63 - Chapter Vi -- Adopted With Conditions
"Oh, it\'s delicious! I\'ve never eaten such delicious food before. Lars was right!"
As expected, Ferris ate well. He had hardly eaten anything for the past two days, and he quickly finished off his pile of fried rice. I had to make more fried rice for him because he ate all the dishes at this pace.
He ate all the desserts and still looked like he wanted more, so I offered him 20 pieces of o-hagi (rice balls) from the endless storage, which he devoured with a gusto, finally satisfied.
After the meal, she told me about Lars. She told me that he is still a crybaby, but that he is doing his best. She said that he is taking the initiative in hunting, and if he continues to do so, he will become an excellent warrior. I would like to see Lars once he finishes molting and goes on his journey.
Ferris said that Lars told him about us almost every day. I had been with Lars for only a week or so, but the details were greatly exaggerated, and combined with Ferris\'s delusions, expectations, and convenient interpretations, I was perceived as a godlike person.
At night, I was asked to stay in Peris\'s room with her. When I boiled a bath for him, he seemed to have never seen a bath before, and his eyes sparkled.
She said, "It feels so good to take a bath! Let\'s take a bath together!
Peris is being a good big sister to me, so I decide to leave the rest to her.
We go back to the house and take a bath.
"Ferris, I don\'t know what to do..."
"I thought the master had already made up his mind."
"Well, she\'s Lars\' sister. I can\'t just ignore her..."
"But with such an appetite, I\'m afraid it will be very difficult for Mr. Peris and Miss Rico."
"Hmmm. Should we have Ferris learn to cook?"
That might be the least I could do."
When we got out of the bath, Gon came to our room. It was unusual for Gong to visit us at night.
"That dragoness Ferris, she may be allowed to stay here, depending on the conditions..."
"Yeah, we were just talking about that. We were just talking about it. I\'m going to let them cook. And maybe even let him do some hunting himself."
"We have more important things to do than that. With her, we may be able to pass through the Juka Mountains unscathed.
"I see!"
There was a reason I never returned to the Kingdom of Juka, even if I wanted to. The distance from the Heedata Empire is the problem. Since I have taken a route that goes around the Juka Mountains, it takes about two months to get to the Juka Kingdom from the capital. The trip from the capital to the Kingdom of Jukha would take about two months. It would be quite frank of me to be away from my residence for half a year, and I am sure the Prime Minister would not take it well. However, if we cross the Juka Mountains, it will only take a few days. If we take Ilimo, we can get there in as little as two days. This is a big deal.
We went to bed and decided to try to meet these conditions tomorrow morning.
But Rico has been acting strange since a few minutes ago. He did not speak a single word. May, perhaps sensing this, went into her room.
"...Rico?"
"..."
"Riko? Is it okay if I put my arms around you?
"..."
He kept his back to me and didn\'t answer me. I put my arm under her neck and give her an arm pillow. Then Rico turns to me with a start,
"Why do you want that dragon girl in your house?"
"Are you against it, Rico?"
"It\'s inexcusable. I can\'t forgive him for acting so impudently. And he eats as much as he wants without being invited, and he takes care of Linos too.
"He\'s just a kid, that\'s all."
And why did you have to take me under your arm...
"Yeah, I used to sleep on his arm when I returned his little brother to the mountain."
"You\'ve been an armchair besides me, haven\'t you?"
A young male dragon. He would not go to sleep unless I did. Rico and Mei are the only women in the house, okay?"
"I\'m not going to let a little girl like that in my house... Oh!"
I took Riko in my arms and took her lips in mine.
"Ha, ha, ha, I, I..."
"I know. I\'ll only let Rico sleep in my arms. That\'s not good enough?"
"That\'s... that\'s fine."
"Thank you, Rico."
Rico\'s eyes were moist and his face was bright red, and he looked really beautiful. I hugged Riko again.
In the morning, when I went to the dining room, Ferris was already waiting for me. Ferris was making breakfast, and Riko saw him and went to help him. May seems to be taking care of Ilimo. Gon and I sit down in front of Ferris. Ferris stands up,
I\'m sorry for being so rude to you yesterday. I will do anything I can to help you. Please leave it here, please.
He bows his head.
"Okay. You can sit down. We say, "If you don\'t work, you don\'t eat. We don\'t want anyone who doesn\'t do anything. I\'d like to put two conditions on Ferris\' placement here."
Ferris gulps and swallows his spit.
"The first condition is that you help Rico and Peris when you are here. In short, I want you to learn to cook. If you want to eat a lot, you may want to go hunting in the forest. The hunting in the forest is left to the harpies, so we can do it together with them. That\'s the first thing. Secondly, if you can\'t do it, so be it. Actually, I was wondering if you could arrange for us to pass through the Jukka Mountains. That\'s the lair of the dragons, and if we get too close, we\'ll be attacked by them. Can you please arrange for us to pass through the area controlled by Ferris\'s troop safely? That is the second thing."
Ferris looks me in the face and nods his head.
"I\'m good at hunting. I\'ve been trained for it. And I think I can make it through the Juka Mountains. I\'m sure they\'ll stay out of it if I stay with them.
"All right, all right. Then you can stay here as long as you like!
"Oh, thank you so much, thank you so much, thank you so much, thank you so much, thank you so much, thank you so much."
I started crying. It seemed that she was as tearful as her brother.
"Gather around, everyone! This is Ferris, our newest member. Nice to meet you all!"
"It\'s nice to meet you!"
Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
"Bi-, bi-na-zan, yoroshiku onegai jimashimasu-uuu."
Ferris greeted everyone with tears in his eyes. However, he ate the breakfast prepared for him.
I\'m off to work. Let\'s celebrate Ferris tonight. I\'ll go to the capital to buy the ingredients!
"Well, sugar, please!"
"Please buy fish today. And kelp, shrimp and squid.
"Sir, we are running out of garlic.
Okay, I\'ll close the store early today and come back. Mei, let\'s go!
Me and May climbed on top of Ilimo.
It was a pretty slow day at the store today, except for a few requests right after we opened. We decided to take this opportunity to bake a cake at the store.
We bought a large amount of harpy eggs, flour, sugar, butter, and strawberries in season at the market, which we kept in our endless storage. During the process, I almost burned the cake with the wrong amount of fire magic, but I managed to make a huge cake by the time the store closed.
The dinner that night was unusually sumptuous. Meat, fish, salad, and other dishes were laid out on the table, and everyone tucked into them. Ferris had also gone hunting, and had hunted down eight big bulls. Gon had a hard time dismantling them, but the meat was very tasty with a fine fatty taste.
And for dessert, we served a cake that Mei and I had made. It was a gorgeous cake with lots of strawberries. Everyone enjoyed it very much. Perhaps it was because of the good taste of Harpy\'s eggs, but the cake was really elegant. Later I heard that harpy eggs are very expensive and even royalty rarely eat them. No wonder they are so well done.
As for Ferris\'s room, I decided to let him use my old room next to Peris\'s room. Basically, she is going to stay in her humanized state, which is a part of her training. So we went to the capital the next day to get Ferris\'s clothes, weapons and armor for hunting, and daily necessities such as a bed.
Most of what we originally brought with us was food, and we had almost no personal belongings. What were we going to do if we couldn\'t find our house? We had to go shopping in the capital for a few days.
It has been a week since Ferris arrived, and her life has finally settled down. As if they had been waiting for that moment, Jeneha and her friends came back. The report I received there was a shocking one.