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Vol.18 Ch.403 - Metamorphosis

After Aru had posed to us the difficult question of whether to partake in the sinful fruit of knowledge or not, she left us to our own devices when we declined her offer. Once again, and I can't stress this enough, I think I've had enough trouble that could have been avoided in my life. I know Cecily's just looking out for our family and friends in her own way, which involves solving the issue instead of just dodging it altogether, but I think that'd only cause us to lose more things than what we would gain. Betting on something like that is just too dangerous.

Once she left us alone in the room, we really had nothing else to do but to get dressed and go downstairs, which is exactly what we did. We were expecting to see a ticked off Aru whining about how we locked her out of the house last night to Cene, or maybe she forgave us and just went straight to teaching him some more words and numbers (he can already write his own name and count to 10, something he was very eager to show off to his equally as proud parents after he learnt it), but we what we were instead greeted to was quite the surprising spectacle.

It seems Aru got too tired of waiting around for us to come down, so she took it upon herself to make everyone's breakfast today. Granted, she was relying heavily on her Goddess powers, it seems, as she was using her water tentacles as extra hands to whip up the entire entrée as the other set of tentacles set the table. Seeing this, I felt a welling sense of excitement at the thought of being so dextrous with so many things at once, but Cecily couldn't help but get angry.

"You could have been doing this the entire time, but you instead made us all cook for you!?" She clicked her tongue before sitting on her chair.

"It's your fault for treating me like a kid and not letting me use your kitchen." Aru smugly glanced back at her, "I tried to cook your food on multiple occasions, but I do believe it was you, Cecily Grimheart, who herself always grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and tossed me away from the counter."

"W-Well, I guess I did..." She couldn't find a proper rebuttal to that claim, "B-But Nelly once tried to surprise us with her breakfast, and she ended up cutting her finger!"

"It was just a small cut, though..." I added, "I Healed her super easily and she immediately went back into smiling Nelly mode. Sigh, good times..."

"I miss big sis..." Cene looked a bit lonely.

"She'll come visit us soon, don't worry!" I gave him a hearty thumbs up before turning my head over to Aru, "Hopefully..."

"Mn? Stop asking me to spoil you on what happens next!" Aru folded her arms as the water tentacles behind her still continued cooking passively, "You said you don't wanna hear what happens next, so from now on you won't get anything outta me! Nyeh!"

"Why you...!" Cecily almost got up to attack her, "You didn't tell us that was part of the deal!"

"Hey now, I don't particularly mind." I shrugged, "It's not like we had Aru's omniscience before we met her, and we still did pretty good, so to me it's just us returning to that time. I guess what I'm trying to say is - We didn't lose anything, we just got back to the state we were in before."

"Dear, I feel like you're just opposing me purely out of spite..." Cecily pouted, "It's like you're agreeing to her every statement the very moment she says anything. It's getting kind of annoying."

"Well yeah, because she's been nothing but amicable and reasonable this entire time." I nodded, "Everything she said made sense, and if ever she gave us a choice, she made sure to tell us the repercussions of each choice beforehand. Not to mention, what difference does it make if we can or cannot use Aru's omniscience from now on if she's gonna leave soon anyways?"

"That's...! Fair..." Cecily sulked.

"I see you've grown wise recently." Aru yet again praised me, "You used to be all about stirring up trouble, but it seems you're making a point to actively avoid it ever since you revived."

"I still don't hold a candle to Ed or even Adam when it comes to reliability and thinking things through, but I at least hope I'm making baby steps to secure my kids a safer upbringing." I chuckled.

"Papa, how do you spell upbwinging?" Cene heard a new word and immediately asked, his Green Eyes twinkling with curiosity.

"Cecily, write down today's date on the album! Quick!" I shouted as I ran to get a pen and paper, "Cene asked papa how to spell something for the very first time!"

"No, not "something". I wanna know how to spell "Upbwinging"!" Cene laughed.

"And add "Cene's first dad joke" on there as well while you're at it!" I couldn't help but contain my smile as I proceeded to teach him all that he wanted to know.

Breakfast came and went, and by the time I had realized it, we were already nearing lunchtime, but I was still teaching Cene all sorts of things with Cecily as Aru took the day off to laze off on the couch. Cene was finally looking at both of us as his parents, which is a stark difference from the cold expressions he was giving me when we first met. Now he's actively asking all sorts of questions, be they about reading, writing, spelling and even some more advanced numbers (like 11 or 12!). With each new thing he learned, he would often interject the next lesson with the previous one, and with a proud smile he would tell us with confidence all about what he had just learned as we clapped along and showered him with praise. This, I thought, this was the picture of a family...

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"Yo, anyone there? You guys aren't still shaggin', are you?" Ed's voice rang out before a flustered Cecily ran to answer the door.

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"Y-You...!" She whispered, "What the hell, Ed!? Cene's present!"

"So what?" Ed leaned onto the doorframe all carefree, "He doesn't know what that means, besides, I was right, wasn't I-?"

"Papa, did you shag mommy?" Cene asked as I spit my newly poured drink all over the table.

"Cough, cough! C-Cene, that's...!" I composed myself, "That's not something you should know."

"But I alweady leawnt that wowd!" Cene defiantly replied, "It means "catch", wight?"

With the three of us all staring at him with our Eyes wide open as Aru burst out laughing from the couch, he got angry at our reactions and hurried to elaborate on his logic.

"Gwww! I know I'm wight!" He shouted, "The wolf shagged the wabbit!"

"Oh, he meant "snag"..." Cecily sighed in relief before correcting him, "Shag means... something else, Cene."

"Ohhh..." He nodded, "What?"

"Dammit, Ed!" She turned back to growl at him, "Just spit out what you came here for and leave before you teach him any more inappropriate words!"

"Ah, well, that's gonna be difficult, cause..." He scratched his beard awkwardly before stating, "We wanted to invite you guys for a cup of coffee with everyone. Y'know, now that the weather is finally nice and all, we thought we could finally make use of the garden."

"Oh, that's a great idea." I nodded, "What do you say, son? Wanna go outside and play at uncle Ed's garden?"

"Yeah!" He shouted, "I wanna play!"

"Don't let him near any rabbits, though." Aru joked as she got off the couch to stretch, "I heard he likes to play tag with 'em."

"Oh, tag! Awoo, wanna play tag with me?" Cene buzzed around her.

"Sure, kid." She patted him on the head, despite being just a tad taller than him by this point, "Geez, kids grow fast. You used to be way shorter when we first met."

"I'll gwow a~ll the way to the clouds!" He declared.

"Here's to hoping, son." I smiled, "Then, let's not keep everyone waiting."

Making sure to lock the door after we left the house, I commented on how it really was kind of an unnecessary step, seeing as we could literally see everyone sitting in the garden and waving at us even from the front door. This isn't even taking into account that we're on a somewhat empty flat plot of land, so we could literally see a burglar (or any guest for that matter) approach us from a kilometer away. Still, better safe than sorry, and it's a good habit to teach Cene while he's still young.

"Heyo!" Issei put his hand up to greet us.

"Yo yo!" Ed and I returned the greeting, "Man, we really outdid ourselves with the place..."

"Yeah right, it'd still be a bunch of shrubs and overgrown weeds if not for me." Anna gave a sly remark.

"True, I guess we can give you SOME credit." I joked, "But really, this place is epic. Kinda makes me wish we had a garden as well."

"Well, I certainly wouldn't be tending to it." Cecily said with honesty, "Unless you're willing to, that is."

"Well, we should probably use Aru's water tentacles while we still have her at our disposal." I pointed to her playing with Cene with my thumb, "Oh, you guys are never gonna believe what happened this morning! We went downstairs to make breakfast, and what we saw was...!"

Regaling them with the tale of Aru showcasing her Water Goddess powers for something so practical, the others sat in awe as they frequently took glances at the Goddess disguised as a little girl. With a carefree mood dominating over the entire retelling, I finished it off right around when Ed came by.

"Can you believe it?!" I slapped my knee, "Cene thought shag meant snag!"

"Shut up!" Cene overheard me making him the butt of the joke and wasn't all too happy with it, "It's uncle Ed's fault fow confusing me!"

"Hey now, blame your parents for not teaching you the difference." Ed took a defensive stance as he used us as meat shields.

"Edward, how dare you teach poor Cene such words!" Camilla nagged.

"Son, I am very disappointed in you." Sigmund bickered.

"Sigh, let him be, you two." Eleanor was surprisingly taking the role of Ed's defendant, "How the hell could he have known they got Cene in a curious mood enough to pick up on such a tiny word? Even I sometimes get caught up in the moment and let a swear word or two slip by."

"Ah." They raised both Eyebrows in astonishment.

"Ha?" She glared back at them, "What is it?"

"Y-You're..." Ed was the one most surprised of all, "Not being a whiny, annoying brat to your older brother?"

"I'm an adult too, y'know!?" She hissed before shyly revealing, "A-And well... After having a bit of a chat with Nat, I kinda realized that I probably won't find anyone willing to put up with a girl like that, so..."

"Huh? How did you figure that out from talking with someone like her?" I furrowed my brow, "Isn't she the "I don't want a guy who doesn't accept me the way I am" type of girl?"

"Well yeah, but I realized something while talking to her." She gave a deadpanned face as she replied, "I really wouldn't wanna date a person as stuck up as her, so I did some self-reflecting and realized we're way too similar in that regard."

"Ah, so it's like that." Ed smiled, "A fool learns from their own mistakes, an intellectual learns from others'."

"I still kind of consider myself a fool, if that's the case." She chuckled lightly, "She IS technically a reflection of me, in a way..."

"Geez, it's so weird not having you raise a fist at me and threaten to punch my teeth out." Ed continued to tease her, "Usually you'd jump to the conclusion that I called you a fool without thinking things through."

"Yeah, well, I've changed." She gave a warm smile in return as she peacefully sipped her coffee.

"I don't buy it." I revealed, "You're not really Eleanor, are you? Be honest, where'd you hide the real one?"

"You damned idiot!" She raised a fist at me, "Want me to punch your stinkin' teeth out, huh!?"

Ah, there it is. So it IS her, that's good. However, I will take offense to her calling my teeth stinky. That's rude, I spent an entire year cleaning them out... They're spotless!