Deadline Is Raining in the Status Window - Chapter 14

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

A familiar ceiling greeted me.
I’d timed my awakening well—neither Mother nor Thomas was around. Only medicine packets stacked high served as evidence of the doctor’s visits.
Though I appeared to be alone, a rhythmic snoring echoed from somewhere. Turning my head, I found Titi curled up asleep beside me. Now that I thought about it, I’d been seeing her for over two months. Given that her wings had already grown in, yet she hadn’t returned home, it seemed that incident had made her reluctant to go back to the Demi-human Village Friendly to Humans.
Thomas had surely bragged about the bluefin tuna incident throughout the neighborhood, and I’d accumulated one hundred million crowns. It was time to leave Ilam.
I wanted to stay longer with Mother, but the Academy application deadline loomed. More importantly, if I kept such a fortune in this countryside, Mother could become a target. Robbers or monsters wouldn’t concern me, but Mother couldn’t fight. And Thomas wasn’t always around to protect her.
So the safest course was to take the money and throw it at the Academy as an entrance fee. After graduating, I’d secure a good position, bring Mother back to the Capital, and in the meantime, I’d ask Thomas to look after her. If he wanted to come along, we could all head to the Capital together.
As I mulled over these plans, a thought struck me—after all, demi-humans were far stronger than middle-aged women. I grabbed Titi’s head and tilted it toward me.
“Squeeeak!”
Ambushed while sleeping, Titi chirped in alarm and narrowed her eyes at me.
“Listen here. I know you can speak. I know everything you can say.”
“Sq-squeak? Chirp?”
“You’re a demi-human. Transform within five seconds or I’ll kill you. Five.”
“Squeeeak! Please! Save me, please chirp!”
This one’s courage really was paper-thin. I’d barely counted to five before she transformed in a flash.
Titi shifted into a girl of about ten, naked and sobbing, begging for her life while apologizing profusely for keeping quiet all this time.
“I’ll be locked away at the Academy and can only come down during breaks. You’ll need to look after Mother.”
“Squeak?”
“If you refuse, I’ll post on your hometown’s bulletin board that you broke the seal of the Demi-human Village Friendly to Humans out of fear of punishment, got caught in a trap, and ran away.”
“Squeeeak! How did you know chirp!”
Even though it was called the Demi-human Village Friendly to Humans, demi-humans were still part of the demon race, so most humans viewed them unfavorably.
Mother and the people of Ilam lived close enough to the Demi-human Village Friendly to Humans that they harbored no prejudice against demi-humans. But if humans who despised demi-humans organized an assault, a single village would crumble in an instant. That’s why the path to the village entrance was sealed with a labyrinthine barrier.
Titi was the brat who’d carelessly shattered it. The enraged party was a three-hundred-year-old elder. Still, since Titi hadn’t even reached adulthood, the bear demi-human Menhil had come searching, worried she might have suffered outside.
This anecdote was explained in excruciating detail around chapter 290, right before Titi’s near-death experience. Meanwhile, the author had devoted five thousand characters entirely to explaining how Titi came to be captured—truly a remarkable individual.
Didn’t novels exist with dialogue and narration to reduce reader fatigue? Or was the author doing this deliberately? Either way, I harbored a small wish that such a setting obsessive would take on game scenarios instead of novels.
“Actually, I have a mind-reading skill.”
“Squeeeak!”
I’d just been bluffing, but Titi trembled even more violently than before, her teeth chattering. The little girl, looking up at me as though I were death incarnate, squeezed her eyes shut and confessed everything.
“D-did you… hear me cursing you whenever I got the chance, chirp?”
So this brat had been cursing me every chance she got. No wonder her eyes had seemed unkind lately. I grabbed both her cheeks and pulled them out as punishment.
“I’m sorry chirp! Please spare me chirp!”
“Regardless, I’m entrusting the defense of this house to you while I’m gone. If Mother gets hurt, you die.”
“Yes! Understood chirp!”
Titi, who had no intention of returning to the village and was content here since Mother treated her well, wrapped herself in her blanket and padded toward Mother’s room to reveal everything now that she’d transformed.
Thirty seconds later, Mother’s scream echoed through the house.

◇ ◆ ◇

And so, within three months, Mother found herself with two daughters. The reason I’m suddenly bringing up family relations is that Titi, a sparrow demi-human who had lived ninety years without parents, revealed her true nature and insisted on serving Mother to repay the kindness shown to her all this time—making quite the fuss about it until she was accepted as a member of our household.
“Sister! Sister, don’t forget to bring the juice bottle, chirp!”
“Sure. That burlap really suits you.”
“It’s not burlap, chirp! It’s the clothes Mother made for me, chirp!”
You’re quite cunning and adaptable, I thought, offering Titi praise as I placed a bottle of one-hundred-percent orange juice into the picnic basket. When visiting someone else’s home, bringing juice was always the way to go.
Since I needed to leave Ilam soon, I’d intended to meet with Gerth to inform him of this. Fortunately, Gerth had sent a letter via bird inviting me to Beast King’s Tower.
Gerth, with his rigid sense of propriety, had written in his letter that since I’d visited his home, it was only natural for him to receive me at his own—and he added that he would come to pick me up if I waited at the Mining Site where I usually worked.
“Sister, are you really marrying the Serpent King, chirp?”
“No. Gerth and I are friends.”
“If you two are friends, then I have no friends, chirp.”
I rapped Titi on the crown of her head with my fist. She clutched her head and rolled across the floor.
“Mother! Mother! Sister’s hitting me again, chirp!”
“Oh my, young lady, don’t go laying hands on the child!”
“She’s ninety years old.”
“Even so, by demi-human standards, she’s still a child.”
“Tsk.”
I clicked my tongue, kicked Titi away, and bolted before Mother could grab her broom and come after me.

I ran all the way to the Mining Site where I usually worked, and there stood Gerth in his usual form—thankfully not looking like he was about to break into a courtship dance as he had before.
“You’re late.”
“My sister was being clingy.”
“You have a sister?”
“You know, that bird girl who fainted and chirped.”
“Your family relations are truly peculiar.”
“Your son is a fox.”
“Ah.”
Gerth nodded in understanding, apologized to me, and cleared his throat awkwardly.
“Um, well….”
“What?”
“Your hand, if you would….”
We’d already touched bodies before—why was holding hands different? Puzzled, I extended my hand, and Gerth tilted his head uncertainly before taking it.
“I’m not sure myself. It feels somewhat embarrassing.”
“Does it?”
“Demi-humans born in Beast King’s Tower can use the Return skill granted by the Tower itself. If you come with me, it will be faster.”
Ah, so that’s why the spider and tiger came and went whenever they felt bored. The journey was one-way on foot, but returning was easy.
He told me to close my eyes since it would cause dizziness on the first time, so I squeezed them shut. When he said I’d be at the top of the Tower when I opened them, I muttered that Return was pretty sweet. Gerth started to echo me but quickly swallowed the words instead.
“We’ve arrived.”
So his son had lectured him about dignity, and that’s why he’d held his tongue. At the top of the Tower stood the Serpent King I knew from novels—a nine-tailed white fox demi-human. The tiger I’d fought that day was there too, and so was the spider woman who’d apparently visited our house while I slept.
They greeted me warmly, but I suddenly clamped my mouth shut against a foul stench that assaulted my nose.
“Gerth.”
“Why did you call for me?”
“The bathroom.”
I hastily thrust the juice bottle into the Serpent King’s son’s hands and rushed into the bathroom, where I retched violently and expelled everything. The entire tower reeked of putrefying meat, beast musk, and countless other foul odors that made my nose feel like it was rotting away.
In the past, I might have endured it somewhat longer, but now my senses had grown far too acute from the superhuman skill—it was nothing short of torture.
A spider woman entered the bathroom and, concerned for me, spritzed perfume onto a towel before handing it over. Once I had nothing left to vomit, I returned to where the demi-humans had gathered. The white fox’s son had already realized why I was behaving this way and sat there sobbing with his face covered.
“I’m sorry, Gerth. The stench here is making my nose feel like it’s rotting away.”
“That’s exactly why I said we should remodel and then invite you! Father!”
“Isn’t the Serpent Queen being a bit too sensitive? Does it really smell that bad here?”
“We’re used to it, so we don’t notice. Hubert’s always been fastidious about cleanliness, and he complained about the smell constantly.”
As the demi-humans murmured among themselves, Gerth’s pupils dilated sharply. My words had struck him deeply. He sniffed at his own body, his lips trembling as he spoke.
“Evan.”
“Yes.”
“Leave.”
“Understood.”
The odor was embedded in the building itself—Gerth himself emitted no scent whatsoever. I’d meant to reassure him of this, but I could endure no longer. Besides, the white fox Hubert scooped me up and bolted, leaping through a window and bounding outside the tower.
“Father, you absolute fool!”
What kind of language is that to use with your own father?
…I suppose I’m acting like a curmudgeon because he’s my friend’s son.
As Hubert ran, I breathed in the fresh air deeply and apologized for speaking like a grumpy old man. In response, Hubert apologized even more profusely to me.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————