Deadline Is Raining in the Status Window - Chapter 30

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Hubert’s assertion was so definitive that Gerth felt a sting of hurt. Was he saying I wasn’t vibrant? I exercised faithfully every morning, maintained excellent health, and my scales still gleamed with vitality. How could he say I wasn’t vibrant?
“I apologize, Father. My words were harsh. But surely, if Evan Laef were to choose someone her own age, wouldn’t that be more fitting?”
After studying Gerth’s expression for a long moment, Hubert continued speaking, and Gerth finally relaxed, nodding in agreement.
Peers were important, after all. I had permitted Hubert’s interactions with the Dragon King, who was closer in age, precisely because I didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable with someone his own age. Now I was beginning to regret it—wondering if his tendency toward hasty conclusions and excessive fantasies had been picked up from the Dragon King.
Though I did wonder if that habit of jumping ahead in thought or indulging in wild speculation had been acquired from the Dragon King—something I now regretted.
In any case, summarizing the information I’d gathered so far: Evan Laef had gone to the Academy to study and would return during the break.
“There’s no need to rush. She’ll return when the break comes, won’t she?”
“What if she doesn’t!”
“….”
I’d never considered that possibility.
“What if she sets up a household with some ruffian and lives in the Capital instead!”
…I truly had never considered that either.
As Gerth fell into contemplation, Hubert, overwhelmed by the chilling atmosphere, clamped his mouth shut, and Titi, already trembling, vibrated like a bell.
“Ah, Father, my words came out wrong. Evan Laef is a wise person, so she will surely deliberate carefully in choosing a man.”
“That’s true.”
Evan Laef thinks deeply.
As Gerth nodded, Hubert let out a relieved sigh and gently set the humanized Titi down on the ground. Titi, who had been suddenly kidnapped and trembling the entire time, now had something she absolutely needed to confirm—for the sake of her newly acquired older sister’s future.
“Um, um, you know, chirp.”
“You may speak.”
“Is Evan Laef going to marry the Serpent King, chirp?”
“No. Evan Laef is not marrying me.”
“But, at some point, you said you’d mate with her, chirp.”
“That’s correct. In the future, I’m even considering mating.”
As Gerth spoke with gravity, Titi’s face contorted grotesquely as she pondered for a long while.
Though her life had been brief, she would speak her mind even if it cost her life. For the sake of her benefactor Eleanor and her benefactor-like older sister Evan Laef, she absolutely had to say something here.
“You’re a scoundrel, you are!”
“I am not a scoundrel.”
“If you mate and don’t take responsibility, that makes you a scoundrel! You absolute scoundrel, chirp!”
“….”
Mating without taking responsibility made one a scoundrel? When had such a law come into existence? What did “taking responsibility” even mean? As five hundred years of carefully preserved common sense cracked and shattered, Gerth fell silent in contemplation once more, while Hubert moved to salvage the situation.
For now, the important thing was to either capture Evan Laef or keep her under surveillance—one or the other. If it was surveillance, Hubert was already conducting another form of it, so he was about to explain the method, but Gerth beat him to it.
“I’ll investigate the matter of responsibility gradually from now on.”
Gerth extended his left claws and sliced off his right arm. Crimson blood dripped steadily onto the floor, and the large white limb writhed.
“Shrieeeeek!”
The mad Serpent King had finally gone completely insane! Titi could only tremble at the bloody spectacle unfolding before her eyes, while Hubert clutched one of his nine tails in sympathy.
“Father, you needn’t go to such extremes. If you simply severed one of my tails, that would create a clone sufficient for surveillance.”
“Mine has better performance.”
“But my arm.”
“I’ll just order a replacement from the Machine King.”
There he goes again, ordering those mechanical limbs he’d been wearing constantly while I was being created. Why does Father seem incapable of keeping his own limbs intact?
Hubert wept at the sight of his father bleeding profusely, and Gerth, unable to bear his son’s suffering, created life from the severed arm. The writhing limb transformed into a peculiar mass, then became a large white lizard.
“A royal lizard, then.”
“Indeed, a royal lizard.”
“The body is about a meter long?”
“Isn’t that rather large for surveillance purposes?”
“Kyaaaaaaah!”
Titi had been screaming since earlier—more shocked than ever before. Even if the Serpent King was one of the Four Demon Lords, wasn’t this cheating? Life creation was the exclusive domain of the divine. The white fox-kin’s clone creation could be used by any human with the right skill, but creation was an entirely different realm.
Wondering if it might be bluster or deception, Titi observed the royal lizard closely, but it yawned and displayed wild behaviors completely independent of the Serpent King’s will. It possessed its own consciousness. It was a completely separate living being from the Serpent King.
“Hubert. What you were attempting constitutes a violation of privacy.”
“Well, that is true, but…”
“On the other hand, this creature can relay messages whenever I wish and share its vision with me.”
“Only when you wish, not always.”
“Still better than invading privacy.”
“Ugh…”
My father is so honest and kind it drives me crazy. No wonder the Dragon King teases him for being a pushover every time.
While Hubert fumed internally, Gerth finished stemming the bleeding and handed the royal lizard to Titi. Titi staggered under the surprisingly heavy creature’s weight, then chirped in response to Gerth’s command.
“Deliver this to Evan Laef.”
“Kyak? Why me?”
“Judging by this lizard’s size, you’d make a sufficient meal for her.”
“I’ll get going right away, chirp!”
Interpreting Gerth’s remark about Eleanor and Titi’s wages being insufficient to cover food expenses—and thus needing to deliver it to Evan Laef quickly—in an entirely different way, Titi resolved to give it to her sister before the Serpent King’s subordinates could devour her.
Since Gerth kindly provided round-trip carriage fare and lodging expenses, Titi bid a polite farewell and flew diligently toward Crowell Academy.
“I shall visit the Machine King.”
“But he drifts with the clouds—how will you find him?”
“Southern Bunny Land.”
“Ah, there.”
With current human technology unable to produce many items, it must have been the Machine King’s handiwork. The vertical-drop roller coaster that’s been all the rage in Bunny Land was something Hubert desperately wanted to ride at least once.
If Father and Evan Laef work things out, perhaps the day will come when we visit Bunny Land together. Imagining the three of us strolling about side by side wearing rabbit ear headbands, Hubert couldn’t help but smile contentedly.
“Huff. Huff-huff.”
“I entrust the tower to you.”
“Yes! Safe travels!”
Watching Hubert wave his hand while his tail fluttered in sync, Gerth thought he’d made the right choice a hundred times over in severing his arm. Better to lose an arm than witness his only son in pain.
His arm would regrow with time anyway, so he merely had to endure the temporary inconvenience.

◇ ◆ ◇

“Evan! The time has come for us to settle this!”
The day of the practical combat exam—the final test of our year’s midterm—had arrived. I gripped my trident tightly, staring at Reina Letem with wide eyes. I wasn’t the only one shocked; the entire First-Year Magic Department, along with the Professor of Practical Combat who had come on assignment from the Combat Techniques Department, shared my astonishment.
Did Reina Letem actually understand what “settle this” meant?
“Reina Letem.”
“What!”
“Do you even know what ‘settle this’ means?”
“Who do you take me for, an idiot!”
Right, she was smarter than she looked.
From past experience, I knew Reina Letem was more intelligent than appearances suggested, so I accepted it readily. But the others, nursing their various injuries, found it harder to swallow and murmured amongst themselves.
The exam was conducted without any magic—purely weapon techniques and hand-to-hand combat in a tournament format. Naturally, those with non-magical skills or superior physical abilities had the advantage, and as a result, I with my superhuman abilities and Reina Letem, who was simply tough and fought well, remained at the end.
“I’ll defeat you and claim the right to eat snacks on your bed!”
“If I defeat you, I’m putting a partition down the middle of the room.”
“I hate that!”
“Then we’ll go with that.”
“Wait, hold on! No! I said I hate it!”
Why does she insist on eating snacks on someone else’s bed, the lunatic. I hurled my trident at Reina Letem and charged forward. She deflected my trident with her long glaive, and I pulled the cord back, creating wide arcs to buy myself time.
The glaive Reina Letem had chosen was long, heavy, and designed more for sweeping strikes than thrusts. Being so unwieldy, the typical strategy was to wait for an opening and crush the opponent in a single blow, but…
“Why do you keep running, you bastard!”
Reina Letem, brutishly strong, was simply swinging it around like a toy, whooshing through the air. If she kept that up, she might actually be able to cleave someone in half with that glaive. That’s not what it was made for.
“I have no choice. One hit from that and I’m dead.”
“Then die if you must!”
What is she even saying.
I barely dodged the glaive as Reina Letem swung it in a wide arc, then stomped on the back of the blade where it had sunk deep into the ground. I pulled my trident back in its circular path, grabbed it with my left hand, and drew it across Reina Letem’s neck. Her body tilted and wavered, so I flipped backward and regained my stance.
That gorilla-like brute had lifted the glaive effortlessly despite my weight, which is why my body had tilted.
“Die, Evan Laef!”
“You said not to die!”
As Reina Letem approached me, she swung her glaive just before the blade would connect, then adjusted her stance and extended her reach, allowing the blade tip to graze me.
It was a technique that couldn’t even be attempted without grueling combat experience. Where had this noblewoman from a count’s household, a mage no less, learned to fight so brutally?

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