A fire was lit in the stove, and smoke wafted gently up into the sky.
Kazuki, who had been squatting and wiping sweat, broke into a bright smile as his eyes met Geuru’s.
Geuru toddled over and climbed onto Master’s back.
Kazuki swayed Geuru on his back, bouncing her this way and that.
“Geuru help Master.”
“Will you?”
Sharp fangs peeked through his smoothly smiling lips.
The “Handsome Man Detector” that had been unknowingly honed in Hyeonak went ding-ding.
*Hmm. Looking at him like this, Master is handsome too.*
So much so that it felt like a waste for people to mistake him for a yakuza simply because of his many tattoos.
“Mmm. So, Geuru-chan, can you bring me tamago (eggs)?”
Wh-what’s tamago?
Geuru, who had been thinking with her mouth open in a little triangle, dug up a similar-sounding word.
“Gudetama?”
“Huh? Tama!”
“Hmm? Gudetama?”
“Yeah. Tama.”
“Huh?”
“Huh?”
Geuru and Kazuki stared at each other blankly.
A voice abruptly cut in between the two, who were utterly failing to communicate.
“Eggs.”
Jurim, who had been lying askew on the wooden platform without moving a muscle, flapped his lips to correct them, prompting Kazuki to chime in saying that was it.
“Yeah, eggs! I’ll make you egg rolls.”
“Gasp!”
Daddy told me!
Geuru covered her mouth with both hands.
*So Daddy is useful after all!*
Impressed by this small display of Daddy’s usefulness, Geuru nodded her head vigorously up and down.
Was this how a parent bird felt watching its chick take a single step outside the nest?
“Geuru-chan, do you like egg rolls?”
“Very much!”
Just then, Uju—who had arrived late due to filming and just finished changing—cut in.
“Me too. Let’s go together.”
When she looked up, Geuru saw Uju awkwardly pulling his shirt down over and over, as if unaccustomed to his baggy pants.
Geuru burst into giggles.
“Uju’s so cute.”
Uju’s face turned red, and Mephisto, perched atop his head, let out a scoffing hiss and turned his head away with a snort.
Regardless, Geuru reached out her hand.
“Yeah. Uju come too.”
With Mephisto perched on her head, Geuru went along the side of the yard with Uju to get eggs.
Passing through a narrow path shaped like a stick of rice cake, they came out into an open side yard where chickens and chicks were huddled together in the coop.
“Over there.”
Geuru pulled Uju along and toddled over.
Cheep cheep! Cheep cheep!
Cluck cluck! Cluck!
“Chickies!”
“So cute……”
Yellow chicks pecked at feed among the chickens.
Geuru placed Mephisto down among the chicks.
Cheep cheep!
As the chubby Mephisto looked around awkwardly among the chicks, Geuru said with a smile:
“Mephi. Fwiends, fwiends.”
“Peep?!”
Thud—!
The shocked Mephisto fluttered back up onto Geuru’s head.
“Cheep!”
When one of the chicks looked at him, Mephisto trembled. His nose stung and tears welled up in his eyes.
Mephisto’s friend was Geuru. Not some low-intelligence lesser creature like that!
Mephisto puffed up at the chicks cheeping at him.
Though the lesser creatures’ appearances somewhat resembled his own…… Mephisto shook his head firmly.
They were clearly a different species! Because Mephisto was Mephisto!
“Peeeep……!”
As Mephisto sniffled and swallowed his indignation.
“Eggs, eggs.”
“Eggs……”
The cameraman gestured to the children looking around for eggs. He meant what they were looking for was over there.
Geuru and Uju looked at where the cameraman pointed at the same time and stiffened with a start.
“……”
“……”
Her complexion turning pale in an instant, Geuru tightly grabbed Uju’s hand.
“The mommy hen is hugging her babies.”
“……Yeah.”
Uju had gone equally pale.
To get the eggs, they had to take babies away from their mother.
*A living separation!*
Dun-dun—!
To think they had to do such a cruel and heartbreaking thing.
Moreover, that wasn’t the only obstacle.
A giant hen stared at them with terrifying eyes and clucked.
“Cluck, cluck-cluck!”
It was as if saying, just try it if you can.
“What do we do……”
First, because the hen was brooding the eggs, and second, because of the hen’s fierce momentum.
Dazed by the double whammy, Geuru trailed off.
She had thought it would simply be picking up eggs scattered on the ground like pebbles.
“The baby chicks will be sad if they part from their mommy……”
Recalling the tale of chicks and eggs on a journey to find Mama, Geuru sniffled, her nose stinging.
Sniff!
Meanwhile, Uju was just as bewildered.
The hen was so large, with a chest bulky as if it had bulked up, that it would be hard to even hug.
But…… Uju clenched his fist and squeezed his eyes shut.
To eat delicious egg rolls, he had to cross the mountain of this terrifying, gigantic chicken.
Because! Geuru had said she liked egg rolls!
“I-I’ll chase her away, I will!”
Uju let go of Geuru’s hand and stepped forward.
Then Geuru spread her arms wide and blocked Uju’s path.
“Don’t!”
“I can do it, so move aside.”
“But…… for the baby to come out, the mommy has to hug it.”
Just then, chicks were passing between them in a line.
“Cheep cheep! Cheep cheep!”
At that cute parade, Uju’s lips quivered.
“Th-that may be……! But if we can’t get the eggs, we won’t have anything to eat. And…… even if we don’t, the adults will make us get them anyway? Even if we don’t take the eggs now, the babies will be taken away just the same.”
As Uju began to persuade with increasing logic, Geuru pouted sullenly.
She hated it, but he wasn’t wrong.
Since this was a place where there was nothing to eat but grass, they couldn’t rule out eggs entirely.
“Then it’s better to take them before the baby grows bigger inside the egg. If the egg grows bigger…… it’ll be awful when it hatches.”
“H-how?”
“……It comes out.”
“What?”
An undergrown chick…… into a frying pan…….
Whether he had experienced it before or not, Uju covered his mouth recalling that moment, and Geuru’s face had almost lost all color, as if the mere imagination was horrific enough.
“So I’ll do it. You stay out of it.”
Uju approached the mother hen with grim determination.
“Cluck?”
As the mother hen clucked and tilted her head, Geuru stopped Uju in his tracks once again.
“Wait a sec. Geuru got a good idea.”
“A good idea?”
“Uh-huh.”
Geuru said decisively and opened her inventory.
She had kept it sealed away for a while.
What Geuru pulled out was none other than a white tricycle.
When Geuru tapped the rear wheel with her toe, the tricycle transformed into a two-seater.
“……!”
Geuru curled up one corner of her mouth at the surprised Uju.
As if to say the surprising part was yet to come, Geuru stroked the new bike and recited:
“Strength 200% buff, 3-horsepower turbo booster engine. And it can transform to carry up to three kids.”
It was a special bicycle made by S-rank Amakusa Kazuki from the bones of the S-rank monster Onamazu.
“It can even transform……?!”
Uju’s palms grew sweaty at the spectacular tricycle’s specs.
It was something any child would covet.
Geuru flapped her loose baggy pants as she sat gloriously in the driver’s seat and gestured toward the back seat.
“Uju, get on.”
“O-okay.”
Uju carefully mounted the bike, worried he might scratch it somewhere.
“But where are we going?”
Geuru rested her arm on the backrest and turned her head.
That was the question she’d been waiting for.
“Eggs. Let’s go buy some at the convenience store.”
Geuru’s eyes curved into crescent moons.
“Then we can eat egg rolls without stealing eggs!”
“What? That’s true, but……!”
Before Uju could even finish listening to the answer, Geuru gripped the lever on the handlebars tightly and pedaled, activating the booster.
Vroom—!
A low sound that resembled the cry of an Onamazu rumbled out.
Satisfied with her splendid steed’s cry, Geuru smiled and raised her hand.
“Then we’ll be back!”
Geuru greeted the staff and whooshed away.
“No, kids! We have to go together!”
The cameraman and staff began running frantically after the children.