The White Cat That Swore Vengeance Was Just Lazing on the Dragon King’s Lap - Volume 6 - Chapter SS

Side Story: A Childhood Tale

“Oho, this is you as a child, is it?” asked Jade.

“What do you think? Pretty cute, if I do say so myself,” stated Ruri, tooting her own horn as she and Jade looked at a photo album that her parents had brought over from their world. They were lying in bed, shoulder to shoulder, flipping through it.

Inside were a wide variety of pictures from Ruri’s childhood, dating back to when she was a newborn. With her light platinum blonde hair and younger facial features, Ruri had been as adorable as an angel. She was by no means trying to boast about herself, but she did give off that impression, objectively speaking. Then again, babies were cute regardless of their creed or country.

Ruri seemed positively delighted looking at the photos of her parents holding her in their arms. Her smile at the time made it clear that she’d had no idea that a disaster named Asahi was waiting for her down the line. If Ruri had a time machine, she would go back and plead with her parents on her hands and knees to move. That was just how perpetually cursed Ruri’s life had been starting from her childhood up until she first met Chelsie. Looking at the photos, Jade caught on to that as well.

“Hm? Your hair was dark around this time,” Jade said, looking at a picture of Ruri in grammar school. She was wearing a dark wig, and her face was pouty.

“That’s right. That was the result of reasons beyond my control. Plus, I was already getting picked on by this point. And even when I tried to play hooky, Asahi would come over to my house, so I couldn’t run. Point is, I was pretty determined not to give in.”

“I see that you had quite a rough childhood as well, Ruri,” Jade commented.

Curious as to why he phrased it like that, Ruri asked, “‘As well’? Were you also bullied, Jade-sama?”

That was impossible. Jade was the strongest dragonkin around—strong enough to be crowned king. There was no doubt that he boasted considerable strength even in his formative years.

However, contrary to Ruri’s expectations, Jade confirmed his word choice with a wry smile. “Yes, I was driven to tears almost every day.”

Ruri couldn’t believe her ears. “Huh? Are you serious?! You’re not joking?”

“I’m not. I was bullied and would come running to Master Quartz in tears,” Jade admitted, smiling nostalgically.

“Wow, you had a period like that in your life?” Ruri asked, realizing that she’d never heard Jade talk about his past. “What was your childhood like, Jade-sama?”

“My childhood?”

“You said that you were driven to tears, so what kind of child were you? That was when you were with Quartz-sama, right?”

“Yes. Let’s see. Well, it’s hard to put into a few words, but...” Jade started as he reached back in time.

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

Jade was unusually weak for a dragonkin child. He was noticeably shorter than the other kids his age, and he had a mild-mannered personality. In spite of this, his mana was very strong, so much so that it would often go berserk, and he couldn’t control it.

Given Jade’s uniqueness, his parents had no idea what to do with him. Dragonkin, by nature, favored a hands-off approach, but with Jade’s mana acting up so often, he required the tender care only parents could provide. Yet Jade’s parents not only didn’t cover for him, but they pretty much left him be. Dragonkin had the strength to mature even without supervision, but as Jade grew, so did his mana until finally his parents completely gave up.

It would be easy to blame his parents, but they had no idea what to do with Jade since his mana was so much stronger than their own. Dragonkin had strong bodies that could withstand their great mana, so someone whose mana went berserk, like Jade, was a rare case. After much deliberation, Jade’s parents decided to leave his upbringing to Quartz, the Dragon King at the time, because he was famous for his ability to manipulate mana.

After that was decided, Jade went to live in the castle. At first, he didn’t open up to anyone. Although he was just a child, the idea of being abandoned by his parents affected him to the point he became introverted. The only one who would persevere and speak to Jade was Quartz, and Jade gradually opened up to him.

One day, some kids Jade’s age were bullying him, and he returned to the castle battered and bruised. Though his mana was immense and strong, his body was small and weak. There was no shortage of children who resented him for being close to the Quartz, the Dragon King. The Dragon King was the strongest entity around, the object of any child’s adoration. The kids envied him because their idol took care of the weak Jade, so they constantly took out their frustrations on him.

And every time Jade came back home with tears in his eyes, Quartz would be there, greeting him with a wry smile.

“Why don’t you try fighting back, Jade?” Quartz suggested.

“I can’t. I mean, they come at me in numbers.”

“But you can take them one-on-one?”

“That’s...not possible... I’m a weakling,” Jade refuted with a tear-soaked face.

“Jade, you’re not weak at all.”

“You can save the compliments. It makes me feel even more hollow.”

“I’m not simply complimenting you. If you can master a mana as great as yours, then not only can you fight back against your bullies, but you may very well defeat me and become Dragon King yourself.”

Jade gave Quartz a highly suspicious look.

“By that expression, I assume you’re not convinced. All right, why don’t you let me train you, then?”

“Train me?”

“The entire reason you were left in my care was so that you would learn how to handle your mana. And seeing as how you’ve gotten used to life in the castle, I figured that it was about time to teach you how to master your powers. Well, how about it? Care to give it a shot?”

“Will I become stronger if I train, sire?”

“But of course. I’ll make you stronger than any bully.”

Jade pondered it for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll do it. Please train me.”

“All righty, you got it. Training starts tomorrow.”

After that, the grueling practice began. At first, Jade thought that Quartz was a kindly young man who always wore a gentle smile, but as soon as training started, that vision came crumbling down. With a smile that implied he wouldn’t hurt a fly, Quartz conducted a gruesome regimen that brought Jade to tears every single day. No, “to tears” was putting it lightly. He bawled his eyes out.

The training was so intense that the bullying from the kids almost seemed cute. He felt ashamed of himself for crying over such meager antagonism, and he regretted ever saying that he would let Quartz teach him. He would have gladly accepted that little bit of bullying right now with a smile.

As Jade lay on the ground, a battered mess, Quartz called out to him with a jovial tone and a chipper grin.

“Come on, Jade. Quit lazing on the ground and let’s have another go~!”

A demon. Quartz was a demon from the Stygian pits. Perhaps it would be better to just play dead. At this point, Jade was so utterly exhausted that he was willing to consider anything.

“If you don’t get up quick, I’m adding to your regimen,” Quartz said.

Jade sprung to his feet at the speed of light.

And so resumed the hellish training. It was so awful and torturous that Jade tried to run away a few times. All the same, Quartz would quickly catch him and give him even more work to do. Jade had no choice but to smarten up, let the tears flow, and face his training head-on.

Despite the pain and exhaustion, this seemed to be a blessing in disguise. Jade’s mana started going berserk less often, and his body grew stronger. Granted, if he hadn’t seen any results after working himself to the bone, Jade’s heart would have probably snapped like a twig. Fortunately, he was able to feel the results, and that helped to motivate him.

One day, while Jade was going through Quartz’s regimen, a number of boys walked up to him—the bullies who’d been incessantly picking on him. If he were the Jade of old, the mere look of them would have stricken him with fear, but not the Jade as he was now. The training he’d undergone was worse than anything they could ever dish out.

“What do you want?” Jade asked with a fierce gaze, unlike any he’d shown before.

The group of boys buckled from the pressure, but they still had their pride. They stepped forward in spite of Jade’s intimidating aura.

“Y-You’ve got some nerve!” one of them shouted.

“About what?” Jade snapped back with an icy glare. It was hard to believe that this was the same Jade from not too long ago who would go crying to Quartz when he was bullied.

“You’ve got His Majesty taking care of a weakling like you,” said the boss of the pack. “He just feels bad for you. It looks like you’re getting him to train you, but there’s no way that’s going to make you any stronger! You’re just causing His Majesty trouble!”

The boss boy took a swing at Jade. If this had been before, Jade probably would’ve gone flying from the punch, but now that he had trained with Quartz, he dodged the boy’s hand with ease.

“Whoa!” the boy yelped—he hadn’t expected Jade to evade his punch—as his momentum carried him to the ground.

The other boys were speechless.

The boss boy’s face turned bright red, and he yelled at Jade to hide his embarrassment.

“What in the hell are you doing?!”

“Me? I’m not doing anything,” Jade said, as if to imply that the boy had fallen on his own.

The boss boy’s face got even redder. “You cocky brat!”

“Yeah, you’re a cocky whelp! And a weakling!” said another boy.

“His Majesty is our idol!” another added.

Yet another chimed in, saying, “His Majesty is an incredible person. He’s strong, kind, and noble.”

“No. You’re all being fooled,” Jade replied. He’d thought the same way not too long ago—that Quartz was a very kind person. But after all of that hellish training, he wouldn’t call him “kind” by any means. “That man is a demon. A demonic sergeant. Don’t let his appearance fool you.”

Jade didn’t want to shatter their fantasy, but at the same time, he was unable to remain silent. However, only knowing Quartz from what he put on for show, none of the boys were willing to heed Jade’s advice.

“That’s a load of bull!”

“You dare say that after His Majesty has taken care of you?!”

“You’d better stop getting cocky. You’re not his favorite just because His Majesty is kindly leading you through the basics.”

“‘Kindly’?” repeated Jade. He didn’t think he could recover from hearing someone say that Quartz’s instruction was in any way kind.

Jade grabbed the boss boy by the lapels. “In that case, you all can take the training too,” he announced to the flock of bewildered youths.

“Whuh?” the boss boy uttered.

“I’ll put the word in with Master Quartz so that all of you can be a part of the training as well.”

“A-Are you serious?”

“I am,” Jade said.

“And you’re not lying, right? If you’re lying, you’re gonna get it.”

“I’m not.”

The boys were taken in by their own innocent, childlike glee.

“H-Hooray!”

“You mean that I can ask His Majesty to teach me?!”

Looking at them literally jumping for joy, Jade muttered under his breath, “If I’m going down, I’m taking them with me.”

None of the boys noticed the sullen smile painted across Jade’s face.

The following day, the boys who’d been bullying Jade up until now were standing by his side. Quartz looked at all of them, smiling as harmlessly as ever.

“There are so many of you today,” he said.

“It’s a pleasure, sire!” the bully boys all emphatically cried, greeting their idol.

“My regimen is mighty tough. Are you sure about this?” Quartz asked.

“Of course, sire. If this guy can do it, then we surely can,” said the boss boy, smirking condescendingly at Jade.

The boy’s smug look didn’t provoke Jade at all, though. The only thing it did was evoke pity—and a tiny bit of delight.

“Since you’ve agreed, I will not let any of you off. If you want to quit, now’s the time. Well?”

The boys excitedly replied, “No, sire!”

It would be interesting to see how long their energy would last.

“You’re all so energetic. You’d better try to keep up, Jade.”

“Yes, sire...” Jade said, his energy low.

The boys all sneered and snickered at him, but those smiles were about to vanish very soon.

Quartz looked at the boys and said, “Okay, since we have so many new faces, let’s start simple today.”

“No, please don’t mind us; put us through the paces!” the boss boy bravely declared, perhaps trying to show off to Quartz.

Jade mentally screamed, “Stop, you fool!”

“I like your spirit,” Quartz said, smiling. “In that case, I’ll put you on the same regimen as Jade.”

“If he can do it, then it should be cakewalk, sire.”

“Is that a fact? Okay then, let me pass these out first.” Quartz handed each of them the same kind of sword that Jade was currently holding.

Once the boss boy took his, he stumbled from the weight of the blade.

“Whoa, heavy!”

Everyone aside from Jade was shocked at the weight of the swords, which they were barely able to hold with both hands.

“Everyone got one? Good. Then, we’ll do five thousand practice swings with those.”

“Huh?”

“Huh?!”

The boys’ smiles turned into grimaces.

“After that, you’ll carry the swords on your back and do ten laps from Sector One to Sector Twelve as fast as you can. And then...”

“W-Wait a secon—”

“Oh, by the way, this is the morning regimen. At noon, you’ll clash swords in a mock battle with real soldiers in Sector Five. In an endless rotation,” Quartz said, his sweet smile looking more like a devilish smirk. At this point, everyone had already turned pale, but the training from hell wasn’t over yet. “Then, after a short break, we’ll buckle down with some magic control and live magic combat. I’ll be the one facing you all. If you lie down or pass out, then your work for tomorrow is doubled.”

Not a single trace of the bravado the boys had displayed at first remained.

“Now then, I’ll be going back to work, so good luck,” Quartz said before leaving.

The only ones left behind were Jade and the confused boys.

“Huh? Seriously?”

“That was a joke, right?”

“W-Well, duh, of course it was...”

As the boys half-heartedly laughed, Jade grumbled, “Hey, what are you all doing? Morning will be over unless you hurry up.”

“Huh?”

“Just to let you know, if you don’t finish before morning is up, then you’ll get double the amount of work tomorrow.”

Seeing how serious Jade looked as he said that, the boys finally understood that this was no joke. They began to panic when they saw Jade start swinging his sword, but they couldn’t seem to swing their own massive swords—weapons so girthy that even dragonkin children had to hold them with both hands. Meanwhile, Jade was swinging his sword just fine, albeit miserably.

One of the boys who noticed this launched a complaint. “Hey, lend me your sword. Yours is lighter, isn’t it?”

Jade silently handed his sword to the boy, but the sheer weight of it caused the boy to relinquish the weapon. The sword hit the ground with an abnormally loud thud, causing the other boys to gather around.

“That’s a heck of a sound. Hey, you try holding it,” said one of the boys.

“Sure, I’ll just... What the...? This is crazy heavy!”

“This is heavier than ours!”

All eyes turned to Jade.

“You’ve been swinging this thing around?” the boss boy asked.

“I have,” Jade replied.

It was clear that their impressions of Jade had changed ever so slightly.

In the end, the boys couldn’t do the morning routine half as well as Jade could. After lunch, they all had live combat practice against real soldiers in Sector Five’s training grounds, followed by Quartz’s magic training. Then, after all that was over, the regimen from hell left a pile of exhausted bodies in its wake.

“Oh, since no one aside from Jade was able to complete the regimen, you get double tomorrow,” Quartz said. His words were the kiss of death to the other boys’ morale.

Out of all the boys, Jade was the quickest to recover because he had the most experience. He slowly stood up and said, “Now do you understand? I told you. Master Quartz is not a kind person by any stretch.”

No one had enough stamina left to even reply to Jade’s remark.

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

“And that was how my youth went,” Jade finished.

“Mm-hmm. I’m not sure how to put this. Quartz-sama is surprisingly strict—‘Spartan,’ as they say in my language. Any human would’ve been dead by now.”

“Indeed. I’ve never been so glad to be a dragonkin than in that period of my life. I recovered from wounds fast as well,” Jade said, his voice deep as he remembered those days.

“So, tell me, whatever happened to the boys who used to pick on you, Jade-sama?”

“At first, we squabbled, but the training was so severe that bullying anyone became the furthest thing from their minds. Ever since that day, they have completely stopped. In fact, we actually bonded as comrades facing a powerful enemy. Nowadays, we’re drinking buddies.”

“Wow, you all sure got chummy, then,” Ruri commented.

“Because we had a huge wall to overcome named Master Quartz. It was truly severe. And I mean that...” Jade said with a somewhat distant look in his eyes.

Those experiences sounded like they’d been very rough—something Ruri couldn’t envision based on her perception of Quartz.

“Back then, we’d often joke about someone from our group taking Master Quartz down and becoming king to show him up.”

“And that ended up happening since you became king, right?”

“Well, I actually didn’t fight Master Quartz at all, and I couldn’t believe that I became king in the first place. Still, all of the boys I trained with were happy for me, even more so than me.”

Jade smiled nostalgically. Ruri couldn’t help but giggle, seeing him act like that.

“Ruri?” Jade questioned.

“Oh, no. It’s just that I’m marveling at how you, of all people, spent your younger days.”

“Don’t treat me like some old man. I’m young for a dragonkin.”

Ruri knew that Jade would be pushing past his twilight years if he were human, but she decided not to mention it aloud.

“It’s good that you have people like that, though. Comrades you spent your childhood with, that is. I never had any friends like that, so it makes me envious.”

Ruri had never had any close friends—none that she could call a “comrade” or a “bosom buddy,” anyway—since Asahi would constantly get in the way. One could say that this was the very reason Ruri was so quick to adapt to this world, even though she knew she could never return to her own. She probably would have made more of a fuss if all her loved ones had remained in her world and never came here, so in that respect, it was likely a good thing that she’d never had anyone especially close to her. Nonetheless, hearing a story like Jade’s was bound to make her feel a tinge of envy.

“You have Celestine, don’t you?” Jade offered.

Ruri choked on her words. “Let’s just say I’m pretty hesitant about whether I should put Celestine-san in the ‘friend’ category...”

“In my eyes, you two look to get along just fine, so why not?”

“Hmm... I mean, I don’t dislike her. I actually think that she’s an interesting individual. It’s just that... A friend? Well...”

A part of Ruri didn’t want to recognize Celestine as a friend. After all, Celestine had yet to give up on Jade. If it weren’t for that one thing, they probably could have built a good relationship, just as Jade said, but Ruri felt that it was still too early for them. Perhaps Celestine would give up in another ten years? Perhaps when Ruri and Jade had a child? No, Ruri’s instincts told her that something so minor would not deter Celestine.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’ll be happening for a while,” Ruri admitted, assuming that Celestine would give the same answer if posed with the same question. Ruri and Celestine were rivals in love, at least for now.

“So I see,” replied Jade, chuckling.

“Do you still interact with those people, Jade-sama?”

“Yes. In fact, they’re all soldiers at the castle.”

“Huh?!” Ruri gasped, surprised. She pretty much knew every dragonkin soldier in the castle. That meant that the bullies who’d tormented Jade in the past would have to be among them. “Do I know any of them?” she asked.

“I’d assume you would at least recognize their faces. You’re always going off to the training grounds in Sector Five, and they’re always on guard duty or patrol in Sector One.”

“Huh, I wonder which of them it is. Maybe I’ll ask around when I have a chance.”

“I don’t think they’ll answer you even if you ask. They do have a dishonorable record of bullying the Dragon King.”

“Jade-sama, you’re making an extremely devious expression, you know,” Ruri said, commenting on his smirk.

“Sometimes I tease those lugs about it, and they get shaken up in the funniest ways.”

“Yes, I bet they would.”

The children back then would’ve had no way of knowing that the boy they were bullying would turn out to be the very Dragon King they so idolized. Certainly, that piece of their past was a dark history they carried to this day, and Jade toying with them about it probably did a number on their hearts. Considering that, Jade was behaving just as stellar as they once had. To be fair, though, it was a cheeky little way of getting payback for what had happened in the past.

“Do you want me to take you to see them?” Jade asked.

“Yes. That would be great!” Ruri answered immediately, genuinely curious about the people who shared moments of Jade’s precious childhood.

“I can’t wait to see the look on those buncha lugs’ faces. They seemed to be smitten with you when you were a fluffy little cat too. I bet the hope will leave their eyes once they find out you know about what they did to me back then,” Jade said, making an evil face yet again.

That was when it hit Ruri. Jade was speaking demonstrably more colloquially.

“Jade-sama? You have a different personality when you speak about your friends, don’t you?” Ruri asked.

“Do I?” Jade replied with a blank stare, seemingly clueless to the fact himself.

“You do. Your speech is more...childish? Or perhaps casual. I can more or less tell that you open yourself up to those people.”

“Is that how I seem?”

“Yes, and as your wife, I’m a tad jealous, I must say,” Ruri declared, making a deliberately sulky face.

Jade laughed and said, “We went through a lot in the past, but they’re friends near and dear to me now. Still...” Jade trailed off, suddenly bringing his face to Ruri’s and lightly pecking her on the lips, “it goes without saying that you mean the most to me, Ruri.”

“I’m relieved to hear that,” Ruri said with a satisfied smile, glad to hear it although she’d never doubted it in the first place.

“I can set up a meeting, but there will be no turning into a cat and letting them pet you,” Jade decreed.

“No one has touched me since we’ve gotten married, Jade-sama, out of respect for you.”

Dragonkin knew better than anyone how much they cherished their mates and how jealous they became. Maybe that was the reason, when she’d traversed the castle in cat form in the past, that people came out of nowhere to pat her on the head and left. Ever since the wedding, though, no one would come up to touch her even if she was out and about in cat form. She could feel resentful gazes from afar, but that was it. Now that she had become a proper mate, not a single soul could touch her.

Ruri would often hear the sad screams of the dragonkin pointing out her fluffiness or lamenting never being able to experience her soft body ever again. However, there was nothing that Ruri could do, other than tell them to give up. Jade had said that they were smitten with her in cat form, so it was possible that his friends were among those people.

“In that case, maybe I should really lay it on thick and pet your fluffy body in front of them. That’d be a good way to harass ’em.”

“Jade-sama, you really do switch personalities when you talk about them.”

Jade would act differently with Quartz than he would with others, but this was even more pronounced than that. He was acting maliciously. It made Ruri look forward to seeing how he interacted with them once they met in person. She was sure that she would discover some new facet of Jade she never knew.

“Of course, they are great friends of mine,” Jade replied with a smile as kind as could be.