This House Has A Delicious Restaurant - Chapter 5 - The Hunters (2) - Part 4

“Long time no see, Bella. My dear brother.”

“…Zerdan.”

A man’s voice mixed with laughter came from the woman’s corpse. A voice familiar to me and no stranger to Obella. It was Zerdan.

“Without even knocking, you surprised me by visiting. If I had known, I would have prepared tea in advance. Though, even if I had prepared, Bella wouldn’t have drunk it anyway.”

With a laugh in his voice, Obella’s expression hardened. He didn’t respond at all. Instead, Terisier muttered under his breath, ‘You’re crazy.’

“Sending a child to greet me, that’s too much.”

“Do you greet people these days with knives or glass?”

Terisier snapped back with a small beak, but Zerdan just laughed.

The woman’s body leaned against the wall with her arms crossed, behaving almost human-like. Obella’s expression grew even sterner.

“Bella, good things should be shared between brothers. You’re a manipulator, after all. I was a bit disappointed that you kept such a good thing to yourself.”

“Is Diswen with you?”

“Yeah. Like this corpse, obediently doing everything I say, like a puppet.”

The woman’s body adopted a posture of clasping her neck with both hands. Obella’s expression hardened at Zerdan’s actions, which seemed to provoke dislike.

Stop it, you lunatic.

Zerdan seems a bit more malicious toward Obella. Am I mistaken? Obella seems to tremble with disgust…

I’m not sure if Zerdan saw him shaking his head as a sign not to do it, but Zerdan stopped the posture of clasping his neck with the body of the corpse. Then he continued talking.

“But it’s not yet a corpse. I haven’t killed her. After all, I might lose a good ability if I just kill her. So, Bella, you still have a chance. If you come to find me, I’ll return this doll. I’m not sure if you can find it.”

The woman’s body raised one hand and pointed lightly to her chest below her neck. Obella didn’t know what it meant, but I instinctively realized that it was pointing to the necklace I was wearing.

“I’ll be looking forward to you coming to find me.”

Was the last thing said to Obella or me?

With that, the woman’s body collapsed weakly. It seemed that Zerdan had stopped using his abilities.

A character who casually behaves like this with a human body…

It was a moment when I realized once again that Zerdan was an antagonist.

* * *

“Hey.”

The bird that was on Obella flew up to my eye level. It soon transformed into a person. It was Terisier, as I had suspected.

Silver hair that reached his ears. As I looked closely, he had a rather handsome face, I casually thought, but Terisier nudged my shoulder.

Huh?

Caught off guard, I took a step back, and Terisier spoke with a growl-like tone.

“What’s this because of you? If I hadn’t checked downstairs first, the leader would have been ambushed.”

“…”

“And we didn’t gain any help either. It just looks like an ordinary piece of jewelry, but in reality, isn’t it a lure set up by Zerdan as a spy to bring us here?”

“Terisier, stop it.”

Terisier seemed to have a habit of scowling with his handsome face.

Obella casually grabs his shoulder to stop him, but I wave my hand to indicate that it’s okay, and then I take a step backward, thrusting my leg forward and shoving Terisier’s shoulder. The force was stronger than when Terisier had pushed me earlier.

“Hey.”

Terisier, with eyes widened like a cat’s, took two steps back and lightly bumped his head against Obella’s chest. Astonished by the push, he muttered “Hey” in the same tone.

I need to manage my image in front of Obella, do you want to get yelled at?

Even though he’s handsome, why would a kid who looks younger than me pick a fight with informal language? In reality, pretending to be good and apologizing or keeping quiet in front of these guys was likely to make me a sucker.

If I just kept quiet now, Terisier would probably keep arguing and ticking off Obella while I owe him. I’m not a kind protagonist and I’m not the type to laugh like a fool watching that.

“Are you close to me?”

“W-What?”

“Who told you to speak comfortably? I didn’t even ask you to treat me like a gentleman. But why do you argue with someone who is quiet? And how pathetic is the leader you see? Did you think you could not escape? Didn’t you see all fall for that one?”

“C-crazy… What are you doing now?”

“Crazy? Crazy? Crazy?”

“…”

Terisier kept repeating a whispering curse, and I quietly repeated it. Terisier closed his mouth to shut up instead of trying to talk. I looked at Terisier and smiled happily.

“Yeah, Terisier. I told you that you thought the leader was pathetic. I said it was something you couldn’t be sure of and that you should decide for yourself. You didn’t say anything at the time and followed along.”

“…”

“In that case, you should have helped the leader’s decision or stopped the ambush yourself. What else did you do but run away from the corpse coming in? I still made a new suggestion. Thanks to that, I was sure that Zerdan was with Diswen and I knew that she wasn’t dead yet.”

“That, well….”

“If you’re going to criticize others, at least say something and criticize. Right, Bella?”

I asked, smiling innocently at Obella as I looked at Terisier, but he didn’t say much in response, seemingly a little taken aback by my appearance.

“Now that our business here is done, it’s probably best to leave the scene. We might be misunderstood if people see us lingering around these corpses. Or is there someone you need to ask?”

“…I’ll take care of it before leaving. They also need to return to their families.”

“That might take some time then. I’m not sure of the way back, but Terisier probably doesn’t need to stay here, right?”

With a casual tone hinting at asking Terisier for a favor, Obella looked at Terisier. Seeing him still standing dumbfounded, Obella nodded his head.

“Then we’ll head back first. From what I saw earlier, even if we’re ambushed, I trust Bella.”

“I also…! It wasn’t that I doubted the leader’s strength…”

“Then we’ll see you in a bit.”

Whether Terisier spoke or not, he crossed his arms and walked out the door.

Whether it was because of my momentum earlier or not, Terisier couldn’t bring himself to push me away and quickly withdrew his hand from his chest.

“Hey, weren’t you just pretending in front of the leader?”

“Hey? You too?”

As he teased me, I gently pushed his hand aside and smiled, causing Terisier to cautiously change the subject.

“…What about you…”

“Oh, I was going to, but it’s not something I need to do to the point of making you angry. Being quiet and innocent isn’t the only charm a woman can have.”

“Why are you suddenly using honorifics? It’s scary.”

Seeing him look frightened, I smiled at him.

“Even if you’re young, you should still be polite. I think someday Terisier will use honorifics with me too.”

“I thought Diswen was unpredictable… but you seem worse. Scary enough.”

“It’s not that bad… More importantly, Terisier’s abilities seem to be changing.”

“I’m not going to tell you about that.”

“It’s okay. It’s normal. You shouldn’t reveal information too easily. Terisier is doing well.”

But if it’s just a new ability, it’s a bit of a headache.