"What the heck is going on?!"
The moment we returned to the inn and stepped into the room, Lion lunged at Albert and Cain as though she were about to grab them by the collars.
"Lion, who had the most power back there?"
"Huh? That'd be Tenma, right?"
At Lion's response, Albert and Cain exchanged a look so absurd it could have been straight out of a comedy routine.
"Lion, that's not what we meant... When we said 'power' in that context, we meant political authority. You're the next head of the Houst Border Baron family, which includes Russell City, aren't you?"
At Chris's exasperated correction, Lion replied, "Oh, is that what you meant... and?" — which this time sent Chris staring up at the ceiling in disbelief.
"If the two of us — nobles from a different territory — had pressured the guild master, and then you, as the next lord, had stepped in to mediate, Canon would have felt indebted to you and would have held back her grudge against Tenma going forward!"
"Albert and I went through the trouble of playing the villains just to give you a chance to shine... but the conversation took such a weird turn that we almost ended up being the actual bad guys!"
Incidentally, it turned out Yuri had quickly caught on to their intentions and started playing along. That was why things had come together so smoothly once Lion joined the conversation... I nodded to myself in understanding. For what it was worth, Chris and Rani had apparently noticed the two of them were scheming as well.
"Besides, if you'd shown some grace at that moment, you might have won Canon over."
Cain said with a teasing grin, and Lion—
"Canon, huh... She's beautiful, I'll give her that."
—replied in a tone that suggested something was still bugging her.
"What is it? That fiery temper of hers — the one that went after Tenma—
that—
is that what's bothering you?"
"No, I've heard she doesn't usually act like that, so I don't think there's a problem with her personality."
"Then is it the social standing? The Border Baron family has Edilia's precedent, so I wouldn't think that'd be much of an issue?"
"Cain, I'm not going to choose my marriage partner based on social standing."
"Then what is it... oh, age. I guess that could be a concern. She may be a half, but she's still an elf, so her lifespan is different from that of"
"humans."
"But that's just how it goes with marriages between different races. These days, some people even say that appearance compatibility and whether you can have children matter more than actual age, so I don't think you need to worry about it that much."
"Age isn't really something I worry about, to be honest."
"Then what exactly is Lion worried about?"
Lion, who had immediately shot down the guesses of Albert, Cain, and Chris, put on a serious expression when I asked my question and—
"It's her chest. It's too small... Everything else about her is top-notch, easily among the best I've ever encountered."
He said this with utter, heartfelt disappointment.
"All right, dismissed! Everyone, great work today! You've got free time until dinner — do as you please!"
"Right. Let's leave the worst Lion aside and decide dinner once everyone's gathered."
"Agreed. I'll leave the worst Lion behind and go look for something that could work as a souvenir."
"Ah! Can I come along too? If I stay here, the worst Lord Lion's stare is gonna freak me out..."
"If Aura's going, maybe I'll tag along too? Staying here any longer is... a bit..."
"I think I'd be fine, but since Lion's the worst, I want to go outside."
"Then I'll come too. Staying behind without the young lady here is... kinda awkward, you know?"
With Cain's dismissal announcement, everyone started moving while ignoring Lion. The girls in particular shot him looks like he was some repulsive insect, putting distance between them as they briskly walked out of the room.
"Chris and the others seemed a bit off just now — did something happen?"
Grandpa had come back just as Chris and the others were leaving, and it seemed he'd noticed something strange when they passed each other in the hallway.
"Well, actually, Lion..."
When I explained Lion's little "exploit" to Grandpa,
"So that's what happened... My advice is this: Tenma, Albert, Cain — never say anything that might sound like you're taking Lion's side. Not even by mistake. You'll be treated as one of her kind."
"Yes, sir!"
"Huh..."
We all answered Grandpa's words of wisdom with loud voices.
"And now, Lion."
"Y-yes!"
"...Never give up. That's the key to everything. Endure and persevere."
"T-that's the part I need help with!"
Even Grandpa, who had the most life experience of anyone in the group, apparently couldn't do anything about Lion's current situation. But Lion refused to give up and clung to Grandpa's waist, desperate for some kind of advice.
"Let go of me! There are things even I can't do! Besides, if I had the ability to fix romantic relationships, I'd be married by now!"
"Th-that can't be..."
I found myself wondering whether Grandpa had ever wanted to get married too, but watching Lion cling to him for dear life,
"I got it! I'll think about it a little, so let go!"
"Really?!"
Having won through sheer persistence, Lion immediately released him and sat cross-legged right in front of Grandpa, waiting for advice.
"Hmm... Lion, from now on, you are not to speak! When someone talks to you, respond only with short words like 'yes' or 'no'!"
"Th-thank you so much!"
That's it? I thought to myself, but Lion had her forehead pressed to the floor in a deep bow of gratitude.
"Well, if Lion's satisfied with that, then who am I to say otherwise."
"Hey, Tenma, you should say"
"we"
"when you say that."
"Merlin's advice should be effective to some degree... but still, Lion has a knack for heading in the wrong direction no matter what."
That was firsthand experience from a childhood friend, and even I, who hadn't known them as long, could only nod in agreement.
"Still, Tenma — your face was quite red back there. That's unusual for you."
"Now that you mention it, that's true. I've never seen Tenma get that embarrassed over anything involving women before."
"What are you talking about?"
I tried to play dumb for the moment, but I knew full well I couldn't fool these two — Lion, maybe, but not them.
"Granted, Canon was quite alluring that time... but the usual Tenma would get a little flustered at most, not turn into Lion. Has something changed in your heart?"
"It's true — beautiful women have always surrounded Tenma, yet there's never been a single rumor about him. It's not like he's a dense blockhead or completely disinterested, either."
"What are you lot talking about?"
Just as I was being cornered by the two of them, Grandpa joined in too. Behind him, Lion was there, straining to keep her mouth shut as she faithfully followed his teachings.
"Actually, when Merlin wasn't around..."
Cain took advantage of the fact that my wheelchair limited my movements and immediately began telling Grandpa about the changes that had occurred to me at the guild.
"Tenma reacted to a woman? As your grandfather, should I be happy or... No — Tenma."
After hearing Cain out, Grandpa started to tease me for a moment, but then suddenly turned serious and began examining me from every angle.
"There doesn't seem to be any change in your appearance... In that case, there must be changes on the inside... No, perhaps you're simply returning to normal..."
Grandpa continued muttering to himself, lost in deep thought.
"Albert, Cain, Lion — I have something important to discuss regarding Tenma. Restrict access to this floor and tell the staff to notify us immediately when Chris and the others return. Also, lock the door, just to be safe."
"Should we step out of the room?"
"No, I want to hear Albert and the others' opinions too, so come back in."
"Understood. I'll prepare right away."
"Mission acknowledged."
The three of them moved immediately at Grandpa's request. Lion had been following Grandpa's teachings a bit too closely, so he was feeling somewhat... no, quite off — but his expression was dead serious.
"Now then, what I've been concerned about is the change in Tenma's inner self. To be more specific, it's that his interest in women has been growing stronger."
I was wondering what Grandpa was about to say with such a serious face, but it turned out to be anything but a serious topic.
"Lord Merlin, when you consider everything up to now, I do think there has been a change... but when you think about his age, isn't that perfectly normal?"
"Tenma. Likes women. Normal."
"Lion, shut it for a moment!"
At Albert's words, Lion blurted out something pretty tactless, but he was elbowed into silence by Cain.
"Now, if you say it's age-appropriate, then sure, that's true. But the change has been too sudden... Or rather, I've long suspected that it was the state before that was abnormal, and that suspicion has only grown stronger."
"Suspicious? Tenma. Was normal. Before?"
"Lion, not another word!"
Lion looked like he wanted to say that Tenma had always been strange, but this time he was smacked by Albert and fell quiet.
"Well, back when we were living in Kukuri Village, there weren't any young women nearby, and Tenma was still a child, so I didn't think much of it. But after we started living together in the Royal Capital, even with young women around him all the time, he showed absolutely no reaction at all. And from that, I started to wonder about something."
Setting aside Kukuri Village, I had reacted to women on several occasions during our life in the Royal Capital... But my counterpoint was ignored by everyone.
"I believe that when Tenma was caught up in the Dragon Zombie incident at Kukuri Village, he may have received some kind of 'trauma' — or perhaps a 'curse' of sorts."
According to Grandpa's theory, witnessing his father and mother being killed by the Dragon Zombie had caused him to unconsciously fear losing his 'family,' and in turn made him afraid of forming a 'new family.' On top of that, he may have been hit with a 'curse' during the battle with the Dragon Zombie that 'diminished his interest in women.'
"I understand the 'trauma' part, but does a curse that pinpoint specific things like that even exist?"
"Regarding curses, much of it is at the level of legend, and it hasn't been thoroughly analyzed, so it's more like 'something resembling a curse.' But if the Dragon Zombie did indeed cause a decline in vitality, it wouldn't be strange to call that a 'curse.' Besides, long before Tenma came to the village, the people of Kukuri Village had been having difficulty getting pregnant. If the Dragon Zombie was the cause—draining the villagers' vitality without their knowledge—that wouldn't necessarily be wrong, would it?"
Grandpa's reasoning was persuasive. If the Dragon Zombie had been carrying some kind of 'virus' that diminished human vitality, then I, who had fought it directly, could very well have been infected.
"But if the Dragon Zombie was the cause, why is Tenma only now returning to normal?"
"Well... one possibility is that the Dragon Zombie's influence just happened to weaken recently. But I think the 'Lich' Tenma fought, and the 'Jeanne' who was with him at the time, may be involved. If that Lich was of the same kind as the Dragon Zombie, then defeating it might have weakened the curse. Or perhaps being pushed to the brink mentally weakened the curse, and at the same time, the feeling that he had to protect 'Jeanne' is what's pulling Tenma back to a normal state. You know how they say that when living creatures are pushed into a critical situation, the instinct to pass on their genes kicks in and it becomes easier to have children?"
"So you're saying the Lich restored Tenma's vitality?"
"Lich, good job."
"Lion... whatever you do, don't say that in front of other people."
Being told 'vitality, vitality' over and over made it feel like they were just talking about a lump of lust, and I wished they'd stop. But Lion didn't really seem to get it, while the other three were discussing it with serious expressions.
"In any case, as long as you're human, having sexual desire is perfectly normal. As long as you don't indulge in it excessively, it's nothing bad. The real issue is that we shouldn't let the women know about this conversation. Jeanne and Aura are slaves and maids, so even if something happened by accident, it wouldn't be a major problem... but we need to be careful with Amour and Chris. Even though Amour has been calmer lately, she's a viscount's daughter, so it would be a problem if things happened on impulse. And Chris is... problematic in various ways. If she found out about Tenma's current state, she might try to seduce him."
"All three of them: "Ahhh...""
"Sister, long time no man, makes sense."
I could easily imagine how Amour and Chris would react. But Lion, faithfully following Grandpa's teachings, seemed to have gotten worse than before.
"Still, since this is Tenma we're talking about, even if his age-appropriate desire has returned, I don't think he'd lose himself in it, so there's no need to worry too much."
"Agreed. It's Tenma after all."
"At the very least, everyone he might make a move on is fair game."
"Tenma, do your best!"
"...Is it over now?"
The latter half was just them teasing me for fun, so from partway through, I'd stopped paying attention and was watching their little comedy act with Slarin while eating snacks. However, no matter how hard I tried to write it off as comedy, there were moments that got under my skin, so I ended up eating a few too many snacks.
That evening, when dinnertime came around, Chris and the others still hadn't returned to the inn, so we had no choice but to split into the men's group and women's group for the meal. Personally, I was grateful for that, because being teased with that weird topic made me self-conscious, and it was easier this way.
"Tenma, my u... the Guild Master says you're free to do as you please here."
"Thank you,
Canon
"
A few days after the day I was teased, I was led to the smithy attached to the guild. Today I'd be borrowing this space to clean up the charred Kogarumaru.
Canon
had calmed down somewhat after losing it and directly venting her anger at me, and her attitude toward me had softened a bit. However, since it had happened out in the open, she'd ended up creating a large number of witnesses, so as a show that we'd made up, we decided to call each other by our first names.
"By the way, Tenma, um...
Lion
?"
Canon had fallen for Lion, just as Albert, Cain, and Yuri had planned. At that time, Lion had been the only one to shield Canon, and in Canon's eyes, Lion may have looked like a prince.
"If it's Lion, he should be wandering around somewhere in the city. Before going out, he said something like 'I want to check out the market.'"
"Sorry, something came up."
After extracting from me where Lion might be, Canon hurried off from the smithy. Well, she'd said herself that she was useless when it came to smithing, so it wasn't really a problem if she wasn't there... but disappearing without giving any explanation to a customer, as a guild employee — was that really okay?
"Huh? Tenma, where did Canon go?"
Yuri happened to be coming in just as Canon was leaving, so I explained what had happened, and Yuri made a very complicated face. Probably because, as an uncle, he wanted to support his niece's romance, but at the same time, as a boss, he had to scold her for ditching work and a customer.
"What's wrong?"
"Did something happen?"
Yuri was standing frozen at the entrance, and behind him, Grandpa and Chris poked their heads out. With the three of them clustered at the entrance, I couldn't see past them, but behind them, it seemed Amour and Jeanne were there too.
When everyone heard that Canon had run off to chase after Lion, they all nodded in understanding. They understood that much — that Canon had fallen for Lion. The only one who didn't understand was Lion himself, the one being pursued.
"But Lion always has those two who are always with him... Canon, don't mind."
Lion headed to Russell City for a market survey, with Albert and Cain accompanying him as always. Which meant that walking through town with Lion — the very thing Canon yearned for — also meant being around the two people Canon was most uncomfortable with.
"Well, setting that other group aside... What are we doing today?"
Chris didn't seem thrilled about the possibility of her junior having a romantic interest, because she cut off the talk about Lion and Canon early and asked about today's plans... Canon had supposedly told everyone about the day's schedule during breakfast, but she had been too busy putting on the act of coming to pick me up early while cleverly joining the meal, and fawning over Lion to actually listen to what I had to say.
"Today I'm just going to clean up the sword that got charred in the Lich fight and do some minor adjustments, so there won't be much for anyone to do here. Why don't you all go out shopping or something to kill time?"
My condition had recovered considerably but wasn't back to normal, so I planned to sit in my wheelchair and brush the soot off the blade to check for damage, then see if any of the spare scabbards I had would fit. That meant there was no smithing work planned even though this was the forge. The reason I'd borrowed the guild's smithing facility was that it was a place where making a mess with soot wouldn't be a problem, and one that Lion or Yuri could authorize me to use freely.
"Hmm... Well, everyone else seems to want to stay and wait until you're done, so I'll wait too."
Chris apparently judged that my work wouldn't take that long and decided to wait together with the group.
"Sure, if everyone's fine with that, then that's fine. Just don't complain about it. Especially you, Chris."
"I won't complain!"
I reminded Chris of this because she looked like she was about to grumble, even though she'd chosen this herself. She pulled a chair over from somewhere and sat down, all while muttering complaints.
"Then, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do. If anything comes up, please ask one of the staff members for help."
Normally, that kind of thing would have been Canon's job, but since Canon wasn't here, Yuri started to say "Canon" before catching himself mid-word and stumbling over his sentence.
After Yuri left, I took out the tools for cleaning the sword and laid them out on the table, then got to work.
"Good thing I still had that baking soda from the soap-making. First I'll sprinkle this on... there."
I sprinkled baking soda over Kogarumaru, dampened it with water, and started wiping it with a cloth. The baking soda on Kogarumaru gradually turned black as I worked.
"Huh? Something's off."
As I kept polishing Kogarumaru, I felt a nagging sense that something was wrong. At first I couldn't pinpoint what it was, but when I spread the cloth out and looked at it, I realized the source of my unease.
"Not that much soot is coming off?"
The baking soda, which I expected would turn completely black, wasn't nearly as dark as I'd thought. So I rinsed Kogarumaru under water to wash off the baking soda and tried again, but —
"It's still black... No, the soot itself is coming off. So does that mean Kogarumaru's color has gotten darker?"
I tried wiping the blade repeatedly with a white cloth, but no soot transferred onto it. I wasn't sure why Kogarumaru's color had deepened, but I figured it probably had something to do with that direct hit from Takemikazuchi.
"If I want to know the details, I'll have to ask Master Ganzu or Kelly..."
Now that the soot problem was solved, I tried fitting the handle and doing some test cuts, but something unexpected happened there too.
First up was fitting the handle. Even though it was the same size and shape as the one I'd used before, it didn't fit. Kogarumaru had shrunk — only by millimeters, but enough that a small gap had formed between the blade and handle, making it rattle. That in itself could be explained by Takemikazuchi having...
...the tang...
...(the part that slots into the handle) been worn down and shortened, which made sense. However, swinging a blade that wobbles in its handle is dangerous, so it was decided that Kogarumaru could not be used until a new handle was made to fit its current state.
As for the test cuts, the sharpness — which I'd expected to have degraded significantly — turned out to be hardly an issue. Well, compared to right after Master Ganzu and Kelly had sharpened it, the edge had definitely dulled somewhat, but it felt more like "maybe it's lost a tiny bit of sharpness?" compared to what I was used to. Given that I'd fought through a swarm of wyverns and a lich, it was a little strange that the blade was still in perfectly usable condition for normal use. Especially considering it had taken a direct hit from Takemikazuchi during the fight with the lich — I'd half expected the edge to be duller at best, or chipped at worst.
"Anyway, there's not much I can do about it right now. I guess I'll just use the adamantine sword or the short sword for now."
At first, I'd thought it was better to use a weapon I was accustomed to, even if it had lost some of its edge. But with Kogarumaru out of commission, I decided to make the adamantine sword — the one I'd been using against powerful enemies — or the short sword I'd previously made from Tanikaze's remains my primary weapon until Kogarumaru was repaired.
"Well, this finished sooner than expected, but... what should I do now?"
What I'd thought would take around two hours had actually been wrapped up in just about thirty minutes, so I went ahead and asked the others what they wanted to do.