Reunion Dinner

Day soon turned dark, and evening arrived. The only other member of the Greyrat household returned home, clad in armour and knight's uniform.

"I'm home!"

"Welcome home!"

"Thanks Rudy! ….Wait, RUDY!?" Paul's jaw dropped seeing his only son home.

Rudeus grinned brightly at his father's reaction.

After the initial shock wore off, Paul grabbed Rudeus in a hug that he returned. It was a touching moment between father and son where neither cared about the vulnerability men usually feared revealing.

"Did you get fired so quickly? What did you do, get caught seducing the young lady?" Paul teased as they sat down for dinner.

"No, I just took some time off. And Eris is only 11, papa, get your mind out of the gutter." Rudeus shot back.

Paul raised an eyebrow with a teasing smirk, "So what you're saying is, if she was older you would want to seduce her?"

Zenith narrowed her eyes and kicked Paul's shin from under the table, "Stop trying to corrupt our son!"

Rudeus chuckled at their antics, but internally contemplated on the question Paul asked. Could he really see Eris in that way? Sure she was fit and pretty, and now that her personality had softened from when he first met her, she was a lot more pleasant to be around. But he just couldn't get the mental image of her as a child out of his mind.

He was physically a child too, sure, but there was just this mental barrier, a dissonance, between what he mentally felt like and how he looked like physically. It was something he didn't know if he could overcome, because the alternative would be him dating women who were more appropriately aged like Ghislaine. And thus would he always be dating older women?

Rudeus wiped the thought from his mind. It was just too weird thinking about all this while having dinner with his family.

"Nice scar, Rudy. Chicks dig it, I bet." Paul pointed out.

Rudeus scratched the scar on his cheek mindlessly. It was already something he and the Boreas family had gotten used to. It has been awhile since someone asked him about it.

"Yeah, noble girls think it's charming." He replied chuckling.

"That's my boy! Chip of the old block!" Paul laughed heartily before recoiling from a spoon tossed across the table from Zenith.

"I told you to stop corrupting him didn't I!"

Rudeus laughed at the sight. Zenith and Paul's flirtatious bickering was something he had missed seeing, even though he had gotten tired of it back when he still lived in Buena Village. Some things never change.

While they ate dinner, Rudeus tried his best to talk more with Aisha and Norn. They were still too young though, so they hardly had much to contribute to a meaningful conversation. But just sitting and eating with them warmed his heart.

He also produced some gifts for his family - magic items he had created in Roa, similar to the ones he made for the Boreas family. Ring of Healing, Ring of Protection and an offensive magic item. One of each was given to every Greyrat family member.

Zenith and Paul had been shocked at the presents. They knew, better than the rest, how rare and expensive magic items were. And learning that Rudeus had made them himself was an even larger surprise.

Aisha and Norn just took the rings as 'ooh something shiny', but when they were older, these would be life-saving treasures. Selling just one of them would let them live comfortably for a decade without worries. But if they really did sell them, Rudeus felt that he might cry if he found out.

But since they were still young, Paul and Zenith held on the magic items for Norn while Lilia held on to the ones for Aisha. These items could be considered family heirlooms even for wealthy households. But Rudeus thought of them as something temporary before he made better ones.

Throughout the evening, Rudeus felt undeniable familial warmth from the people present. It was something he did not realize he missed until he experienced it again. Paul's teasing and dirty jokes, Zenith chiding him for being a bad influence, Lilia's cool, professional stoicism, that all contributed to an atmosphere of tender, familial hospitality.

Once more, he scolded himself for not returning sooner. He had been too caught up with learning swordsmanship from Ghislaine and his body guarding duties with Eris, that he neglected his family.

End of the day, he only had one family. Years down the road, he didn't want to regret not spending more time with them when he had the chance to.

…..

The next morning, Rudeus sparred with Paul for the first time in years.

"Sword Saint technique: Earth Splitting Sword."

Rudeus swung down his sword vertically, the mana surged through his veins and channelled into his blade. Undulations of energy exploded from his body as he put his entire strength into this one single swing.

BOOM!

A cavernous tear in the earth erupted in the trajectory of his swing, and Paul, who was standing against the absolute destructive force of Rudeus' mana rotated his body defensively, utilizing a Advanced-rank Water God technique to fend off his son's attack.

However, against a true Saint-rank swordsman like Rudeus, Paul who only just reached the threshold of Saint-rank technically by combining his expertise in the three different sword styles just did not have the raw strength to defend against Rudeus.

Rudeus' Earth Splitting Sword broke through Paul's defence, and right before it shattered his armour and carved through his torso, the mana was rescinded. Rudeus narrowed his eyes in concentration, pulling back the mana contained within his strike, leaving Paul only a little worse for wear from the attack.

The wind that had been whipping violently calmed down. Paul shakily wiped the cold sweat from his brow.

"I know I asked you not to hold back but… holy shit!" He remarked, gazing at the destruction his son had wrought from a single swing of his sword.

Rudeus smiled faintly before responding humbly, "It is all thanks to Master Ghislaine."

Paul chuckled ruefully, "My son. A 9 year old Sword Saint, North Saint and Water Saint-rank magician… Is my seed that powerful? Will Aisha and Norn be heaven-defying geniuses as well?"

"That is part of the reason why I am here too. I am going to try and teach them chantless magic. They are still young but that is the best time for them to learn." He responded.

Paul raised an eyebrow, "Is five days enough?"

His son shrugged, "I brought a few notebooks with my notes on casting spells without incantations. It contains what I learned when I taught Sylphiette and Eris. Even after I go back to Roa, they can still send letters to ask me if they have any questions."

"You know they can't read yet, right? Well, Aisha can. Norn is still struggling with the alphabets." Paul added.

Rudeus smiled, "She's still young. Don't place too high of an expectation on her, or she will just feel stressed."

Paul deadpanned, "Why are you talking like you're an adult even though you are still a kid too... And Sylphy, huh? Have you gone to see her yet? That girl comes to visit almost every week you know? Lilia says some of your old clothes have gone missing… I think she misses you bad."

"That's… weird. But yeah uh, I guess I'll go see her after we're done here."

Paul's eyes widened, "What do you mean, we're not done here yet? What else do you want to show me!?"

Rudeus smirked, and circulated the mana beneath his skin, "My first Saint-rank Magic Sword technique – [Phantom Blade]."

He channelled the mana within him and cast three spells simultaneously, the precursor to initialize his Illusion Melded Magic.

From Paul's perspective, the air suddenly blurred and then the Rudeus in front of him vanished from sight before a whole bunch of Rudeuses appeared from thin air.

"Wha-!?" He didn't have time to process his surprise before the two dozen or so Rudeus clones started running at him.

Paul gripped the handle of his sword, "You've really learned some crazy things at Roa, Rudy!" He began swinging his sword, cutting through the illusions that started attacking him.

Of course, the clones Rudeus created were only an optical illusion. Even if Paul cut through them, he was only cutting through air. His sword sliced through the clones ineffectively, dispersing the mana that held them together briefly but functionally doing nothing.

Paul froze when he felt a sharp point poking at his back before he chuckled and held up his hands in surrender.

"Alright, you got me."

Rudeus materialized behind Paul, holding his new sword against his father. Some time after he developed the [Phantom Blade] technique, he started working on how to improve his illusion magic during combat. Firstly, he used Wind Magic to eliminate sound from when he went invisible. This helped a lot in reducing the chance of discovery when he was trying to be stealthy.

After this initial success, Rudeus thought about imitating Ghislaine's keen sense of hearing with magic. If he could do something like echolocation with magic, then if he was ever put in a position of having to find an invisible enemy, he would not be troubled.

He also started experimenting with revamping illusion magic. The goal was to get rid of having to use Melded Magic every time he wanted to cast illusion magic, as it was a real mana sink if he kept that up.

If it was possible, Rudeus might even want to combine illusion magic with the aforementioned sound magic. Thus, instead of manipulating light to create optical illusions like he was currently capable of, using sound to immerse the opponent in a hallucination. Something like that would expand his [Phantom Blade] technique and push it to the next level.

The above stated goals would take years of research and experiments, however, so it was still an ongoing and slow process.

Paul turned to Rudeus and shook his head in self-derision, "Looks like I don't even stand a chance against you now… I'm not sure whether to be proud or ashamed of myself."

Rudeus sheathed his sword and bowed to his father, "All that I have achieved is because of you, papa. My love for the sword stemmed from watching you train. My passion to reach the pinnacle of the sword I have learned from training with papa. I would not have been able to achieve what I have today if not for your guidance when I was young. You have nothing to be ashamed about."

Paul was touched. His hand trembled before reaching out to pat his son on his head.

"This kid, when did you grow up so fast? Why did I let you leave our house for so long?"

Rudeus smiled, "All birds leave the nest eventually. But this baby bird will never forget his gratitude for his parents."

Paul laughed at the analogy, "Then, this papa bird will sit in his nest and brag to other birds about his son. Speaking of, when are you bringing a lady bird back to meet your parents?"

"I'm only 9, papa!"

"When I was 9, I already lost my virginity!" Paul shot back, folding his arms with pride.

Rudeus made an incredulous expression, "Wha- that's crazy! How are you so proud of that, that's messed up!"

"Heh, don't get jelly cause I'm manly."

"Ugh, I can't even with you."