Chapter One: Soulmate
“Can a middle schooler really live by themselves?” Father asked. “Practically, not to mention legally?”
“There wasn’t really an issue. A neighborhood pig always came to wake me up. And a different pig, the landlord’s daughter, took me to school. And just when I thought my parents were coming back, I got transferred into this weird backcountry school.”
“That’s crazy. It’s like you’re a character in a gal game.”
It seemed like my story was catching Father’s interest. I had his undivided attention! In the last round, Father always had a glint of discernment in his eyes that sent a shiver down my spine, like he saw right through me. No wonder a man like that raised Filo.
“So even though things were fairly settled, did something happen?” Father asked.
“With the pigs? This is no time for joking around!”
Repulsive, vile things happened, I say, things that I never want to remember. Pigs, my God!
“No, I’m just interested in what happened in your life at the time,” Father said.
“When I was about to enter college, I decided to move to Tokyo to polish up my manhood. The pigs saw me off graciously.”
“No kidding.”
Yup. And then I set off into the world, freely traipsing around for more than two years. I admit that I was a bit of a selfish pig myself. When there was something that I didn’t like, I easily got upset and it was almost impossible to cheer me up. I was probably just trying to get people to do what I wanted. There was no end to my annoyances.
But pigs took problems that were so easy to solve and made them dire. At the time, I used all of my strength to solve those problems. As to why the pigs took such a trifling issue and made it into such a disaster . . . even now I have no idea, so there’s nothing I can do about it. Yup, nothing to be done. If I had to think of anything useful that the pigs taught me, it would be online games, and that’s about it.
Still, if all of that hadn’t happened before, I may have never met Filo-tan. So I’ll give them credit for that.
“So you don’t want to go back home?” Father asked.
“Not in the slightest. Even without me, I’m sure the pigs have found someone else to butter up. That’s just what pigs do.”
“I can see why you don’t like women who do that.”
“By now they’re definitely over my death.”
“You do have a businesslike side to you, Motoyasu.”
“Do I? Well, that’s what it takes to deal with pigs and love.” To a pig, a hero is little more than a slave, I say.
But I was different from how I was before. The “me” that left those pigs behind had never known true love. Oh, how love can bring out the sunshine on a cloudy day!
To keep your true love happy, I thought, it’s necessary to keep up a good appearance. Still, someday you’ll get worn out. And it’s an undeniable fact that pigs only wanted to date me for my good looks. I won the trust of most pigs easily by telling them sweet nothings. But Filo . . . Filo was the one curious creature that didn’t care at all about my looks. She was the only one who cheered me up without any regard for my appearance!
But those pigs! Pigs took advantage of my weaknesses and taught the other pigs how to do the same. Filo-tan didn’t have that kind of twisted heart. Therefore, I, Motoyasu Kitamura, resolved to love Filo-tan and all filolials with all of my soul!
“We’re off topic again,” Father said. “Okay, let’s try one more time. Is there anything else you can think of about how Siltvelt treated the heroes? We know that we need to take precautions. Remember what happened back in Melromarc.”
Just what you’d expect from a genius like Father. He had the prudence to look before he leapt and the boldness to lose a battle to win the war. I didn’t sense that piercing glint of discernment in his gaze, but when I saw how deep his care and caution ran, and when I realized just how much he had grown, I couldn’t help but burst into tears.
“Why are you crying, Motoyasu? Is it something I said?”
“Motoyasu, what’s wrong?” cried Yuki from outside the room.
“I’m fine, I say!” I wailed. “Your caution simply moved me to tears, Father!”
“You’re not making fun of me, are you?”
“Don’t be absurd!” I sobbed.
“Well, I guess you must actually feel that way,” Father said. He let out a deep sigh. “I suppose what we should worry about for the time being is what I talked about with Eclair on the way here—about marriage proposals in Siltvelt.”
I also had plenty of marriage proposals when I was last summoned here! The pigs that wanted me in their pants just because I was the Spear Hero had disgusted me. I may have liked pigs back then, but at least I despised promiscuity! I somehow managed to turn away the crimson swine.
Back then, I wanted to have sex with pigs that I trusted and that were my friends. I even dreamt about having a harem. I believed that playboys were the most resourceful men. I went so far as to imagine that the day I saved the world, all of the world’s good pigs would join my harem. Now, it made me nauseous to think about.
Thinking that much about pigs was making me feel disgusting.
“Motoyasu, can you please stop changing your expression so much? It’s making me pretty uncomfortable.”
“Understood!”
I decided to silence my thoughts and listen only to Father.
Yes, that was how my world used to be. Always full of pigs.
“So like I was saying, it seems like from tomorrow on we’ll be called to all sorts of meetings and dinner meetings and marriage proposals,” Father said. “Even though we were summoned here to save theworld, I’m just being paraded around like some sort of prized breeding stud.” He sighed. “Well, I am still a virgin, and I would like to be able to experience it at least once . . .”
I wasn’t thinking. I was listening only to Father.
“Motoyasu, are you listening to me?”
Not thinking . . . listening . . .
“Motoyasu!”
“What is it, Father?”
“If you’re not going to listen, why don’t you just go back to your room?”
“I was listening! But since you told me to stop changing my expression, I decided to listen to you without thinking any thoughts of my own!”
Father stared at me blankly.
Hm. It seemed that Father was pretty embarrassed by his virginity.
“So let’s get back to our discussion,” I told him. “To remain a virgin is to be pure, I say. You must not feed your virginity to the pigs. Even thinking about it now gives me the chills! To have your first experience with a pig, my God, I’m going to vomit!”
“No! My God, Motoyasu, not now! I think I chose the wrong person to talk to.”
“Thank you for those words of praise, Father.” I was nearly overwhelmed with gratitude!
“I’m not praising you! I—I . . .” Father trailed off and started again. “So, Motoyasu, if I have a soulmate in this world, do you know who it is? I just thought maybe you’d have a guess.”
A soulmate? The first person Father had as his companion was Filo-tan’s older sister, so maybe her? But even though Father was with Filo-tan’s sister for a long time, I had hardly heard anything about it.
Before, back when we lived in the village, I heard the filolials talking about something like this. Maybe Filo-tan’s older sister’s older sister was also a good prospect? Since Filo-tan and Father together would be nothing short of incest, at the very least, I had to stop that pairing at all costs.
“I heard that in the future,” I told Father, “you try to sleep with a man.”
“What?” Father’s face twitched.
Most definitely he had. Since Father disliked the idea of sleeping with a woman, he had made Filo-tan’s sister and the others stand guard outside. Then he had tried to sleep with a man.
“Because I was betrayed by women, I went for men instead?”
“Yes. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was a white-tiger man. He was a slave.” I started to recall what the filolials had been talking about. Father had tried to sleep with a man, but the man ended up running away. At the time, Father was in charge of a lot of things, so I had no idea exactly what kind of relationship he had with who. Still, I got the sense that it had been a pretty rough time for Father. I wouldn’t let Father experience that ever again!
“I don’t know if I like the idea of doing it with a man . . .” Father held his head in his hands, looking troubled.
This was quite the predicament.
“Nevertheless,” I declared, “I’ll say it loud and proud to both virgins and maidens alike: don’t recklessly throw your virtue down the drain!”
“That’s what you’re trying to say?”
“Being a virgin is the way to go, I say!”
“That’s the first time I’ve heard anyone say that,” Father said. He sighed and hung his head.
Why in the world was he so upset? Virginity is like a treasure that you can only lose once. Although for men there’s no physical evidence, like there is for maidens, losing your virginity still cuts into your very soul. And what I mean by all that is this: you must be able to tell your soulmate honestly that you have a pure body!
It struck me as wrong that only maidens get to be recognized as special. When people talk about female virgins, they get called “pure as snow” and all that, so why don’t male virgins get to be pure as snow as well? Well, either way, there was no going back for me, as much as I would’ve liked to dedicate my chastity to Filo-tan.
“I regret talking to you about all this in the first place,” Father said.
“What do you mean?” I cried. “This is important! What will you do if you lose your virginity to some pig and end up with an STD? Look at the options here—remain a virgin or get an STD! Which one is better now?”
“But maidens can’t have STDs, right?”
“In the last round, a pig went so far as to lie to me about her virginity,” I explained. According to the queen, the crimson swine was no virgin.
“They’d go that far?” Father looked terrified. “I’ll keep that in mind. I don’t want to have sex with a guy, so I’d like to at least try a marriage proposal.”
I supposed that was the best option. Easy sex is far from satisfactory, I say.
“If we act too carefully, we won’t get anything done,” Father said. “Good luck, Motoyasu.”
“Good luck, Father!” I said. “Please rest up!”
“Yup, see you tomorrow. Okay, Sakura, let’s go.”
“Cooooming!”
With that, Father went off to his separate room. I, Motoyasu Kitamura, shall endeavor with all my might to be of assistance to Father. To that end, I need to do some more digging.
“Mr. Kitamura, what’s wrong?”
“What are you doing?”
Yuki and Kou were calling to me. I noticed that Éclair seemed to be talking to somebody in a different room.
“I’m going to head out for just a bit. Yuki and Kou, you should continue to act as if I’m here while I’m gone and keep watch for me.”
Somewhere in this castle, there could be some sort of dastardly scheme to take out Father. Trash and the crimson swine were undoubtedly putting together dark plots. And I was determined to be the one to uncover them!
“We’ll take care of it!” Yuki said. “Should I imitate your voice from behind that partition there?”
“That would be marvelous,” I said. “Incidentally, I do believe that’s called a folding screen.”
“Wow! You’re a genius, Motoyasu,” Yuki said. “I’ll act exactly like I’m you and talk to Kou, I promise!” With that, Yuki hid behind the folding screen and started to talk to Kou in an imitation of my voice.
“I’m off!” I declared. “Activate Cloaking Lance X and Liberation Fire Mirage!”
Activating a stealth condition with one of my skills, as well as a composite concealment ability with some magic, I swiftly leapt out of the bedroom window. Moving with my typical stealth and swagger, I swept across the castle on my reconnaissance mission.
My stealth condition engaged, I embarked on a thorough search of the castle interior. Surely there was some foul plot afoot. I had to be careful. And I had to be doubly careful, too, since demi-humans and therianthropes might get a whiff of me even while I was in stealth mode.
I recalled that Filo-tan’s older sister noticed me in stealth mode a number of times. Wait? Was it her sister? I had an inkling that there may have been times besides where I was discovered as well, but I didn’t remember in the slightest.
And as I thought about those sorts of things, a lion therianthrope passed by me. He had bad posture and looked pretty self-important.
A lion, huh? When I thought about it more, didn’t Filo-tan tell me she fought a lion like that? Rather than just aimlessly wandering around, I thought it might be more efficient just to follow this guy.
With that, I followed him. He went across the castle and entered a dismal, poorly lit room that appeared to be a meeting place of sorts and closed the door.
How could I infiltrate the room? If I made my typical grand entrance, they might happen to notice me.
Hmm. Before I came to this world, I used to know a pig that studied ninja techniques. I tried to remember what she had told me. If there were any ventilation shafts, I could use those to sneak in, but I didn’t see any. Plus, I had absolutely no idea what the layout of the castle was like.
That would appear to limit my options.
I looked around and noticed a nearby shelf exhibiting fancy weapons. It would be a gamble, but I could break the shelf with my spear to stir up some commotion. That way, when the people in the nearby room came out to check what had happened, I could infiltrate the meeting room. I decided to give it a shot and broke the shelf with a stab.
“What the hell?” I heard a voice say.
Say what now? Someone was coming out of a different room a bit farther away from the one I had set my sights on.
“The shelf broke?” The person simply fixed it with some magic.
Well, that was a failure. And if I did it again, they’d almost certainly suspect foul play. Unless . . . surely that lion was the type who wouldn’t be able to rest easy until he came and checked what had made the sound.
Just then, a wide hippo-like therianthrope came plodding sluggishly across the hall. This could be my chance, I thought, so I followed them from behind. Just as I suspected, they opened the door to the very room I had been after! They had to open the door as wide as possible in order to fit their tremendous girth through the door, so I was able to slip into the room behind them.
With that, I successfully infiltrated the target destination.
With a few entering at a time, before long a large group of demi-humans and therianthropes had gathered in the meeting room. Perhaps this was some sort of important meeting. But I didn’t see that shusaku man that had greeted us earlier.
The lion spoke up, addressing the group: “Now we’ll begin the meeting concerning the shield hero,” he said.
Everyone nodded in agreement.
What on earth? The room was dim, lit only by candlelight, which meant that this meeting surely had to do with wicked deeds. If they were going to discuss Father, then I had arrived at exactly the right time.
“Now the shield hero rests easy with his idiotic grin,” the lion said, “pleasantly recuperating after a long journey.”
How dare they.
“I can’t believe a kid like that is the legendary hero!” someone in the room shouted.
“Why they would summon a pathetic creature like him is beyond my understanding,” another said.
They were disrespecting Father! Should I kill them all at once or let the slander continue for a little longer? Perhaps this was just them strategically preparing to praise him all the more, so I decided to remain patient.
After all, I used to say bad things about Father too. When the crimson swine first betrayed me, I said so many terrible things. I’m ashamed of what I said then. I should emulate the mercy of Father, who forgave me for my insolence. Since Siltvelt’s citizens worship Father, after all, I should try to respond to them with Father’s generosity.
“However,” the lion continued, “according to legend, the Shield Hero will give birth to a special child. We ought to at least try to make that child. The shield hero falling right into our lap is great fortune for us.”
“That’s right,” another demi-human chimed in. “We need to try to bring the legend to life. In order to prepare for the coming holy war, we’ll use the Shield Hero like a breeding stud!”
Now that he said that, couldn’t the same thing apply to any of the heroes? That was why so many pigs had gathered around me, surely. I, Motoyasu Kitamura, have a lot to think about, I say.
“When I saw him, he looked so innocent,” one said.
“The knights we sent out reported that his personality is exactly what it seems,” the lion said with a sneer.
A demi-human seated near the lion started to laugh. “Then we can persuade him to do whatever we want. He’ll be easy to deal with. Looks like all of our precaution was unnecessary.”
“While that may be the case, he did manage to escape from Melromarc and make it all the way here,” another added.
“The Spear Hero at his side has supposedly displayed godlike strength,” the lion said. “But at the same time, the Shield Hero isn’t particularly strong himself.”
“Shouldn’t we take that with a grain of salt? There’s no use in being paralyzed in fear of some Spear Hero.”
“In any case, are the preparations complete?” the lion asked.
Naturally, our prudence turned out to be necessary. Since Father and I discussed being careful already, there wouldn’t be any problems at all.
“We’re nearly ready,” someone in the crowd responded. “We’ve already taken out Werner’s group and substituted one of our own in its place.”
“Excellent. Then we can easily lure the Shield Hero,” the lion said. “That so-called hero . . . We’ll seduce him with our scheme, and then it will be simple to infiltrate his ranks. By then, Werner will be powerless to stop us. Our time has come!”
A powerful clap of thunder sounded from the small window, followed by flashes of lightning. That was the final proof I needed to determine that this unsavory lot is up to unsavory deeds. But no matter how underhanded their devious plots may be, they’re powerless against Father!
It all made sense. When Father died before, he must have gotten caught up in a trap like this. Well, as did I, long ago. When I remembered that pig with a false accusation in hand, ready to share a few days of romance with Father only to turn on him, I nearly puked. That pig bath I had been trapped in had damaged my very spirit.
I heroically managed to hold in my vomit so they wouldn’t notice I was there.
“So who are we going to use to seduce him?” someone asked.
“Isn’t it obvious by looking at his companions?” the lion said. “We’re going to use someone who looks young.”
He must be referring to how Yuki and Sakura are traveling with us. How dare those villains lay their eyes upon my majestic filolials!
“We can’t show our hand now,” the lion explained. “It will be troublesome if they find out who it is.”
I couldn’t wait to tell Father all about this.
“So what do we do once we’ve captured the shield hero and produced his child?” someone asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” someone cackled. “We’ll dispose of him.”
“A hero summoned to the polluted soil of Melromarc . . .” the lion said. “It’s repulsive that he was recognized as a hero in the first place. He’ll finally meet his end.”
“I just wish he had been killed by Melromarc on his way here,” another said, “or that we could simply kill him, so we could have avoided this whole scheme. That filthy hero is the worst of them all!”
“Assassins and spies won’t do us any good here. Even though we knew their location, our previous attacks were unsuccessful. Regardless, the fruit of our labor is nearly ripe,” the lion said.
I was starting to get the vague impression that Siltvelt had in fact been responsible for the previous attacks on us.
“Just be patient—we only need our plan to succeed,” the lion continued. “And soon we’ll create our ideal world!”
What a contemptible lot! As long as I live, I’ll never let Father fall victim to one of your cowardly schemes! I had to tell Father right away.
But before that, I had better decide what to do about these villains. I considered letting them go alive out of my deep compassion, but deeds like this are simply too evil. I had to take care of this immediately or we would regret it later. To betray Father is a grievous sin.
Well, I had better get started.
I began to cast a spell. But I knew I couldn’t destroy the whole building, and since it would be annoying if I made too much noise, it would be best to destroy them without anyone else knowing. I opened the door and left the room.
“What?” someone shouted. “The door—it just . . . opened!”
A magic spell was the best solution. So I called, “Liberation Firefloor X!”
That’s a handy spell because you can specify the range. And the range that I specified was the very room they were all standing in. Instantly, the meeting room was engulfed in the raging flames of hell.
I heard ghastly screams coming from within.
I completely incinerated each and every one of those villainous dastards. The flames devoured their screams and reduced even their bones to ashes.
Perhaps now I had managed to guarantee Father’s safety, at least for a little while.
After confirming that the entire room had been burned and that not a trace of evidence remained, I released the magic to make the flames disappear and started making my way back toward my room.
Although I had erased those traitors, on my way back through the castle, I noticed that no one in Siltvelt was even pretending to look flustered. Maybe no one even cared about that group of demi-humans in the first place. Still, if I ignored them, they might’ve caused trouble, so it was probably better that I did something about it.
“Bath time!” I declared.
It seemed like some Siltvelt attendants had prepared hot water, and I wanted to get right in. I decided to also sneak a look at how much Yuki and Kou had grown. Since hardly any time had passed, there might not be much of a difference. But you can’t hide anything from Motoyasu Kitamura, I say! I can recognize even a millimeter of a filolial’s growth!
For example, after Filo-tan started living in the village, Father put her in charge of leveling up his slaves. Since she started fighting and training just a little more, she grew stronger. It was proof that repetition is key to training. Through daily training, Filo-tan, who was already beautiful and strong, became considerably mightier! Healthier than ever before, her plumage even started to glitter.
Father was a genius to appoint her to that task, I say!
Filolials truly can grow at a dizzying rate. So I had to take a peek at them every chance I got.
As I thought about such things, I made my way across the castle and back to our rooms. All of a sudden, Father came running out half-naked with Sakura behind him.
“Hey, Motoyasu!” he shouted.
“What’s wrong, Father?”
“So they told me that the baths were ready and to come over, right, and they showed me these gorgeous baths. And there were tons of women gathered there! Man, if Sakura wasn’t there, I have no idea what would’ve happened.”
While Father was catching his breath, I carefully looked around and turned to Sakura.
“Thank you, Sakura,” I told her.
“You’re welcome!”
Then a large group of pigs came over toward us. My nose nearly fell off my face at the stench. There was one pig in the middle that smelled the worst of them all, almost like something rotten—all of this mere moments after I had told Father to guard his chastity! I, Motoyasu Kitamura, would take care of these pigs!
“Oink!”
“Oink-oink!”
The pigs squealed as they approached, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying.
“Sorry, but I don’t have time for that right now!” Father told the pigs, who continued to oink around him. “I’m too busy fighting to save the world!”
The sheer stink of the pigs made me violently ill.
In the middle of the pigs, there was also a puppy who was . . . talking? Something besides a pig?
“Oh, Shield Hero, we just want to prove our undying love for a god like you!”
Demons capable of human speech . . . are they saying that they want to worship and devote themselves to Father?
“I know, I know! But none of you know anything about me, right? If we all take a bath together, I’m going to be the one in trouble!” Father said.
Then there was a loud bang. Éclair was coming over, scowling over at us.
“All you noble ladies of Siltvelt!” she said. “Sorry, but Mr. Iwatani—the Shield Hero—is tired. I’d like to ask you to act with a little more decorum.” She put her hand on her sword hilt threateningly.
The pigs all at once started to make a racket.
“Can’t you all shut up?” I asked. “Or at least control your smell?”
“Hey! Motoyasu, you don’t need to say anything,” Éclair said. “If you do anything reckless, we might have to escape all over again!”
Just as Éclair was speaking, the shusaku representative Werner appeared.
“What’s all the commotion about?” he asked.
“All these women were waiting for me in the bath,” Father explained, “and they came out after me.”
“Hm, well now, I sincerely apologize for all that,” the shusaku said. “We were simply trying to provide the best service by dispatching our most beautiful women, but it seems like they didn’t win your favor.”
This was the group that the lion therianthrope said they had substituted, I supposed. Most likely Werner didn’t even know what had happened.
“No, it’s not that . . .” Father began.
It was absolutely absurd that they sent those pigs to try to fool Father! Well, at least I had already killed the ringleader before the battle even started. It was nice to feel safe.
I would emulate Father’s compassion here and, out of mercy, only half-kill Werner for being deceived. Just as I extended my spear, Father grabbed me.
“Motoyasu, calm yourself!”
“I am calm, I say!”
Father’s orders are absolute, but he gave them nearly too late! I glanced at Éclair, who was shaking her head.
Just then we heard a knocking sound. I turned around and saw an old genmu with a cane walking toward us with a cane.
“So this is the great shield hero!” the old genmu said. “You’ve done well to make your way here all the way from Melromarc. It is a true honor to meet you.”
“Yes . . .” Werner began.
“Now, what might all this fuss be about?” the genmu asked.
“I can explain,” Éclair said. “In order to try to appeal to the Shield Hero, a deluge of women were waiting for him in the bath.”
“Hmmm. The Shield Hero doesn’t look particularly bothered. Still, I believe that if our girls did anything beyond just stand there, it would be against our country’s religious doctrine. What do you think, head shusaku?”
“Y-yeah, that’s right,” the shusaku mumbled.
“Now then, girls,” the genmu said. “Stop this abominable behavior and show the shield hero and his friends some courtesy, or you’ll all be punished.”
They did as he said. All the pigs slowly began to leave. The shusaku started to leave as well, so I called to him as he passed by.
“After this, why don’t you confirm the safety of your colleagues?” I suggested. “You’ll find that they may have had an interesting experience.”
The shusaku looked at me in shock at first but then continued on his way, falling deep into thought. Surely that will help further reduce any villainous plots against Father.
“Thank you very much,” Father was saying to the old genmu.
The genmu waved off his apology. “I just did the obvious thing to those lacking basic courtesy toward the Shield Hero of all people.”
“Eclair, thank you too,” Father added.
“Don’t worry about it,” she replied. “I don’t have any political power in this country, so I quickly reached out to some people who we can trust.”
“We can trust him?”
“Well, I don’t have that sort of political power anymore,” said the genmu.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “It seems like with your help we could certainly have an easier time here.”
“Hm . . .” The genmu rubbed his chin. “Shield Hero, what exactly do you want to achieve in Siltvelt?”
“Me?” Father asked. “At the very least we need to fight the wave—that’s why we were summoned here, after all. Is there anything else?”
“I think you understand how to best respond in this situation,” the genmu said.
“Ah . . .”
Did Father figure out what he meant? What could it be? I, Motoyasu Kitamura, had no idea what was going on.
Yuki looked like she understood, but Kou and Sakura had their heads cocked sideways in confusion.
“I can imagine a few things we’d like to do. We’ll be as careful as we can.”
“It seems that you’re quick on your feet. The Spear Hero should also be careful.”
“What are you referring to?” I spoke up.
“We’re talking about how we need to be careful about what we say about international crises,” Father explained. “For example, we have to be careful and not talk about attacking another country directly.”
“Naturally. So that’s what you were talking about before.”
Father nodded.
“In this country, the Spear Hero doesn’t have the influence of the Shield Hero, but I would still like both of you to take special care,” the genmu said. “Your enemies may even take action, using another hero to get close to you.”
It all seemed pretty annoying. I wonder if Father in the previous run-through made it through all of these challenges.
“It sounds like you’ll take good care of me, but I don’t feel at ease yet because I’m not strong enough,” Father said. “It might be best to go out on a little adventure to level up faster.”
“That’s no problem at all,” the genmu said. “My granddaughter could also lend you a hand.”
“Noble genmu—”
“Oh no, no. My granddaughter is very shy, so don’t worry. She won’t try anything like that.”
“Mr. Iwatani, I’m going to work with this noble genmu to contact the queen of Melromarc,” Éclair said. “I want to put a stop to the violence there.”
“Sounds good,” Father said. “Thanks again, Eclair.”
“Don’t worry about it. This is all just tidying up. It’s the least I can do for you and Mr. Kitamura for forgiving my wrongdoings.”
“Yep. Let’s keep working together.”
“By the way, Mr. Iwatani . . .” Éclair trailed off. “I think you should consider going back to finish your bath.”
“What? Oh!” Father blushed and quickly hid himself behind his towel, hurrying back to the bath with Sakura.
“Regardless, I’ll stay here in Siltvelt for a while,” Éclair said. “But, Mr. Kitamura, please be safe. For some reason or another, it seems like the Church of the Three Heroes is prone to taking extreme action. But plenty of dangerous things can happen in Siltvelt too.”
“Understood, I say!”
Éclair gave me a bow and turned to Kou and Sakura and bowed to them as well.
After I finished my bath, it was time for our meal. As part of our reception, they held a banquet. The food was not very sophisticated, mainly uncouth roasts of whole animals. They tried to serve us raw meat as well, but Father and I declined. I would never consume something as vulgar as raw meat, although Yuki and the other filolials loved it. Watching them gobble up their portions with big smiles, I overflowed with joy.
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