Jed's Secret and the Hidden Truth
“What do you think?”
“While I was sitting in on lessons and playing games with Jed… he seemed really competitive, but I don’t think he was up to anything bad…”
The gazes of the others turned toward her, and Amelia looked slightly flustered.
Upon hearing it, Amelia’s thoughts seemed quite reasonable.
‘Right. Thinking about it, Jed wasn’t the type to hold ill will toward a young life form.’
Rune recalled how he had resisted until the end right in front of him even while feeling the fear of death before the hidden boss of the Abandoned Mine Dungeon.
‘But… he didn’t have ill will, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t do wrong things.’
He had been blackmailing Rune to protect the secret of the market key passed down from ancestors for generations.
He had even been scolded using a somewhat awkward word for a young child like ‘obsessive pervert’.
He had received such words from Jed more than once or twice.
“Amelia. That’s true, but just because there’s no ill will doesn’t mean he’s always good, right?”
Amelia carefully voiced her opinion in response to Rune’s question.
“Th-that’s right… but yesterday… when I was playing games… I heard that Jed-sama said he couldn’t even get married in the end…”
Rune thought.
Amelia was no pushover in strength either.
The following words gave a definite feeling.
“…Jed also has abilities and money… right? So, he’s using Heungmi to do bad things to win a woman’s heart… I think he won’t be able to find a woman…”
“…”
“…”
The atmosphere in the room suddenly grew solemn.
Amelia blinked her eyes and asked, sensing something strange.
“D-did I say something wrong?”
“No.”
Rune took charge and shook his head.
It was a white lie, but it couldn’t be helped.
How could he tell the truth?
No matter how much he liked women, had money, and was passionate about romance, there were those who failed.
‘It’s fortunate that Jed isn’t here right now.’
Rune recalled the desperate shout Jed had let out yesterday when he was wiped out in the card game and lost.
—Even without getting to experience marriage, he lost at games too!
Rune realized why Amelia couldn’t imagine the same thing as him.
‘If you didn’t know young Jed, you wouldn’t know, after all.’
Amelia had only recently come to see Jed properly.
That was the dwarf version of Jed, not the actual dwarf Jed.
On the other hand, Rune remembered the young Jed of a hundred years ago who was scheming to seduce a female dwarf and make her his lover.
‘But… thinking about it, Jed was a pure type. How did he end up unable to get married and die?’
Perdikion said with a dumbfounded look on his face.
“That’s why you’re saying things you don’t know anything about.”
Just as he was about to wrinkle his brows and explode,
Clap!
Christina, who had just set down her teacup, lightly clapped her hands to refresh the atmosphere.
“It was an interesting story, but it doesn’t seem appropriate to continue it during class.”
Perdikion cleared his throat loudly and put on an awkward expression, calming the situation.
“Sorry.”
“Sorry!”
“Ah… s-sorry…”
“I’m sorry too, Christina.”
Perdikion, Heungmi, Amelia, and Rune apologized in that order.
Christina let out a light sigh.
“The road ahead is long. But everyone starts out the same. From now on, pay attention.”
“Yes!”
Heungmi answered energetically, and everyone nodded their heads or straightened their postures, showing that they would participate properly in the class.
From then on, the group focused on the class and absorbed everything they were supposed to learn that day with unprecedented concentration.
***
The class ended late in the afternoon.
They had prepared lunch by learning table manners, but there was also the good point that the class ended a little earlier.
And Rune asked Perdikion for a sparring match.
“I want to do some training, so help me, brother.”
“Sure.”
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
Perdikion, who had guessed the intention, accepted it willingly.
At that moment, Baekya, who had manipulated the cherry blossom artifact to stop operating, popped out her ears and tail and asked.
“Eh? Can Heungmi come with us too?”
“…”
That utterly innocent face.
But Rune hadn’t brought Perdikion just for that reason.
‘I wanted to talk about Jed a bit. I should politely refuse.’
Rune was about to open his mouth when Amelia hugged Heungmi from behind and lifted her slightly.
“Um, Heungmi.”
“What?”
As the tips of her toes floated in the air, Heungmi shook them gently and answered.
“Heungmi, let’s… take a little walk in the garden with Baekya, shall we?”
Heungmi looked up at Amelia and smiled brightly.
“Yes! I’ll show you around!”
“Piyak!”
Baekya also sat softly on Amelia’s blue hair, as if agreeing to come along.
Immediately after, Amelia secretly signaled to Rune.
Clearly a signal.
‘Thank you, Amelia.’
Rune nodded lightly and thought with gratitude in his eyes.
Thanks to that, Rune and Perdikion changed places.
Standing in the empty training ground, Rune spoke first.
“I wonder what Jed really did.”
Stretching his arms to loosen his body slightly, Perdikion answered.
“He was really passionate about wanting to be with a woman. Do you remember when Aunt came for a relationship consultation and Jed answered?”
“? What do you mean. I don’t remember having a relationship consultation at all……”
Rune was about to deny it but stopped, recalling something.
‘Was it back then, a hundred years ago?’
It was around the time he first met Amelia through the power key in the Red Dragon Lair.
There was a time when he had vented his worries about Amelia, who had mana but was too wary to approach.
—What kind of girl is timid?
Rune had indeed asked something like that.
Rune frowned.
‘I know it was a relationship consultation question… but it’s not that.’
Perdikion was already narrowing his eyes.
“If you want to pretend not to know, I understand. If you want, I’ll let it go for now. It’s not the main point anyway.”
“No, it’s really not that.”
Rune denied it again, but Perdikion, having fully loosened his body, immediately thrust out a fist.
When Rune tilted his head to dodge, the red eyes that had been burning with previous intent were directed at him.
“At that time, Jed said. He said women like delicious things, pretty and sparkling things, and romantic gifts filled with heart.”
To block the further attack, Rune quickly slapped away Perdikion’s wrist.
‘He remembers everything one by one?’
Rune had almost forgotten about it until now.
But upon hearing it, the events around that time came roughly to mind.
Tatak!
Changing the direction of his hand, Rune switched his foot to strike the side of Perdikion’s neck with a palm.
At that, the Red Dragon boy bent his upper body.
Just as he dove into Rune’s embrace and tried to flip him over with his back,
Whish!
Rune, bringing his two hands together, quickly placed them on Perdikion’s back and flew up into the air.
Thud.
With a light footstep, the two swapped positions.
“So, what I mean is, things like delicious snacks with high value, pretty and sparkling… so he didn’t prepare Heungmi, right?”
Perdikion facing him forced up one corner of his mouth and said.
“Even the place where there are a lot of female dwarves. Most workshops are male dwarves. Do you understand what that means?”
Perdikion, who was about to continue speaking quickly, cleared his throat lightly.
“Well… it might sound unpleasant to you. Generally, for adult dwarves, such places are only bars.”
Dwarves were bold and tolerant, but that didn’t mean they were only good and kind.
Places with many women.
Rune was sure this was Perdikion, who thought he was stupid, saying it very softly.
‘Just looking at his face, I know what he’s thinking. A place like a red-light district, right?’
It was indeed difficult to use such raw words.
A face mixed with contempt, not laughter.
Even though it would look like his pure nature in front of his sister who wouldn’t understand the meaning of the words, Rune still told him exactly what he thought.
“Brother, I don’t think Jed was that light-hearted.”
‘If there was such a place, I wouldn’t have known.’
Perdikion didn’t know, but at that time, Rune, because of young Heungmi, had roughly figured out what was around the dwarf village and when Jed settled in the human world.
He might have missed some hidden place, but
‘At least there wasn’t such a place near the usual walking route.’
Rune straightened his posture and spun his wrist once.
“What’s the point in talking about it for a long time? It’s faster to go ask the person involved.”
“Sure. Let’s go ask directly if he ever tried to win a woman’s heart using Heungmi.”
Perdikion nodded and relaxed his fighting stance.
“The answer has come out anyway.”
If Perdikion’s words were true, it was an uncomfortable matter for Rune.
Saying that he used Heungmi to win a woman’s heart.
Even a red-light district.
‘No matter how you look at it, that’s not it.’
Taking Heungmi to a woman in a red-light district pretending to be in love?
Perdikion didn’t know, but Rune had subtly shown a certain fear toward Jed every time he faced a dragon-like creature.
Because of that, Jed feared Rune quite a bit, so he wouldn’t touch Heungmi.
More than anything.
‘Even if he looked like that, he had some honor and morals.’
How much more would he have warned Rune not to be careful of ‘obsessive perverts’ if he hadn’t said such a thing?
Suddenly, Rune looked at Perdikion for a moment.
‘Thinking about it, during the hundred years I was asleep, it was this guy who supported Jed.’
Before using the teleportation magic, Rune asked Perdikion as if in passing.
“Just in case, what happened to Jed while I was sleeping?”
“Nothing much. Nothing happened.”
A hunch came.
Not denying it made the weight of Rune’s guess even greater.
Rune, about to use the teleportation magic, stopped it.
“There’s something you can’t tell me?”
“…”
Perdikion shut his mouth tightly.
An awkward silence flowed between them.
In the end, Rune spoke first.
“So both Jed and you had things you couldn’t tell me. I understand.”
Rune’s voice was lower than usual, though he hadn’t noticed.
“I’ll teleport. After all, what I wanted to hear was about Heungmi.”
Uung.
Using the teleportation magic again, the moment he tried to move to the forge where Jed was in the black room.
Thud.
“Wait a moment. Rune.”
Perdikion grabbed Rune’s wrist.
Rune turned his head.
“Why?”
Even in response to the question, Perdikion didn’t easily open his mouth.
The time felt thick, as if compressed several times.
Perdikion let out a long sigh and released Rune’s wrist.
“There was something somewhat dishonorable that happened.”
“What was it?”
Thinking about it, Jed had decided to do something with Rune knowing he would die.
It was not something anyone could do.
In other words, it was also saying that something happened in Jed’s dwarf life that made him think that way.