My Questionable In-Laws
The roasted goose was perfectly aromatic, its meat so tender and savory that I kept reaching for more. It probably helped that I had been forced to eat nothing but that ultra-bland, flavorless garbage up until now. Did marrying Glacia mean I would have to eat like this for the rest of my life? That would be rough.
When I set the goose’s last bone down on the plate with a soft clack, Melissa smiled and cleared it away with a casual wave of magic. A servant could have handled that much. How thoughtful. With that thought in mind, I lifted my melon juice and took a long drink.
“So, our youngest—no, our son-in-law. What do you think of our princess?”
The completely unexpected question nearly made me spit out my juice. Fuck. So when Yena said Seonjeong was her daughter, that spit-take wasn’t an exaggeration after all.
“Wait… son-in-law all of a sudden?”
“Hehe. Isn’t it accurate? You’re engaged to our princess, after all.”
I genuinely wanted to explain myself, but I had no words that wouldn’t get me killed. Telling them, I have zero desire to marry your daughter, and she’s been kidnapping me and harassing me nonstop, would probably result in blood magic and a giant axe flying at my face. Since they wouldn’t believe the truth anyway, I kept my mouth shut.
Still, these two who smiled while bathing people in blood actually called their own daughter “princess.” Even human butchers cherished their own children, huh?
“Ah, to borrow our princess’s own phrasing… would it be ‘daughter-in-law’?”
“Fuck, did she really say that to her older sister and brother too?”
“She wrote it in her letters.”
“Isn’t that side of her just adorable?”
These daughter-obsessed idiots—no, just plain idiots. How the hell is a daughter who wants to corrupt someone into a female “adorable”? As expected of a barbarian warrior and a vampire; their brains are clearly rotten. If the parents were this crazy, maybe it was only natural that Glacia turned out the way she did.
“No, I’m a man. Why the hell are you treating me like a wife…? From the person in question’s perspective, it’s enough to drive someone insane, brother.”
“Ah, that’s definitely our fault.”
“What?”
“I taught her that way when she was young. Northern warriors win their wives through struggle. It seems she misunderstood those words a little. The romance novels my wife bought probably influenced her too.”
Fuck. So the root cause of all this female-corruption bullshit was right in front of me. In my heart I wanted to flip the table and wreck everything, but they had me overwhelmingly outnumbered, so I held back.
“So… fuck. It was all your fault, brother?”
“That’s right! She obtained her spouse through struggle—what a magnificent warrior’s mindset!”
“Warrior’s mindset my ass…”
“Anyway, Werner, your dream was to live comfortably without working too hard, right? In that case, marrying my daughter isn’t such a bad option, is it?”
When I actually thought about it… he had a point. Glacia had received a strict heir’s education, so she would handle all the annoying tasks. I could just lie around in the back room and get served bland food. It wasn’t a terrible deal. I would avoid the death flags, and no matter what Zeke tried, Melchior and Melissa—who held considerable influence—would back me up. The food was disgustingly bland, but if I became the son-in-law of this household, maybe they would at least grant me the right to use salt and pepper.
Fuck, this is actually…
“See? Our youngest’s dream is basically to be the pampered wife of the house, isn’t it? Being the Archduke’s wife is the highest position in the ‘pampered wife’ industry.”
Request to retract previous statement. If I married her, I would clearly end up hanging myself from their constant teasing. These so-called father-in-law (?) and mother-in-law (?) wouldn’t stop a hen from being slaughtered, but they would definitely mock me by calling me one. How the hell was I supposed to endure that?
“Fuck… how far has that wife rumor spread?”
“It’s probably reached the entire North by now.”
That’s it. I’m screwed. No matter what achievements I made from now on, the North would only see me as the pathetic mage who got corrupted into a woman.
“Haa… I’m going crazy. Seriously.”
“What’s wrong, my daughter-in-law?”
Melissa’s teasing grated on my nerves so much that without thinking I used the title she hated most.
“Will you shut up for a second, you vampire hag who only acts like a little girl?”
“Fuck, what did you just say to me, my youngest?”
“Did you not hear properly? You dress like a child, but maybe because of your age your ears have gone bad too, my vampire hag?”
“I told you I’m not a fucking grandma! I have a long lifespan so I’ve lived a long time! In human years I’m only twenty!!!”
“Then if I meet a thirteen-year-old by human standards, should I still speak politely?”
“Our youngest must be dying to get beaten by his big sister today, huh?”
Melissa spread her fingers, and spears made of blood shot toward me. If those hit me directly, I would turn into a honeycomb.
“Light, become my shield.”
A barrier of light formed around me and blocked the attacks. As expected of the Light Shield—it was a broken skill that even gave survival ability to mages with insane firepower. Its only major downside was the ridiculous mana consumption, but to Werner that was nothing to worry about.
“Did our Melissa grandma’s eyes go bad with age? Can’t even land a proper attack anymore.”
I tried imitating the unique snarky tone Werner used in the game. It still fell a bit short of the original. That ability to scrape at someone’s insides with pure sarcasm was something even Mr. Choi Yang-rak would acknowledge, and if the Buddha heard it he would unravel his prayer beads just to slap me. Besides, the Melissa in front of me wasn’t the Buddha. Judging by personality and race, she was much closer to a demon.
“Our youngest is really doing everything he can to get himself killed, huh…?”
“Yes, you several-hundred-year-old grandma.”
“Ha… with a face like a girl’s. It’s because your face looks so much like a girl’s that our daughter treats you like a wife. Hey, while you were running away, weren’t there any men who proposed to you?”
“This grandma is really crossing the line. Want to settle this properly?”
“That’s right. When you’re angry, forget calming down—fighting it out like this is what our party does best, no?”
How can someone insult another person by calling their face girlish? All because I teased her a little about her age. Today I would judge this demon and report my achievement to the Buddha and the Lord. Then I would be recognized by them and receive the title of Demon Slayer. I raised my hand and gathered mana for the Demon Slayer title achievement.
“Spear of flame…”
Melissa’s eyes flashed red, and a massive amount of blood gushed from behind her, forming the shape of wings.
“Let’s stop just short of killing you, youngest.”
As expected, the demon is revealing her true form. The Lord does not acknowledge the existence of vampires, so repent and return to His embrace. And once you’re there, get the shit beaten out of you with a cross.
“…Pierce the enemy and burn them to ash.”
“My blood, carve the enemy and kill them.”
Just as our spells were about to collide, two shadows stepped between us.
Fuck, who dares interrupt the holy war to subjugate this demon?
When the dust cloud from the explosion cleared, Melchior was holding the flaming spear I had thrown. He caught that burning spear with his bare hand? His magic defense stat was disgustingly high in the game, but I was seeing it shine here too.
“Cool your head a little, Werner.”
“Understood, brother…”
I peeked past Melchior’s massive frame and saw Glacia standing there. The blood feathers Melissa had fired were scattered across the floor like red fragments, all knocked aside. If they had taken those attacks directly, they would have been seriously injured. That was how mages fought—one big hit to the other, then the one who didn’t die from the resulting agony won.
Glacia sheathed her sword and spoke in a cold voice.
“I would appreciate it if you refrained from fighting inside the mansion, Mother.”
“But this bastard called me an old hag first…!”
“And no matter that you are my mother… if you lay a hand on my wife, I will not stand by quietly.”
Fuck, if you only listened to the lines, it sounds like something the Northern Archduke would say in a romance fantasy after noticing his wife being abused and confronting his stepmother. If I were a woman I would have melted, but I didn’t have the parts, did I? I was a man and Glacia was a woman. Besides, threatening his own mother with a sword like that—my inner comic-book Myungsimbogam and the Confucian blood flowing through me could not tolerate such immorality.
Melissa landed on the ground, looked down for a moment, then began to tremble.
“Lady Glacia, no matter how I think about it, that was too much. No matter what, she is your mother, such an attitude…”
But something completely different from what I expected happened. Melissa suddenly flew toward Glacia and stroked her head.
“You even know how to threaten now… Our princess has truly grown up.”
What the fuck did she just say? She declared she would stab anyone who touched her man, even her mother, and her mother was happy about it? And “grown up”? Fuck, is this the North? Do they want their child to walk the path of Arthas?
Melchior also pulled out the tablecloth and began wiping his tears.
Yeah, no matter how you look at it, as the head of the family he must feel sad seeing his daughter like this.
“Yes, it seems our daughter has really grown up…”
Fuck, this household is definitely insane. The house is crazy, so of course the daughter treats a man like a wife. Goddamn it.