“It’s all over!!”
She then grabbed the man’s and my hands—
—and rushed through the expo hall toward an empty meeting room.
I had no choice but to follow.
“So yer the girl called Azusa! Heard lots and lots about ya!” said the man.
“Watter feefler! Sheez mers!”
The woman spoke, too, but I couldn’t catch anything she said…
“Oh yes. I am the Witch of the Highlands. Are you Beelzebub’s parents? Your daughter always takes very good care of me and my family. You are both quite different from her.”
The man burst out laughing.
“Well, yer right there! We’re yer run-o’-the-mill farmers! Our daughter’s yet to be paid for all’er actin’!”
“Yee, ahr! Dresnel!”
I didn’t know what the woman was saying, but I could tell she was laughing, too.
“I—I see… But, Beelzebub, I don’t understand what your mother is saying to me…”
“Azusa, Ma just said their house is a plain old farmhouse. ’Tis normal you do not understand her. I doubt anyone in the town around Vanzeld Castle can.”
Things were happening so fast that I had no idea where to begin! But there was one thing I simply had to ask first—
“Um, Beelzebub. Did you just call your mom ‘Ma’?”
“If you say any more, Azusa, I will curse you for a thousand lifetimes.”
Apparently, that topic was off-limits…
Beelzebub told me everything in the empty meeting room.
“I believe I’ve told you before that I have not always acted in this manner, but I still loathe the idea of you meeting the two of them.”
Beelzebub glanced over at her parents.
“I am not embarrassed by the countryside—I am embarrassed by them!”
“What’s so embarrassin’ ’bout us, mmm? Our business’s doin’ good!”
“Inne black an’ fennin’ drew! Drewin’ fenn!”
Beelzebub’s face went red again.
“No! I speak not of your business! I am embarrassed at the prospect of showing you to others! But you have no idea!”
After she buried her face in her hands again, Beelzebub pulled out a piece of paper and slid it toward me.
“Write an oath. Swear that you will not speak a word of this to any other soul.”
I knew that if I broke this promise, it would ruin our friendship forever.
“…Okay. I won’t tell anyone. I swear.”
The problems between parents and children sure were complicated.
The day’s expo went off without a hitch (probably).
It would apparently continue over the following two days, but the rest of the family and I would be returning to Vanzeld Castle that day and then going home the day after.
Beelzebub and I returned to the girls.
“Miss Beelzebub! The apple pie was really tasty!”
“This was truly a great day. Shalsha would like to express her deepest thanks.”
“Aye, yes! ’Tis your smiles that give me life!”
Beelzebub might act all chipper in front of the girls, but I knew she had secrets she didn’t want anyone to know about. This was a very serious matter for her, and I swore to never bring it up, no matter what. Vania seemed likely to let something slip, but for now, everything was fine.
“Oh yes. That’s right. Miss Azusa?”
When Vania called my name, I jumped. She wasn’t going to talk about Beelzebub’s parents, was she…?
“There is a small group of individuals gathered who have business with you. I would like to take you to them.”
“Huh…? What do they want?”
The first person I thought of who might want something from me was Pecora, but Vania had mentioned a group. Who could it be?
“It’s not demons wanting to test their might against me, right?”
“No. They are not even demons.”
Still unsure of what she meant, I was taken to an empty lot behind the expo hall. Once there, I finally understood.
Waiting in the empty lot was a little group of basilisks and deer.
“It’s all the friends we met while riding on the robot kaiju!”
I had no idea they’d come all this way to see me. I went and patted all the deer on the heads one by one, and I did the same for the basilisks. I’d thought they were unusually comfortable around me, and it seemed like I wasn’t wrong.
The rest of the family pet the deer and basilisks as well. Some seemed happy; others looked a bit frightened. Sandra, in particular, probably had to worry about deer nibbles…
“Wow! The deer and the basilisks eat apples, too~!”
Falfa’s eyes shone as she watched a basilisk munch on her offering. It was like a little petting zoo.
Vania brought over some more fruit, and we gave those to the animals, too. This was an apple expo, so they probably had a lot of leftovers.
“Yes, eat up! Eat up! These are the tastiest apples in all the land! Any animal or monster would rush straight for them! Yes, these are Demon Apples!”
Beelzebub seemed pleased by the animals’ reactions. She was the minister of agriculture, after all. She might have her secrets, but there was no doubt she was great at her job.
There was, however, one thing I really wanted to say to her right now.
I tapped Beelzebub on the shoulder.
“Mmm? Yes, Azusa?”
“If you knew about an apple that delicious, why didn’t you show us that one first?!”
She’d taken us to all the weird apples instead! I’d never even heard of this one!
“Oh, right… There were so many varieties, I simply forgot.”
“Give one here, now! I want to eat it!”
The apples I ate with the deer and basilisks were the best I had all day.
“This. This is what I’ve been searching for.”
“’Twould not be much of an expo if we only had the one kind.”
As the event came to an end, I was reminded that there was a reason some roads were more well-traveled than others.
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