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Of Arms and Arcane: Chapter 180
🕑 Added 2024-12-29 12:54:03 +0000 UTCNight after night of continuously being zapped, me and Professor Sageira worked on how to prolong and stabilize this skill. It did not even take three days to before my parents found it worrying that their boy was sleeping in till lunch a few days in a row and confronted me about it.
When lunch was over, the dishes were taken away, and the moment tea was served, Dad dismissed the servants. After the doors were closed, Mum and Dad looked at me with worry in their eyes, “Son, we noticed your recent sleeping habits… is there anything you want to tell us?” Mum asked.
“I understand that you are at that age, much less your body maturity, and there are certain… needs that men have that need to be… fulfilled. I want you to be reassured that you can tell your parents, and there is no need to be sneaking around in the dead of night.” Dad added, confusing the hell out of me as to what he was alluding to.
Mum gave me a look of disappointment as she continued, “Although I feel sorry for Emma, the sweet girl. We need to know if you are sneaking out to see a girl in town, or even if it is one of the house staff… or, heaven forbid, women of ill-repute.”
Slowly, my still-sleepy brain starts putting together the scenario that they are painting, and then it clicks, ‘Oh, sweet Gods of Isekais! They think I am sneaking out at night to chase skirts.’
“Luke, I know you know how babies are made, and I hope you are careful about sowing your seed because it may cause issues for the family if some unknown woman comes to our gate claiming that they gave birth to our grandchild.” Dad said, continuing my verbal execution.
As my parents tried to convince me to open up to them, my hand went under the table to my pants pocket, where Professor Sageira’s contact scale was. I injected mana into it. [Help! My parents are on to me for the late-night training.] I said to Professor Sageira with a panicked telepathic shout.
[Dammit, Luke! You startled me. Now I need to redo a page of my notes. This sounds like a you problem… Besides, don’t they already know that you can use Instinctive Magic? Just tell them that you are doing late-night training for it.] she replied.
[I can’t use that excuse when I usually train my Instinctive Magic in the daytime, and they know it. Now they think I am creeping out to the whorehouse in the middle of the night, and it is not like I can tell my father that I am training a skill that no one has ever heard of in the middle of nowhere with an ancient white dragon. Not only will my parents think I am whoring away my family’s coin, they will think I am doing drugs too. Besides, it is not like you can reveal yourself, right?] I replied in agitation.
[I don’t mind revealing myself if you can vouch for them. And even if they blew my cover, all I would need to do is come up with another alias. The only consequence of outing me, is shortly after that, there would no longer be an Ironcrest family.] she replied. But there was no malice in her tone. It was just a matter of fact that she was describing.
I pondered her words for a moment as I heard the words of my parents, but did not pay attention to them. Would it be so bad to let them know? They have supported me all my life, through thick and thin, and I do not want to lie to them. Maybe if they knew the truth, they would be on my side and give me more leeway. That was when I decided to take a shot. [Then is it ok if you bring my parents along for tonight’s training?]
After I got a simple [Sure] from Professor Sageira, I turned my attention back to my parents,
“Luke Ironcrest, are you even listening to us?” Dad said with some agitation, but I raised my hand to stop him.
“I’m sorry for worrying both of you. To answer your question, no, I am not sleeping around. However, as for what I am actually doing, it would be easier to show than tell. However, it will only be tonight. Can you wait a few more hours for the answer?” I said as I asked for their understanding. They looked at each other before giving me the benefit of the doubt and agreed.
***
It was around midnight, and I was with my parents in the woods behind the estate. My parents were dressed in clothes that were easy to move in, but I could tell from the mana wafting off of their bodies that they came packing with magic items ready to use at a moment’s notice.
Especially Mum. She may be wearing a long skirt, but it has an unnaturally high slit for its design, and when she tripped and caught herself in the woods, I actually saw a wand holstered to her thigh. As for Dad, he was wearing a normal vest, but I could see chainmail peeking out from under the vest. Other than that, all he had was an arming sword.
When we reached the clearing, we stopped, and my parents looked around, “So, Son, what was it you needed to show us that could not be put into words?” Dad asked.
“You’ll see, she should be coming any second now.” I replied.
“She? Who is this “She”? I knew it had to be a woman who was seducing my baby boy!” Mum said angrily.
Just as Mum was about to work herself up, there was a loud swooping sound, followed by the sound of flapping wings that kicked up a mighty gale around us.
Dad, who was the first to lower his arm to protect debris from getting in his eyes, was the first to look at what caused the gale. “DRAGON!! Get back!” he shouted as he drew his sword and tried to reach out to pull me back, but I was just out of his reach.
As Professor Sageira landed in her huge dragon form, she looked at my dad and said, “That is rather rude of you, young man. I don't go around humans and shout, ‘Ah, Humans!’ That is just stating the obvious.”
At hearing Professor Sageira speak, both of my parents’ eyes almost bulged out of their sockets, “Elder Dragon!”
Professor Sageira then turned to Mum, who had her wand drawn and trained on Professor Sageira, “Same to you, young lady.”
Professor Sageira then turned to me and asked, “I thought you were going to tell them what you were doing.”
I shrugged. " I'd rather show them than spend the rest of the day trying to convince them.” I then turned to my parents and said, “Mum, Dad, this is Professor Sageira Drackot, professor of the Royal Academy and the dragon who owns the turf our kingdom resides in.”
