Happy Wednesday!
Here is the new chapter, enjoy. Also, just like the previous chapters, the perspective will change to Akira in the latter half, so don"t get confused.
ED: Ignite
At this moment, one of the rooms within "Ten Thousand Cranes" was enveloped in an extremely strange atmosphere.
"In Yoru"s case though, he was only sitting down because he"s a cat and as such, it could hardly count as a punishment.
Next to the composed Yoru was Amelia whose legs were reaching their limits and her body was trembling from exhaustion.
「Now then, let"s hear the excuses?」
Akira smiled sweetly.
Though we say that he was smiling, it was just the corner of his mouth rising a bit. However, the dark look in his eyes paired with his expressionless face made him seem more like the devil incarnate.
In the face of such a demonic presence, even Amelia couldn"t help but tremble in fear.
『Ah, Master-dono? Miss Amelia"s legs can"t take it anymore.』
Yoru immediately said that to mediate, but when those ice-cold eyes turned towards him, Yoru could do nothing but stay silent.
Those eyes that caused the silver ranked adventurer and the monster who was the demon king"s right-hand man to tremble in fear no longer had any mercy.
「What are you saying, limits exist so that they can be surpa.s.sed, right?」
I shot him down with a line that seemed like it was straight out of a manga while taking it completely out of context.
「Maa, it seems that you"re reflecting on it as well. From now on, if you promise not to do something, you better keep it.」
「I promise.」
Amelia immediately replied with sparkling eyes after being released from the h.e.l.lish torture.
Rather, she did not know that it would be h.e.l.lish from here on out.
Let"s go back to two hours ago.
Amelia wanted to have Kurou teach her one of the previous hero"s secret techniques, but in her persistence, she lost track of time.
They arrived at Kurou"s house and all the while, Amelia continued requesting it of him.
There was a splendid smithy right next to Kurou"s house and it made her recall that Kurou was, in fact, a genius blacksmith.
His home was a one-storied house constructed from wood, and it was extremely modest as there was nothing besides a bed, desk, and kitchen.
Given that his entire house was made of wood, one would think that handling fire near Kurou"s home would be dangerous.
Unbeknownst to Yoru, Kurou"s house was constructed with timber from the fire-resistant trees that grew in this world, allowing him to continue his work as a blacksmith.
『Miss Amelia, Master-dono will worry if we don"t return soon.』
Yoru raised his voice to remind her, but Amelia, who was bowing her head, did not say a single word.
「Even if you keep doing that, I won"t teach you anything.」
Sitting in a chair, Kurou was elegantly enjoying his tea while stuffing his cheeks with high cla.s.s confectioneries, not even sparing the bowing Amelia a single glance.
「Please. Please teach me.」
Amelia was still bowing her head.
Yoru stared at Kurou in amazement.
『Is it still no good even when she"s gone this far?』
Kurou turned around and looked at Yoru.
「Even I can not afford to be careless when it comes to the life and death of a princess.」
A vein popped up on Yoru"s forehead when Kurou responded so aloofly.
Amelia"s head lowered even further in response.
She bit her lips in frustration.
「Oh yeah, monster, don"t you need to return before dark?」
Kurou looked out the window. The sun was already setting and dinner time had long since come and gone.
If Yoru"s complexion could be seen, one would be able to see him turn pale.
『Miss Amelia, we should go back now before Master-dono turns into a demon. No, I suppose it"s already too late.』
Amelia finally lifted her head.
She had been lowering her head all this time, so the blood should"ve rushed to her head, but her face was as white as a sheet.
「I"ll come back tomorrow.」
Come to think of it, when they left Kurou"s house, Kurou had an exceedingly unpleasant look on his face and was waving his hand at them, chasing them away.
「Yoru, how long does it take to arrive at the inn?」
She asked that while running at full speed towards the inn, but Yoru"s face just turned pale in response.
It wasn"t that the eyes were more eloquent than the tongue, it"s just that the expression on his face said all that needed to be said.
Once they arrived at the inn, they were gasping for breath and the sloping-shouldered innkeeper expressed his concern.
They quickly told him there was nothing to be concerned about before heading to their room.
And just as Yoru had predicted, when they entered the room, there was an imposing demon standing there waiting for them.
「Saa, Amelia, try standing up.」
Surely everyone has had a time where their legs were numb.
And, that indescribable sensation after the legs were numbed was extremely unpleasant. It seems that he knew that it was painful as well.
With her hands and feet trembling like a newborn fawn"s, Amelia was crawling on all fours with tears in her eyes.
『Miss Amelia….』
Yoru looked at Amelia with pity.
As a princess, Amelia has likely never had to kneel until her legs turned numb, so I wanted to have her try it.
However, it was unexpectedly effective and I decided that this would be the punishment for being late from now on.
「Now then, come back before dinner time from now, ok?」
In response to this, Yoru and Amelia furiously nodded their heads in agreement.
After a while, Amelia"s legs recovered and then we ate a late dinner.
We could have had the inn provide us with a meal, but not only would they charge us a separate fee for it, Amelia liked the food from the food stalls more, so we"ve had all our meals at food stalls.
This wasn"t such a bad thing because although they were food stalls, there was a plethora of them to choose from.
With so many different stalls selling different things, we would be able to eat at a different one for each meal.
Since Yoru and I would not get tired of them, we did not object to eating at the stalls either.
We also noticed that Amelia was secretly aiming to conquer the food stalls..
Everyone talked about their day as we were eating.
「It seems that I need to demonstrate my loyalty to the guild and show that my abilities surpa.s.ses those of the yellow rank in order to raise my rank up to the yellow rank. What happened with Amelia when Amelia was at that rank?」
Amelia, who was stuffing large amounts of food into her mouth like a hamster, swallowed everything down before she started speaking.
「I don"t know. The Adventurer Guild in the elven territory is different from the one in the beastmen territory because it is always quiet there. There were barely any quests, and I had treated the guild as a place to sell and trade the materials I got from monsters that I had defeated. In the first place, I was at the yellow rank a long time ago….I only remember that I had become a silver rank before I realized it.」
That reminds me, elves lived for a very long time.
Amelia was too childish, so I forgot all about it.
Amelia had most likely raised her rank up to silver quite a while ago.
「Maa, I will raise my rank up to yellow using any means necessary and gather the materials for the sword, so you two can do whatever you want in the meantime, just like today.」
Yoru and Amelia exchanged looks.
Akira knew about Amelia chasing after Kurou, but he did not know that Amelia had been following him around.
He just had complete faith in Amelia and Yoru.
That"s why, Akira did not ask what Amelia was doing and why she was late for dinner.
Amelia winked at Yoru, signaling for him to not say anything.
Yoru understood what she wanted to say and he nodded.