Chapter 19 - Nightmare and the Court Mage
There was something touching Louis, who stood frozen in his nightmare. A supple, small hand was placed upon his forehead.
And what reached his ears was a faint sigh.
Was I, a liar, to be scorned and abandoned by you?
――Elenoa!
He reached out his own hand and grabbed hold of her clothes. The nightmare ended.
Yet he could not believe this was reality.
His head, throbbing with pain, was at its limit, and even his consciousness was hazy. After the dream where she departed with eyes of contempt, Louis uncharacteristically gave thanks to the god who had granted him such a pleasant 'dream'.
If that was the case, he thought it was fine.
Since this was a dream anyway, it wouldn't matter what he did to her.
When he pulled her, she collapsed into his arms with ease. If he teased her a little, she offered cute resistance that fanned Louis's desires. When he stroked her wings over her clothes, she trembled and desperately tried to endure it.
Facing her, he was convinced once again that this was a dream.
He wanted to ravish this female fairy, and he wanted to comfort her too. But as he placed his hand on her chin, where tears trailed down, his vision swayed dizzily. Thinking this was the time to wake up, Louis reluctantly let go of his hand.
When he opened his eyes, his usual life awaited him. The unwilling yet comfortable daily life where she called him "son" and "boy."
"That is what I had thought, however."
The morning that came for Louis was different from usual.
Elenoa was avoiding him.
She stopped eating breakfast, and her "have a good day" was feeble.
Originally, for fairies, human food was nothing more than a preference. If she herself said she didn't want it, there was no problem, but it was impossible not to mind when it was done so blatantly.
Furthermore, Lumina, who had come to enjoy having breakfast with Elenoa every morning, was very disappointed.
It had been a week since then, today.
――This cannot continue, can it?
Louis thought silently as he walked through the corridors of the Research Institute.
"Louis-sama. Good morning."
"Good morning. How are things?"
He returned the greeting to one of his subordinates. It seemed they were heading to the same destination, so he listened to the report while walking.
"As expected, the monsters have resistance to poison. We continue to increase the concentration, but the toxicity is about to become visible soon."
"I see. So none of the monster species in the room have been defeated yet?"
"Yes."
"Could you show me for a moment?"
"Please."
He flipped through the documents the man had been looking at one by one, skimmed them, and handed them back.
"Let us end this experiment here. I wasn't relying on it much anyway."
Everyone has already reached a conclusion, haven't they?
Louis raised the corners of his mouth as if to say so, and the man gave a bitter smile.
"Then let us proceed to attribute magic anew."
"However, we are running low on test subjects."
"What is lacking?"
"Everything except fire and water."
"……Is that so."
Louis thought for a moment, glanced briefly at the bundle of papers in his hand, and thought again.
"I have business with the Corps Commander of the Second Knight Corps shortly, but I will go out for a bit after that. Do you have any urgent matters coming up?"
"There is nothing particularly urgent."
"Then could you prepare the usual in the large hall underground? About twenty. It might be reassuring to have more than that."
"Surely not the Chief?"
"Is that not allowed?"
"No, it's not like that at all, but you could let us handle it, you know?"
The man's tone became more casual as they spoke, but Louis did not mind. Such social niceties and rules regarding hierarchy were not as strict as in the Knight Corps.
"Lately, I have had various things on my mind... I suppose I just want to breathe the outside air alone."
"Hmm, Louis-sama has human-like qualities too."
"What do you mean by that?"
"It's nothing. By yourself?"
"Yes, by myself."
"Understood."
After that, the Chief, who had indiscriminately captured a number of monsters enough to make the mages break out in cold sweats, returned to his clerical work with a cool expression.
And he returned home as usual. Elenoa was still acting strange.
"I have returned."
"Welcome home."
Their eyes did not meet. Even when he deliberately tried to look at her, she stubbornly refused to look at Louis. When he handed her his robe, she hurriedly retreated to the back. She brought out tea and immediately withdrew.
This was an undesirable situation.
Nevertheless, the taste of the tea remained unchanged. As Louis stared blankly at his cup in the living room, a small voice reached his ears.
"It... hurts..."
It came from the kitchen.
When he went over, blood was dripping from her index finger. On the cutting board lay broccoli and a kitchen knife. He had never once seen her get injured while cooking. When the surprised Louis called out to her, Elenoa turned around, her shoulders flinching.
"It's, it's nothing?"
"It is not nothing. Show me."
When he took a step closer, Elenoa took a step back. She was afraid of Louis.
Her gaze remained helplessly lowered, and she did not even smile shyly.
When he reached out his hand, she looked as if she were about to cry at any moment, so he could not approach her.
Dinner was just the two of them, Louis and Lumina. The menu was sautéed fish, steamed vegetables, soup, and bread.
The siblings ate in silence, but the younger sister glared sharply at her older brother.
The brother, understanding her intent, put down his spoon.
"Onii-chan, what did you do? You are clearly avoiding only Onii-chan."
What had he done? There was only one thing that came to mind.
But that was an outrage he could hardly speak of to his younger sister.
"……Lumina. I have been wanting to ask you for some time, but do you want an older sister?"
"Very much. For example, if she were a fairy, with silver hair, good at cooking, and had a four-letter name, that would be ideal."
"What a coincidence. I have also been constantly considering taking such a person as my wife."
Ahaha, ufufu, while the beautiful siblings smiled gently at each other in the living room, Elenoa, who was in her own room, shuddered from a sudden chill.
Elenoa could not understand at all how it had come to this.
Her hand, which had received the robe, was grasped, and her body was pressed against the wall.
It had already been twelve days of avoiding Louis, and she had thought that he would eventually take some kind of action. But she never expected to be questioned so directly.
"Are you avoiding me?"
"N-no, I'm not."
"You looked away. You are easy to read."
Smile. Even if he smiled, she knew well enough that it was not a genuine smile.
He was angry.
Even though it was Louis's fault to begin with.
Elenoa was also aware that Louis did not remember that night. Even so, it would be a lie to say she could ignore it.
When she remained silent, Louis took her left hand. When he rolled up her sleeve, there was a dark blue bruise. The mark of being gripped until her bones creaked.
She gasped in surprise. With this, Louis seemed to have gained conviction.
"As expected, that was not a dream. It makes sense that I was being avoided. ...It seems you understand my feelings."
Releasing her hand, Louis gave a self-deprecating chuckle.
Elenoa, refusing to give up, said,
"It's a lie, right? You're teasing me?"
"Yes, it is a lie. I was teasing you."
Relieved, she raised her face,
"What did you think I would say?"
He dismissed it with a laugh.
"You are truly regrettable, an insensate person beyond saving."
It has been ten years. When Louis announced this, Elenoa also came to understand what number of years he meant.
Her eyes widened in astonishment, reflecting Louis.
"Ten, years."
"You, who insisted on being my mother, wouldn't understand, would you?"
"No way, from the very beginning? I was still a child..."
"Because you were a child, I waited until you grew up. Please do not render my consideration to nothing."
"But, the boy has never, I, ...I... don't know anything!"
She had no immunity to men. The Stylus siblings had kept away any men who approached Elenoa.
Under Louis's protection, she had just lived carelessly and vaguely. Therefore, now that it had come to this, she could not even find the words. Before making a decision such as refusing or accepting, she had only thought about escaping the situation.
Louis took a lock of her disheveled hair and kissed it. When he stared at her as if to show it off, Elenoa froze stiff. Her face turned red to an extent that could not be any redder.
"Deceiving people is my specialty, isn't it?"
"Ah, ...eh...?"
"I had planned to win you over after I looked older than you on the outside, but now that it has come to this, it cannot be helped. Even if we are the same age, your resistance will disappear. You do not need to do anything. As long as you accept me, that is enough."
"I-I am accepting you. From the beginning, we were together, living in the same house, weren't we?"
Faced with the small animal trying desperately to talk back in confusion, the eyes of a carnivore sparkled.
"Then..." he pressed her chin with his finger, not allowing her to turn away.
"May I kiss you like this?"
"What"
She could only manage that single sound.
They were at a distance where they might touch at any moment. His eyes, tinged with male charm and inviting Elenoa in, captured her moist, deep-sea colored eyes and did not let go.
Her mouth moved open and shut like a goldfish, but no voice seemed likely to come out.
Elenoa, whose head felt like it was boiling and about to stop working, flinched violently at Louis's sudden laughter. Louis's forehead rested on her shoulder, and the degree of closeness was incredible. His shoulders were shaking because he had found something amusing.
"D-don't laugh."
"No, I just thought you were cute. However, you are, ..."
The owner of the suspicious smile was also a heavy laugher.
At a loss, Elenoa ended up patting his back to let it pass.
When he finally moved away, he had a refreshing face, as if the eerie atmosphere from before had been wiped away. But when he said provocatively, "You aren't entirely unwilling either, are you," she could not feel relieved.
"Then from now on, calling me 'boy' is prohibited. Please call me Louis."
"But"
"If you call me boy, ...you understand, don't you? What kind of punishment 'Louis' prefers."
――As expected, he has changed from the past.
Nodding weakly, Elenoa stood still while listening to the sound of Louis going up the stairs. She could not move from the entrance for a while.
She placed her hand on her cheek.
It was still hot.
His words and actions were troubling. He toyed with her selfishly. Elenoa had absolutely no memory of raising him to be such a child.
But what troubled her most of all was her heart, which pleaded that she did not dislike being touched by him.