Dinner With the Hera Familia
"You know, this is a bit unexpected."
"Er...?"
While I was busy soothing my wounded heart and bracing myself for whatever calamity was yet to come, the white-haired woman sitting beside me—hair the same shade as my own—spoke up.
"Hera doesn't like men, you see. I honestly never thought another man would be seated at this table..."
That Hera disliked men was easy enough to deduce just by looking at the Familia's members. A Familia made up of women, and women only. In most Familias you'd find some imbalance in the gender ratio, sure, but I'd never once seen one locked entirely to a single sex.
It wasn't as if Grandfather had recruited men because he wanted to raise only men, so the logical conclusion was that Hera herself was the reason the genders were split apart like this.
Perhaps she couldn't stand having women near Grandfather, and by the same token couldn't stand having men near herself. That would explain running a Familia segregated by gender.
"And yet she invited you here, Vesta. I suppose that theory was wrong after all."
"Hmm..."
Honestly, this was something I'd been wondering about too. Why had Hera called for me? A woman who supposedly hated men.
From what I'd heard, the Empress had dragged me here on her orders—it didn't seem Hera had summoned me of her own accord.
Could she have found out my secret?
That would certainly explain her taking an interest in me... but would she really show this much interest over it?
Something felt off. Was I missing something here?
"Hera showing interest in a man... unless, wait—could it be that you were never a man to begin with? Now that I look again, you're so delicate you could pass for a flat-chested woman, don't you think?"
"I am a man."
What kind of offensive misunderstanding was this? I was a man no matter which way you looked at me.
Granted, even I would admit I was a bit on the slight side, but not so much that my gender became a question. From a distance, maybe, someone might do a double take—but this close? There was no way to mistake it!
"...Are you really, though?"
"Why are you suddenly doubting me?"
"Well, when I thought you were a man, you looked like a man, but now that I'm thinking you might be a woman, you kind of look like one too—"
"Stop. Say one more word and I will burst into tears right here and now. You realize you're driving a thirty-year-old man to weep with a single sentence? A man old enough to be called 'old man' sobbing like a little child. Do you truly want to know how horrifying that would be?"
"I'm sorry."
Faced with my rational threat, Meteria raised the white flag. Phew. Once again, justice had prevailed.
I couldn't help the smug smile creeping across my face. Justice always wins in the end, after all.
"...What is he doing."
Someone was looking at me with utter pity, but this was a matter more important to me than life or death. Lose your sense of identity and the city crumbles, the Dungeon crumbles, everything falls apart.
"What a racket."
A shiver ran through me. A voice—chilling in an entirely different way than Hera's—cut through the air.
"A-Arfia!"
Unlike me, stiff as a board, Meteria was beaming and waving cheerfully at someone across the room.
"Move."
"Yes, ma'am."
She said move, so I moved—immediately. I scrambled to my feet and vacated the seat, at which point she kicked my chair aside and dragged another one into its place.
Wait. If you were going to do that, why make me move at all?!
"I refuse to sit on anything you have touched."
"That's too far!"
Forget sitting next to me—you can't even tolerate touching what I've touched?! I never thought of myself as particularly delicate, but being subjected to treatment this extreme, I couldn't help but be hurt.
"Arfia... you shouldn't say things like that even if you mean them. You'll hurt his feelings."
"Hmph."
Arfia simply closed her eyes and refused to respond.
"I'm sorry, Vesta. Arfia can be a bit prickly..."
"No... I'm the one who should apologize for putting you in an awkward position."
The wound to my heart was so deep I didn't even have the will to protest. I hadn't been this crushed even when I got beaten down by Ottar...!
Steadying my spirit, which had been felled in a single blow, I righted my chair and moved to a spot a little farther away. But before I could settle there, Meteria grabbed me and made me sit down beside her instead.
"Sit here."
"..."
There was no need for that. But there didn't seem to be any need to refuse, either, so I simply took the seat next to her and—
"Eep?!"
A piercing gaze came flying at me, wrapped in an aura of pure menace. Arfia had lifted her eyelids and was glaring at me with mismatched pupils.
"Wh-why?"
"Tsk."
Arfia's eyes said it all: get lost, right now.
So I tried to get lost—but Meteria's hand wouldn't let go of me.
I could have shaken her off, certainly, but I didn't want to. And for some reason, I had the sinking feeling that if I did shake her off, Arfia would beat me into the ceiling.
It's unjust!
Life is supposed to be like that, I know—but I was being wronged yet again today, just like always.
And so, in the middle of another heart-pounding, might-die-today-or-tomorrow session of dining alongside the Hera Familia, Hera returned to the head of the table with the food in tow.
"Wh-why is there so much today?"
"There is. Quite a lot."
"Huh? Lady Hera told me to make extra, no matter what—"
"Silence."
The cook's eyes were brimming with pure injustice, but Vesta was in no state to spare any sympathy for her.
This is... what...?
Meat.
Meat, meat, meat, meat, meat, meat.
Vegetables made the occasional appearance here and there, but they were buried without a trace under a mountain of flesh.
Stacked high enough that it looked like three whole cows had been slaughtered for it, the sheer volume of food left me momentarily speechless, struck dumb by the sight.
Behind me, the cook trudged away in deflated defeat, and an unshakable sense of dread settled over Vesta.
More than usual, Meteria had said. Surely not. Surely she hadn't made extra on my account... right?
Please—I'm a light eater, I swear!
Okay, honestly, I wouldn't call myself a light eater—I'd say average. But in the adventurer business, a trade packed wall-to-wall with monstrous appetites, anyone with my intake gets classified as a light eater by default.
Yes, on days when I'd fasted for days on end or pushed my body to its limits, I ate accordingly—but those were the exceptions, plain and simple. If I couldn't handle even this much on a normal day, and she'd already stuffed me full of sweets before bringing out a spread like this?
There was no conclusion to draw except that she intended to torture me with food. Meteria beside me was wearing an expression of utter disgust, too!
"Is Ichijo not coming?"
"Huh? Doesn't look like it."
"...And what exactly do you do as captain, if you can't even manage your own members?"
"Ghk—since when do you care so much about my Familia?"
"Wh..."
A staring contest had broken out out of nowhere. I was floundering in the electric atmosphere, and Hera's gaze snapped toward us for an instant.
"...Tsk."
With a single click of her tongue, Hera took her seat. At the sight, the Empress—no, Arfia and every other member in the room went slack with disbelief.
Hera... backed down from a fight?!
And it ended without a single scream?
Were they dreaming? At the scene unfolding before their eyes, the minds of everyone present—everyone except Vesta and Meteria—briefly ground to a halt.
Who cares about miracles. Who cares about mysteries. For these women, the sight before them was a miracle and a mystery both.
Could it be—could Hera have actually turned over a new leaf?!
"What are you all gawking at."
Zap— The members averted their eyes in a frantic scramble before her gaze could land on them.
Nope. One look at the killing intent in those eyes and it was clear: she most certainly had not.
Relief washed over the members at that realization. If you'd mistaken Hera for kind, that alone should have been enough to make your blood run cold.
"Since Ichijo isn't here, we'll simply begin the meal as it stands. Everyone, eat at your leisure."
At her words, the clatter of tableware began to echo through the dining hall. Even in ordinary times everyone kept their voices down as much as possible thanks to Hera's hair-trigger temperament, but with this many people gathered, a stray word or two was bound to slip out.
Not today, though. Today the dining hall rang with nothing but silence and the clink of cutlery. Everyone sat there toying with their forks, sneaking glances at a single spot.
And that spot was—
"We'll dig in too."
Naturally, the head of the table, where Vesta sat.
Th-this is... too much pressure...!
The food alone might finish me off, and on top of that, hundreds of eyes were boring into me.
Curiosity, scrutiny, wariness, expectation—and a whole assortment of other, stickier gazes besides.
Half-dizzy under the storm of stares, I honestly couldn't tell whether the rice was going into my mouth or up my nose.
"Hera... this is a bit much, isn't it? It looks like at least triple the usual."
"Piling even fine food this high only makes it look vulgar. A valuable lesson learned."
"Who cares? It all ends up in the same stomach either way."
Meteria, Arfia, and then the Empress spoke up in that order. Meteria and Arfia each had a comment to make about the food, while the Empress didn't seem particularly bothered either way.
Does she actually have the confidence to eat all of it? Or does she just operate on a whatever's-left-gets-tossed mentality? I understood there wasn't much choice in the matter, but I wasn't fond of wasting food, so I silently prayed for the former.
"Hmph. I don't know either."
With that, Hera began her meal without fanfare. Everyone watched her with fascination for a moment, but with no better plan on the table, they simply started eating as well.
Uh—so we're just... eating?
Their reactions were so blithely casual that I momentarily panicked.
Is it just me who finds this awkward? Why is everyone so calm about a situation like this?
Did things like this happen often around here? Feeling a faint sense of defeat, I resigned myself and started eating too.
Ugh...
A quantity of food that made me queasy just looking at it. The first time I'd seen it, the sight alone had been daunting—seeing it again, it was somehow even worse.
If before it felt like a single mountain to cross, now it felt like an entire mountain range.
I couldn't finish this if I tried—forget finishing, I can't even take a single bite?
Had the sweets from earlier not fully digested yet? Just looking at the table made something sour rise in my throat.
Worse still, a lot of the dishes were served whole, which made them awkward for a one-armed man like me to manage...
Wait. Is this... is this it? The story Grandfather used to tell—the fox and the crane?
The tale of the crane who invited the fox to dinner at her home.
"Eat up, fox! Have as much as you like."
"Eat what? I can't eat any of it!"
The story of the fox trying to eat from the crane's specially-made dish and failing—mismatched equipment that simply couldn't be equipped.
Seriously, who's supposed to make use of archer gear when you hand it to a warrior?
A tragedy brought on by self-centered thinking. The crane invited the fox in all sincerity, but her lack of consideration produced a tragic, hollow meal.
Of course, whether this situation stemmed from a genuine lack of thoughtfulness or was done to me on purpose... that much, I still couldn't say.