Relaxing at Myra’s house, Ryner and his two companions were waiting for dinner to be served. Her house was a great place that included free meals three times a day. There were three bedrooms in the Elkind’s residence, so there were enough beds for everyone to sleep in. Snow has been sleeping with her mother lately and Evelyn and Maya would share the fox-eared girl’s room. The guest room was occupied by Ryner who elected to sleep alone.
“That’s how I got beat up by a bunch of brats.” [Ryner]
“Fufu, it’s nice to know that you had fun playing at the park.” [Myra]
Myra, who was donning her familiar white apron over her dress, was talking with her back turned to her guests since she was in the kitchen and doing her best to prepare tasty food for everyone.
“No, like I said, I got beat up for no reason.” [Ryner]
“I would have loved to see that~.” [Maya]
Maya commented with a happy note in her voice as she sat next to her master. Having returned after seeing her friend, Suky, and after teasing her family, mainly Arka, the dark blue-haired woman was in a very good mood.
“Why the hell are you smiling at that?” [Ryner]
“Ryner, playing with kids…” [Evelyn]
Evelyn was mumbling to herself and imagined him playing with a child. Moreover, the kid was a girl that looked a lot like her since she had her long, blonde hair, her red eyes and a pair of fangs that were visible whenever she smiled adorably.
“Daddy!” [Girl]
In her fantasy, Ryner put his hands on both sides of the little girl’s waist and playfully raised her high in the air. Standing next to these two was herself who was cradling in her arms a baby boy that had messy black hair and was peacefully sleeping.
“And why are you blushing? What’s so embarrassing that your face is turning red?” [Ryner]
“Nothing, don’t worry about it. We’re family, after all.” [Evelyn]
“What does that have to do with anything?” [Ryner]
While Ryner was tilting his head in confusion, Evelyn rapidly pushed those thoughts to a corner of her mind and proceeded to change the topic. She took out her cellphone and put it on the table.
“More importantly, Ryner, I need to do what you said for this item again. I need to ‘charge’ this phone.” [Evelyn]
“Ah, right. Here.” [Ryner]
A blue circle made of rings appeared in front of him and he put his hand in it. As the rings moved backward and his hand seemingly disappeared, he pulled it out and grasped a blue, hexagonal object that was about ten centimeters long as well as an electrical cord. Ryner passed them over to the vampire and she used the cord to plug her phone to the object which was a portable charger.
“Fufu, no matter how many times I see it, it always looks amazing.” [Myra]
Myra, who was stirring a pot of red soup with a ladle, turned her head for a moment to watch Ryner pull out an item from his pocket dimension.
“You think?” [Ryner]
“Of course. I heard about a lot of unique abilities from my husband. For example, he told me about humans called heroes that were summoned from another world and one of them could double his power. But, I never heard about a gift like yours that could make items appear from a blue light. And you have such interesting Artifacts too.” [Myra]
Myra’s words reminded Ryner of the bunch of kids that he met when he was on his way to Elura. They were high school students that were forcibly summoned to this world along with their teacher. They were given powers by the gods, but they didn’t know how to effectively use it in a fight and nearly died against his War Puppet, a Predator class. Then again, his creation was made to slaughter powerful monsters sent by Alice, so it was no surprise that they were nearly killed.
He wondered how they were doing right now, all except for Dan, who had the ability to control the bodies of anyone he wanted and used it to try and take over Elea kingdom. There was no need to wonder about his health. Ryner had personally destroyed his mind in their last fight, if it could be called a fight seeing as he didn’t even need to hit him once.
“Just to confirm, did you speak about this to your king?” [Ryner]
“The king, his family and my husband were present when we told them of our travels with you. Also, my daughter did most of the talking.” [Myra]
“So it’s a yes…” [Ryner]
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to lie to them. They were really worried about us and they are royalty too. Even if I’m their friend, I should mind my manners.” [Myra]
“No, it’s fine.” [Ryner]
It was a good thing he hid most of his cards from this mother-daughter pair. It was bad enough that his pocket dimension and his high speed tank were revealed to the royalty of this beastman’s kingdom. However, if he had chosen to travel by plane to save on even more time, then news of a human that own a flying Artifact would have definitely spread and caused an even bigger fuss. As they made small talk, they heard someone vigorously opening the front door and running to the dining room.
“I’m back!” [Snow]
It was Snow who had left earlier to visit her friends and had now come back to eat dinner at her house.
“Welcome back, dear. Dinner will be ready soon. Wash your hands and sit down.” [Myra]
“Ok~! What are we eating?” [Snow]
“Tomato soup, bread and rock beef stir fried with vegetables.” [Myra]
“Alright!” [Snow]
Listening to her mother’s words, the energetic girl went to the toilet and returned to the dining room once she was done washing her hands. The three guests greeted her in their own way and she cheerfully responded to each one of them. When her eyes met with the only man in the house, her expression turned serious and she called out his name.
“Ryner!” [Snow]
“Hmm?” [Ryner]
Answering nonchalantly, the black-haired human didn’t expect what she would request of him.
“Do you have time tomorrow? My friends said they want to go out with you.” [Snow]
----------------------------------------
Ryner sat on a bench and watched a round water fountain in the middle of what seemed like a public square. It was a popular meeting spot and people were going to and fro or waiting for someone. However, they didn’t fail to turn curious stares at the bored-looking human that was sitting alone with a big bag next to him.
Yesterday, Snow had told him that she bragged about her saviors to her worried friends and when they heard about him, they begged her to set up a meeting for them. As a result, not wanting to disappoint them, Snow went and begged Ryner to meet them while sporting moist, puppy eyes.
This had little effect on her opponent, so she just kept bugging him about it like a spoiled child and latched onto him. In the end, since he wanted her to shut up and no one was coming to his help, he relented and agreed to her demand. He was still waiting for his reward and had nothing to do, so he figured it was fine to waste a day in the public square.
That was why he had made ample preparations in the form of a bag to not use his pocket dimension in public. To pass the time, he was once more reading up on the general history between humans and beastmen. In his hands was a book that he had gotten from Trish, a girl he met when he first came to this world. She worked at the inn he stayed at in Sakael and had given him this history book because he looked clueless about the world.
“(Conflicts and small-scale battles have happened over the years between the human and beastman nations. Of these recorded conflicts, one escalated until it turned into a big war that involved several kingdoms and ended seventy years ago. However, because of the threat of the demons, both sides stopped all hostilities in less than a year.
Humans stood between the demons and the beastmen and had been attacked by them two times during the war. The beastmen wished to use the humans as a shield to avoid fighting the demons since they might be targeted next. As a result, a shaky truce was formed for both sides’ benefits, but the death toll reached four million casualties by then.)” [Ryner]
After getting the general idea, Ryner flipped through the pages of the book that had a simple, brown cover. He had already read it, but he forgot quite a bit of the contents since he couldn’t remember so much so easily. He wasn’t like Evelyn who was a genius that possessed an incredible memory. The book didn’t describe everything in detail, but mentioned the important events that took place throughout history.
“(The Catastrophic Disaster?)” [Ryner]
Finding some rather ominous words, he stopped at the page and began to read the information written in the humankin language.
“(The Catastrophic Disaster was a great war that happened seven hundred years ago and engulfed the entire world. Every race fought for supremacy which led to horrible consequences such as the unholy birth of the Dead City and the annihilation of the dwarves… Oh yeah, there used to be dwarves here.)” [Ryner]
“Eh? Ryner? What are you still doing here?” [Snow]
While he was engrossed in reading, he heard his name spoken by a familiar and incredulous voice. Lifting his head, he saw Snow standing a few feet away and staring at him with wide opened eyes as her hand pointed at him. She looked left and right as if searching for something and then walked until she was right in front of him.
“It’s almost noon! You should have met my friends two hours ago!” [Snow]
“They never showed up.” [Ryner]
He plainly answered her and caused her to turn stiff. Just like he said, the meeting time had passed since two hours ago, but no one approached him. Snow had arranged for them to meet and play together like her friends requested. They had also asked her to stay at home with her mother and let them have fun by themselves.
But, she wanted to surprise them and decided to search for them. As such, she first went to the meeting spot as her starting point, expecting to find no one. Yet, Ryner was there, sitting by himself and reading a book.
“No way… Did they… Did they, leave you here?” [Snow]
The girl with fox ears said in disbelief at the conclusion that she came to. Her friends that cried tears of relief upon seeing her safe and sound had pulled a malicious prank on her savior. They had never intended on spending the day with the human. For one reason or another, they just wanted to make him wait for them.
“Why? They’re all really nice.” [Snow]
She asked sadly after sitting next to Ryner. Her triangular ears were pressed against her head and her hands were clenched into fists on top of her knees.
“They’re nice to you, but I’m a human and some beastmen are mindful of that. It’s just like with the humans that stared at you weirdly on our trip here. This is nothing new.” [Ryner]
“But, it’s my friends! I talk to them every day at school! Why did they do something so mean?!” [Snow]
“Who knows? For now, quiet down a bit. We’re attracting enough attention as it is.” [Ryner]
Snow lifted her head and realized that the people walking around the square were subtly watching them. She nodded her head and quietly apologized to Ryner. She needed to lower her voice. It would be bad if she made a scene, but not for her. It would be bad for Ryner, who was getting mixed evaluations because of his race.
“Aren’t you mad? I’m going to lecture them later for this. Definitely!” [Snow]
Snow said with an angry expression and decided that she would absolutely make them beg her to stop talking. Even if they were her friends, some things couldn’t be forgiven so easily.
“Not really. It’s just some joke from a bunch of kids. It’s cute.” [Ryner]
“Cute? This is?” [Snow]
“I’ve seen worst. More importantly, it’s almost noon. Want a sandwich? Your mom made them.” [Ryner]
Ryner was rummaging through the bag he brought with him while Snow stared at him with a perplexed expression. Here she was, getting angry for his sake, but he didn’t seem disturbed at all from getting stood up. He looked as sleepy as ever and she could easily imagine him yawning loudly without a care in the world.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Taking out two sandwiches that had lettuce, tomato, butter, onions and slices of meat that tasted like chicken, the man with unkempt black hair offered one to her. Snow gingerly took it with both hands after thanking him and looked at it for a few seconds. Next to her, Ryner was eating his without a shred of concern on his face.
“Why are you like this? You should be angry or sad. Now, I look weird getting mad all by myself. Hmph!” [Snow]
While pouting, she took a bite, but the deliciousness caused her to break into a smile right away and she savored the flavor.
“(So easy.)” [Ryner]
As he looked at her face from the corner of his eye, Ryner couldn’t help but think that she was indeed quite a simple-minded girl.
“You want me to beat the crap out of your friends?” [Ryner]
“I don’t want you to hurt them! I just want you to go ‘Ugaaaah! I’ll never forgive them! I’ll go with Snow and yell at them too!’ or something like that! Don’t just sit here and read a book! Get mad!” [Snow]
“Getting mad takes effort.” [Ryner]
“Huh?! That’s your reason?!” [Snow]
“Kid, why should I waste any effort on these guys?” [Ryner]
Ryner’s question that he asked her as he stared straight in her eyes rendered her speechless. There was something in his sleepy-looking eyes that took the wind out of her sails.
“Is it worth it? Going out of my way to look for them over something like this? Hating them takes effort.” [Ryner]
“B-but, normally anyone gets mad. Umm, this is just, weird.” [Snow]
“You’re right, it is normal to get mad. But, when you see the same thing happen over and over again, you just get bored of it.” [Ryner]
Ryner threw the last piece of sandwich in his mouth, licked his thumb and index finger and stared straight ahead. His eyes were gazing not at the fountain that spewed water, but at something else, far, far away.
“It’s like seeing something scary. It might be scary the first time. The same for the second and third. Maybe the fourth and fifth. But, the sixth time, the seventh, the eight, the ninth, the tenth… You just start yawning.” [Ryner]
Snow, who was watching Ryner’s sleepy-looking eyes from the side, suddenly didn’t feel like he was harmless. Except for his right eye, he was plain, just a normal guy that was sitting at the bench next to her. But, she remembered the first time she met him. She saw what he was capable of.
The first time they met, he filled the room with corpses in an instant.
“It’s like this thing I heard before from somewhere. It’s sort of right.” [Ryner]
Right now, as she quietly sat there with a half-eaten sandwich in her hands, she was scared.
“The opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s indifference.” [Ryner]
She was scared of him.
“No offense, kid, but I really just don’t give a damn about your friends.” [Ryner]
“… Ha, h-hahaha! I-I see. Then, it’s alright, I guess.” [Snow]
Dryly laughing to hide her feelings, the blonde-haired teenager went back to eating. Deep down, she felt relief. If Ryner ever wanted to get back at her friends for real, they might not be able to stand up anymore. Some of them could certainly fight, but she could only imagine a bloodbath.
“Besides, I planned on spending the entire day in this square.” [Ryner]
Ryner tapped the big bag next to him twice and added “I don’t want to get close to a park for a while” under his breath.
“Huh? T-then, did you know this was going to happen from the start?” [Snow]
“Being paranoid is one of my redeeming qualities.” [Ryner]
The way he said such a thing in an almost proud voice made her gaze at his face blankly. Then, she let out a small laugh and smiled again. The fear that she felt receded back into the depths of her mind.
“Pfft! What’s with that? It’s not cool at all.” [Snow]
One moment he made her feel dread, the next she was laughing at his idiotic face. Truly, this man was weird. The fox-eared girl heartily finished her sandwich and wiped her hands together to get rid of the bread crumbs. Ryner passed her a napkin and a bottle of water and she chugged it down before wiping her mouth with the napkin.
“Haaah~… And here I was looking forward to showing you off to my friends.” [Snow]
Deeply sighing, she spoke in a fake, disappointed tone of voice.
“What’s there to show? Didn’t you already tell them everything about me?” [Ryner]
“Nuh-huh! Meeting you in person is different than hearing about you! And I didn’t tell them everything to keep it a surprise! Like, why were you wearing an eyepatch to look cool? And where did you get that car thingy Artifact? And why was your left arm so hard? Did you always wear a gauntlet before? Why did you stop wearing it? How did you make that spike come out of your arm?” [Snow]
“Easy, kid. I only have two ears. And how can my wearing an eyepatch in the past be a surprise?” [Ryner]
“You told me that you thought it looked good on you. I want to tell this to my friends and have them judge your looks too. Ah! I forgot to bring an eyepatch!” [Snow]
Talking continuously, she barraged Ryner with an array of questions. During the first few days she travelled with him, he always wore an eyepatch over his left eye and gloves as well. She assumed he had lost his left eye and had some sort of special gauntlet hidden under his sleeve. Abruptly, he took them off one day which allowed her to see that he had two pairs of normal eyes and hands. When she asked him about them, he either lied or evaded the matter entirely.
“Then you wanted to make fun of me too. You’re just as horrible as your friends.” [Ryner]
“What?! NO! This is different!” [Snow]
“Like hell it is! Don’t you have anything better to do?!” [Ryner]
“You’re one to talk! You’re going to spend the entire day on this bench!” [Snow]
“Shut up! If you don’t want me to waste my time, then get me my reward!” [Ryner]
Before they knew it, they were arguing like little kids, which made others stare at them strangely. Ryner and Snow returned their stares in sync and everyone hurriedly looked away. Then, Snow leaned in close, brought her hand next to her mouth and whispered into his ear.
“It’s not that easy! The ruin of Ofauvra is a sacred place for us! You can only enter if you have permission! And you’re a human! It’s normal that it takes time before you’re allowed to enter!” [Snow]
“The king’s the one granting me permission. Why is it so hard for him? He can overrule everyone else.” [Ryner]
“Uncle Leodor needs to listen to his subjects! That’s why dad is there to help him! And also, he can’t ignore his big brother, uncle Leonhart.” [Snow]
“Man, this is annoying.” [Ryner]
“A king’s duty is very hard to uphold.” [Snow]
Snow puffed out her chest and proudly recited the words her father, Taniel, told her once.
“Yeah, that’s why I hate politics.” [Ryner]
“You wouldn’t be a good king.” [Snow]
The fox-eared girl said teasingly and grinned at him.
“Like you can do better.” [Ryner]
The white-eyed man looked up at the sky and countered.
“That’s fine. I don’t want to become someone as important as uncle Leodor.” [Snow]
“Then, what do you want to become?” [Ryner]
“I don’t know.” [Snow]
“You said you’re already an adult after your first mating season. What are you doing, sitting here clueless about your future?” [Ryner]
“I-I still have some time! And I still need to finish school or mom will be sad, you know!” [Snow]
“Riiiight, well whatever. This is my camping ground for the rest of the day. Go look for your friends and yell at them or something.” [Ryner]
Cutting the conversation short, Ryner took out the book he got from Trish and waved his hand at Snow to shoo her away. Seeing him act coldly toward her, she puffed her cheeks and turned her head away defiantly.
“No! I’m staying here!” [Snow]
“This is my spot.” [Ryner]
“It doesn’t have your name on it! So, it’s not your spot!” [Snow]
The black-haired man was about to say something, but chose to shut up and put a hand to his forehead. Memories of his encounter with the children at the park surfaced in his mind because of the all too similar conversation.
“Arggh, fine, but be quiet. Here, have some cookies.” [Ryner]
In the end, he chose to ignore her and after giving her a small bag of cookies, went back to reading again. Unfortunately, Snow, who grabbed the offered treats, didn’t heed his words.
“Why are you just sitting here all day, anyway? You should see Ofauvra. It’s a great place, you know. That reminds me, I said that I would show you around! I totally forgot about it!” [Snow]
“I told you to be quiet.” [Ryner]
“Alright! It’s decided! Tomorrow, we’ll tour the city together and I’ll show you around!” [Snow]
“You’re not listening…” [Ryner]
While sometimes retorting to the hyperactive girl, Ryner engrossed himself in his book.
“It’s a sunny day! You shouldn’t be reading here! Let’s go have fun right now! Why wait for tomorrow?!” [Snow]
“Hmph. You make it sound like reading is a bad thing, but it’s one of the greatest activity ever created.” [Ryner]
“Really?” [Snow]
“Books contain knowledge and knowledge is power. For every word I read, I become stronger!” [Ryner]
“Ehhh~? But, it’s boring!” [Snow]
“Boring power is very effective in combat.” [Ryner]
“What are you even talking about?” [Snow]
Sitting next to him and swinging her legs back and forth in a happy mood, Snow was munching on cookies with a cheerful smile. The two peacefully passed the time and ignored the occasional stares of the curious onlookers.
“Why do you even have a pillow in that bag?” [Snow]
“In case the bench was too uncomfortable for me.” [Ryner]
“Did you plan on living here?” [Snow]
“I’m the type that likes to stock up on equipment to handle any situation.” [Ryner]
That day, the bench was occupied by a man who was trying to read a book and a girl that was happily talking to him. Sometimes they would bicker, but to anyone who saw their interaction, it was obvious that they were noisily getting along.
Later on, when Snow lectured her friends and threatened to stop befriending them if they did such a thing again, everyone panicked and tried to appease her wrath. Some ended up crying and begged for her forgiveness. It would appear that she was quite popular among them.
When Ryner and the others heard this, they determined that their hostility was because they were protective of Snow in their own way. The harassment might have been their warning, telling him to stay away from her. Unfortunately for them, before they could follow up with another attack, the fox-eared girl put a stop to their plan.
Fortunately for them, Evelyn decided to let them go for Snow’s sake after she kept apologizing to Ryner on their behalf. Furthermore, she wanted to stay on good terms with the Elkinds and that was actually the main reason. However, if it weren’t for that, a tragedy might have happened.
The vampire’s red eyes were glowing menacingly and she had a predatory smile as she asked Snow several questions. They were mostly about her friends’ personal information such as their names, what they looked like, where they lived, who was in their family and if they had anything they cherished enough to die for.