To skip to the conclusion: the next morning, all three of them came back to my inn without a scratch.
From what I heard, the battle involved terrain destruction at map-redrawing scale, but…
Actually — I asked the guild staff afterward, and this Marcus person is apparently a genuinely legendary tier of adventurer.
The other two are also absurdly strong, so I suppose the result was simply correct.
The Evil Cyclops’s corpse, by the way… sold for a jaw-dropping fifty thousand gold.
Which, through the offering box, is fifty thousand yen, so…
I mean. Fifty grand is still real money.
Right — when we get home, I’m ordering a decently mid-tier red wine. Word is both Sonya and Maria can actually hold their liquor.
As I was thinking it over, Marcus gestured for me to step out into the inn’s courtyard.
“Eh? The courtyard? What for?”
“Just come.”
So out we went.
There, in the courtyard with dead leaves dancing around us, Marcus fixed me with a dead-serious stare.
“Ready your weapon.”
Weapon? I don’t really get it, but… the only weapon-shaped thing I own is a hoe.
As instructed, I took a stance with my hoe.
For one instant Marcus’s eyes flew wide — and then, for a long moment, he wore the face of a man chewing a mouthful of live bees.
Finally, he settled into a gentle smile and clapped a hand on my shoulder.
“So it was true after all.”
”…True?”
“I’m entrusting Maria to you. That woman is… more delicate than she looks. Treat her well.”
What is this man talking about?
“I’m sorry — meaning what, exactly?”
“Our business, don’t mind it. And if you ever find yourself in trouble, come find me.”
He held out a calling card, which I accepted with both hands, just in case.
I don’t understand any of this, but he doesn’t seem like a bad person.
“And NOW it’s shopping time with Tatsuya and Maria~♪”
—And so we hit the town’s shops, collected yesterday’s buyback money, and headed home to our house in the forest.
The Cyclops payout, incidentally, will be collected later by Marcus on our behalf — we’re to come pick it up after.
Side: Marcus
Leaving the guild, we swept the great Forest of No Return.
The Evil Cyclops was easy to find.
Hard to miss a body fifty damn meters tall.
And, well — an enemy I’d fight to a coin flip solo, versus the three of us. Naturally, it ended fast.
Total victory.
Though honestly, the palm-top rabbit queen was straight-up unfair.
And the biggest surprise: Maria has grown far, FAR stronger than back when she adventured at my side.
We decided to camp the night before returning; the palm-top rabbit finished the carrots she’d packed and turned in early.
Watching the campfire, I asked Maria.
“Maria. What happened with the demon realm?”
“In the end… I’ve come crawling back to the human world, as you see.”
“Back then too, you got tangled in the demon realm’s power struggles — fled here alone, and you just a child.”
“Had your adventuring party not taken me in… my life would have ended right there. It’s also where I learned to fight.”
“The plan was only to have you run errands, you know. But your talent was so absurd that I taught you close combat, and the old archmage geezer fell over himself teaching you magic. ‘Is this child truly human?’ — we all thought it, at the start.”
“Well — a ducal house of the demon realm, you know. The bloodline carries a gift for battle, I suppose. Even so… those fifteen years with all of you… were not bad at all.”
“—And the five years since you went back have been cruel ones.”
Maria gave a small nod, eyes welling.
So I stroked her head gently, the way I used to when she was small.
“Hey, Maria?”
“What is it?”
“You’ve become a fine woman.”
I meant it, plainly.
Even as a child she had an unreality to her beauty — well, succubus, obviously — but still.
And exactly as every member of the party predicted the day we took her in… she grew into a genuinely stunning woman.
“Flattery, and yet it pleases me.”
Maria laughed softly, and I bowed my head.
“I’m sorry.”
“Whatever for?”
”…We sent you back to the demon realm alone. Everyone had their opinions and their reasons, but in the end, I’m the one who told you to go. And you suffered for it.”
“You truly never change… But listen, Lord Marcus. I am no longer a child. Five years ago, the final decision to return was mine, and I do not regret having made it.”
”…No, but still… as your guardian…”
At that, Maria laughed — genuinely delighted.
“You are no longer my guardian, Lord Marcus. Though the sentiment… truly does make me happy.”
Right. She’s pushing thirty now.
Not the child of not-yet-ten I picked up all those years ago.
That’s right. I’m not her guardian anymore.
In which case — the words I couldn’t say back then… now—
“Hey, Maria? If you’ve been exiled from the demon realm with nowhere to go — why not come to me?”
“Are you… forming an adventuring party again?”
“No. I’m done living in the world of blades and blood.”
“Then why?”
“—I want children. I’m… pushing sixty. And you’ve become a fine woman… no — truth is, somewhere along the way I stopped seeing you as a sort of adopted daughter, and started seeing you as a woman. Live with me?”
For an instant, Maria’s expression went blank.
“To tell the truth — somewhere along the way, I too stopped seeing you as a father-figure, Lord Marcus… and saw a man.”
“Then—”
But Maria shook her head, slow and firm.
“When the decision was made to send me back to the demon realm… THAT is when I wished to hear those words. Then, I could have truly considered them.”
“What do you mean?”
“—The reason I’ve grown so much stronger than before… you’re curious, are you not?”
Of course I’m curious.
Five years or no, she used to be about my equal — now she’s nearly double.
“A succubus draws mana from the act of life itself. Our appetites are… considerable — but our virtue is iron. Once we lie with someone… by our nature, we are dyed in our first person’s mana… and must stay beside them for life.”
“You… don’t tell me…?”
“—Yes. I have been dyed. The moment I laid eyes on that person, I knew it in my instincts: THIS is the one whose mana I should receive.”
“What kind of… man is he?”
“You’ve already met him, Lord Marcus. At the Adventurers’ Guild.”
That unremarkable-looking fellow?
Oi oi, you’re kidding me… I thought, and asked her:
”…Is he strong?”
“A succubus instinctively seeks the mana of the strong. Which is why, I suspect… there was a time, long ago, when I was drawn to you, Lord Marcus. And Sonya — the queen of the palm-top rabbits — surely sensed by instinct something much like what I did, and made her home at his side.”
”…I see.”
I let out a small sigh and told her:
“Mind if I test him?”
“Test him?”
“As a man competing for a woman — I withdraw. But as the parent who raised you… I don’t withdraw so easy. I’ll be conducting an inspection.”
Maria broke into her best smile of the entire day and giggled.
“Your overprotective streak hasn’t changed one bit.”
“Yeah. Guess not. I loved you like my own, you know… always pulling pranks back then… Maria the little hellion, all grown up.”
“Yes. And I love you too — Uncle Marcus.”
So, the next day.
The courtyard of the inn where this Tatsuya fellow was staying.
“Sorry, but — would you face me a moment?”
At my words, Tatsuya readied… a hoe.
Why a hoe…? I thought — and the instant we squared off, I understood exactly what Maria meant.
—I can’t win.
No. I mean it. Something in me KNOWS I can’t win.
At a glance he’s nothing but openings. Looks like I could land a clean strike anywhere I please.
But my instincts as a swordsman are screaming.
—The moment I swing, I die.
If a world-strength ranking existed, I’m self-aware enough to know I’d sit very near the top.
And this man made THAT me concede total defeat… without our weapons ever touching.
“So it was true after all.”
”…True?”
To this man, I can entrust my Maria.
Something in him let my warrior’s instinct arrive at that certainty.
“I’m entrusting Maria to you. That woman is… more delicate than she looks. Treat her well.”
And the three of them set off for their home in the Forest of No Return.
At the parting I watched their backs, waving big and wide—
—I can’t wait to meet my step-grandkids.
Catching myself mid-thought, I smiled wryly. I really have gotten old.