A Master's Dignity
"My cute little disciple. Renny."
She tapped my shoulder with the long silver rod in her hand as she spoke.
A little girl calling out my real name—something I had never told a soul.
She looked for all the world like a perfect miniature of Master herself.
"Beep… beeeep…."
The first thing I did was—
"…Huh?"
"What's the matter?"
—stretch out my leg, clamp Huey's ankle tight in my talons, and—
"Wait, something just grabbed my ank— WAAAAAAH!!"
"Master?!"
—yank him off his feet and hurl him straight at the little girl in front of me before bolting out of the tavern.
CRASH!
I kicked the tavern door clean off its hinges and smashed through it.
The instant I was outside—
"Beeeeyaaaah—!!"
FLAP!
—I beat my wings as hard as I could and shot skyward at the absolute maximum speed I could manage.
"Hiiik! Hiiik!"
I was still trying to force my terror-trembling body under control when—
Tok.
"Beeeit—?!"
A sudden cool touch settled against my back.
…An extremely familiar touch.
"The first thing you do the moment you see your master's face is ambush her and run away. You've picked up some truly terrible habits while I was gone."
The voice came from right above my head.
I forgot even to keep flapping and twisted around to look.
"First, take one hit."
Master's face—smiling down at me as if I were the most ridiculous thing she had ever seen—was the last thing I registered.
CRACK!
The impact on the crown of my head knocked me clean out.
"Aigo, that really startled me. Seriously."
"Are you all right, Master?"
Huey, who had been unintentionally flung through a table and straight at the small girl, recalled the way she had caught his entire bulk one-handed despite her size and gave an involuntary shiver.
"I'm fine for now, but…"
A distinctly creepy feeling still crawled up his spine.
"Honestly, what a high-maintenance disciple."
"Bweeeeh…"
A short while later, the same little girl came bouncing lightly down from the sky, one of Ren's legs dangling from her grip while Ren herself drooled and made bizarre noises with a massive lump rising on her head.
"Um…"
Huey carefully spoke up, face full of pure bewilderment.
"Hm? Ah, excuse me. My name is Marta."
As if only just noticing Huey, the girl—Marta—introduced herself.
"My useless disciple has caused you quite a bit of trouble."
She casually tapped her own shoulder with the thin silver rod—about as long as her forearm—then casually tossed Ren toward Huey with her free hand.
"Wha—!"
Huey caught the flying Ren and handed her off to Lucy, quietly checking her condition.
"…She's completely out of it."
"Indeed. I shall take care of her."
"Appreciate it."
Huey watched Luciella carry Ren off toward the inn for a moment before Marta spoke again.
"Huey, was it?"
"…How do you know my name?"
He took a wary step back as Marta scratched her head with the rod and called him by a name he had never given her.
"Ah, no need to be so on guard. I heard it from my other disciple."
Everything—from Ren's transformation into a harpy to the existence of Huey and Luciella—she had learned from that other student.
"Your other… disciple?"
"That's right. You've already met her. In the desert."
Marta shoved a fistful of coins into the hands of the tavern owner who had come running out at the sudden uproar. Huey stared at her in pure shock.
Of course he was shocked. The only people who had seen Ren's changed form in the desert were two.
"Don't tell me…!"
"Exactly. Sion. I took her on as a disciple not long ago."
Unlike her first disciple, she actually listened, which was nice.
"Then are Sion and Chloe in this city as well?"
"Nope. I had other business, so I split off for a bit. I'm on my way to rejoin them now."
At some point they had drifted into a deserted alley as Marta spoke.
"That aside… you followed me here without a shred of caution."
"Pardon?"
Before Huey could even react to the sudden remark—
Whoosh!
Something cut through the air and his entire field of vision flipped upside down.
"…Huh?"
In the blink of an eye he was lying on the ground. Before he could even process that fact, a blade was already resting against his throat.
"Did you let your guard down just because I'm Ren's master?"
Marta now held a fully extended spear, her expression ice-cold as she looked down at him.
"Or was it because I look like a little kid?"
"Um, why are you doing this…?"
"Answer me."
Cold sweat poured down Huey's face as he scrambled for a way out of the situation.
"How far have you gone with Ren?"
"…Huh?"
At Marta's next question, Huey could only stare at her with an expression of pure, speechless disbelief.
"I'm asking how far you've gone with my precious Ren!"
Now she was outright shouting, eyes welling up.
"L-Look… I think there's been some kind of misunderstanding…"
"Misunderstanding, my ass! Chloe told me everything! She said you were staring at Ren with those filthy eyes of yours!"
"…Kh."
It wasn't exactly wrong, so Huey averted his gaze.
"I finally found a kid who matched my tastes and was just waiting for the day I could harvest him, and then he turns into a girl—which is already unfair enough—and now some bastard like you—!"
Hearing that, Huey completely forgot the spear tip against his neck and looked back at Marta.
"Wait. Don't tell me the reason you took Ren as a disciple was…!"
"…Hup."
Only then did Marta realize she had said too much. She sucked in a sharp breath, but Huey's eyes had already shifted into the look one gives a completely irredeemable pervert.
"…It's a misunderstanding."
She tried to walk it back, cold sweat pouring down her face.
"Misunderstanding, my frozen ass, you damn pervert—!"
Huey had already slipped a talisman from his sleeve. The moment Marta's gaze wavered, he seized the spear aimed at his throat and shouted.
CRACKLE-ZZZT!
"Gyagagagyaaah—!"
A massive surge of electricity raced up the spear. Marta screamed.
Thud.
She finally collapsed. Huey rose to his feet and looked down at her.
"…And this is supposed to be the Hero's master?"
Even thinking about it again, it was absurd. He stared at the twitching, smoke-breathing Marta with pure contempt, then roughly wiped the thin trickle of blood from his neck and started back the way he had come.
"H-Gyagya…"
"Ptoo."
Of course, he made sure to spit on the fallen Marta before he left.
The next day.
"……"
Huey stared at the still-dark sky outside the window for a moment, then turned and scowled as hard as he could at the uninvited guest who had shown up at dawn—Marta.
"U-Um…"
"What do you want? More importantly, how did you even find my room?"
"Well, I just went around to every inn asking if anyone had seen my big brother who looks like this…"
"…Tsk."
Huey, who had suddenly become the trash older brother who abandoned his little sister in a dark alley in the middle of the night, grabbed the back of his neck as his blood pressure spiked.
"I have nothing to say to you. Goodbye."
He tried to slam the door shut, but—
"W-Wait a second!"
"Urgh, what kind of strength—!"
—Marta jammed her hand into the closing gap and forced the door open, successfully invading the room.
"Heh… heh heh… Did you really think a mere Gold-rank adventurer could overpower the Tyrant Marta with raw strength?!"
"…I'm calling the authorities."
"Euk?!"
Huey looked at the girl who had barged into his room and was now strutting around with pure contempt, then began preparing to go out.
"I have nothing to discuss with a pervert."
"I-I told you I'm not a pervert!"
At Huey's reaction, Marta carefully raised her voice, clearly worried Ren might wake up in the next room.
"Please, just listen to me a little—just a tiny bit…!"
"……"
She looked ready to grab his ankle and get dragged around if he took one more step. Huey pressed his fingers to his temple, stared at the ceiling, and let out a long sigh.
"…I doubt listening will change anything."
Even so, he turned back from the door and dropped heavily onto the bed. Marta's face lit up instantly.
"So? What did you want to say? You put a spear to my throat last night."
"Th-That was… I just have a bit of a short temper… Hehe… Could you maybe let it slide?"
Huey could only stare at the girl currently trying her hardest to act cute and coquettish, wondering if this was truly the same person who had threatened his life the night before. He answered with nothing but a look of pure pity.
"Ahem. Anyway. I misspoke yesterday, but calling me a pervert is a huge misunderstanding."
She thrust out her completely flat chest—so flat a washboard would have been an improvement—and thumped it with her fist, declaring with a completely straight face that she was absolutely not the kind of pervert who kidnapped little boys, raised them, and then "ate" them in a sexual sense.
Huey regarded her with eyes that had gone completely cold.
"…So then, what's your preferred type of man?"
He asked with a bright smile.
"Someone younger than me, a little short because height is a complex of mine, a bit rough around the edges personality-wise, but strong enough to protect me… hup."
Marta answered without thinking, then froze solid.
"And while we're at it, why did you force young Ren onto a vegetarian diet?"
"……"
Marta averted her eyes and broke into a cold sweat.
"I don't even need to hear it. You just didn't want him to grow taller."
Huey had clearly decided to abandon whatever scraps of courtesy he still had left. He clicked his tongue and looked at Marta as if she were something lower than an insect.
Judging that there was no way out of this situation no matter what she did, Marta took a deep breath after a moment of agonized thought.
"…Eheh."
She made a cute little gesture and winked at Huey.
"Not a chance…"
Huey quietly muttered, then reached out and clamped a hand over Marta's face.
"Bwehp."
Naturally, he already had a talisman ready in his other hand.
"You're just a straight-up pervert—!!"
CRACKLE-ZZZZZT—!!
"Gyagyaagyagyaaaak—!!"
Unable to contain his rage, Huey shouted and called down a bolt of lightning strong enough to light up the entire room, electrocuting Marta without the slightest hesitation.
"Hoo… hoo…"
Honestly, he had expected to feel some resistance because she looked like a child.
Instead, he felt nothing but pure, cathartic satisfaction—so much so that it was the first time he had ever used a technique on a person this freely.
"Unbelievable. Seriously."
Not wanting to think about the aftermath, he casually tossed the blackened, smoke-breathing Marta out into the hallway.
"I have no idea how Sion ever decided to take something like that as her master."
And so Huey began his day a little earlier than usual.