Chapter 19
Somehow, I managed to clear away the catastrophe on the bed before Huey and Lucy woke up.
Of course, it did cost me a small fee.
Anyway, I cleaned it up, but….
“…What am I supposed to do with this?”
I’d asked them to clear the bed, but where on earth had they found something like that?
I pressed a wing to my head as I gazed at the three eggs sitting demurely in a tiny basket tied with a ribbon.
“This is going way beyond complimentary service….”
As I ground my teeth, remembering the innkeeper’s daughter, who had made a huge fuss all by herself while cleaning up the bed.
-Knock. Knock.
-Ren, are you awake?
Along with the sound of someone knocking, I heard Huey’s voice.
…Has it already gotten this late?
“Hic.”
First, I had to get rid of the eggs…!
“Uh, where do I…?”
It was just as I hurriedly hugged the basket containing the eggs and began searching for somewhere to hide them.
-Creeeak.
“Ren?”
…Why is that open?
“What’s the matter? If you were awake, you could at least answer. Are you feeling any better?”
Ah.
The innkeeper’s daughter had left earlier without locking it.
“What’s that?”
Just then, Huey, who had approached me with a worried expression,
noticed the basket in my arms and asked with a puzzled look.
“Th-this, this is, well….”
How am I supposed to explain this?!
“Ah, come to think of it, didn’t the innkeeper say he’d give eggs to guests who got up early?”
While I was agonizing over how I couldn’t say I’d laid them, Huey’s voice reached me.
Ah, no wonder. So that’s why there was a basket….
“Th-that’s it! Yeah!”
“I completely forgot and fell asleep, so this worked out. You can’t carry eggs around, so it’s hard to eat them except at times like this.”
…Huh?
“He said we could use the kitchen. I’ll make breakfast today.”
“Huh?”
“You can look forward to it. Egg dishes are my specialty.”
Huey casually took the basket of eggs from my arms.
“Oh, they must have been laid recently. They’re still warm.”
“W-wait….”
“Since you’re up early anyway, go wake Lucy up. I’ll head to the kitchen and prepare breakfast.”
The eggs were nice and large, enough for three servings.
I watched Huey’s back as he hummed happily to himself.
“…Eat them? Those?”
I fell into confusion.
It would be mortifying to tell him the truth.
But quietly letting him eat those was also a little….
“Ren? Why are you standing there spacing out?”
“Peep!?”
You startled me―!!
“…Peep?”
“Lu, Lu-lucy!?”
“Why are you acting like that first thing in the morning? Are you still feeling unwell?”
“Ah, n-no, it’s not that….”
I took a deep breath with a wing pressed to my pounding chest after being startled.
Calm down, calm down, calm down….
“Phew… Yeah. I feel fine now.”
…More than fine. I feel full of energy.
Now that Huey had carried off the source of my troubles.
“That’s a relief. Then let’s go eat breakfast.”
“Huey already went downstairs, saying he’d prepare breakfast himself.”
“He does that every time we stay at an inn. He says he prefers cooking in a place with proper kitchen facilities, or something.”
I followed Lucy downstairs to the first floor as she led the way, grumbling as usual.
“Ah, a hand….”
“Tsk.”
“…That slipped.”
Of course, there was one woman who recognized me and tried to wave.
I dealt with it by silently glaring at her.
“Good morning, everyone.”
“Good morning, Master.”
“…Morning.”
“What’s that?”
“Ren happened to get us some good eggs, so I decided to put in a little effort.”
I watched Huey approach carrying dishes with food on three plates.
“The innkeeper said we could use as much of the breakfast ingredients as we wanted.”
Then he set a large omelet down in front of me.
Looking closely, I saw that the omelet on my plate had been cut into bite-sized pieces.
“I haven’t been able to make special utensils for you yet, so I prepared it so you can pick it up with a fork and eat it.”
…Well, damn. Thanks.
As I took the fork Huey handed me in both wings,
I glared at the food before me.
“Let’s eat, Master.”
“Yeah.”
So… this is what came out of my body today…?
“Ren?”
“Have you lost your appetite?”
As I pondered whether I should eat it or not with the fork in hand, the two of them spoke up.
“Ah, no. Yeah. I’m just not fully awake yet. Let’s eat.”
If I kept acting suspiciously, the two of them might catch on.
So here, I decided to pull myself together and quietly accept my fate.
“Hup.”
And so, steeling myself, I picked up a piece of omelet with my fork and put it in my mouth….
“Mmm―!”
“Wow, it’s really soft.”
“Right? The eggs were incredibly good.”
The soft, fluffy texture of the eggs.
The savory bacon, along with the sweet taste of well-cooked onions and carrots.
And if I ate it with the warm milk….
“S’good….”
With flavor like this, I even found myself thinking it might not be so bad to lay one every now and then, play dumb, and hand it to Huey.
“By the way, Ren?”
After the meal, Huey called out to me as I sipped the remaining milk.
“Yeah?”
“Where did you get the eggs? The innkeeper said he was too busy to go to the chicken farm today.”
“Pffft! Hack! Cough!”
I shouldn’t have done that.
The sudden question caught me off guard, and I ended up panicking.
“Ren?”
“Why are they suddenly acting like that?”
“I don’t know….”
Their faces gradually stiffened, as though they had begun to suspect something.
“Wait, they were too big and a little too hard to be eggs… Don’t tell me.”
“Ren. This isn’t what I’m thinking, is it?”
Listening to them, all I could do was
force myself to turn away and make an excuse in a crawling little voice.
“Th-that is… I mean….”
“You laid these…?”
“Ah, ahh, uuh….”
Aah… This is so embarrassing!!
“…No wonder they tasted so good. Are these fertilized eggs?”
What, wha-what did you say? Fertilized eggs!?
“Lucy. Fertilized eggs aren’t….”
“…They’re not.”
“Huh?”
“What?”
I honestly didn’t know why I did it.
“…They’re not.”
“Ren?”
“I couldn’t hear you because you were so quiet. Could you say that again?”
I just felt that I absolutely had to deny the very words “fertilized eggs.”
Some instinct-like impulse had moved my mouth.
“I’m telling you, they’re not fertilized eggs!”
I felt like my face was going to burst if this continued.
For now, I decided to run away and cool my head.
* *
Huey stared blankly at Ren as they ran out of the inn, their face flushed bright red with embarrassment.
“So, then, how did the person you like taste?”
“Pffft!”
At Luciela’s mischievous voice, Huey choked on the milk and spat it out, then started coughing.
“Khhk! Cough! You seriously…!”
“It’s not exactly wrong.”
Since Ren had laid them, they were ultimately Ren’s flavor too, Luciela said.
Luciela smiled wickedly.
“Don’t they look quite a lot like a girl when they get that embarrassed?”
“…Shut up.”
At Luciela’s words, Huey turned away, trying to hide the twitch at the corners of his mouth.
“What about you? Aren’t you bothered after eating eggs Ren laid?”
“Whether a chicken lays them or Ren does, what’s the difference? If anything, I like that they’re fresh.”
They were both birds, after all.
“If this is the sort of flavor they have, I’d welcome as many as Ren wants to lay.”
Come on, just admit it.
Luciela opened her mouth toward Huey once more.
“If Ren gets this embarrassed over something like this, what will they do later if an egg gets stuck inside them?”
As if recalling Caroline’s advice,
Luciela stretched both hands toward Huey and wiggled her fingers.
“Like this, and then like this, right?”
“Ahem.”
“Hehe. I’m definitely not doing it, you know?”
“…You’re seriously wicked.”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
Later, Huey would recall this day and say
that Luciela’s mischievous smile had been utterly indistinguishable from a demon’s.
“Sigh… Let’s hurry up and go find Ren.”
“Let’s.”
Thus, the two of them left the inn and wandered around asking people nearby whether they had seen a bird beastkin with red wings.
“W-whoaaaaa!!”
“Run!”
From the direction of the lord’s castle,
they began to see people fleeing as though they were running from something.
“…What’s going on?”
“It looks like there’s been an accident.”
Watching the dust rising in the distance,
Huey placed a hand on the hilt of the sword hanging from his waist.
“An incident, and I don’t even have a weapon.”
Luciela clicked her tongue as she looked at her empty hands.
Immediately afterward, a huge flame shot up from the direction where the dust had risen moments before.
“I’m starting to think Ren might be over there.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
As the commotion around them grew louder,
Huey grabbed the arm of a man running toward them from the distance and asked,
“Excuse me! What’s going on all of a sudden?”
“The witch hired by that damned lord is running amok! If you don’t want to die, you two get out of here too!”
After warning them urgently, the man yanked his arm free of Huey’s grasp and ran away again.
“…A witch?”
“It seems the lord of this city isn’t a very well-regarded person.”
“Let’s go see.”
“Yes.”
Immediately afterward.
-KABOOOOOM!!
“Guh!?”
“What the—!”
Something flew from what appeared to be the center of the disturbance and slammed into the ground with a thunderous roar.
And then.
“Drop dead―!!”
-CRUNCH!
A red afterimage flashed rapidly past Huey and Lucy with a familiar voice accompanying it.
It landed after grinding the thing that had slammed into the ground moments earlier literally into the pavement.
“Ren!!”
Recognizing the figure, Huey turned around and urgently shouted Ren’s name.
“…Huey? Lucy?”
“What on earth is going on?”
“Master.”
At Huey’s shout, Ren looked back with a startled expression.
Then Huey, puzzled by Luciela calling out, looked toward where she was pointing.
“Ren! What are you doing right now…!”
Luciela was pointing at Ren’s leg.
More precisely, one of their talons was clamped tightly around a woman’s head.
As Ren glared irritably down at the woman, their leg was drenched in blood.
“There’s no time to explain.”
Then Ren shifted their weight onto the foot gripping the woman’s head.
Before Huey and Luciela could even react,
-CRUNCH!
A filthy flower of blood and brain matter bloomed across the road.