Chapter 126
“Kyahhh! Master! This is bad! Please, you have to do something about this crazy half-dragon—right now!!”
The second she saw me, Ninabel shrieked and urged me on.
And honestly, she had every reason to.
‘Ahh—he’s really about to lose it!’
Golden mana churned wildly in Lycian’s eyes.
A blazing gold aura was spreading from his body, rippling through the air.
At this rate, something catastrophic was going to happen. I broke into a run toward him.
“L-Lycian! Calm down—try to get a hold of yourself!”
On the brink of rampaging, Lycian was terrifying.
He’d always been a little unhinged to begin with, but now he looked completely gone. His eyes were unfocused, as if he wasn’t seeing anything at all.
I wasn’t even sure he recognized me.
“Lycian, snap out of it. Do you know who I am?”
I cupped his cheeks in both hands. His lips moved, and a faint voice slipped out.
“Muriel….”
“Yeah. It’s me.”
“…This isn’t a dream, right?”
“A dream? Of course not! It’s real, you idiot!”
Only then did clarity slowly return to his eyes.
He reached up, fingertips brushing over my face as if to confirm I was solid. Then he let out a long breath and pulled me into a fierce embrace.
“It’s really you. Not some hallucination I conjured up.”
“Yeah. It’s really me.”
I hugged him back just as tightly, patting his back over and over.
At this rate, his fox separation anxiety was going to get worse….
From somewhere nearby, I heard Ninabel’s relieved sigh.
“Phew, I nearly aged ten years! That bastard suddenly lost his mind—he almost turned the Grand Temple into rubble!”
‘The Grand Temple?’
I paused at that and pieced it together.
‘I think I know what happened.’
After I disappeared, Lycian probably waited quietly—for a while.
But once his anxiety hit its peak, he must’ve stormed the Grand Temple.
He knew very well that every strange thing that happened to me involved the gods.
So he barged in, demanding to know where they had sent Muriel—
‘…You don’t interrogate goddesses, you lunatic!’
The sheer absurdity made my head spin.
The goddesses must have been dumbfounded.
They’d gone so far as to send me back in time to save him—and the man they saved went and wrecked their temple.
‘Now that I think about it… isn’t he a little different from your typical(?) fanatic?’
I was still mulling that over when Lycian suddenly pressed a kiss to the back of my hand.
“…!”
And that wasn’t the end of it.
He kissed my fingers. My palm. Then he sucked hard at the inside of my wrist, leaving a vivid red mark behind.
After that, he moved closer, eyes gleaming like a predator zeroing in on its prey.
“W-wait a—!”
His lips touched my left cheek first. Then my cheekbone. My eyelids. My forehead.
Peck, peck, peck.
He showered kisses all over my face, and finally stole my lips in a long, lingering kiss.
Then he buried his face in the crook of my neck and exhaled deeply.
“Haah….”
At last, he seemed to settle.
I let out a quiet breath of relief and stroked his back.
“Lycian, are you okay now?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Y-you can’t here.”
“Then let’s go somewhere else.”
“J-just wait. One minute. Just one.”
Only then did I have the presence of mind to assess this insane situation.
I gently disentangled myself and turned to Ganesha.
She was watching us with undisguised fascination.
When our eyes met, she smiled kindly.
“Hoho, please don’t mind me. Do continue.”
“…!”
‘Ahh! This is mortifying!’
I wanted to die of embarrassment, but I forced myself to speak calmly.
“I-I’m sorry you had to witness something so sudden.”
“Oh my? Not at all. There’s no need for a Purifier to apologize.”
“Even so…. Please, accept this as an apology. I grew these tomatoes myself.”
I pulled out a basket of tomatoes from my inventory and held it out. Ganesha’s eyes sparkled as she eagerly accepted it.
“Tomatoes cultivated by the Purifier herself! I have a feeling these will be quite special. They’ll make excellent research material!”
I gave them to you to eat, not experiment on.
She lifted the basket as if it were some sacred relic, beaming with delight.
‘Well… if she’s happy.’
I cleared my throat.
“Then… we’ll be going now. Lycian isn’t fully calm yet….”
I trailed off and glanced toward Raul.
He already looked unwell, but now his face was deathly pale as he stared at us like a corpse that had somehow learned to stand.
“Muriel….”
The moment Raul called my name in a daze—
“Eeh?! What the hell?! Why are you here?! You’re Master’s ex-husband—no, I don’t even want to call you that, you useless piece of trash!!”
The dewdrop rice cake shot toward Raul and smack! smack! delivered sharp, resounding slaps to both his cheeks.
“How dare you say Master’s name! Get lost already! Exit Master’s life immediately—!!”
The dewdrop rice cake’s slaps put even a legendary kimchi slap to shame. Raul couldn’t regain his senses.
He just stood there, mouth opening and closing, caught in a scene too absurd to laugh at and too miserable to cry over.
Then I felt a chilling presence beside me.
“Muriel….”
‘Eek!’
I flinched hard.
Lycian gripped my shoulders tightly and asked in a voice darker than the Grim Reaper’s:
“What did that bastard do to you? Hm? Tell me. This time, I’ll kill him.”
“N-no! He didn’t do anything! We just talked!”
“Oh? Is that so? What did he say? Should I rip his tongue out?”
“Ninabel’s beating him up already! It’s fine, just stay put!”
“…Ha. You think a few hits from a water droplet will be enough?”
“It’s not a few—it’s almost twenty by now….”
Lycian released my shoulders and strode toward Raul anyway.
Panic spiked in my chest. If he completely snapped, he might actually commit murder.
I rushed after him and wrapped my arms tightly around his waist.
“L-Lycian! Let’s go home, okay? Please, I want to go home. I’m starving, I’m sleepy, I want to eat something good, play with you, and then rest properly…!”
Only then did he hesitate and look back at me.
Even now, Ninabel was still smack! smack! slapping Raul’s cheeks.
“F-fox! I want to see the fox! Can’t you turn into a fox when we get home? I want to pet that fluffy fur and heal my soul…. I don’t want to stay here one second longer. Let’s just go back. Please?”
“…….”
“Raul Winterberg—he’s nothing to me anymore. I just don’t want to see him. I don’t want him anywhere in my sight. So let’s just go home….”
I was rambling, but it seemed to work.
Lycian let out a long sigh and wrapped me tightly in his arms.
“…Fine. I’ll deal with that bastard myself. For now, let’s return to the Imperial Palace.”
“…!”
So he’s not giving up on that…!
‘Hahaha. I give up.’
It’s your karma, Raul Winterberg.
Golden mana coiled around the two of us—and one particularly violent dewdrop rice cake.
Even as the light swallowed us, Ninabel kept pounding Raul and shouted her final warning.
“Don’t you ever show up in front of our Master again! You non-recyclable trash!!”
‘Ninabel… where did you even learn language like that…?’
I deliberately didn’t look at Raul.
Honestly, I was curious about what had happened to him at the Mage Tower… but I chose not to find out.
‘Yeah. Not my problem.’
Whether he regretted things or not… I didn’t want to care anymore.
I bowed politely to Ganesha, who was still stroking the tomatoes, and she answered with a bright smile.
And just like that, my brief tour of the Mage Tower came to an end.
The very first thing I did after returning to the Imperial Palace was—
“H-hold on, slow down…!”
Calming down a still-not-entirely-sane Lycian!