The next morning, it seemed that Gran and Yuumis were waiting eagerly for them, for at the same time they arrived,
“You’re finally here, huh.”
said Yuumis.
Medea was affectionate with Iris so she wouldn’t let go, and as a result they ended up leaving the house quite late so it couldn’t be helped that Yuumis complained.
Yesterday, Iris was wearing an expensive black dress bestowed with concealment effects via demon technology, but because of Medea’s preferences, today she was wearing something completely opposite; brightly coloured clothes that comprised a sky-blue one-piece dress and a wide-rimmed white hat for the summer. Clothes that made her truly look like a doll.
Like that, because Iris’ appearance looked like it had been extremely thoughtfully put together, it wasn’t that the clothes didn’t suit her, but the demon race preferred black that symbolised darkness, or clothes close to that colour, and because Iris was no exception to this, she almost never wore brightly coloured clothes, and felt a little embarassed to do so.
Yuumis seemed in a bad mood when Luru first arrived at the inn, but the moment she saw Iris, it seems that all of that was blown away, and because she kept glancing at Iris and seemed like she wanted to reach out to her,
“If you want to pat her, you can just pat her.”
Said Luru.
As for Iris,
“…Is that how it is? In that case, though I don’t believe it would feel very good… please go ahead.”
she said, taking off her hat, and conscientiously presenting her head to Yuumis, so Yuumis finally began to pat her and in the end, happily had Iris sit on her lap.
Sitting opposite Luru was a hugely built man, an elf woman, and on top of that a little girl of about seven sitting on their lap.
While joking in his mind, ‘What the heck kind of family is this?‘, Luru decided that for now they would get to the point.
“So? What did you want to discuss today?”
Because it looked like Yuumis was occupied with patting Iris, Luru directed the question at Gran.
“Well, I say discuss but… they’re questions, I guess. First of all, you messed with Yuumis’ barrier, right? Just where’d you learn that kind of skill?”
With those words, he immediately cut to the heart of it.
Having said that though, Luru believed that he would definitely be asked this, so he wasn’t particularly shocked.
Luru replied with an answer he had calmly prepared in advance.
“I don’t mind telling you, but it’s an extremely important secret to me. If you want to know, then I need you two to take an oath.”
Luru didn’t particularly plan on lying them, or leading them astray.
There was no reason in particular to hide it, and he even thought that as long as they kept quiet, he wouldn’t mind telling them everything.
He was a little worried about whether they would really stay quiet, but that too had a solution.
That’s why he ended up speaking the way he did, but it seems that Yuumis was making light of Luru a little.
“I get it. I definitely won’t tell anybody.”
So she said, but Luru replied,
“That was a lie… I should mention this just in case, but I’ve cast a magic for detecting lies here. I don’t mind if you lie, but I’ll see through it all, you know?”
“…Eh? That’s the lie, right? I don’t feel any flow of mana.”
Said Yuumis, looking around in shock.
“It’s the truth. Hmm… Then, I’ll ask you a few questions, so just reply; it doesn’t matter if they’re lies or truth. What’s your favourite food?”
“Meat.”
“The name of your best friend?”
“Meria.”
“If you could be reborn, what would you want to be?”
“A bird.”
“…In order, they were a lie, a lie, and the truth, right?”
Spoke Luru, slowly.
Yuumis widened her eyes in shock.
“It really is cast, huh… But it’s not like I’m planning to go spreading it around or anything, you know?”
“Even if you don’t plan on spreading it, you still plan on telling somebody, don’t you?”
“Well, yes. We’re adventurers. We have the obligation to report to the guild head.”
“I understand how you feel, but in the end, that’s still telling somebody. I said that in that case, I wouldn’t speak, right? …By the way, if you do want me to speak, I’ll be casting a contract spell. If you’re not fine with that, I have no intention of speaking.”