The one pulling the strings behind the kidnapping had been the
butler, Thomas. He was the person with connections to a perverted noble that
the hoodlums had referred to. The Young Mistress had apparently caught that
noble's eye a while ago, and he wanted to beat her fierce and unyielding
spirit out of her. Thomas, seduced by the money, added the two men the
perverted noble had selected into my plan.
Jeez, there really were some shameless people out there in the world. If
he was going to do that again, I wish he'd talk to me first.
He completely miscalculated by not considering two things. Firstly,
that I possessed enough magical prowess to escape the two bandits, and
secondly, that those two had no loyalty to him whatsoever.
As for the perverted noble, he played innocent and escaped
punishment. Part of it was because Thomas's testimony was inadequate, and
part of it was because the two bandits were dead, so we could find no proof
of the noble's involvement. There were too many unknown variables. I
suspected political machinations were involved.
The incident was considered resolved entirely because of Ghislaine's
involvement. The Greyrat family could tout the fact that they had the Sword
King Ghislaine staying with them, preventing possible future incidents while
proclaiming the strength and wealth of their house.
I was ordered to give all the credit to Ghislaine, even after I told them
what transpired. It seemed they didn't want others in the Greyrat family to
know of my existence. Yet more political bargaining, I assumed. The bigger
surprise to me was that there were even more Greyrats.
"And that's how it is. Understood?"
"Yes…understood."
Philip explained all of this to me in the reception room. I thought he was just the son of the liege lord, but he was also the town's mayor. I
wondered if he was the one who had settled the whole matter.
"You seem pretty relaxed for someone whose daughter was
kidnapped."
"I am now. I would be panicking if she were still missing," he said.
"Certainly."
"Now, about you working as Eris's tutor…"
As we were about to begin discussing my future, the door flew open
with a bang, and in waltzed Eris's incredibly exuberant grandfather.
"I heard it all," Sauros said. He barreled into the reception room and
tousled my hair with a firm hand. "I heard you saved Eris!"
"Wh-wh-what are you talking about? Ghislaine is the one who did it. I
didn't do anything!"
His eyes gleamed darkly, like a bird of prey.
Th-that's terrifying!
"You! You think you can lie to me!"
"N-no! But Lord Philip told me to say—"
"Philip!" He rounded on his son and without a moment of hesitation,
swung his fist. It landed with a vicious crack.
"Ugh!" The young lord took the blow right to the face and tumbled
over the back of the sofa. The liege lord's fist had been so fast. Faster even
than Eris, too quick for the eyes to follow.
"Bastard! This to the boy who saved your daughter! How dare you not
offer even a word of gratitude! Just so you can partake in your foolish theater
between nobles?!"
Philip, still splayed on the floor, responded without moving. "Father,
Paul may have been disowned by our family, but he is still a Greyrat. That
means his son Rudeus, who also carries our blood, is a part of our family as
well. So rather than outwardly praise and reward him, I thought the best way
to thank him was to treat him with kindness as a part of our family." He
spoke very matter-of-factly for someone laid out on the floor. Perhaps he was
used to being punched by Sauros.
"Very well! Then go ahead and keep up that farce with the nobles!"
The older man plopped himself on the empty sofa. It seemed he wasn't going
to apologize for punching Philip. That was just the kind of person he was.
Physical punishment was as natural as breathing here.
Come to think of it, Eris never apologized to me either. She also never
thanked me for saving her.
Ah well, it's fine.
"Rudeus!" The liege lord folded his arms, lifted his chin, and glared at
me.
This seemed familiar.
"I have a request!"
Is that really the kind of attitude you should have when asking someone
for something? He was just like Eris! No, that was backwards—she was the
one imitating him after all.
"I want you to teach Eris magic."
"Why, might I ask?"
"She came to me to request it. She said your magic was so seared into
her mind she couldn't get it out of her head."
It certainly was magic that seared the eyes anyway.
"Of cour…" I bit my tongue as I began to respond on instinct. The
most likely reason for her horrible personality was Sauros always spoiling her
like this. Maybe not the only reason, but she had certainly been influenced by
him, based on how much of his personality she imitated.
If she was going to grow at all as a person, I had to stop her from being
spoiled. It might not be my responsibility to see that she grew up properly,
but if things continued like this, it would affect my ability to teach her.
It was best to deal with each problem as it appeared.
"That isn't something for you to ask of me, Lord Sauros. Eris should
ask me herself."
"What did you say?!" Indignant, he raised his fist.
I panicked and covered my face with my hands. What was he, some sort of nuclear bomb waiting to explode? "D-do you really mean to raise Eris
into an adult that can't lower her head to ask for something when she wants
it?"
"Oho! You make a fair point! You're right!" He slammed his fist on
his knee and nodded vigorously. In a great, loud voice he said, "Eriiiiis!
Come to the reception room right now!"
I thought my eardrums were going to burst. What kind of lung capacity
did a person need to be able to yell that loud…? Eris was the exact same way.
Did no one in this manor understand the concept of asking people to deliver
messages?
These savages, I thought.
Philip returned to his seat on the sofa while a butler (a different guy,
apparently named Alphonse) closed the door that had been left open. I later
learned that, because Sauros was like a storm that raged out of rooms just as
quickly as he came in, they would wait for a while before closing a door. He
was a selfish old man that loved to throw doors open but was not as fond of
shutting them.
"Okaaaay!" A voice responded from somewhere else in the manor.
After a while came the tapping of approaching footsteps. "Here I am, just as
you asked!" She didn't have quite the force of her grandfather, but Eris still
energetically threw the doors open and burst inside.
Every single action she took was made with her grandfather in mind.
Children loved to mimic adults after all. If I hadn't gotten punched my first
day here, I might have smiled at the resemblance. Instead, I could firmly say
that this, too, had to stop.
"Oh…" As soon as she caught sight of me, she lifted her chin and
glared. Was this intimidating pose passed down in the Boreas family?
"Grandfather, did you tell him what we talked about?!"
He stood suddenly and folded his arms, glaring at her. It was the exact
same pose. "Eris! If you want to ask something of someone, you need to bow
your own head and ask!"
Her lips pushed out in a pout. "But you said you would ask him for
me…"
"Enough! If you won't ask him yourself, then we won't hire him!"
Huh? Wh-what did he just say?! No no, wait, I mean, I guess that was
right. That would be a bit problematic for me, but I guess this was what you'd
call reaping what you sow?!
"Grr…" Eris glared at me, her cheeks flushed red. It wasn't a blush of
embarrassment; she was pissed off and humiliated. Her face said that if her
grandfather wasn't there, she'd chase me all the way to the bowels of hell and
turn me into minced meat.
Scary…
"P-please…"
"Is that the kind of attitude to take when you're asking someone for
something?!" Sauros bellowed.
Like you have any room to talk, I thought.
"Grr…" Eris took a fistful of her long, red hair into each hand. She
made a tail on either side of her temples; instant twin tails. Then, just like
that, she winked at me. "Please teach me magic, mew ✩"
***
Wait. Was I dreaming? I blacked out for a minute there. It felt like I'd
just had a really awful dream.
"Don't worry about teaching me reading or writing, mew ✩"
Well crap, it wasn't a dream! Wh-what the heck? What the heck was
going on?
Did I just get transported to some weird alternate dimension? At least
transport me to the two-dimensional world of anime, if you're going to go
that far!
"I don't need arithmetic either, mew ✩"
A-anyway, this was abnormal. Terrifying even! Eris's pose should
have been cute, but all it did was strike fear into me. Her lips were upturned,
but her eyes weren't smiling. They were the eyes of a predator. More importantly, was this really how you were supposed to act when
you asked for a favor in this world?! You have got to be kidding me!
"Magic is all I need, mew ✩"
Stop messing with me! This is honestly worse than how she was before.
Come on, just look at her face.
Her cheeks burned bright red, and her expression said, If the
circumstances were any different, I'd punch you so hard you'd fly from the
depths of hell all the way to heaven. She looked eight parts angry, two parts
humiliated, and zero parts bashful. There was nothing cute about her, nothing
at all.
C-come on, Sauros, let her have it, I begged mentally.
"O-ooh~ Our Eri is so cute. Rudeus, of course you're going to teach
her, right?"
He'd suddenly turned into a fond old man. Who the hell are you?! I
thought. Where did my strict and reliable great uncle go?!
"The Master has a great fondness for beastfolk. He also had the final
say when Lady Ghislaine was employed," the butler explained politely.
Ah, now I understood. So those twin tails were supposed to be animal
ears. They did look like drooping ears. Come to think of it, most of the maids
were beasts as well.
Yeah, sure, now I get it. Yeah… My inner monologue trailed off.
"Eris." Her father stepped in.
Oh yeah, I forgot he was here, I thought. Okay, Mister Philip, it's your
time to shine, tell her off!
"Stick your hips out a bit more to look more appealing."
Great, this one is hopeless too.
Okay then. Now I understood. Now I understood what type of people
the Greyrats were, Paul included. In fact, Paul was maybe a bit more normal
than this lot.
"Um, Lord…Sauros. Could I ask you just one thing…?"
"Speak!"
"D-do men also ask for favors like that?"
"Fool! A man should ask like a man!"
I wasn't sure what that meant, but I did understand the reprimand.
Well, I was right. Compared to this lot, Paul's proclivities were almost
normal. He just liked women with big breasts.
Okay, calm down, I told myself. Let's just think about this. Is this a
pass or a fail?
I was being stared at. I composed myself and looked at Eris. Angry and
humiliated, she looked on the verge of losing control. Like a lion with its
teeth clamped around one of the iron bars of its cage.
Well, maybe I should just forget about what comes afterward and
accept this.
No, I needed to think about it. I needed to anticipate the possible
consequences.
That's right, she doesn't like this, I realized. She's against this weird
custom they have going on! If I ever requested she personally ask for a favor
when it was just the two of us, she might rip me to shreds!
Okay, I changed my mind. I need to stop this weird custom of theirs.
"Is that the kind of attitude you have when asking someone for a
favor?!" My voice was so loud it echoed throughout the manor.
I spent hours after that giving her a great, long speech. My passion
seemed to get through, because after this the Boreas style of asking for favors
was abandoned. Ghislaine praised my efforts once it was over, but Eris just
glared coldly at me.