Episode 210
"........"
It had been several tens of minutes since the brief incident at the training ground ended.
Frey was lying on the bed in Isollet's room.
"Hey, Nuna..."
"Do not call me Nuna."
Of course, that was not something Frey had done by choice.
"I'm fine, though..."
"Rest is essential after training."
It was something Isollet had forced through, despite Irina and Lulu's silent protests.
"Especially for a frail fellow like you, if you don't take this much rest, your body will be strained."
"Hey, at that point, wouldn't it be better not to train at all..."
"If you don't train, you can't become stronger either. Do you intend to remain weakling forever?"
"Sigh."
Frey, who had closed his mouth quietly after hearing Isollet's words, sighed and pulled the blanket over himself.
"Hmm."
Isollet, who had brought a chair to the bedside and was watching Frey, unconsciously tried to reach out to him.
"Kuu~!"
"Chirp! Chir-chirp!"
"Meow..."
At that moment, the animals positioned throughout the room began to cry out all at once.
"Heck... heck..."
"Eugh..."
The next moment, the red dog that Lulu had introduced as Irina's pet jumped onto the bed and crawled under Frey's blanket.
"........."
After that, silence flowed for a while.
"You are loved by animals, I see."
Isollet, having witnessed a rare scene that one couldn't normally see, said that while receiving the cold gazes pouring down on her from all around.
"W-well... no wait, I haven't brought a dog, so why..."
"Heck-heck..."
Seeing the red dog wriggling under Frey's blanket, she frowned and spoke.
"Has that dog not been neutered yet?"
"I wanted to have it done, but Irina told me not to?"
"...I see."
As Isollet said that and unconsciously looked at the dog with a cold stare, the creature began to flatten its ears and make a frightened expression.
"...What am I thinking right now."
After some time passed, Isollet slapped her own cheek hard and shook her head, then began to rise from her seat and head toward the corner of the room.
"Hmm."
She opened a cold-storage magical tool in the corner.
"Pfft."
Seeing the beer filled inside, Frey covered his mouth and burst into laughter.
"What is this? A composition truly befitting an old maid? Nuna, you don't even have someone to drink with, so you sip alcohol alone at night?"
"......"
"Really pitiful? Even I could drink with..."
Frey said that while mixing in laughter, but he soon trailed off and stopped speaking.
"Uh, um..."
Having witnessed Isollet's eyes become gloomy again, just like when she had mercilessly crushed him before, he realized that his plan had failed once more.
"S-sorry..."
So Frey turned his gaze away and offered a trembling apology, and seeing that sight, Isollet unconsciously swallowed.
Until just moments ago, he had been acting arrogantly, but now seeing him show weakness while lying on her bed somehow stimulated her carnal desires.
She hadn't thought of it when her eyes had spun earlier, but no matter what, she shouldn't harbor such feelings toward her first disciple.
For some reason, Isollet, whose body had been becoming too hot whenever she thought of Frey these past few days, was in a state where if she didn't forcibly draw that psychological line, she didn't know what she might do.
In other words, the suggestion of 'her first disciple' was Isollet's last Maginot line.
'Calm down...'
Isollet, who had closed her eyes tightly and taken a deep breath, reached her hand deep into the magical tool where cold air was flowing and took something out.
"Ah..."
At that, Frey's eyes rounded as he saw it.
"That's... been a while since I've seen that."
What Isollet had taken out was ice cream that she and Frey had always shared together after finishing training when they were young.
"But why that...?"
As Frey asked while looking at Isollet carrying a fairly large ice cream container, she answered in a low voice.
"R-reward."
"Reward?"
"From now on, if you successfully finish training... I will give you a reward."
Though she said that, Isollet had a different intention.
She felt that if she continued to see Frey before her eyes as a man, she wouldn't be able to control herself, so it was to fix him as her first disciple.
It was to control her carnal desires by repeating the actions she had done when Frey was her disciple in the past.
"...Hah."
However, her intention crumbled to pieces when Frey scooped up the ice cream with a spoon.
His appearance, round-eyed as he chewed on the ice cream, overlapped with the innocent Frey who used to sit side by side on the mansion's bench eating ice cream after training ended in the past.
In the Empire filled with darkness and evil, the pure Frey who alone shone brilliantly white.
"Ugh..."
And such a pure-looking appearance of Frey began to branch out into various forms in Isollet's mind.
His appearance tumbling on the ground, his appearance sitting down with a humiliated expression after losing to her in swordsmanship, his expression tearfully calling her name.
And, forcefully subduing such Frey and crushing him beneath her. The white color of frightened Frey into her own color...
"...Slap!"
"Uwah?"
Isollet slapped her cheek hard.
"...Must have been a mosquito."
"It's winter right now..."
"......"
She made an excuse that didn't work and blushed, then stuck a spoon into the ice cream container Frey was holding.
"...Hah."
For a while after that, only the sound of scooping ice cream with a spoon and chewing sounds could be heard in her room.
"Hmm."
The ice cream was sweet and delicious like in the old days.
However, Isollet could no longer feel the same mood as in the past.
When they were young, she thought about the results of that day's training, and at most she thought Frey chewing on ice cream was cute.
Now, she could only see the ice cream that had become soggy from Frey's spoon and saliva.
'I...'
Isollet, who was unconsciously blushing and eating the ice cream, soon closed her eyes tightly and lowered her head.
'...Was I this lewd of a woman?'
And she began to seriously contemplate about herself.
About herself, whose body was heating up even at this moment while looking at Frey making a bewildered expression before her eyes.
That she had strictly 'educated' Frey all this time.
That when she defeated him when they were young, she always crushed him and then raised the corner of her mouth to make a 'victory declaration.'
Perhaps it wasn't that she didn't know, but a hidden perversion?
"...Hey, Nuna."
"Don't call me Nuna..."
Now just hearing him call her Nuna made her body tremble.
'Like I said earlier... I'm disqualified as a knight, as a teacher, as a master, and as a noble lady as well.'
Isollet, who couldn't even stop Frey from continuing to call her Nuna, was hanging her head gloomily and chewing her lips.
'If this continues, I am... just a lewd woman who can't even control her carnal desires. In other words, nothing but a depraved woman.'
Reaching that conclusion, she fell into silence.
"Nuna? What's wrong?"
"........"
Like that, a considerable amount of time passed.
.
"...Hah."
Isollet, who had raised her head that had been lowered for a while and scooped up a spoonful of ice cream that had now become a beverage, suddenly flashed her eyes.
"Frey."
Then, she spoke to Frey lying on the bed in a low voice.
"Frey, won't you live here?"
"Huh?"
At those words, Frey tilted his head, and Isollet added while quietly averting her gaze to the side.
"I'm telling you to become my family."
At the end of those words, Frey began to make an absurd expression.
"What... does that mean?"
Isollet, who had been staring at Frey, soon held his hand and began to speak with a calm expression.
"I can't tell you exactly, but the Imperial family and the Church are plotting a conspiracy. If things continue like this, you will be ruined within a few months, and even your life will be in danger."
"I know that too... hmm. I-is that so."
"This is not said as a joke. If things continue like this, no matter how much I train you, you won't last a few months and will definitely be ruined or die."
Her words were based on facts.
Recently, the Imperial family and the Church had requested her to join the 'Hero Party,' and thanks to her outstanding skills and high status, she was able to know quite a lot of facts related to the 'Hero Party.'
And among the facts she learned, one was that the person the Hero Party would be as wary of as the 'Demon King' was none other than Frey.
And the Imperial family and the Church continued to request sensitive information about Frey from her.
"Hmm..."
"But if you become my family... I can protect you."
Isollet's eyes, making the proposal to Frey based on such facts, were filled with a strange heat.
"You foolishly already used the oath, but for the Bywork family, which can use oaths limited to family members, there's still an opportunity left."
Isollet, who said that with a smile of triumph as if she had found a breakthrough, gently stroked Frey's head, who was making a dazed expression.
"You already know this. The attacks on you have already begun. Imperial news agencies have all launched attacks. It won't be long before your mansion is subject to search and seizure or investigators summon you."
Then, bowing her head toward Frey lying on the bed, she whispered with a frightening expression.
"What do you think? Frey?"
Looking at Frey for a while like that, seeing him looking at her with a frightened expression, she unconsciously raised the corner of her mouth.
'Yes, this is... to protect my first disciple, and at the same time, punishment for myself who failed in education.'
And she quietly muttered to herself.
'...So, it can't be helped. It's absolutely not an action done out of selfishness.'
The conclusion she reached after much thought was to make Frey her family.
It was her own fault as a master that her first disciple had become this corrupted, and though she had tried to kill him earnestly several times, for some reason she couldn't strike him.
Moreover, since she was in a situation where she couldn't even attack, let alone kill, if she couldn't punish him and make him rehabilitate, it was simple logic that she herself would take responsibility.
"Frey? Answer me."
Isollet's last Maginot line, that she couldn't harbor disgraceful thoughts toward her 'first disciple,' collapsed so vainly at the end of self-justification.
"What will you do."
Swallowing dry saliva.
"I will take responsibility."
She continued to urge an answer from Frey, who was making a sickly expression.
'Come to think of it, the reason Frey first came to me... was also because there was talk about an engagement.'
Closing her eyes, she recalls when she first met him.
The moment when a child whose height reached her stomach tilted his head and asked, 'Are we getting married?'
Of course, the marriage talks fell through for various reasons.
Perhaps this was fate.
From the beginning, she should have been destined to be with Frey...
"...So you're saying you'll adopt me?"
"Huh?"
Isollet, whose delusion had instantly reached the scene of Frey blushing and entrusting his body to her, came to her senses at Frey's words.
"You're saying you'll adopt me, aren't you."
At Frey's statement, who for some reason was breaking out in a cold sweat, Isollet felt a shock like being hit on the head with a hammer.
'...Why didn't I think of that?'
There was also a way to become family, through adoption.
But why did she naturally...
"That won't happen."
Frey said with a determined expression to her, who had been dazed in thought.
"I don't want to become your son."
Frey, who finished speaking, hurriedly rose from the bed and headed toward the door with the animals.
"Today was pretty fun, Nuna."
- Click...!
Like that, Frey had left the room in an instant.
"........."
After that, silence flowed for a while.
"N-now that it's come to this... it can't be helped?"
Isollet, whose eyes had spun in that silence.
"Should I just confine him in the mansion? If he goes out like that... he'll definitely become an enemy of everyone..."
She muttered in a low voice.
"I, I'm his master so I have to take responsibility. Occasionally educate him too. Give him meals too... it's better than going to prison or dying..."
Eventually, Isollet, who said that while biting her lip.
"...Hieek."
Feeling an eerie sensation that suddenly came, she reached out to the drawer next to her.
- Swipe...
After taking out a photo of a sickly-looking boy from the drawer, Isollet quietly crawled into the bed where Frey had been lying until just moments ago.
"Ah, no. First... I need to calm down..."
Feeling dizzy from the warmth and scent of him remaining on the bed that she felt throughout her body, she closed her eyes tightly.
"Huu..."
After a while, rough breathing sounds echoed from her room.