house, Winters saw a sturdy ginger cat walking out from the sitting room.

In Sea Blue, the climate is warm, and to facilitate heat dispersal, cats tend to be on the smaller side. But this orange cat had a robust bone structure, thick shoulders and legs, and a stocky build, quite different from the local felines.

The cat strutted out with its tail held high, the tip bent into a hook, and with a proud look, it walked to Winters's feet, unabashedly rubbing his cheeks against Winters's trouser legs, purring loudly.

"Great General!" Winters scratched the top of the cat's head and stroked its back. Just as he was about to reach for the excess flesh on its belly, the cat coldly shook its head and walked away with a swagger.

"The Great General still recognizes me," Winters said, undeterred by the cat's disdain, happily sharing with his aunt and cousin.

"How could it not recognize you?"

"And where's the little General?"

After entering and passing through a short corridor, turning right would take them into the sitting room. Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. As soon as Winters sat down in the sitting room, a tabby cat that was smaller than the previous ginger cat came running out, meowing "mie mie."

"Little General!"

The tabby cat jumped right onto Winters, its claws piercing through his clothes and making him gasp from the pain. Winters hastily grabbed the Little General with his right hand to prevent it from scratching him and possibly drawing blood.

The Little General meowed and rubbed its cheeks against Winters's collar, licking his chin with its barbed tongue, which Winters found quite painful.

"Haha, why is the Little General so enthusiastic?" Winters looked helplessly at his aunt and said, "But you really should trim its claws."

"He's missed you so much," his aunt answered affectionately.

"Get off me," the girl said bluntly, grabbing the tabby by the scruff of its neck and setting it down on the floor.

However, the tabby was relentless, circling around Winters's feet and meowing nonstop, like a chatterbox. It didn't meow like other cats but made a short "mie" sound instead.

"Look at you, look at you, really turning into a strapping young man," Kasha said, sitting to Winters's right, holding his right hand and speaking with a wealth of emotion, "These eyebrows and eyes really bear a resemblance to your mother. Elizabeth would have been so happy to see you all grown up."

This was already the second time since Winters had gotten home that he'd been told he looked like someone else. Do relatives all have a different take on resemblance?

Winters wasn't as sentimental as his aunt. He replied with a smile, "Really? The Colonel said I look like my father."

"Hmph!" Kasha glared and raised her eyebrows, "How could that be? Look at this nose, these hair, these eyes, you've got the Granashi bloodline. I'll find your grandfather's portrait for you, you look just like him when he was young. The Colonel is just talking nonsense! Wait until he gets home tonight, I'll have to deal with him properly."

The Colonel is the home nickname for Major General Antonio Serviati, because once during an argument with his wife, he retorted in frustration, "I'm at least a Colonel, and you should give me some respect," and it stuck.