After finishing hunting, Shirou returned to the Greyrat house.
"Young Master Shirou, you're back?"
The maid Lilia saw Shirou return and greeted him right away. She took the longsword and bow from Shirou, showing how skilled she was at it.
Shirou was used to Lilia's enthusiasm and didn't pay too much attention. After going back to his room to change clothes, he planned to go to the kitchen to make dinner.
"Shirou, what are we having for dinner!"
Zenith came back from doing her doctor work outside. As the only person with healing magic, she often went out to help the villagers.
Even though she was covered in dust from her travels, she looked gentle as soon as she walked into the house. She even came close in a friendly way, hugging Shirou from behind and patting his head.
"Grilled fish and mixed vegetable soup, I guess."
Shirou thought for a moment, quietly replied, and scratched his cheek a little awkwardly.
Although he had long been used to Zenith's teasing, he didn't feel anything before because his body was still a child. But now he was gradually reaching puberty, and his body was starting to change into a teenager. Zenith's actions, which sometimes lacked a sense of distance, were still a headache for him.
So, Shirou quickly pushed away Zenith, who was still trying to get close, sighed, and said, "Zenith, you should go take a bath soon. I'll get the hot water ready for you."
"How thoughtful, Shirou. Wanna take a bath with Mom?"
"No way!!!"
Shirou firmly rejected Zenith's almost sexual harassment and urged her to leave the kitchen.
"Shirou." At the same time, Paul suddenly poked his head in from outside and said seriously, "Just to repeat, Zenith is my wife!"
"What nonsense are you talking about!!"
Shirou really couldn't stand these two silly people being a couple. He didn't expect Paul to be jealous of his own son.
Helplessly, he went back to the kitchen, picked up a knife and started making the meal.
After finishing the cooking, he quickly called the Greyrat family over for dinner.
"Huh? Come to think of it, where's Rudy?"
"He's been going out to play a lot lately."
Since Zenith gave Rudeus that plant dictionary, Rudeus had often gone out to find plants unique to this world and wrote them down one by one.
This meant that during the day, the Greyrat house was sometimes left with only Lilia.
"So Rudy is willing to go out now..."
Shirou said with emotion. He vaguely remembered that a long time ago, Rudeus was always afraid to go out and stayed at home by himself every day.
He didn't know when it started, but he had already gotten used to going out.
"I'm back."
Rudeus came home on time for dinner.
For the Greyrat family, nothing was more important than eating Shirou's cooking. The whole family would almost never miss dinner time.
After everyone arrived, the Greyrat family's dinner time officially began.
"Rudy, did you get a girlfriend when you went out today?"
During the meal, Paul suddenly said something that made Shirou spit out his food.
"There aren't any cute girls in the village."
"That's true, Buena Village is not as good as the royal capital. When your old man was your age, I was lifting up the skirts of pretty girls in the royal capital every day!"
Paul said proudly, having a rather tasteless father-son conversation.
"Oh, I'd really like to hear about Mr. Paul's romantic affairs. How many people's skirts did you actually lift up?"
Zenith suddenly had a vein popping out on her forehead.
Seeing her angry look, Paul immediately realized he had misspoke and quickly looked at Shirou and Rudeus, hoping they could help him out.
Shirou didn't know what to do, but Rudeus suddenly said:
"Speaking of which, I heard a rumor in the village today."
"Rumor?"
"Yeah, it's a rumor about demons."
Rudeus said seriously, "Unlike Roxy, they said that a Superd demon with green hair appeared in the village!!"
"Superd demon?"
Hearing Rudeus's words, everyone in the Greyrat family was shocked.
Even Shirou, who didn't know much about demons, had learned from various sources how terrifying the Superd demons were.
"Are you telling the truth? Did you see it with your own eyes, Rudy?" Paul's expression became serious. As the lord protecting the village, he naturally couldn't allow such a dangerous demon to be in the village.
"N-no, I didn't see it." Rudeus was taken aback by Paul's sudden serious attitude. "I just heard the kids in the village talking about something like that while they were playing, saying that a scary Superd demon had appeared."
"Children's games..."
Hearing Rudeus's words, Paul breathed a sigh of relief.
He quickly thought that it was probably just a joke. After all, the Superd demons were a dangerous race that hadn't appeared for hundreds of years. Even if there were any survivors, they would most likely be on the Demon Continent, not in the Central Continent.
Everyone quickly moved on from the topic, and Paul successfully escaped a disaster.
But after hearing Rudeus's words, Shirou vaguely remembered something. Combined with Laws's reaction before, he realized that he might need to investigate this matter.
...
The next day, Shirou went out to patrol the village early in the morning with his longsword and bow on his back.
He called it patrolling, but since there were unlikely to be any dangerous monsters in the village, Shirou basically spent his time helping the people in the village.
He helped the villagers repair their carriages and farm tools, and he also helped carry rice and collect materials when he had free time.
Gradually, Shirou was becoming the most popular person in Buena Village. All the adults in every household praised him.
Plus, Shirou was almost 11 years old now, and as he went through puberty, he was becoming more mature every moment.
Because of this, people in the village often tried to set him up with their daughters, which made Shirou have to refuse every time, giving him a headache.
"I've delivered the goods to your yard, Mrs. Somar."
As always, Shirou delivered the heavy goods to Mrs. Somar's house, who lived alone. Mrs. Somar was a very young married woman, and now she looked like she was barely in her early twenties.
"Thank you, Shirou. Would you like to come in and sit for a while?"
Mrs. Somar would warmly invite him every time Shirou came to help.
Once, Shirou couldn't resist accepting the invitation. As a result, Mrs. Somar actually wanted to take him to her room while offering him tea, saying that the cat in her room could do a backflip.
Faced with such a clumsy lie, Shirou was so scared that he quickly refused. After that, he never dared to accept this lonely married woman's invitation again.
---
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