Chapter 161: Jiaoying’s Ex?
"Whoa. Who’s the fancy sum-bitch?"
"No clue. My old man had a carriage that gaudy once."
"Yeah? Pays to be the most feared swordsman in all the land, huh? Must’ve been cool to be his kid on that island."
"Please, don’t remind me of my lineage. We don’t all get warm parents who leave us magical inheritances."
Raizel flipped over Everett’s head and swung at him from midair.
At the last moment, the young horseman blocked the strike, then started following up with his own counterattack.
"Do you think that carriage showing up has anything to do with everyone blowing right by us when they came back?" Everett performed a sweeping low-kick that Raizel easily stepped over. "Lioraeth was the only one who seemed to acknowledge I was awake-"
"’Lioraeth’?" Raizel repeated the name like it was amusing. "Not ’Mother’?"
"...Look, she’s nice and all, but I already got a mom who comes with enough baggage. I don’t really need a second."
After stepping over Everett’s leg-kick, Raizel smirked before giving him a hard smack over the head with the flat of his blade.
Everett fell onto his butt, sufficiently bested.
"Coming from someone who has watched their mother die twice..."
Raizel buried the blade of his sword in the ground before kneeling to be at eye level with Everett.
"It would be the greatest gift of my life if I suddenly awoke to have a second mother. And one who seemed to want nothing from me but affection, no less. Strange it may be, but... I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss it if I were you."
The young swordsman held out his hand. Everett stared at it for just a moment before accepting and getting pulled to his feet.
"...Pulling out the dead mom card is low."
"It doesn’t come up very often. I have to use it when I can." Raizel shrugged.
Suddenly, the entrance to the lift rose open, revealing Lia inside.
"Hey! If you guys are done, I thought of some more questions that I’d really like to ask for my new dissertation! You have a minute??"
Raizel clammed up slightly.
"Uhm... I can’t. Because... I’m sad about my mom dying."
Lia’s eyes immediately softened. "Oh... I understand. Please take your time. Do you want to talk about it? I know it may not seem like it sometimes, but I’m a really good listener!"
Everett had to turn away from Lia so that she wouldn’t burst out laughing and give away the entire ruse.
As she looked toward him in confusion, her eyes caught sight of a familiar carriage held up at the road by Lioraeth’s guards.
Her brow nearly lifted off her face. "Papa?"
"So, the master of the Magic Tower is your father then... Well, that makes this even more messy..."
The group looked up to find Lioraeth descending from the top of the spire. She was dressed in much more regal clothes than normal. She even had her hair done up in a rather fantastical style.
Lia tilted her head. "Why would he even come here..?"
"Apparently, he’s looking for you and your brother."
The young girl frowned. "That’s not like him, I mean, sure, he’s a little overprotective, but it’s not like he’s the sort to come looking for me all the time. It’s not like I just skipped work, and I have my bodyguard, so..."
Slowly, Liora turned behind her as if she were looking for someone.
Her head snapped back around, and there was clear panic across her face.
"OH, MY STARS I FORGOT I DITCHED MAX!"
She paused again as she looked around Lioraeth’s front yard.
"...AND I FORGOT TO TELL HIM I WASN’T COMING TO WORK!"
Lioraeth palmed her face. "How can such an ingenious young woman be so scatterbrained..?"
For some reason, Lia seemed to take offense to her remark, and it broke the dam that had been holding back her emotions for all this time.
"For one, I have ADHD! For two, I thought I was going to just drop by my mom’s house and get the drop on her, but all of a sudden, she walks in, looking younger than me and covered in tattoos!
THEN two old farts come and start tearing apart her house, forcing that blue behemoth to come out, and she smiles at me, and I have to resist the urge to blast her face off!
AFTER THAT, I try to get answers out of my mom for the next two days, and she avoids me like I’m an old fling telling her she has a child! THEN we come here, and I find out that not only has she been getting along fine without us, but she’s also, get this- pansexual! Did you know that!? I sure didn’t!
SO THEN I have to somehow wrap my mind around the fact that my pansexual mother, who everyone in the empire is terrified of, is now sleeping with the hottest woman I have ever seen, who also happens to be Elven, like what!? Then she’s also got this really dreamy guy who is also really big and scary, but most importantly, HE’S YOUNGER THAN ME!"
Raizel and Everett snorted in unison. ""I’m way better looking than Solomon.""
The young men paused and stared at each other, their moment of mimicry perfectly unplanned.
"FINALLY, we get here, and I find out about guys coming back from the dead, I hear my mom having sex and using pet names with her old teacher and a virtual god!
THEN I HEAR ABOUT A CONSPIRACY THAT THREATENS TO THROW ALL OF KOMEN INTO DARKNESS! AND WHEN I TRY TO DISTRACT MYSELF BY STUDYING, I SUDDENLY FIND MYSELF GETTING FLIRTED WITH BY SOME HOT GUY WITH WINGS!"
Everett winked at her. "Always happy to be a distraction, honey. You just say the word whenever you want your mind blown."
It was a good thing Lia wasn’t in the right state of mind to process his words; they may have very well caused her to burst a blood vessel.
Her voice was already progressively getting louder, and her face was as red as a cherry tomato.
"SO YOU’LL HAVE TO FORGIVE ME IF I FIND IT HARD TO THINK ABOUT WORK OR FAMILY RIGHT NOW, WHEN EVERYTIME I TURN AROUND MY MINDS GETTING BLOWN INTO MOLECULES WITH NEW INFORMATION!!"
Lia gasped, finally taking her first deep breath after several seconds of rambling/ screaming.
"Chipmunk...?"
Slowly, the group turned around.
They found a man standing on Lioraeth’s lawn with a slack jaw and a disbelieving expression.
Lia cleared her throat as she wiped her smudged glasses.
*A-Ahem...* "...Hello, Papa... What brings you here..?"