“It’s been a while, young master.”
“Ah, Mr. Alfredo. It has been a while. Are you doing well?”
“Haha! This old man is always in good health! I have to live long enough to see our young master get married, don’t I?”
He talks like he’s a seventy-year-old man, but in reality, Alfredo was a sturdy middle-aged man who just turned forty.
It was just that his appearance looked quite a bit more aged than his actual age, so this kind of banter between us was nothing new.
“It feels like just yesterday you were toddling around, and now you’ve grown so big, bringing all these ladies with you.”
“Please don’t say things like that in public. I get that you’re touched, but take a look at who you’re saying it in front of.”
The people he was referring to were among the top three most powerful women in the entire Empire.
As if women like that would just obediently follow someone because he asked them to.
They only came along this time because they needed someone to escort them, and since I was heading home anyway, they figured it’d be a good chance for a change of pace.
“Oh, right. Do you happen to know where Luna went?”
“You mean my daughter? At this time, she’s probably in your room—”
Ah!
My room? Why would Luna be in my room?
“My room? There’s really nothing to see there, so why would she be in there?”
“W-Well… even if no one’s using it, dust still piles up, doesn’t it? So Luna goes in from time to time to clean it for you!”
“Ah, that makes sense.”
Even if I’m not there, leaving the master’s room to gather dust would go against the mindset of a proper servant.
Luna must understand that too, which is why she goes in to clean for me.
“But, if I may ask, why are you looking for my daughter?”
“Ah. I ran into her earlier, and for some reason she seemed upset. I think it’s probably because I’ve been too busy to write her any letters… So I was planning to find her and apologize.”
“Well, it’s not just about the letters… No, never mind.”
Passing by Alfredo, who looked at me with a gaze that seemed to have given up on something, I arrived at my room and lightly knocked on the door to let Luna, who would be inside, know I was there.
Knock knock—
“Luna, it’s me. Are you in there?”
From a faint sense of presence, I confirmed that she was indeed in the room.
I could feel her grow startled and jump up from sitting on my bed. I couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle at that.
She moved around the room for a bit, then began approaching the door when—
Thunk, slam!
In an instant, Luna grabbed me by the collar and yanked me into the room, pushed me against the empty wall, and blocked the way out with both of her arms.
She had me pinned in what was commonly referred to as a wall slam pose, and I was about to make a joke, but I shut my mouth as soon as I saw the fierce look in her eyes.
“You, you… why did you come back here!?”
“Because it’s my room?”
Even though the owner had been absent for a few months, it was still officially mine.
She had been so assertive that I momentarily wondered if I’d come to the wrong room, but a quick glance around confirmed that the familiar layout still matched the room that had been mine for the past twenty years.
“Th-That’s true, but…”
“You said you were cleaning, right? The butler told me. He said you came by to clean my room now and then while I was gone.”
She must have found it annoying to clean her own room, and yet she even cleaned mine, which had no one using it.
She was often prickly, constantly nagging and meddling in everything, but at moments like this, it really hit me how well she looked after me.
“Ah… W-Well, yeah! It was so filthy I just cleaned it up a little! Y-You should be thankful!”
“Yeah, thank you.”
“!!”
When I sincerely thanked her, just as she had told me to, she suddenly blushed and whipped her head to the side.
We had known each other since birth, but I still couldn’t figure her out at all…
“M-More importantly, Mars, you!”
“?”
“A-Are you… dating those women?”
What was she even talking about now?
I lightly flicked Luna on the forehead as she suddenly lowered her voice and started muttering nonsense in a soft tone.
“Ack! Why’d you hit me!”
“Idiot. Think about it. With women like them around, there are alpha males everywhere desperate to marry them. Why would they choose me?”
“A-Alpha males?”
“You know, those heirs from powerful families. Like dukes, or maybe some billionaire from a neighboring country.”
Those women weren’t the kind to propose to men. They were the kind that had men begging just for a moment of their time.
Although Pollo might’ve been an exception, I was still far from being someone who could match up with them.
“R-Really?”
“Don’t tell me… you were sulking because you thought I had some kind of thing going on with them?”
When I firmly said that there was nothing romantic between us, Luna let out a sigh of relief with a soft “Phew”.
Curious about the meaning behind her sigh, I asked, and Luna grew startled, clamped her hand over her mouth, and shook her head furiously.
“I-It’s not like that! It’s just… if you disappear, there won’t be anyone to do things for me anymore… that’s all it is!”
“I see.”
Well, it was Luna after all. She’d always come to me asking for favors.
She was constantly making demands, like wanting me to let her rest on my lap when she was tired, or massage her legs, or even taking my cup just because she thought it looked better.
If I were gone, she wouldn’t be able to boss me around anymore, so I suppose that would be a bit of a loss for her.
“Don’t worry. I’m going to marry a normal woman and live a normal life.”
“A n-normal woman!?!!”
Knock knock—
“Young Master? Are you in there?”
“Yes, Alfredo. What is it?”
“Ah, it’s just….the Madam has returned. She’s asked you to come downstairs.”
Oh. Hearing that Mother had returned from visiting the neighborhood ladies, I decided to go downstairs with Luna.
“Luna, let’s go down to—wait, what’s wrong? Are you feeling sick?”
“Uhehe? Slurp. Ah, no, no! Shall we head down quickly?”
Tsk tsk. A grown woman drooling like that.
Honestly, I had no idea what kind of man would end up with Luna, but I could already see the hardships in his future.
***
“Son~”
When I went downstairs to greet my mother, who had just returned home, a woman who looked like she was in her early twenties with long black hair ran toward me and hugged me.
At the sight of this unfamiliar beauty embracing me, the noble lady and the princess both flinched. But the moment they replayed her words in their heads, they looked at the two of us with shocked expressions.
Yeah. I’d probably have made the same face in their shoes.
“So you finally came. I thought you didn’t want to see me that much, since you went off to chat with the neighborhood ladies even after hearing your son was coming.”
“Oh, don’t be silly~”
Mother had always been especially free-spirited.
I’d heard that she developed that way as a kind of rebellion against how stifling her childhood home was, but in my opinion, she must’ve just been born that way.
Even after hearing that three of the empire’s top powers were visiting our house, she still went out to enjoy her hobbies. She certainly wasn’t lacking in nerve.
“Anyway, the guests who came to our house are…”
“Ah, hello, Mother!! I’m Selene Eus…! I-It’s an honor!!”
“It is a privilege to meet the one who gave birth to the Aura Lord. I, Asteria Von Caelum, Second Princess of the Empire, offer you my praise for your devotion.”
“I have the undeserved honor of serving as a Saintess of the Goddess Church. Thank you for providing food, clothing, and shelter to this fragile lamb.”
I was momentarily stunned watching the women greet my mother with a level of formality completely unlike how they treated me.
If only they showed me even ten percent of that courtesy.
In particular, the noble lady and the princess were staring intently at Mother. Their eyes sparkled even more than usual.
“…Oh my.”
For some reason, Mother let out a sound of admiration at the sight.
“If I had known this would happen, I would’ve gone out to greet you beforehand. Silly me, I wasn’t thinking~”
“Ah, n-no, ma’am…”
The noble lady, perhaps unable to believe that Mother looked about the same age as her, awkwardly accepted her apology with caution.
Well, I was always just as shocked by how ridiculously young my mother looked.
There was nothing about her appearance that suggested she was a woman in her forties. Honestly, with just a bit of exaggeration, you could believe she’d only just entered the academy.
Her appearance was, in my opinion, one of the eight great mysteries of this world.
“Fufu~ My son became the youngest Aura Lord, and now we’ve got all sorts of blessings in this house~”
“Hmm? What other blessing is there?”
“Hmm?”
“Hmm?”
Mother and I blankly stared at each other, both momentarily stunned.
In that brief silence, Mother quickly collected herself, let out a long sigh—
Ah—!
“Good grief—!”
“Haah… To think the son I gave birth to so strong would turn out like this… When he acted like this in front of Luna, I brushed it off as just a passing phase, but he’s really hopeless. Maybe I should just have another one? I’m sorry, everyone. Our second child here has no sense at all~ I’ll apologize on his behalf~”
“Ah, no, it’s fine. We’re okay.”
Mother bowed her head, while the noble lady and the princess hurriedly shook theirs, trying to help her back up.
And next to them, I was writhing in pain after taking a direct elbow to the solar plexus.
What was that? Ever since becoming an Aura Lord, my ability to control aura had reached its peak, and my body instinctively responded with defensive aura whenever a life-threatening attack came my way.
It was tough enough to withstand regular blunt weapons without a scratch, so why did I just take Mother’s solar plexus strike head-on without any reaction at all?
“Ah, I forgot to tell you. Mom is insanely strong, you know? I heard she was from some prestigious sword family in the East. When I first met her, I barely managed to win. I think they call aura ki over there? Anyway, I’ve heard that when it comes to aura control, they’re even more precise than we are in the Empire. She’s not Aura Lord level, but she could probably take down an Aura Master opponent without much trouble.”
I see.
No wonder. Ever since I was little, the way her backhand smacks stuck to my skin, I always felt she wasn’t just an ordinary person.
And Father.
Please share things like that just a little earlier next time.
Learning for the first time in twenty years about Mother’s combat ability left me with nothing but shock, fear, and the lingering pain in my solar plexus as the day came to a close.
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