Yomigaeri no Maou Chapter 12

When Luru, Iris and Gran reached his house, they found his mother standing there, watching them.
She wore a calm expression.
It was still like the calm of an ocean, unwavering.

However, because it was Luru, he instinctively felt fear.
There was no mistaking that his mother, Medea, possessed a gentle and kind personality.
That’s why he was used to seeing her calm, but even so, there were almost no instances where she stayed wordless after their eyes met.
Usually she would find something to say in a calm and graceful way.

Despite that, this time alone, not a single word came from her mouth.
Luru felt it extremely dangerous.

And as expected, he was right.
She was calm, but she approached Luru and spoke to him in a voice that felt like she was stifling her emotions with reason.

“…Where were you?”

‘Didn’t Yuumis tell you?‘ Luru wondered, but that wasn’t what she meant by it.

‘Where were you? What were you doing?‘ ― she wanted to hear these from his own mouth.

And Luru’s judgement wasn’t so bad that he didn’t know what this was leading up to.

“…I, went to the ruins for a little.”

The very moment he spoke, his mother’s palm cut through the air.
Luru perceived this with his sharp senses, but dodging it would be unforgivable in more ways than one, so Luru resigned himself to it.

*Slap*

Luru’s cheek throbbed painfully.
However, the one who was truly hurt wasn’t Luru who was. .h.i.t, but Medea who had hit him.
After the slap, Medea unsteadily walked towards Luru and then slowly and gently embraced him, murmuring,

“…I was worried, you know…?”

“Sorry… but I knew I had to go.”

A normal parent would have probably have replied ‘Don’t talk back!‘ or ‘Don’t speak nonsense!‘ or ‘What do you think a child could do if he went?‘.
But Medea was somewhat different in this regard.

“…I see. Then, I guess it couldn’t be helped… Gran-san. Was my son of any help to you?”

Gran was fl.u.s.tered for an instant at being suddenly talked to, but he immediately regained his bearing as replied.

“He was definitely helpful. I plan on explaining to the village chief tomorrow but… we found some Magus Machines in the ruins, you see. They started operating and attacked the village but… the one who stopped them was Luru. Yuumis’ barrier might have held for about a day, and there probably wouldn’t have been any casualties, but if we left it alone there was a chance that a few houses would have been destroyed.”

Were Luru not here, Yuumis would have maintained the barrier over the village, and Gran would have ended up destroying them one by one, so the possibility of that happening was certainly high.
Leaving the Lupes Gigantes aside, the Cannon Apis could fly so Gran might have had quite some difficulty.
Being the case, it would probably have taken time.
In that sense, Luru was of help.

Hearing that, Medea nodded.

“I see… That’s good, then. I was worried that he caused you troubled. I wonder if he managed somehow with the martial arts he learned from Patrick…”

She tilted her head a little in confusion.
Medea didn’t know exactly how powerful Luru was.
Watching his training with Patrick, she could tell that he wasn’t weak, but if she actually saw a Lupes Gigantes and somebody asked her if Luru could beat that, she would only reply that it was impossible.
That’s why neither Luru nor Gran mentioned his point.
Gran understood this, so he met Luru’s gaze and nodded.

If you translated his nod into words, it would probably be ‘It’s alright, I get it. Just stay quiet.‘

After that, Medea embraced Luru for a while, and perhaps because she had finally felt that he was safe, Medea noticed the girl standing next to Gran and tilted her head to the side.

“…Oh?[/Ara?] Who might you be? I’ve never seen you before, huh… You’re not a child of this village, right?”

As though waiting for this moment, Iris stepped forward and bowed deeply. She then spoke.

“It is my pleasure to meet you, madam. My name is Iris. For certain reasons, on this occasion, I was discovered by Gran-sama and Luru-sama in the ruins, and having been asleep for a very long time, I was rescued by the two of them…”

The smoothly speaking Iris then moved onto the topic of her future.
Once again, her tone was unfaltering and filled with emotion, and Medea listened carefully to her.
About how she long ago lost somebody important, about how she pursued their killer, about how at that time she was caught in a trap and continued to sleep in the equipment in those ruins, and then about how her parents were no longer around…
After listening to all of that, Medea who had ended up completely sympathising with Iris and was moved to tears, embraced Iris and said,

“I see… So that’s how it was… It must have been rough. At your age… To have no parents, or anybody to rely on… I know! You can live with us, then!”

Luru watched his mother say that, as though she had thought of a good idea.
Without bringing the topic up herself, but getting Medea to bring it up; Luru couldn’t help feel shock at Iris’ wiles. However, having even been invited, Iris became even more insistent.

“No, madam… It would not do to be provided even food and shelter after already having my life saved…”

Said Iris, gracefully casting her eyes down.
Perhaps because she was further moved by that act of humility, Medea brought it up with Luru.

“Not at all! Right, Luru? Luru, you want to live with Iris-chan as well, right?”

“Eh? Y-, yeah…”

The conversation was working out like he wanted, but Luru couldn’t understand at all why he was the one being convinced and not the other way around.
But there wasn’t anything in particular that he objected to, so he just nodded to show his approval.

“While we’re at it… I know! Why not join the family as our daughter? We’re lower cla.s.s n.o.bles so adopting shouldn’t be difficult, and… I’ve wanted a daughter. Dressing up a cute girl in lots of different clothes really is a woman’s romance[/ideal]. Right, let’s go with that! Iris-chan, won’t you become our daughter?”

“U-, umm…?”

Iris was beginning to notice Medea’s increasingly threatening att.i.tude.
That she would be allowed to stay with them was in line with Iris’ plans, but Medea who was beginning to speak about adopting her and whatnot was as expected, something she hadn’t imagined.

“Right! This is a good idea. It’s perfect since we only have one son… so it’d be great if we had a daughter too. When Patrick comes home, I’ll have a talk with him. I’m sure he’ll immediately approve! You’re this cute, after all!”

“M-, madam…”

Despite Iris fl.u.s.teredly trying to stop her, Medea paid it no heed.
On the contrary, she placed a finger on Iris’ lips and said,

“That’s not it, right? MO-THER.[/O, KA, A, SA, MA.] Okay, try saying it.”

“M-, mother[O-, Okaasama]…”

“Aahh! So cute! With this, you’re my daughter, aren’t you!~?”

Like that, Medea held Iris up in her arms and span around and around.
While looking at Luru, Iris gave him a ‘What do I do…?‘ look, but he really didn’t know what to say.

When Luru shook his head, and returned a ‘Give up.‘ look, Iris drooped her shoulders and resigned herself.

Watching all of this, Gran said,

“Well, didn’t everything work out happily? Though you’re a low-ranked family, becoming the daughter of a n.o.ble family isn’t something that just comes along.”

“That might be true, but…”

To Luru, the fact that he’d be living with Iris, but in a manner a little different than expected, dropped him into a truly difficult to describe emotion.

“Well, at any rate I can stop worrying about you two. I’m gunna head back to the inn. Also, tomorrow come to the inn after you’re done eating; there are things I wanna discuss with you, and things I wanna ask you, after all. Yuumis probably does too. With little miss Iris[/ojouchan] as well, of course.”

With that, Gran gave a wave of his hand and headed towards the inn.
While still carrying Iris, to Gran who was walking away,

“For everything that happened this time, really, thank you very muchh!”

said Medea, waving at him.
Iris lay exhausted by Medea’s chest, but it was probably emotional weariness rather than physical.

But with Iris being adopted, it meant that she was now Luru’s little sister.
The daughter of his old friend, was now his little sister…
Would that make his old comrade in arms, Bacchus, his older brother or younger brother?

Thinking about this, Luru had an odd feeling about it.

“Anyway, it’s great that everything ended well, huh…”

After muttering this, Luru and the two of them returned inside the house.

Like that, their long day finally ended.

The next morning, it seemed that Gran and Yuumis were waiting eagerly for them, for at the same time they arrived,

“You’re finally here, huh.”

said Yuumis.
Medea was affectionate with Iris so she wouldn’t let go, and as a result they ended up leaving the house quite late so it couldn’t be helped that Yuumis complained.

Yesterday, Iris was wearing an expensive black dress bestowed with concealment effects via demon technology, but because of Medea’s preferences, today she was wearing something completely opposite; brightly coloured clothes that comprised a sky-blue one-piece dress and a wide-rimmed white hat for the summer. Clothes that made her truly look like a doll.
Like that, because Iris’ appearance looked like it had been extremely thoughtfully put together, it wasn’t that the clothes didn’t suit her, but the demon race preferred black that symbolised darkness, or clothes close to that colour, and because Iris was no exception to this, she almost never wore brightly coloured clothes, and felt a little embara.s.sed to do so.

Yuumis seemed in a bad mood when Luru first arrived at the inn, but the moment she saw Iris, it seems that all of that was blown away, and because she kept glancing at Iris and seemed like she wanted to reach out to her,

“If you want to pat her, you can just pat her.”

Said Luru.
As for Iris,

“…Is that how it is? In that case, though I don’t believe it would feel very good… please go ahead.”

she said, taking off her hat, and conscientiously presenting her head to Yuumis, so Yuumis finally began to pat her and in the end, happily had Iris sit on her lap.

Sitting opposite Luru was a hugely built man, an elf woman, and on top of that a little girl of about seven sitting on their lap.

While joking in his mind, ‘What the heck kind of family is this?‘, Luru decided that for now they would get to the point.

“So? What did you want to discuss today?”

Because it looked like Yuumis was occupied with patting Iris, Luru directed the question at Gran.

“Well, I say discuss but… they’re questions, I guess. First of all, you messed with Yuumis’ barrier, right? Just where’d you learn that kind of skill?”

With those words, he immediately cut to the heart of it.
Having said that though, Luru believed that he would definitely be asked this, so he wasn’t particularly shocked.
Luru replied with an answer he had calmly prepared in advance.

“I don’t mind telling you, but it’s an extremely important secret to me. If you want to know, then I need you two to take an oath.”

Luru didn’t particularly plan on lying them, or leading them astray.
There was no reason in particular to hide it, and he even thought that as long as they kept quiet, he wouldn’t mind telling them everything.
He was a little worried about whether they would really stay quiet, but that too had a solution.
That’s why he ended up speaking the way he did, but it seems that Yuumis was making light of Luru a little.

“I get it. I definitely won’t tell anybody.”

So she said, but Luru replied,

“That was a lie… I should mention this just in case, but I’ve cast a magic for detecting lies here. I don’t mind if you lie, but I’ll see through it all, you know?”

“…Eh? That’s the lie, right? I don’t feel any flow of mana.”

Said Yuumis, looking around in shock.

“It’s the truth. Hmm… Then, I’ll ask you a few questions, so just reply; it doesn’t matter if they’re lies or truth. What’s your favourite food?”

“Meat.”

“The name of your best friend?”

“Meria.”

“If you could be reborn, what would you want to be?”

“A bird.”

“…In order, they were a lie, a lie, and the truth, right?”

Spoke Luru, slowly.

Yuumis widened her eyes in shock.

“It really is cast, huh… But it’s not like I’m planning to go spreading it around or anything, you know?”

“Even if you don’t plan on spreading it, you still plan on telling somebody, don’t you?”

“Well, yes. We’re adventurers. We have the obligation to report to the guild head.”

“I understand how you feel, but in the end, that’s still telling somebody. I said that in that case, I wouldn’t speak, right? …By the way, if you do want me to speak, I’ll be casting a contract spell. If you’re not fine with that, I have no intention of speaking.”

Seeing their back and forth, Gran spoke to Yuumis.

“See? It was your mistake to think of this guy… to think of Luru as a normal kid. Didn’t I say to think of him as an equal?”

“Isn’t that just your impression? I still had no idea what kind of person this boy was! There are things you can’t grasp without having a chat with them, you know… But, well, alright. I didn’t think that he’d even bring up contract magic. Sorry for speaking like I was testing you. I heard about yesterday from Gran, but I wanted to get to know your character a little more deeply…”

From Luru’s perception magic, it seemed that her words weren’t a lie.

“But you still want to report it, right?”

“Honestly, it’s true that it wouldn’t do to stay silent after hearing about it. However, I intended to speak about it as little as possible. Even so, the guild chief has a little authority so… if you consider the case where he decides to exercise it, I wouldn’t be able to guarantee that I’d definitely stay silent. That’s why I thought there’d be trouble in that regard… But if you don’t feel like talking, I wasn’t really going to ask you, you know? I’m interested but… I couldn’t help but feel that if I heard about how to change the magic sequence, and then reported that to the guild head, it would just become a bothersome situation. If possible, I want to avoid situations like that, so wouldn’t it be fine if I didn’t hear anything? There wouldn’t be anything to report.”

It seemed that she was telling the truth.

“Then you won’t be asking? Even though we came here already?”

“That’s what the plan was, but… you can use contract magic, right? If I agree to being bound by that, won’t you tell me? If I can’t speak about it, then I wouldn’t need to fulfil my obligation anymore, right? Wouldn’t that be fine?”

“I don’t think that’s a good thing to do but… Gran, what about you?”

Gran nodded in reply.

“To begin with, I wasn’t gunna say anything. If I was properly following the guidelines of the guild then I’d have the obligation to report, but… In the end, nothing came out of our little adventure. Wouldn’t it be alright to overlook this? Moreover, there’s what Yuumis reasoned out just now as well, so there’s no problems, right?”

In the end, the two of them didn’t intend to absolutely fulfil their obligations.
They were a really irresponsible pair that just went with the flow.
It seems that Luru’s impression of them from when they just arrived in the village wasn’t mistaken.

“Well, in that case… I guess I’ll speak? Iris, are you fine with it too?”

“Yes. As you desire, Luru-sama.”

And thus, Luru cast contract magic on the two of them, and began to talk.

“It is my pleasure to meet you, madam.” The word ‘madam’ here is 奥様（okusama）、and is just a way of addressing the lady/wife of the house.

/Chapter 12 END