The Parents Have Arrived
The mere act of listening made my skin crawl. Bright could praise me as easily as he breathed, and somehow his adjectives had grown even more extravagant than before.
How should I put it? It felt like a B-list celebrity had suddenly shot up to A-list status.
Bright looked around at everyone with a proud face, as if expecting some kind of reaction. Chad froze with a fork still in his mouth, his expression turning utterly stupid, while Akia dropped something on the floor and went rigid like a broken machine.
This damn mage. He just had to throw a fastball out of nowhere.
“Senior? I was keeping that a secret, you know.”
“……What?”
“The fact that I’m Jeanie Crowell.”
I watched the color drain rapidly from Bright’s face as he realized his mistake.
“I should’ve told you not to say anything… but this is the first time I’ve run into someone who knows, so I blanked. My mind was elsewhere too.”
In the old days, I would’ve slapped him the second he messed up. You have to correct bad habits immediately, or you end up with a dog that doesn’t know its place.
“Whaaaaat!”
Bright stretched out his philtrum and made the face of someone who’d been hit plenty of times. A beat later, a shout exploded from the table. Chad’s voice was as big as his body.
Worried someone might have overheard us, I glanced around. Thankfully, everyone else was lost in their own excitement, fully absorbed in their meals. No one was paying us any attention.
“No waaaaay!”
Even while I was looking around, Chad’s yelling was still in full swing.
“Ugh, you’re loud.”
“You! That famous Saint…!”
“Shh.”
“……Huk!”
Ash hurriedly silenced Chad.
Akia was quietly horrified in complete contrast to Chad, while Enk and Gail didn’t seem particularly surprised. They’d already figured it out.
Only those two were shocked. Seriously, why are you staring at me like that? It’s burdensome.
I received the scorching gazes of Chad and Akia with perfect composure and casually spread both hands.
“Ta-da.”
……As expected, Rai and I are perfectly in sync. We’re practically one and the same, so I guess it’s only natural.
“……You guys! Why are you all so calm?! Even you, Ash… Don’t tell me you all already knew? Was I seriously the only one who didn’t?!”
“Well… isn’t it pretty obvious if you just think about it?”
“Right. Her name is Jeanie, she’s from Dmitry, and she uses that insane level of spirit magic.”
“Exactly. She had enough power to take on a dragon. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. I really thought we were all going to die, but we made it out alive.”
Enk and Gail got along surprisingly well and bounced off each other smoothly. Before long, the two of them were looking at Chad—the only one who hadn’t known—with pity.
“If you thought about it even a little…”
“……I didn’t think about it at all!”
“Yeah, that sounds like you.”
“Well, it is Chad after all.”
Watching the scene unfold, I reached out and grabbed one of the pre-meal breads sitting on the table.
I had been keeping it a secret, but it wasn’t like I was going to hide it from these guys forever. So it didn’t really matter. If anything, it was probably for the best that the clueless Chad finally found out.
“Jeanie… Did I do something wrong? Am I going to die now?”
Bright, who had no idea how carefree I actually felt inside, was trembling in terror, not knowing when he might get scolded.
I took a bite of the bread and decided to show some rare mercy.
“It’s fine. I’ll let it slide. These aren’t just anyone—they’re these guys. They’re so insignificant that it’s safe. Nothing big will happen even if they know.”
“Did she just call us insignificant?”
“Yep. She’s right.”
“……Jeanie! What happened to you?! In the old days you would’ve already smacked me with that bread!”
“That’s because this bread is too small to hit someone with. And I’m hungry.”
You have to treat food with respect. Besides, Ash is sitting right next to me. He always stops me from hitting people, which is incredibly annoying. I picked up another piece of the bread that disappeared after three bites.
Maybe it was because I had something in my mouth, but I was in a surprisingly good mood.
“Oh my god, you’ve changed, Jeanie……”
“I’m still a person. Of course I feel things. Life is insignificant. One little tap and it’s over, so you have to be careful before you swing.”
Anyone who gets kidnapped by a dragon and survives will naturally come to understand just how insignificant life is. Humans are creatures that die far too easily. To some beings, we might be no different from a candle flickering in the wind or an ant beneath their feet.
In the past, no matter how angry I got, I would hit people but never kill them. But after actually killing someone recently, I realized just how easy it was. So I decided that from now on, I would endure it to the limit.
I, too, was a person who respected life in my own way.
“……Then… Can I confess one thing? Will you promise not to kill me?”
“Hm? If it’s a love confession, I’m sick of those.”
I hadn’t counted exactly how many times Bright had confessed to me, but if you added another ten, it would probably be close to a thousand.
“No, it’s something else. Something much more important.”
The sudden seriousness in Bright’s demeanor sent a wave of unease over me.
What the hell did this bastard do this time?
The last time he acted like this, he threw me a surprise birthday party by inviting a bunch of his friends I didn’t even know, set it up in my training room, and ended up starting a huge fire.
Among the things that burned was a letter I had stayed up all night writing, debating whether or not to send it.
If it hadn’t burned, it might have been the first letter I ever sent to the parents of this world.
“I’ll decide after I hear it.”
“……Alright. Even if you get angry, will you promise not to use spirit magic and settle it with your hands instead?”
“What is it?”
“Spirit magic would kill me instantly, but you can’t kill me by beating me up, right?!”
“What do you take me for… I can kill someone of your level with my bare hands, you know?”
“Then promise!”
Damn it, this guy knows me too well. I ended up agreeing in the heat of the moment. Getting tricked by Bright’s schemes always leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
“I’m getting curious, so just spit it out already. What is it?”
“You’re swearing in front of these people, right? No matter what, you’ll spare my life?”
“You’re really dragging this out. Fine. I’ll spare you.”
As long as he’s still breathing, it should be fine. Besides, Ash is here, so I won’t be able to kill him anyway.
“Here in… Helicke, you see.”
“Yeah.”
The bread was a little burnt. I should eat something else. Even as I swapped the bread and raised an eyebrow, I was still the happy Jeanie Crowell.
“I didn’t come alone.”
“Really? Who did you come with? Iruse? Mia? You can’t leave those two by themselves. No matter how good the security is, it’s dangerous when there are lots of people. My friends take after me—they’re all beauties.”
“Their quirks are the same too… But they don’t even know I came here. I didn’t tell them because I knew they’d try to follow.”
“Then who? Jai-mam?”
Though he wasn’t visible right now, Bright had a servant who was practically his shadow.
His name was Jai-mam. He had an androgynous beauty that made it hard to tell if he was a man or a woman, and he came from a long line of butlers who had served the Keniyan family for generations.
“……Jai-mam is with them.”
“So who exactly are ‘them’? You’re using honorifics—does that mean the headmaster?”
“Don’t be surprised.”
“I won’t be. I have a strong heart!”
I’m the one who personally proved that as long as you keep your wits about you, you can survive even after being taken by a dragon. Hmph.
“Your parents are here.”
“…….”
[System: Mental Fortitude has been critically shaken.]
The savory flavor I had been tasting from the bread vanished in an instant.
I must have misheard. There was absolutely no reason for those people to be here. Ah, maybe he meant Bright’s parents?
“I stopped by the Crowell territory to look for you… paid my respects to your parents, and when they heard you were alive, they wanted to celebrate? We met and talked, and then……”
“Why the hell did you go to my house to greet them?!”
“Oh, Jeanie’s mad. When she stops using polite speech, that’s usually the signal to run……”
“Are you insane?!”
“They were so incredibly worried, so I told them that if they came here, they might be able to see you? It seemed like a really good idea at the time. I said it to reassure them. But… they insisted on coming with me… so I brought them.”
Two people, he said.
Not one, but both of them?
There was nothing wrong with my ears, so it seemed Bright’s mind had finally broken.
“Oh my? There’s a sword here.”
In a perfectly natural motion, I drew the longsword hanging at Ash’s side with a smooth shing.
But a swordsman wouldn’t let his weapon be taken so easily. I was stopped before I could even pull it out half a handspan.
Anyway, once I actually tried to pull it out, it was too heavy for me to swing properly.
I quickly changed targets.
I grabbed the steak knife that had been left carelessly on the table. Even that was snatched away by Ash in a flash before my hand could fully leave the table, but I didn’t give up.
Grinding my teeth, I reached for another knife, but the damn bastards worked in perfect coordination to clear away anything that could possibly be used as a weapon from my reach.
What great teamwork!
Couldn’t they at least leave me one fork?!
In the blink of an eye, the table had been swept clean. I watched the guys who had each grabbed several plates and fled toward the window, trembling with rage.
“……These bastards… after everything I’ve done for you……”
In the end, I swung the only weapon still left.
The bread basket was still full of bread, but I didn’t care. I slammed it straight into Bright’s chest.
“How dare you do something like this! You must be crazy and want to die!”
Once I shouted it, the line sounded like something from a lovers’ quarrel, so I changed the basket’s trajectory toward Bright’s face.
With all the ferocious anger I could muster—anger that contained not a single trace of love—I struck him and screamed.
“That’s right! You must be crazy, that’s why you’ve been running around looking for me! Die! Just die right here!”
“Ack, ugh! Jeanie! Your hands have gotten really strong… Wait, my face…!”
“As if being handsome makes everything okay!”
I was the type of person who treasured beautiful men and women and usually treated them kindly, but Bright’s sin was so grave that even his handsome face couldn’t possibly make up for it.
“It wasn’t on purpose! I know how much you struggle with your parents!”
“And yet you still did this? If you want to die, just say so! Why make it so complicated?! Let’s not waste time. Should I just drown you?”
“W-wait, you promised not to use spirit magic!”
“I don’t remember that!”
“We have witnesses!”
The guy who was hurriedly hiding his sword behind his back—Ash—and those other bastards who had run to the corner of the table.
In the past, I would’ve silenced the witnesses by force too… but I couldn’t bring myself to hit Ash.
Damn it. Because Ash’s face is a national treasure.
“God damn it! I’ll let you live, so keep the fact that you met me a secret! Do you understand?! Pretend we never met!”
“……How can I do that?! They’ve been wasting away from worry for you every single day!”
“You said you’d do anything I asked!”
“Of course I will! But they’re the ones who gave birth to you! They came all the way here because they wanted to see with their own eyes that you’re alive! How worried they must have been……”
By now, the bread basket was nothing but a handle.
I threw the broken basket to the floor and instead grabbed Bright by the collar.
His pale face was bleeding from both nostrils. It was the kind of sight that might soften someone’s heart, but I was too busy trying to figure out how to beat this bastard to death. I was completely worked up.
-Haaah, Jeanie’s rough breathing… it’s so thrilling……
The moment my right hand, the one wearing the ring, touched Bright’s chin, his inner thoughts began flowing into me automatically.
-If she strangled my neck with all her strength with this hand… how ecstatic it would be……
“Gyaaaaaah! You perverted bastard!”
Disgusting! His inner thoughts are way too disgusting!
I flailed as if I had dipped my hand into some unknown liquid and had to get away from Bright.
What kind of pervert even exists like this?!
Rai is extremely concerned for Master’s mental state.
“Aaaaaagh!”
“Jeanie… calm down……”
“Ash! Kill him for me! I can’t touch him anymore, so please kill him instead!”
I must have been truly desperate to cling to Ash of all people and say something like that. The moment I let out another frustrated scream over a request I knew he wouldn’t grant, we were all kicked out of the restaurant.
The reason was that we had caused a disturbance.
They’re overreacting just because I raised my voice a little!
I did try to kill someone, but it’s not like I would actually murder someone in a public place!
……I might have, though.