And so, it became legend.
The Spirit King of Greenery... if she’s going to play, then of course the other Spirit Kings want to play too. Since they shrank down to the size of regular high-ranking spirits, I didn’t say anything.
The Spirit King of Fire was roasting sweet potatoes with his son. What a luxurious roasted sweet potato. The potato was sweet, fluffy all the way through, and delicious. Perfectly roasted.
The Spirit King of Water was freezing fruits like pineapples and mandarins. Frozen mandarins are justice.
The Spirit King of Earth was playing with children, making rock golems out of stones from the garden.
The Spirit King of Greenery, as requested, casually brought out ultra-rare plants even I could recognize… Wait, whoa!?!
“What exactly are you doing?”
The Great Demon—my brother—descended. He was smiling, but his eyes were shooting out a freezing beam. Whether I was at fault or not, his expression left me no choice but to drop into a dogeza. This was bad.
“What. Are. You. Doing?”
That’s a total out. A red light. Full emergency SOS level stuff.
“Um… they said they wanted to see it… so I showed them.”
“You just showed it?”
He was being extremely polite, but in my twisted mind it translated as: “You didn’t just show it, did you? Don’t give me that childish excuse, you brat!” At this point it was no longer a beam—it was a Brother Blizzard. I wasn’t even the one being scolded, but it was terrifying.
“I showed… them…”
A statement vague enough to sound like a child’s excuse. Brother Blizzard was… about to erupt like Brother Volcano!! I couldn’t tell if it was hot or cold anymore!
“Now now, please wait! Wait, Ru-sama!”
“That’s right, Ru! The spirits didn’t do anything wrong! They were just answering our love of plants!”
“… Dil and Otakki-san probably won’t misuse them. But why do you think certain plants are forbidden in the first place? For example, this flower may be beautiful, but it’s an ingredient in demonic drugs. You two might not abuse it. But what if someone else stole it? What if that caused someone to suffer? Even a harmless flower, if expensive, might be stolen by an idiot. And the money from selling it would almost certainly be used for no good. I’ll only ask once.”
My brother’s aura finally broke through absolute zero. As expected of that man’s son. Truly the future Ice Chancellor.
“Can you two take responsibility?”
““WE’RE SORRYYYYY!!””
The Great Demon of Absolute Zero—my brother—showed no mercy, even to the Spirit King of Greenery or his own friends.
“But Ru-sama, can you take responsibility? There are countless rare species here! Including those with deadly poison!!”
“No one’s stupid enough to try robbing us. Not only are carnivorous magic beasts patrolling the area, but cacti are constantly on the move and even dragons show up. A Leviathan that should only exist in the deep sea has flown here. As much as I hate to admit it, we’re known in the neighborhood as a danger zone! Lately, we’ve even become famous among spies and assassins as the cursed Rosenberg household that brings misfortune just by getting involved!!”
Why do I feel like the “because of someone called Roza-something” is implied at the end there? As for the dragon and the Leviathan… that’s probably my fault.
“OBJECTION!”
I raised my hand and protested to my brother. No way I was taking all the blame!!
“The reason our household is treated like a real-life horror story is also because of super-capable people like Martha!!”
“In recent years, those Martha-types have become absurdly stronger. State your reason.”
“Uh… Hero Boot Camp…”
“Incorrect. That’s only partially related. The real reason for Martha’s boost in attack power came after that.”
“…… Just your imagination!”
“Like hell it is. The real answer is your weapons, Rosarin. I doubt there’s an assassin alive now who could beat Martha.”
“………………”
Actually, there aren’t many people who could beat Martha to begin with. You can count them on one hand. Me, Dirk, Geraldin-san… and maybe a few more.
Rabisha-chan might have a chance depending on the method. If it’s a tag-team match, maybe?
Jend and Jash… I wonder how they’d fare.
“… What’s going on at Ru’s place?”
“I hate to admit it, but it’s considered the biggest magical death zone in all of Christia. It’s got the strongest female warrior in Christia and a lineup of total monsters.”
“Whoa… But they’ve even got the Legendary King Cactus… No way anyone could even enter, much less steal anything…”
The plant nerds were visibly recoiling. But among them, there were still some real warriors.
“Then would it be possible to entrust you with some rare species that we’re worried might be stolen!?”
“Uh… well, I guess that’s fine…”
While we were talking about that, cheers broke out.
In the brief moment I looked away, an absolutely massive playground structure had been completed.
““What the heck is that!?””
Even my brother was so shocked he was speechless. I was stunned too.
Apparently, the Earth Spirit King got all excited and said, “If we’re gonna do this, let’s make something awesome.” He summoned a clay-rich hill, the Water Spirit King moistened it just right and shaped it loosely based on Yggdrasil, the Fire Spirit King baked it, and the Wind Spirit King polished the surface smooth…
“I’m sorry, Oneechan… it all happened so fast, I couldn’t stop them…”
“No, it’s not your fault, Kou…”
But beings who can construct something like this in an instant don’t come around often. It seems people with even a bit of magical knowledge were starting to realize that something was *clearly* off.
“………………… Gora-chan.”
“… Heh. It seems my time has come.”
I never wanted your time to come!! Gora-chan completely overwhelmed—no, obliterated—the impact of the structure. Then came the bizarre pigeon-mask pervert and a weird magil girl-style old man (apparently Rinka)… It was chaos incarnate.
In the end, we served them Dan’s memory-blurring, absurdly delicious Sealing Apple Pie and sent them on their way with vague recollections.
But simply blurring the memory wasn’t enough to erase the impact…
“Does Rosarin’s family have a lot of weirdos?”
“WE DO NOT!!”
For a while after, I was subjected to psychological attacks from Aldin-sama and my classmates.
What do you think about this chapter?
