Embracing, Dwelling, and Being Born (4)
I rose from my seat, having thought that far.
“Understood.” I continued in the deep, imposing tone I used when masked. “I barged in without warning and asked a string of questions. Thank you for answering so kindly despite that. I apologize for the inconvenience while you were busy.”
“Huh? Y-you’re leaving already? At least stay for a meal…”
Mauro trailed off, realizing how absurd the suggestion was. Of course he did. If there were a way to eat while wearing a mask, I’d love to learn it myself. Somehow I’d wound up wearing the damn thing more often than not lately. Seriously, teach me if you figure it out.
No link between the fake Thor’s killer and Arthur Wayne. These people won’t get dragged into anything ugly because of me.
I smirked at the thought. With a shady criminal organization out there that might be sharpening their knives for my throat, I didn’t have the luxury of worrying about others. Hell, I’d probably lose if even two fake-Thor-level fighters showed up.
“I’ll just say goodbye to Rozanna before I go.”
Veronica and Rozanna had chatted plenty while Mauro was away, so they wouldn’t throw a tantrum if I said it was time to leave. I gestured toward the yard as I spoke.
“Oh, and I’m sorry, but I happened to overhear some talk about your business earlier today. You’re in brewing, right? Do you have a lot of that commemorative liquor left over?”
“Eh? Ah, yes, that’s right. Right after the lord of Etur Lasna lost his son, the mood wasn’t exactly festive enough for celebratory toasts with the new year’s commemorative brew. So quite a bit is still in stock. Would you like to take a few boxes?”
He looked flustered, eager to give me something after I’d guessed the situation from what I’d seen earlier. The sight of that good-natured merchant stirred unavoidable sympathy in me. The man had terrible luck from start to finish. He’d moved to a new place to sell his liquor, only for disaster to strike immediately.
I didn’t refuse. I accepted a few bottles and checked the label. Sure enough, it was the same drink I’d bought on the way back from my date with Larilura. What a coincidence.
“If I may offer one piece of advice, you don’t need to sell this commemorative stock at a loss.”
“Pardon? W-why is that?”
“The lord’s daughter-in-law is pregnant with the deceased young master’s child. It’s going to fly off the shelves soon.”
The bloodline had been cut off, but now there was a faint sign of the next generation. If I were the old lord, I’d be advertising it everywhere, telling every noble I could reach. Normally you’d wait until the birth, but that would be too slow. In media play, speed is everything. And by the time this city’s current somber atmosphere of mourning lifted, people would be celebrating Primor’s pregnancy and scrambling to buy this limited stock.
“You should be able to sell at the original price until merchants from other cities ship in their own inventory. I wish you great success in business.”
“Ah…!! Thank you, thank you…!!”
The man was quick to tears. I chuckled softly, gathered the bottles, and walked over to Veronica.
“Mm. You’ve returned?”
Veronica was still in her pony form, deep in conversation. Not releasing her transformation was a wise choice. Rozanna already looked stunned just by the fact that the horse she’d been caring for could speak. If she’d seen Veronica’s true appearance, she probably would have fainted.
“Did you finish your talk?”
“Mm. She told me not to offer thanks. It was all thanks to having a good master. I told her you had already repaid my debt on my behalf.”
“What’s with deciding on give-and-take without my consent?”
“Hehe. Do you dislike it?”
“Heh. Actually, I don’t really care.”
What’s my wife’s is mine, and what’s mine is my wife’s. I shrugged, and Rozanna, quick to read the mood between the adults, grabbed the hem of my pants.
“…Are you leaving?”
“Yes. I’ve seen that Rozanna is growing up healthy and kind, so that’s enough for me.”
“But you’re the one who broke the promise you made to me, big brother.”
I stroked the girl’s hair, but she planted her hands on her hips and glared at me with eyes like little axes. To me, it looked like she was imitating her mother.
“It’s been more than two hundred nights.”
“What has?”
“Don’t ‘what has’ me! You said we’d meet again after I slept just a hundred nights, but it took more than two hundred nights to get here!”
Ah, so that’s what this was about. I struggled to hold back my laughter at the childish complaint. Come to think of it, I had said something like that when we parted. A pure promise that we’d meet again after a hundred nights of sleep. If I broke it, it was my fault.
I knelt down to meet her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Rozanna. Will you forgive me?”
Rozanna had grown taller since last time. It wasn’t just that her hunched back had straightened and she’d had a growth spurt. Her face overflowed with a child’s vitality. To someone like me, who had tasted all the bitterness life had to offer, that purity was almost blindingly bright.
“…Okay. I’ll forgive you.”
Rozanna took her hands off her hips and hugged my neck.
“But you’ll come see me again, right? And this time you have to keep the hundred-night promise.”
This little lady was growing up precocious. I gave a wry smile and made another open-ended promise, just like last time.
“Of course. Until then, will you stay healthy and be a good girl?”
“Yes!”
Rozanna nodded with a bright smile. We left the father who was crying and the daughter who was laughing, stepping out onto the street. By the time we reached the main road, we had both returned to our original appearances. What a fickle couple we made.
“Moments like this make it hard to deny fate,” Veronica said, brushing her hair behind her ear. “You can never predict connections or reunions. An bond you thought had ended can continue like this. It is a joyous thing.”
“On the other hand, there are also bonds you wish would end that keep dragging on.”
The Compilation Battalion, Immortalis, Hoenir and those children whose names I still didn’t know. For every good meeting, there was a shitty one. High-schooler Kang Bukho, in the middle of his growing pains, had learned that lesson in the Summoner’s Rift.
“That is something we must account for. Even I, who say such things, have my own worries when the topic of fate and meetings arises.”
“Worries? What kind?”
“It is quite a serious matter. Whether I can bear your child.”
I blinked, dazed. The subject seemed to have shifted, but when I thought about it, the birth of a child was indeed a turning point in the bond between husband and wife. After all, there was such a thing as the connection between parent and child.
“…Is this about whether a child can be born between a divine race and a human? Or about the curse that would afflict the fetus?”
If it was the former, there were plenty of precedents in other-world mythologies, so no problem. But if it was the latter, it was an area I didn’t understand well because I had never asked about Bicorn ecology. There were lines that should be respected even between husband and wife, and I had heard that some men even grew cold toward their wives after witnessing the birth process and being traumatized. Since we weren’t planning children yet, I had never asked.
Veronica spoke through telepathy.
“Once pregnancy is successful, there is no major issue. Our kind originally takes human form when there are other races around. When Bicorns of the holy land give birth, both mother and child are in their original forms.”
“Ah, that’s right.”
“The children of our race are born already under the curse, but if I were to become pregnant, the problem would be solved if I stayed in the holy land until the birth, would it not?”
“I don’t like that.”
Setting aside whether a Bicorn hybrid would be subject to the curse, having to send my wife away alone throughout her entire pregnancy? Wouldn’t that become an unhappy memory that lasted a lifetime? It was a well-known tragedy for wives of soldiers or husbands who traveled often. I didn’t want Veronica to experience that.
“The words are appreciated, but the problem actually comes before that.”
Veronica sighed. Even though telepathy carried her voice without hindrance, the sigh was heavy with worry.
“You are a person from another world, and I am a cursed divine race of this world.”
The hornless Veronica looked at me.
“Between the two of us, can a child truly be born? That is what worries me so much that I cannot help it.”
“………………”
I mulled over her words. If we were looking at it that way, the same issue would apply to Franc, Dana, and Larilura. But as a question, it contained no great error. After all, it would be difficult to say our family members all belonged to the same biological category.
After standing in the cold wind for a moment, thinking, I gave my answer.
“So what? If getting pregnant is difficult, we’ll just find another way.”
“…Another way?”
Veronica looked taken aback. Probably because I rarely gave such a blunt, fist-first answer to problems that required careful thought. But I didn’t care.
“I already have several difficult problems I need to solve. Adding the issue of your pregnancy to the pile won’t even be noticeable. It’s definitely a worry, but it’s not like all the gods of this world are dead and gone, right?”
I pulled Veronica’s shoulder closer. She must have been truly anxious; even on this cold winter day, her breathing was quick and her body temperature had risen considerably. It was certainly a scarier story than a third-rate horror tale.
“I’m going to find a god who’s still alive and ask. Whether there has ever been a case like mine in this world’s history, whether that bastard had any descendants. A god who has lived a long time must have seen similar cases, right?”
“…Hehe. You speak so easily.”
Veronica shook her head as if dumbfounded, but the faint smile on her lips refused to fade. Even if it was absurd, it was better than saying nothing. When it came from the mouth of someone you trusted, even baseless bravado felt reassuring. Veronica pinched the back of my hand as if to say I was hateful.
“Whenever I am by your side, all my worries seem like nothing but trivial anxieties.”
“Sighing doesn’t change anything. That’s from experience.”
“Aha? You mean when your thesis was stolen?”
“Damn, you really had to bring that up. What kind of personality does my wife have?”
“Hmph. A goddess is supposed to be cruel. If you are a hero, you should be able to overcome at least a goddess’s trial.”
“Trial my ass. If it’s a household fight, it’s just a wife’s nagging.”
“Wouldn’t a trial be better? I could team up with your other wives to torment you, you know?”
“Wow~ Nord’s trial, I like it so muuuch~.”
I answered half-heartedly, then suddenly broke into a cold sweat as I remembered the jewelry shop from earlier.
The one or two rings right in front of me feel scarier than any heavenly trial.
Trials existed to be overcome, but mental scars and family discord were things people often failed to overcome. As expected, the human heart found a pathetic murderer like the Winter Soldier far more relatable than a cosmic villain like Thanos.
“Sh-should we finish our date? The sun is still high. Is there anywhere you want to go?”
I chose the emergency tactic of pretending the previous conversation had never happened. Veronica took my hand first and turned her head to the side.
“A place I want to go… Hmm… What about that building over there? It has a very unique appearance.”
When I looked at the building Veronica was pointing at, I couldn’t help but make an awkward face. She, having turned her head, didn’t notice and continued.
“An architectural style I have never seen before. It stimulates my curiosity.”
“…Veronica. That’s, well…”
A motel built by nobles and rich people for sex. I hesitated, unable to bring myself to say the words out loud. In any nation that wasn’t excessively barbaric, religion and sexual activity were concepts that rarely intertwined. Even Romania, a country that went so far as to call itself the Holy Empire, was no exception. If anything, the only exception would be the exhibitionist believers of Narmer-Nile. In any case, it was perfectly normal for shelters to appear or develop in order to hide from the eyes of the gods.
—Squeeze.
It was right when I was hesitating to reveal the building’s true nature. Veronica gripped my hand tightly, as if pinching an oblivious fool, and I finally noticed her reddened nape. A wicked grin naturally rose to my face.
“……Hmmm~? Hehh~? Hooong~?”
“…What is it? Weren’t you the one who told me to say where I wanted to go?”
Even if she tried to cover it with her hand now, the heated flush had already climbed past her neck and reached the side of her face. Veronica, stubbornly pretending nothing was wrong until the end, was so adorable that I kept laughing.
“I was looking forward to it too, but it’s only a little past lunchtime? Already?”
“Shouldn’t we go before it gets too late? If we eat and then visit somewhere else, there won’t be much time left.”
Ah, so she didn’t want it to feel like we were cutting things off halfway. As expected of my wives; after spending their whole lives dealing exclusively with an insanely virile husband, they seemed to think passing out while pinned beneath him and moaning until the end was just the first step.
Thanks to that, this husband’s dick already feels like it’s about to explode.
If I received an invitation like this right after talking about pregnancy, it would be appropriate to take me to the hospital that very day. Whether it was psychiatry or urology, the church that possessed healing magic for both would handle it, so there was nothing to worry about.
With leisurely steps, Veronica and I headed straight for the otherworld’s sex hotel.