Chapter 352: You Wasted the Chance

"If you want to tease me, you're still a hundred years too green." Jhin sat up out of the covers, his clothes still perfectly in place on him; what had been flung across the room were the pajamas he'd pulled from his storage space.

Putting the clothes away again, he laced his hands behind his head and lay back down. "Picking fights when you're not even prepared to follow through. A textbook case of bad at the game and still dying to play." 1yFu0

Looks like my daughter still has a long, long road ahead of her.

Yuiyui sighed to herself. Jhin's gentlemanly restraint had raised her opinion of him another few notches, and she made up her mind: one way or another, she was going to get these two to seal the deal. As long as they hadn't taken that final step, she would not rest! 1yFu0

"I really don't know what that silly child is dithering about. Maybe I should just call Yunyun back to light a fire under her?"

But if she actually called the girl back — with a figure that packs firepower like Yunyun's, what if she got to home base ahead of her own dumb daughter? That would rather defeat the whole purpose.

Yuiyui sat out in the corridor with her arms folded, brow furrowed in thought. Then came another sound from her daughter's room. From the noise alone she assumed Megumin had finally seen the light and run back to hand over her first blood, and her spirits lifted. 1yFu0

But the voice that came out wasn't her daughter's. It sounded like that Beastman girl.

"Jhin, why are you sleeping in here?"

"Huh, how did you know I was here?" 1yFu0

"Megumin just ran into our room to sleep. I followed the scent she left behind."

Looking at the elegant tilt of Kyaru's nose and her rosy lips pressed together, Jhin found himself very curious about which other senses the Beastmen had that were unusually sharp besides smell. So he pulled her in under the covers. "Well, you're here now, so let's sleep together!"

"Hey, we're in somebody else's house!" Kyaru blocked his roving hand and whispered a warning.

Jhin rolled his eyes. "This is Megumin's room, you know. She barged into yours nine times out of ten to wake you up on purpose, so you'd come keep me company."

"She picked a fight with you again?"

"Same as always. She'll start the fire, she just won't put it out."

"Fine, fine. Who told me to be your pet, right, Mas~ter~" Kyaru brushed the tip of his nose with her cat tail. Her breath was soft and sweet, her jade-green eyes curved into crescents and shining as if they might spill over, and the rich scent of gardenia closed in around Jhin.

After that, Yuiyui couldn't hear anything more, because the room had been sealed off with a wind element barrier. She pressed a hand to her forehead in resignation. "Who calls in a substitute at a moment like this? That idiot daughter of mine."

Fuming over her failings wasn't going to help now. Better to find a way to get the two of them down to business as soon as possible.

Yuiyui had lost count of how many times she'd sighed today. She shook her head, stood up, swept a hand across the door to dispel the door-locking magic, and went back to her own room to sleep, yawning the whole way.

The next morning, Hyoizaburoo saw Jhin come out of Megumin's room and the corners of his mouth lifted. He was thinking he'd well and truly landed himself a golden son-in-law — and then Kyaru walked out behind him, and his jaw hit the floor.

What's going on here? Since when is my daughter a Beastman? 1yFu0

"Dad, stop blocking the hallway!"

Hyoizaburoo turned to see his daughter emerging from the guest room, and tears sprang from his eyes. "Why are you out here?" he choked out, his face crumpling.

"Did you sleep yourself stupid? I only got back yesterday." 1yFu0

"No… what I mean is…"

Thud!

Poor Hyoizaburoo. Before he could get out the words "Why weren't you sleeping with Jhin," Yuiyui knocked him unconscious with sleep magic again, and he came down hard enough to nearly punch a hole through the wooden floor.

"Mom, what's for breakfast today?" Megumin stepped over her father's "corpse" and greeted her mother.

"I went out specially and bought a nice big breakfast. Hurry up and go brush your teeth and wash your face."

"Okay!"

Megumin washed up at record speed and sat down at the table. She looked at everyone else's lavish breakfast, then looked at her own — the same as always, a bowl of gruel so thin you could count the individual grains of rice floating in it — and puffed up her cheeks. "Mom, what is this breakfast supposed to be!?"

Yuiyui smiled with a faint edge of murder in it. "Didn't I tell you? This is the loving breakfast I prepared especially for o-be-di-ent daugh-ters."

Megumin shrank into her shoulders. Knowing she had no ground to stand on, she didn't dare press the point, terrified that even this gruel might be taken away. She picked up the bowl, gulped it down in a few swallows, then dove into Jhin's arms and wheedled, "Jhin, I'm not even close to full. Share some of your breakfast with me!"

"Take whatever you want."

"Mm!" 1yFu0

Sandwich in hand, she shot her mother a triumphant look, as if to say: See how good my boyfriend is to me!

Watching that idiotic display, Yuiyui half wanted to have another daughter and start over from scratch.

I hand you the opportunity and you fumble it, and now here you are strutting about. You don't actually think you're impressive, do you?

For reasons she couldn't explain, a chill crawled up Megumin's spine, and she decisively gave up on provoking her mother any further and ate in silence.

After breakfast, the group picked up empty baskets and took Komekko out to gather cherry blossoms.

"Safe travels!" Yuiyui stood in the doorway and watched them go. Then the smile dropped off her face and she headed back inside. "Now, I seem to recall Hyoizaburoo once made a magic item where the more you want to sleep the less you can, and the less you want to sleep the faster you drop off…"

"Ooh~ We're making something tasty today!" Komekko flung her arms wide and ran out in front, her conspicuous patchwork cloak streaming behind her in the wind.

Jhin tilted his head and asked in a low voice, "Megumin, what's the story with that cloak Komekko's wearing?"

"That's my old cloak. Since I was leaving to go adventuring, I gave it to her."

"I mean, why is it stitched together out of so many different scraps?"

"What else? Because we had no money back then. Mom just pieced one together for me out of whatever fabric was lying around." 1yFu0

"Don't tell me the clothes she's wearing now used to be yours too."

"It's not quite that bad. Although she does have a few sets of my old childhood clothes."

Seeing that Jhin and Megumin were deep in conversation, Kokkoro quietly moved over to Kyaru's side and asked, "No discomfort today?" 1yFu0

"Ah… no, everything's normal."

"So Master's origin essence really has stabilized completely, and you've adapted to the effects of the Racial Value gap."

Noticing how closely Kokkoro always followed these matters, Kyaru couldn't resist asking, "Why don't you go investigate it yourself? You always come and ask me instead."

"About that… I'm not quite ready yet." Kokkoro smiled bashfully. "But Master isn't in any great hurry either, so I'm afraid you'll have to bear with it a while longer."

"Haaah." Kyaru gave her fluffy cat ears a helpless shake, her tail nearly tying itself into a knot. "I really wish you'd all start soaking up some of the fire for me sooner rather than later. These days he's got an inexhaustible supply of energy from morning to night."

"Big sister Pecorine, come quick, this is the cherry grove!"

"Komekko, slow down!" 1yFu0

Pecorine gazed at the cherry petals falling around her like a passing shower, and it was as if she could see countless flower cakes waving at her.

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