Chapter 12 - Bowing and Scraping
It was glaringly obvious that they were trying to take the opportunity to cozy up to the Dark Knights. Of course, they wouldn’t dare approach Mayer Knox, but the members under him were a different story. If the Dark Knights defeated the demon lord, its members would be guaranteed successful lives as comrades to the Champion.
Also, the village chief’s grandson was elegantly handsome; if he could gain the favor of a Dark Knight mage, it would already be very good. On the village chief’s part, he needed to make the expedition corps stay no matter what… But who was Mayer Knox? He must’ve put up with this kind of person countless times after closing dungeons. He passed by the bowing village chief without even responding anymore.
“Y-your Excellency!” The village chief cried and tried to chase after the captain, only to be blocked by Dark Knights.
“His Excellency has refused. Stand down!” The Dark Knights members formed a wall to drive off the villagers.
“But…!” The old man hesitated, at a loss, when unfortunately his eyes met mine as I stood among my comrades. His eyes went wide in disbelief and he cried out, “J-Jun! You’re still alive…!”
He sounded like he had never imagined I’d come out of that dungeon alive.
Axion frowned, seemingly noticing the odd tone of the village chief’s words. “It looks like he never even considered you could still be alive,” he remarked, turning toward me. “Say, shouldn’t he have asked about you first before talking to His Excellency about a festival?”
I completely agreed with his words; however, if the chief had the kindness in him to worry about my survival, he wouldn’t have thrown me in the dungeon in the first place. “I was used as live bait under the ridiculous pretext of appeasing the dungeon’s anger,” I said with a shrug, “so I’m sure he didn’t expect me to come out alive.”
“…Is that true?”
“There’s no way I would’ve gone inside a dungeon alone as a supporter otherwise. I can’t even defeat a single monster by myself.”
Axion stared at me, shocked. It seemed like it was his first time seeing such a thing, but surely he had heard of such ignorant human offerings being made in countryside villages. “Doing such an illogical, inefficient, irrational, and nonsensical thing in this time and age…” he muttered. Although I had no idea what he meant by ‘this time and age’, I agreed with him.
While we were conversing, my father and stepmother—who were both equipped with the four flaws of being illogical, inefficient, irrational, and nonsensical—showed up in good time. “Chief, what happened to the festival? …Why, Jun!”
Every single one of them put the festival before Jun’s survival, yammering about it when I had practically come back to life… But I was used to their ridiculous antics by this point so I just clicked my tongue and didn’t reply.
“Go and block the gate, Jun! You’re a mage so I’m sure you can do it!”
“…Do you all even know the meaning of the word ‘support’? It’s not something that’ll be solved by me going in alone!” I had shouted at them.
“But you’re a mage, aren’t you! The gate is opening as we speak while you’re here, not budging! If the villagers die because of you, can you bear the guilt?”
Their lack of concern didn’t surprise me, seeing as they were the very ones who spouted that load of dog turd. After a moment of shock, my parents’ faces darkened within seconds and they began reproaching me. “We were so worried about you! Why are you here instead of returning right away? How much more trouble will you cause for His Excellency after he rescued you!”
…Excuse me, what?
Not contented with yelling nonsense, they pushed past the other villagers and approached me, prompting the expedition members to immediately block their path. That, however, only made them yell more. “We’re her parents! Why are you stopping us? How can you stop parents from going to their child? If you can’t let us pass, then send her over, please!” My stepmother and father rushed to say.
No matter how I looked at it, they seemed a million years away from being worried about me. Standing beside me and watching their farce, Axion grimaced in quiet disbelief as he whispered to me, “…Are they your actual parents?”
“My mother is actually my stepmother, but my father, yes,” I said.
Axion bowed in apology with a bitter face. “If only I could turn back time, I’d take back my words about your parents crying.”
“I’ll count it as you taking them back,” I replied, unconcerned. How could Axion have imagined my parents to be like that? Even I found their attitudes hard to believe at first. The information I had was from Fabian’s perspective so all I knew about Jun was that she had voluntarily entered the dungeon for the village’s sake. She recalled what Jun had said when she met Fabian:
“You saved me, Champion! You’re the savior of our village… I wish to offer you what little help I am capable of in your journey. Please take me with you!”
Perhaps that was why when I was playing the game, I passed off Jun—a support mage—being alone in a dungeon as just a contrived plot device for a smooth story progression. I hadn’t known she had been kicked out by the villagers.
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