Chapter 507: Side Story: A Close Couple

"Hehehe, Onii-san! I'm home!"

"Hey!"

Nell jumped into my arms and hugged me tightly.

"Mmm, Onii-san's smell! Hehehe, I'm so happy!"

She rubbed her head against my chest, and I smiled as I stroked Nell's head, which made her cheeks loose.

"Welcome back. You are usually so gallant and brave. But the way you currently act, you seem even younger than Illuna and the others."

"My work time is over. I'm not a hero right now!"

"Oh, then, what are you now?"

"Of course, I'm your wife!"

Nell said with a bit of embarrassment.

Nell was really cute.

Nell could now come home more often than before. However, there were still days when she could not come home for a long time because she had to work somewhere.

And since the time she could spend at home was short, I let her do whatever she wanted when she came home like this.

This time, too, she had been on a military expedition and had not been back for about a week, so I guess she was happier than usual on her return.

Among my family members, Nell was especially good at spoiling me, or rather, she was honest with herself and indulged me.

She was relatively honest about what she wanted me to do, which made it easier for me to accommodate her.

"Nell! Welcome back. I'm sure you're tired, so I'll ask Layla to prepare some tea for you right away! Layla, Nell is here." (Yuki)

"Oh, Layla, I didn't notice you!" (Nell)

Layla, who was standing in the corner, said, "Welcome Home."

"Well, Layla is the best at making tea in our house! That's why you should just leave the serving of tea and snacks to her." (Yuki)

"I see, I'm thankful! But I'd like to help her serve the tea. The other will be drinking tea as well right, Onii-san?" (Nell)

"You can just relax and let us handle it." (Yuki)

"What? No, no, no, just sit down there as I help her!"

With that, Nell left for the kitchen, receiving a "welcome back" from Lefi and Lyuu along the way.

…What a homely hero she was.

I hope the tea helps in relieving her exhaustion.

◇◇◇

Then, when everything was soon ready, we sat down next to each other at the table.

Perhaps out of concern, my other wives' did not join us, each doing whatever they wanted to do.

The little girl group had gone to play in the meadow area and had not yet returned.

"Oh right, listen to this, Onii-san. A holy knight in my troop, you know, he came to introduce his wife to my office, and then he said, 'This is my wife.' and his wife said 'Thank you, everyone, for always being so kind to my husband.' I admire that kind of thing!"

"You admire it? If you want, I can go to your place of work and say hello."

"No, no, no, no. That would reverse the situation. Besides, everyone in my unit knows you."

Well, it was true that I have often visited Nell's Order of the Holy Knights when I go to Allysia Kingdom, so it was a little late for me to visit them as a surprise, I guess.

"I have a dream. To introduce myself to my neighbors who have come to visit us for the first time and say, 'I'm this person's wife'!"

"Oh, so it's only for neighbors?"

"Yup!"

"I see. I think it's a cute dream, but unfortunately our nearest neighbors live over the mountains."

And they were dragons.

As long as our home base was in Demon Forest, surely we wouldn't have neighbors that would show up even if it were a hundred years from now.

Nell said excitedly, "Okay, let's go see them sometime and do that, Onii-san!"

"No, thanks. They'll probably just smile bitterly and say hello to you, too."

"True, I'm sure they'll look at us like, 'What's the big deal all of a sudden?' They are dragon people, right?"

Yes, they were.

Although they belonged to the dragon race, I saw them in the Demon Forest a few times a year, and I greeted them with a light wave of my hand.

Even if they had been living deep in the forest, they could sense our presence right away and would notice our approach.

Depending on the dragon, they may come close to us and chat with us, and I think we might be able to build a good relationship with them.

My name should have been known to most of the dragons living in the Demon Forest by now. I wondered if it was because I was Lefi's husband, but they were all very warm and friendly to me.

What would be a good present when I visit them… Well, maybe some good liquor would do. I should prepare it by the kegs.

Now that I have connections, I should be able to have it prepared easily, you know?

Well, for the dragons, even if we had not seen each other in years, it would only feel like a little from their perspective, so thinking of them as proper neighbors might not be that bad.

After exchanging jokes, I listened to Nell's stories about such-and-such, and I told her about my daily happenings.

But my day-to-day life was pretty uneventful, so I didn't have much to tell her.

As for the latest topics… Oh, right, there was one big one.

"Well, actually, Illuna is now able to use primordial magic."

"Oh, really! Oh, wow, that's amazing, such a difficult thing to do! We should celebrate!"

Layla had been teaching Illuna magic for a while now, but Illuna wanted to be able to use the same magic as her big brother and sisters, so she asked Lefi to help her, and her efforts had finally resulted in her being able to use the primordial magic.

Layla had told us that primordial magic was almost impossible to use unless one's body was well adapted to magic… I had already known that Illuna had a talent for spirit magic.

Her talent for it was approved by the Spirit King Grandpa himself, who was a really powerful and ancient spirit.

Spirits were beings that could be described as a mass of pure magic. Therefore, Illuna succeeded in invoking primordial magic by borrowing power from them.

Originally, since both spirit magic and primordial magic used similar procedures, there were sensory similarities between the two. Layla claimed that it was thanks to this that Illuna was able to activate the primordial magic.

There may not be much Illuna could do with it yet, but I had confirmed that it had become an established skill. I have no doubt that the hard-working Illuna would continue to grow and develop.

I was looking forward to her future, as she had more talent than I did in magic.

Incidentally, regarding the magic skills of the little girls, although Illuna was the only one who was able to use primordial magic, Enne, due in part to her own dexterity, had learned most of the magic that Layla taught her.

She was especially good at fire magic.

I think it may also be because I had her sublimate the magic circuit of "Red Flame" as a skill a long time ago, and although she did not use it much recently due to the considerable increase in her attack power, she probably learned how to handle fire through the Jet Engine form that she had learned before. I think she was skilled enough in fire magic that it could even be compared to my own skill in my most compatible element.

However, my skills in fire magic were, frankly speaking, garbage, so I could not use them without using spirit magic.

I heard that Lefi was good at handling "fire" among primordial magic, so I guess that's why, when she was teaching me the basics, she was using fire magic as base.

Shii was second only to Lefi in terms of recovery magic in our family, but she was a [Healing Slime], a race that specialized in recovery, so she could not use other kinds of magic very well.

Well, when it came to recovery magic, she seemed to have reached the point where she could instantly heal a broken bone, and at that level, as far as Nell could tell, she could already play an active role as a semi-first-class magician, so I would say she was doing a great job.

The Wraith girls were even more extreme.

The eldest, Rei, excelled in telekinesis, the second, Rui, in illusion magic, and the third, Ro, in mental magic.

Rei could manipulate about 30 objects at the same time. Rui's illusions were so elaborate that they could no longer be detected even by looking at them closely. Lastly, Ro was able to manipulate monsters in the southern area of Demon Forest with her mental magic and turn them into her allies.

…Aside from the other two, I'd had to advise Ro to be very careful with her mental magic. It was by far the most heinous of the bunch.

I was amazed to learn that this was a skill she had honed almost exclusively through constant mischief.

She had been using magic to surprise, confuse, and make the members of our family, who were already accustomed to it, relaxed, and happy, and before she knew it, she had already become proficient at it.

I was really proud of the abundance of talent in our little ones.

"We celebrated the day Illuna learned to use primordial magic pretty well. We even prepared some of her favorite dishes."

"Well, that must have made her very happy… I wish I could have celebrated with her."

The second half was said in a low voice, so she probably did not intend for me to hear it. However, due to my race's evolution, my hearing was enhanced, and I could hear her words clearly…

"…Okay, now that Nell is back, let's celebrate one more time! After all, your return in itself is a big deal as well!"

"Eh, but…"

"I'm sorry to hear that you're disappointed because you were not here with us. It was inevitable because of your work, right? But now that you're back, we're going to celebrate again! Let's make Illuna's favorite food together!"

Nell nodded with a happy expression on her face as I said this.

"Okay, okay, I'm going to cook with all my might! Help me, Onii-San!"

"All right, I'm on it. You and I are going to cook dinner tonight!"

The time was just right, so Nell and I headed to the kitchen side by side to start preparing dinner for the evening.

I told the other members of the family that we would be cooking tonight, so they didn't come over to help us.

"Illuna's favorite food… I'm sure she like corn soup for starters, so we'll go with that. We can't leave out the meat. I'll make the grilled meat and…"

Nell wrapped an apron around her, rolled up her sleeves, and started to prepare the meal in a crafty manner while worrying about the menu.

She looked up at me curiously after noticing my gaze at such a heroic figure.

"…? What's wrong?"

"I was just thinking how good you look in your apron. You look like a young wife."

"Really? Thanks."

Nell smiled shyly, then came closer to me, stood on her toes and lightly kissed me on the cheek.

Then Nell and I exchanged glances at each other in close range.

"Huh, you're blushing, Onii-san?"

"…We both are. Come on, let's make it quick."

"Shall we?"