After satisfying both my heart and my stomach with a fulfilling meal, I spent some tea time with Azuki.
Since she had treated me to a meal, ‘shouldn’t I be the one to serve the drinks?’
I brewed some high-quality black tea leaves—reserved only for special guests—into a rich infusion, then mixed it with warm milk and just the right amount of sugar to create a proper milk tea.
“Thank you for the tea. But I’m not really used to black tea…”
“Just try a sip. This one’s not like the black tea you’ve had before.”
“Alright. I’ll try just a sip.”
I remembered all of Azuki’s preferences.
Of course, I knew she wasn’t particularly fond of black tea.
Still, the reason I brewed it was because milk tea was one exception she genuinely liked.
“Oh…? This is delicious!”
“What did I tell you? I said it’d be different, didn’t I?”
The moment Azuki tasted the milk tea, her face—which had been filled with unease—immediately brightened.
At first, she only touched it with her tongue, but soon enough she was happily sipping away.
Her tail, swaying left and right like a metronome, clearly expressed her joy.
“Thank you! Thanks to you, I think I’ll be able to enjoy black tea from now on!”
“Don’t mention it.”
I poured her another cup and filled my own as well.
Sitting cozily at the table and savoring a cup of tea, I felt like we were a newlywed couple.
I knew I was being silly, but… someday, I hoped it would come true.
“Um… I have a few questions. Is it okay if I ask?”
“Ask anything you want.”
“I’m really shy around strangers, so I’m not sure how I should address people other than my sister. So… if it’s alright with you, could you tell me how you’d like me to call you?”
“Dear husband.”
“…What?”
“I’m kidding. Hmm, let’s see… then how about calling me ‘oppa’?”
“O-… Oppa?!”
One of those titles that guys go crazy for when younger girls call them that.
Since Luke and the heroines were all classmates, it was a word that never came up in the novel.
‘But to hear it from Azuki’s voice? That would be amazing.’
“Oppa feels a little embarrassing… Could I call you ‘orabeoni’ instead?”
Even better!
I nodded so hard it was practically headbanging.
Azuki, perhaps embarrassed by my enthusiastic reaction, blushed and hesitated for a while.
W’as it too much to ask someone like her—who only had an older sister—to call me ‘orabeoni’?’
Just as I was about to suggest another title more suitable for her, Azuki finally spoke.
“O… Orabeoni?”
“Wow…”
‘Sex! Damn, this is what sex really is!’
I screamed internally like a madman.
I didn’t show it on the outside, but I was so excited that I almost crushed my teacup with the strength in my grip.
“A-Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I just got a little too excited and overdid it, that’s all.”
“Did you really like being called ‘orabeoni’ that much?”
“Of course! I’m an only child, so no one’s ever called me that before.”
“I-Is that so? Then from now on, I’ll call you ‘orabeoni’ often!”
“That would make me really happy!”
I’m going insane.
My mouth kept stretching into a grin and refused to come down.
Saving Azuki might have been the best thing I’ve done in my entire life.
‘Luke? Who the hell is that? From now on, I’m taking center stage.’
***
“You’re putting on quite a show, disciple.”
Just like that, Itshin popped up out of nowhere and landed a hit straight to my solar plexus, instantly ruining my good mood.
‘Can’t he just let his disciple be happy once in a while?’
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing. Anyway, since we’ve decided on what you’ll call me, I should decide how I’ll call you too. I’d rather speak to you casually—should I call you by your family name, or would you prefer your given name?”
“Hmm… Since I share the same family name as my sister, I think I’d prefer being called by my given name.”
“Alright, then I’ll call you Azuki from now on. Is that okay?”
“Yes!”
Now that we’d settled on what to call each other, I felt like I had gotten even closer to Azuki.
‘If I could keep bonding like this with the heroines, things should work out.’
“So, what else did you want to ask me?”
“Ah… This might sound strange, but I’d like to know why you helped me during the entrance ceremony.”
“The reason I helped you, huh…”
‘It was because she was supposed to be Luke’s heroine.’
‘I had hoped she would overcome all kinds of crises with the protagonist and help restore this world to normal.’
But looking back on it now, I realized it was something else.
Just as readers immerse themselves in the protagonist, I had come to genuinely like the character named Azuki through the novel.
That’s probably why I could say something as bold as wanting to steal her from Luke without hesitation.
“It’s a secret.”
“Huh?”
“Sorry, but I can’t tell you just yet.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her—just that my instincts told me it was too soon to reveal the truth.
“Instead, I promise I’ll tell you everything someday when the time is right.”
“Okay…”
Azuki looked a bit disappointed, but thankfully, she didn’t press the issue.
She trusted me when I said I would tell her someday.
I hope the day comes when I can repay that trust.
***
“Do you have any more questions?”
“One last thing—I’m curious about why you accepted Miss Muthertz as your disciple. My brother didn’t seem to think much of it, but to me, it felt like there was another reason behind it.”
“Sharp of you. You’re right, I didn’t accept Erin as my disciple for such a simple reason.”
“I wasn’t naive enough to rashly accept a proposal that involved someone else’s life.”
“From the start, taking Erin in as a disciple would mean going against those who coveted her talent.”
“There was only one reason I decided to accept her, even if it meant gaining more enemies.”
“I wanted to establish a connection with her father, Wilhelm Muthertz.”
“You mean the current Hero?”
“Yeah. It’s hard to explain in detail, but there’s something I desperately want to ask Wilhelm for. But he’s such a difficult person to even meet, let alone ask a favor from, so I was planning to ask Erin to arrange a meeting.”
“If a teacher asked me to help him meet my father, I’d gladly do it too.”
The Muthertz family had accumulated many spoils from battling demons over the years.
Among them were a few essential items needed to defeat certain enemies.
In this world, no matter how strong you get, there are enemies you can’t beat without the right tools—so meeting Wilhelm was absolutely necessary.
“And also…”
“And also?”
“I thought it’d be nice to have someone to train with. You know the saying: ‘Sorrow shared is halved, and joy shared is doubled,’ right?”
I wanted to share the pain I had endured with Erin.
For the past three years, I had constantly protested that the training methods of my masters were brutal and insane.
But they dismissed my concerns, saying I was just weak, and treated me even more harshly.
So I got curious—’would Erin, the future Hero, be able to endure this level of training too?’
‘If she ended up surrendering and saying she couldn’t handle it, I’d finally have a valid reason to confront the masters about how absurd their training was.’
‘There’s no way I’ll be the only one suffering…!’
I would show Erin what training hell really looked like.
***
Day one of having Erin as my disciple.
I called her to the cliff behind the mountain after she finished all her classes.
I applied the exact same methods my own masters had used on me.
“You’re too slow! Climb faster! Faster! I want your limbs moving so fast I can’t even see them!”
“…!”
As a demonstration, I climbed the cliff first and then shouted down at Erin from the top.
Since she was a beginner, I hadn’t put her in the usual iron shackles or cuffs with steel balls.
She was slower than me, someone who had been doing this for three years, but for a beginner, she was climbing surprisingly fast.
Even though she was panting, she didn’t seem particularly distressed.
As expected from someone from the Hero’s family—her willpower was strong.
But this was only the beginning.
“Haa…! Haa…!”
Breathing heavily, Erin finally managed to reach the top.
For her sake, I crouched at the edge of the cliff and held out my hand.
“Ah…! Thank you!”
“No need to thank me. You took over thirty minutes, so you’ll have to start over from the beginning.”
“Eh?”
Without a shred of suspicion, Erin reached for my hand.
But I didn’t pull her up.
I let go halfway, dropping her back down the cliff.
“Welcome to the beginner village!”
“You too, Tao. Now that the demo is over, put on the shackles and cuffs and climb again.”
Just as I was about to enjoy the sight of Erin plummeting into the distance—
Bjorn kicked me hard in the back.
Before I could even savor the thrill, I fell off the cliff too.
Moments later, Erin, who had fallen before me, greeted me with a smile full of joy.
“As expected of you, Master! You came down to train together with your unworthy disciple!”
‘No, I was pushed too…’
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