Sadly, my parents never bothered to put a guest room or two in the house, which meant Cecily and I were forced to take the living room couch, and Cene the armchair. Now if you're wondering why they as the hosts didn't just take the living room instead and simply gave us, the guests, their own room, well, it's another one of their whacky traditions. Well, not tradition, per se, but I do vaguely recall my dad explaining it to me as a kid. Basically, if guests come unannounced, then he really has no reason to treat them with that much respect, since "They didn't respect him enough to call up front". Now, if even one of you thinks my dad's reasoning is justified, then I'm sorry to say but you're a really bad person. Seriously, we already tried contacting them via the mail, and multiple times at that, so how can they truly say we just barged in!?
"Ungh..." I noticed Cecily, who was lying next to me, had already opened her Eyes as I got up, "Couldn't sleep all too well either?"
"Not a wink." She sat up as she rubbed her Eyes, "Is this what you have to deal with every time I tell you to sleep on the couch for the night?"
"Yep, and no matter how many times it happened, I just could never get used to it."
"What the hell? Why didn't you speak up about it?!" She raised both Eyebrows, "I've been condemning you to entire nights of torture without remorse, I would've snapped a long time ago if I were you."
"Well, most of the times you do send me out to sleep on the couch, it's a justified punishment for me being an ass." I replied with a chuckle, "Besides, if I ever snapped, I could never forgive myself for doing that to you."
"...Damn , I'm gonna stop making you go through that from now on." She ignored my attempt to get a romantic mood going as she got up, "Then, let's... D-DUCK!"
"Huh?" I turned around to follow her gaze, only to get my face smashed in with a swinging tied-up bunch of books, "Oof-!"
"There, no more skinwalkers!" My dearest younger brother, the one behind this deathtrap's design, proudly dusted off his hands, "Lady, you should really be more careful. That thing could've eaten you up any moment had it not been for-"
"Lune!" Cecily ran to check if I was okay, "Y-Your head!"
"Whuh?" Cene, who was now forcefully woken up by all the commotion, looked on at the gruesome sight, "Daddy...?"
"Cene, don't look!" Cecily tried to hide my injury away from him, "C-Crap, what the fuck! No...!"
"Ow..." I got up without batting an Eye, startling both Cecily and Latham, "Damn, now I get what mom and dad meant last night..."
"H-How are you fine!?" Latham cried out.
"Fine? This look fine to you?" I pointed to my bludgeoned head, "Damn, I had to pull out all the stops to just live through that."
And when I say all the stops, I mean it. Rewinding back a bit, just a split second before the ball of death made contact, I Went Solipsistic to give myself some time to think. After that, I Materialized some liquid in front of me to cushion the blow. Dunno what I summoned, nor why it shaded Red, but yeah, all this Red stuff all over the place? It's not blood, or at least it's not mine. And finally, even this liquid wasn't enough to fully block it, and the fact I didn't even have enough time to dodge the impact didn't help either, so I had to cast Heal preemptively to help me pop the skull back in place before any serious damage got caused. So yeah, anyone other than me would've died tenfold. This kid's a problem, cause the way things are going, he might write off Cecily and Cene as collateral damage.
"Lune, are you alright?" Cecily inspected my head as the skin restored back in real time, "Oh. Freaky."
"You mean awesome?" I suggested, "Or perhaps convenient would do better. God, that still kinda hurts..."
"Daddy, what happened?" Cene waddled over to me.
"Your pop-pop fell out of his bed." I lied so as not to not traumatize the poor kid, "Can you believe it? I really bumped my head hard on the floor!"
"Haha!" Cene giggled before patting me on the bump, "Thewe thewe. Pain, pain, go away! Come again anothew day!"
Damn, kid! Stop hitting me in the one place that just got caved in by a damned swinging ball of hurt! Owowow, n-no Lune! Y-You're his pop-pop, can't... show... weakness!
"H-Ha-ha... A-All better!" I hid the pain away with a weak smile.
"Y-You're not human..." Latham still couldn't believe his Eyes, "I'll kill you. I will."
"Hey now, prank wars aren't supposed to be lethal, y'know?" I got up after the wounds Healed fully, "Man, starting the day off with a headache definitely wasn't on my to-do list."
"Judging from all the commotion, I'd say you kids are-GASP, WHAT THE HELL!?" Dad's heart dropped the moment he entered the Red liquid covered room, "Oh, it's just pig blood. Dammit Latham, I told you to keep your pranks easy to clean up after."
"Excuse me." Cecily raised an Eyebrow, "How do you know it's pig blood?"
"I'm a butcher, of course I'd know." He shrugged, kneeling down to lick it off the wooden floorboards, "Yep, the scent hit me first. Feeling it in your hands, it's just that bit more viscous than human blood, and finally, that taste that's hard to get used to, but once you do, you just can never get enough of the stuff. That's pig's blood alright."
"Eww..." Cene grimaced.
"Your dad's kinda cool to know so much about it..." Cecily held herself back from gagging, "But also scary."
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"By the way, how IS the family business faring since I left?" I asked as we all chipped in to clean up the mess.
"Well son, you never really did much regarding the butchering biz even when you WERE here." Dad refused to sugarcoat it, "It really didn't change all that much, though a pair of helping hands would've done wonders for us when Latham was born."
"Oof, sorry for that." I then turned to a brother that was giving me all sorts of death glares, "But you're at that age, aren't you? By now you should've at least started basic training to take over one day."
"Pft, I don't talk to monsters..." He turned his head away, but his Eyes were still warily watching me, "But I will say this. I'm nothing like my brother, I actually care for my parents' happiness, so I started learning all the names of the animal parts by the age of 5!"
"Wow, so you don't wanna talk to me, but you're fine with gloating?" I smirked, "You're like an ITA agent whose head is too big for his body. All bite, no bark."
"Boys, less fighting, more cleaning." Dad lightly kicked both of our asses, but spared Cecily for obvious reasons, "Come on, once you're done, I have something to show you."
Something to show us? Then I better get this done fast, but how? Hmm, maybe if I optimize my pathing to better pick up all the blood? Or perhaps I could Go Solipsistic and, relatively speaking, go super fast? No, I'm already drained on Focus both from last night's usage and just now, so I should probably not. Besides, I don't really want mom and dad to find out about my Iro Abilities. It'd ruin my plans for Latham. Hmm...
"Done with my side." Latham already got up, wiping his brow with a smug and annoying smirk, "You guys, there's two of you, and you're still not finished? How pathetic!"
"Grrr...!" Cecily clenched her towel as a fire erupted in her Eyes, "This kid really wants his life to end by sundown...!"
"Hey now, don't tell me you're mad at him for retaliating against my prank from last night." I smiled, "It's all fun and games. I promise I'll be alright no matter what he throws at me."
"Dear, he's dangerous." Cecily warned, "And obviously very much willing to even kill you if ever he feels threatened. That prank war plan didn't work out, so maybe think of something else?"
...No, Latham's not gonna budge unless I speak his language. I don't want our relationship to be bad by any means, as it seems so long as it stays like this, I won't be able to send any letters to mom and dad. Of course, I seem to be faring better with them in comparison, so whilst I can rest easy in knowing we have a good relationship, I just don't see the point in it if we can't even communicate over mail at least. In any case, it seems Latham's words really fired Cecily up, as she finished up cleaning our side soon after anyways.
"Looks like Lune's the least productive one here." Dad smirked, "Alright then, now that that's done and over with, let's go you two. Cecily dear, you're free to do as you please, since you didn't finish last."
"What!?" Latham protested, "But I came in first!"
"Yeah, so you're gonna get the lesser workload." Dad patted both of us on the shoulder as he led us to the stables, "Right, this prank of yours really did a number on our little office here, so what I'm gonna ask of you is to please fix it."
"Ah." I realized.
If you recall, my Blue Iro Ability, Materialize, doesn't actually create something out of nothing, but instead "autofills" the closest item to the concept I have in mind. In a way, it's more summoning than Materializing, but given that I had already gotten used to calling it that by the time I realized this, I just stuck with it. Now, naming off all the things I had summoned in, that's: a bunch of potted plants, a ton of plates, a few posters... and a bunch of pig's blood.
"Two of our pigs are dead." Latham noticed the two rotting carcasses already.
"Yeah, seems someone killed them and took their blood to accomplish a stupid prank..." Dad alluded to the culprit being Latham, "So I thought "Shoot, why not teach my boys some lessons about taking responsibility?" while I have them cut up the dead fellers. They're still a bit young, but unripe meat is better than wasted meat."
"I-It wasn't me, dad!" Latham pointed his finger at me, "He's the one who-!"
"Latham, no backtalk." Dad lectured him, "Instead, just be glad I'm more inclined to punish your brother for neglecting nearly two decades of his work than you who made one single flub."
"Damn, that's some pretty blatant favoritism." I joked, though he didn't quite approve of it either.
"Call it whatever fancy word you want, but just know you're not leaving until you pay me back all the work you owe us." Dad's teeth glistened as he grinned a mischievous toothy smile, "Oh, how nice! Finally, I get to work with my sons on the family business! What a time to be alive, am I right?"
"Gulp. Y-Yessir..." Both Latham and I dropped the act in favor of fearful obedience.
"Great!" Dad chuckled before patting my back, "Now Lune, I sure do hope you still remember that training I taught you before you left~!"
Training? Does he mean the sword training? Cause if that's the case, then he has nothing to worry about, cause I'm still in my prime! ...I think. Who knows, I haven't clasped a sword in ages, and whilst I have been steadily regaining my strength, my muscles HAVE atrophied quite a lot since I revived. Well, butchering and swordfighting is... kinda similar, right?