Chapter 44: Proctor Haru
– Irene –
Irene had never had such a delicious meal in her entire life. The French Onion soup Haru had promised her was absolutely exquisite!
It turned out that Haru was not only an incredibly powerful warrior, but he was also the greatest chef she had ever come across. That was high praise considering she used to be the queen of an entire country in her past, and only the best of the best cooked for her! And she suddenly found herself wanting that again.
Haru was truly worthy of being her mate!
…She used to detest her dragon side and all the instincts that came with it, but for once, she was in complete agreement with her dragon side's assessment of the kitsune Haru. She found out that was the name of his race after he explained about himself and the absolute absurdity of his restaurant, the Fox Hole.
Her instincts were screaming at her to lock him down and never let go!
There was just one slight problem with that...
Irene was sitting on one side of a table, and a group of women were sitting at the other side, staring at her judgmentally, evaluating her. She was 100% certain this was an interrogation.
"So, Irene, was it? What exactly are your intentions with my son Haru?" the beautiful fox woman asked her.
Irene knew from years of politics that winning the approval of a parent always went a long way in helping out a potential relationship. Irene placed her hand on her cheek and smiled. "Ara... you're Haru's mother? I would have thought you were his big sister! As for my intentions, all I want is his happiness!"
"Oh, you're good..." Yasaka let out a few amused chitters followed by a couple of "Ara ara's" herself.
'That went well,' Irene thought to herself.
The other girls weren't so easily flattered, though. She knew that winning them over would be equally as important as winning over Haru's mother. Irene came from a time when it was accepted for royalty to have multiple wives and concubines, so a powerful and handsome man like Haru already having a few women in his life wasn't that surprising. Winning them to her side so they'd accept her, however, was proving to be a bit more difficult than she'd assumed.
"Something about you rubs me the wrong way," Haru's fiancée, Rias, said. "I don't know what it is, though..."
"I was kind of getting those vibes too," Alice added next to Rias.
Irene frowned. Rubbed them the wrong way? She'd just met these girls and barely spoken to them! Why didn't they like her? Were they intimidated by her magic power? That shouldn't be the case because Irene could sense that Rias was pretty powerful herself, and Alice was quite a strong psychic as well.
"Maybe you two are just imagining things," Irene said, trying to wave off their concerns.
Tsunade, the older blonde woman sitting next to Rias, narrowed her eyes. "I haven't known Rias long, but I've learned that she's a pretty good judge of character when it comes to most people. Are you hiding something, Miss Belserion? I'll have you know I run an entire ninja village, and I will find out..."
Irene felt a small bead of sweat run down her cheek. She was hiding a lot of things! After all, she'd worked for Zeref himself, but none of the things she was hiding should have impacted these people at all. They weren't even from her world. They weren't even from their sister world, Edolas. None of the plans she had with Zeref should affect them in any way.
"I don't think I am..." Irene pointed out carefully.
"Do you have any family?" Rias asked.
Irene nodded. "I had a husband at one point, but he passed away long ago."
The other women gave her sad looks, but she told them it was fine. "It was more of a political marriage anyway," she added.
"Any kids?" Tsunade asked.
Irene frowned a bit as her mind drifted to Erza. The daughter she had left behind long ago. The other women all noticed her reaction, and she realized she would have to come clean…
She explained that she did have a little girl at some point, but she hadn't seen her in a long time.
"How come?" Yasaka asked, narrowing her eyes.
"I... um... had to leave her..." Irene admitted a bit weakly. She quickly realized that was the wrong thing to say because all the women across from her were suddenly looking at her like she was scum. Uh oh... this was not going well for her future prospects to be together with Haru…
"I knew something was wrong! The Gremory family is all about family! And I could almost feel that you were someone who betrayed your own family!" Rias pointed at Irene with a pout.
"There were very extenuating circumstances..." Irene tried to explain.
"I don't want to hear it," Yasaka declared, her tone final.
The other women nodded in agreement, their judgment was clear.
Irene internally winced. She'd handled this all wrong. If she wanted a chance with Haru, she was going to do something to prove herself to these women… And she had a feeling she knew what that was going to be.
It had been a long time since she had last seen her daughter…
– Haru –
"Wow! You and this dragon had a really big battle!" Kunou said as she looked around the destroyed mountain range.
I nodded at her and dramatically spread my arms. "The dragon was super duper strong! But your nii-chan remains undefeated and even stronger!" I grinned.
"Is the evil dragon dead?" Kunou asked, tilting her head.
"Unfortunately not." I explained how it had run away after our final clash.
When I told her how we both used our ultimate attacks at the same time, Kunou's eyes practically lit up with stars. Her tails were swaying like crazy as she excitedly declared, "You had a super epic anime fight scene!" She then pouted. "I wish I was there to see it!"
I ruffled her hair playfully. "I'm glad you weren't. You would have gotten blown away."
She narrowed her eyes at me cutely. "Would not!"
"Would too."
"Nuh uh!"
"Yeah huh."
Kunou stuck her tongue out at me before wandering around the crater. Something caught her eye, and she ran over to pull it out of the dirt. It was a large blue scale, half-buried. She held it up proudly. "I got a souvenir of your first-ever anime fight!" she declared.
"I guess you did," I said with a chuckle.
We were out here trying to find any signs of where that dragon had flown off to, but it had pretty well covered its tracks. That was too bad because I was sure Acnologia would have been delicious. He was huge and had a lot of meat under those tough scales!
According to Irene, he was supposed to be sentient, but the dragon certainly didn't act like it during our fight so I figured it was fine to eat him...
Speaking of Irene, I glanced over toward the Fox Hole and saw her standing outside with my mother, Rias, Alice, and Tsunade. None of them looked particularly happy with her.
I wondered what happened while I was out here?
Irene had saved me… sort of, after all, when I got knocked out.
Okay, I probably would've been fine on my own since Acnologia ran away injured, but she was beautiful and had comfy thighs, so I wanted to find out why the other women were all glaring at her.
"Don't you dare come back to the Fox Hole until you find the daughter you abandoned and beg for her forgiveness! Everyone in this place is family, and what you did was unacceptable!" Yasaka declared.
Kunou and I both froze, our ears twitching as we picked up every word from far away while we walked over.
"She abandoned her kid?" I muttered to myself, confused. Irene didn't strike me as the kind of woman who would do that. She'd seemed elegant, composed, and genuinely kind. There had to be more to the story, right?
"You abandoned your daughter?" Kunou asked Irene in disappointment. Her tails stop swaying behind her. Kono had originally thought the "Dragon Onee-san" was super cool, but the red-headed witch had definitely lost points in my little sister's book for this one.
Irene's face twisted into a grimace as her eyes darted toward me. I usually tried my best to withhold judgment, but even my mind was racing to come up with a reason why she would do such a thing. I'd been raised in this second life of mine to believe that family came first before everything!
"There were extenuating circumstances," Irene said after a moment, her voice quieter but firm. "I was in a very bad place in my mind at the time, but in the end, there's no reasonable excuse that I can give you all." Her eyes then brightened, and a determined look replaced the guilt on her face. She took a couple of steps toward me. "But you do not have to worry, my love! I'm going to make things right with my daughter, and then we will be together!" Irene smirked before she leaned up on her toes and quickly placed a kiss on my cheek.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Rias growling. Alice didn't look very happy either, standing there with her arms crossed.
Irene turned to smile at them all. "I hold nothing against any of you for your judgment," Irene said, addressing them directly. "This is a regret from my past that I should have corrected long ago, and I will do so now! I'm not sure where my daughter is, but I left her somewhere in Fiore, and that's where I will start."
"Fiore?" I asked, trying to keep up. "Where is that?" I also tried really hard to ignore the fact that she just blatantly declared her love for me out of nowhere. I'd long ago learned that redheads could be straight-up crazy, and there was just something about that which always seemed to attract me to them or vice versa.
Irene looked puzzled for a moment before realization dawned on her face. "Oh, right. You wouldn't know. This continent is called Alvarez," she explained. "It's technically a united empire, but across the ocean, there are multiple other magical kingdoms, full of strong wizards. None of them particularly get along or are united. Fiore is one of those kingdoms and home to some of the strongest wizards. That's where I left my daughter, Erza."
"Do you have any leads?"
"Erza should be around 20 years old by now," Irene continued with a somewhat reminiscent look crossing her face. "As a descendant of the Belserion royal family, she has the same hair color as me, and she should have inherited my beauty, so finding her shouldn't be too difficult. I will be back as soon as I find her and make things right!" Irene turned back to me with a bright smile. "Once I return, we should get married and restart the royal line at once."
"Uh…"
I glanced toward the other girls for backup. But all I got were looks that very clearly said, "You're on your own for this one!"
Irene held out her hand and a magical staff appeared in her grip. She gave us all a fond goodbye before she tapped her staff on the ground and disappeared with teleportation magic.
"Well, that was something," I muttered.
"Where the hell do you keep finding all these crazy redheads, Haru?" Rias asked me, crossing her arms and looking genuinely curious.
I gave her a deadpan look. "You realize you're included in that list, right?"
She rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. "Obviously, I know my habits are a little strange, but I'm not as crazy as that chick was. Was it because she was a dragon or something? The only female dragon I even know about is Tiamat… and from what I've heard about her, she's pretty damn eccentric as well."
"Ara ara, that was pretty tame for how I've seen some female dragons act," Yasaka said with a small giggle. But then her look turned more serious as she crossed her arms under her chest. "I don't want to see Irene again until the woman patches things up with her daughter. To abandon her child like that…" She trailed off, shaking her head.
Alice clicked her tongue. "You still haven't answered Rias's question, Haru."
I sighed and explained. "Irene pretty much just showed up during the middle of my battle with that super-strong dragon Acnologia. I ended up getting knocked out after we unleashed our most powerful attacks at each other. Then I woke up, and Irene was giving me a lap pillow."
Alice clicked her tongue again and leaned back in her chair. Rias narrowed her blue eyes at me. "That damn magical MILF is trying to jump ahead of us! We can't let her!"
"Are you jealous, my king?" Tsunade asked Rias. The way she said "king" almost came off as teasing and sarcastic.
"Damn right I am!" Rias pouted shamelessly.
It was only when we all went back inside the Fox Hole that I paused. "Dang, I forgot to ask Irene about Harry and Hermione. If Alvarez really is an entire continent, then who knows where they are."
"They might even be across the ocean in Fiore," Yasaka pointed out.
"Hey, what are the odds that they somehow ended up with Irene's daughter?" Rias asked suddenly, raising an eyebrow.
Everyone turned and looked at her before shaking their heads.
"Yeah… right," Alice said, snorting.
"That would be way too much of a coincidence," I added, waving off the idea.
"That would be silly!" Kunou chimed in confidently.
Rias pouted at all of us. "It could totally happen! I think we should go to Fiore ourselves and check!"
"Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of us kicking Irene out if we just follow her over to another continent?" Alice asked, crossing her arms. "And how would we even get over there? Can we fit an airplane through the Fox Hole's back doors?"
"We could if we used some magic to shrink it down," I pointed out. "But we don't really need an airplane to fly. Still, it sounds like a massive pain in the ass to get there that way."
Suddenly, a scroll appeared in front of my face, and I quickly caught it out of the air. I wasn't expecting to hear from the goddess again so soon… not after she chickened out of showing herself to me because she was too shy!
A second scroll fell and bopped me on the head...
I didn't even bother catching that one because I already knew what was going to be on it. Tsundere goddess angry scribbles.
I unrolled the first scroll. "Already done. Your restaurant is now in Fiore," I read aloud from the message. "Well, that was handy," I said.
Rias grinned smugly. "See? The goddess is on my side. Hey, what does the goddess look like anyway? I'm kind of bummed that I missed seeing her."
I pointed out that the only ones who saw her were Alice, Kunou and Enri who had already left to go back to her village for the day.
Rias, Tsunade and Yasaka all turned to Alice and Kunou expectantly.
"Kunou-chan, can you tell mommy what the goddess looked like?" Yasaka asked.
"No," Kunou said flatly. "Not telling!"
"Ara, my daughter has entered her rebellious stage…"
"What about you, Alice?" Rias asked.
"That's her business. If she wants to come to one of our future girl's meetings you can see her then," Alice pointed out.
"You girls are still having those meetings together…?" I asked nervously.
Rias and Alice both smirked. "Damn right we are! We haven't come up with an official name yet but so far Haru's Foxy Harem is in the lead! We even got a couple new members to show up at the last meeting!"
Tsunade nodded and said that she went to the last meeting herself and that it was surprisingly more fun than she would have expected a bunch of girls gossiping to be.
"…"
"…Let's just go explore Fiore," I said with a sigh. How was I even supposed to properly respond to any of that?
I walked towards the door, but it swung open before I got to it. A fellow chef decided to walk inside and she looked relieved when she spotted me.
It was Menchi from the Hunter's Exam. I wondered how that had been going?
"Haru! I'm glad I caught you! Is this a good time?" she asked while looking around the restaurant.
I told her it wasn't exactly a bad time. I explained a couple of my younger friends had gone missing and I was about to head out and look for them, but I could still hear her out. She was clearly here for something, and surprisingly not to try some more of my food.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Menchi said. "I actually wanted to ask if you wanted to participate in the Hunter's Exam again. We're about to enter the finals for the Exam and we wondered if you wanted to be the proctor? You could even make up your own rules. If not then it's fine, the Chairman has something else planned as a backup. Something about making all the finalists fight until there's only one left to fail..."
That didn't make sense. "Don't you mean one left to pass?"
"The chairman's mind works in weird ways…" Mechi sighed.
Yeah, Netero gave off eccentric old man vibes for sure.
Proctoring the final exam? It actually sounded like a lot of fun and I wouldn't mind seeing Gon and Killua again, but Harry and Hermione unfortunately came first…
At least that's what I thought before Yasaka spoke up. "You just fought an Ultimate Class dragon, my son. You need to have some fun and de-stress. You should go."
"Yeah, don't worry about the magical teenagers. We'll look for them," Rias waved me to go as well.
"Oh! I wanna go too!" Kunou declared and raised her hand like that was an option. Which I guess it was…?
I glanced over to the other women in the restaurant and they all encouraged me to be a good big brother and go have fun with Kunou.
"Yay! We should make the exam super hard!" Kunou said excitedly. "I should go get Tanya to help!"
…And she was out the door before anyone bothered to stop her. I suppose Tanya would be happy to see her "friends" again if nothing else.
Menchi looked at me a bit nervous. "You can have fun with the job of course… But don't make the final exam too hard that no one passes. Putting on the entire Hunter's Exam every year costs a lot of money and we need at least a few people to pass to make up for it all…"
"Hehe… no promises."
XXX
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Here is the list of Current Advanced Chapters:
The Fallen Gamer ch 314-318
The Fox Hole ch 48
The Blood Queen ch 31
The fox hole ch 47
Thunder and Black Wings 7
The Titan ch 23
The Fox Hole 46
Thunder and Black Wings ch 6
The Fox Hole ch 45
The Blood Queen ch 30
The Titan ch 22
Thunder and Black Wings ch 1-5 (New Story)