Artoria the Big Liar

Chapter Twenty: Sincere Praise

Back at the residence, the hour and minute hands on the wall clock coincided with 12.

I turned on the air conditioner, temporarily put down the big and small bags, and went straight to the kitchen.

The witch turned on the TV, randomly found a TV show that was on the air, and passed the time.

I didn't continue the small talk with her.It’s not that there’s nothing to talk about, but I’m used to doing something with as little distraction as possible, especially cooking dishes that require careful planning.

【}}

In the middle of lunch, at about twelve forty, Mordred's voice finally appeared in the room.

"Sister, I'm back!"

"Welcome back. Lunch will be late today, until one o'clock. Also... Mordred, you don't have to call my sister at home anymore"

This is my own decision.

Although it is difficult to express it in words, I think my state of mind has indeed been changed a lot by the witch.

At least, I no longer just blindly avoid the identity of King Arthur as the witch said, but try to face it squarely.

It's hard, but if life does go on so peacefully, it's not impossible to come to terms with those deaths, those sins, those haunting memories.By that time, I'm afraid I really will be Arthur.

But the time was too short after all, it was only a morning.Mordred opened his eyes wide, and sat on the chair at the dining table backwards, with his elbows resting on the back of the chair. He looked curiously at me who was cutting meat in the kitchen, and instinctively communicated with me in Britton.

"Ah? Father, do you really not need to address elder sister at home?"

"Yes, I don't need it in the future... Sure enough, I'm still not used to this kind of address."

"Father... Are you really fascinated by that witch? It's only been less than a day, right? This is too..."

"It's not what you think. It's just that through some of her words, I want to understand some things. Maybe I did something wrong in the past, maybe I really used the wrong way of coping now, all of which have to be proved by time .I'm just trying to change. Change doesn't necessarily have good results, but it's better than doing nothing."

"Is that so..."

Despite being lost in thought, Mordred's pupils were not lost and depressed, but calm and relaxed.

Maybe it has something to do with what happened to her in the morning?Or is it just that I am getting better?

I don't quite understand, any more than Mordred understands my change.

Instead, the witch's dissatisfaction came from the sofa.

"Hey, you two, what are you talking about? Are you speaking ill of me?"

After all, she still couldn't understand the ancient Briton language, and it was difficult for her to intervene in the conversation between Mordred and me.

Even because of the viewing angle, [-,

Then, answer her in normal Japanese: "No, it's just a small talk between family members."

The witch sighed, and said helplessly: "I'm staying here temporarily, so can't I speak Japanese? You can't speak ancient British and I can speak French to you, right? You can speak ancient British and I'll listen to you." I don't understand, you can understand me when I speak French? Help me, please forgive me?"

"Cough... Mordred, if you can speak Japanese in the future, let's speak Japanese." That's all I can say now.

"Ah...Sorry, Father...Well, I was just a little confused just now..." Mordred looked at the witch on the sofa, his eyes became sharp, and he said the word "Father" It's not a mouthful at all, as if it has been practiced many times: "Hey! Witch! What method did you use against the father?"

"What method? I'm already a witch, what else can I do? Of course it's a potion? I prepared the potion, and Arthur drank it with peace of mind. Although the effect is not as good as the forgetting potion, her heart disease is much better. Oh? You have to thank me!"

"Potion?" "Potion!?"

Mordred and I spoke at the same time, and the voices were equally incredible.

I don't remember drinking anything in the morning except for the bowl of strawberry-flavored Haagen-Dazs and the iced milk tea in the café.

Mordred was so surprised, probably because he couldn't understand that the potion could really work on me.

At this time, the witch's voice became more cheerful: "Hmph, it seems that you don't understand! Potions don't necessarily have to be things that actually exist. It's like the word witch is not limited to Like women. A word, a look, or a gesture may be the witch's potion. As long as the magic spell is passed on through a certain medium, and then it takes effect on the other party, from a mysterious concept, it is equivalent to taking the magic potion. Got the potion, huh?"

Maybe it's because my expectations are too high, or the feeling in the coffee shop is too deep, so I'm inevitably a little bit disappointed.

How could it not be lost?When you find that the touch in your heart is not from your heart, but something that has been disturbed, influenced, and deliberately generated, anyone will be lost, right?It can only be said that I have forgotten the meaning of the word "witch".Expecting to get spiritual comfort from the witch is simply drinking poison to quench thirst. In the final analysis, it is just...

"But the potion that Arthur took this time is not the same?" The witch chuckled and said soft words, but it was like a chisel carved a mark in the depths of my heart: "What she took was not mine. The curse, but my emotions... Is it true? According to the legend, your mother just barely used the curse to interfere with her cognition. That is the queen of Avalon! It seems that she was once the goddess of the underworld in Britain! Trying to use a spell to influence her for a long time, your mother can't do it, how can I do it?"

The hanging heart suddenly fell, which made me feel dizzy.

On the contrary, Mordred opened his eyes wide, and the words that came out of his mouth almost made my eyes go dark.

"That is to say, you also seduced the father?"

"Hey! What kind of seduction... You bastard, can you talk!"

The witch was quite annoyed... But, she didn't seem to deny it completely?

After all, that's about as much as she behaved at breakfast?

Mordred also noticed this, his smile became more and more unruly, and he didn't care that I was also listening.

"Sure enough, it's still seduction! Witches are like this! Before, I heard rumors that my mother seduced my father, and that's why I was born. I still found it strange and didn't believe it at all. After all, how could such a great existence as my father May be seduced? How can a delicate person like my mother use such indecent means to seduce? Unexpectedly, the father and king can also be seduced... Could it be that this is what the book said? ? I was really born like this? But I am a man-made human? And the attitude of the father towards that woman..."

It's all said here, even if my concentration is as strong as mine, I still have to forcefully interrupt her words: "Mordred, pay attention to what you say, if you are not sure, you'd better look up the specific meaning of those words first. You With a computer in my house and an internet connection, it’s not hard to look up the basics.”

"Ah, sorry, father...I..."

She finally realized that I was listening, and the sound of my meat-cutting knife had stopped!

Seeing her extremely nervous appearance, I couldn't bear it in my heart, so I had no choice but to continue to comfort her.

"It's okay, Mordred, just pay more attention in the future."

The witch can read the air very well, or she herself felt very embarrassed, so she quickly changed the topic: "In short, I am a witch. The word witch is defined by magicians, and it refers to non-human beings hidden in the world. Human beings exist, parasitic in human society under the guise of human identity. But don’t worry, I am neither a goblin like Oberon, nor an elf like a lamp god, and I am not a demon born from malice... As for who am I? What, I don't know yet. On the contrary, through these two days, I gradually understand what kind of witch I am."

"What is it? Could it be the Witch of Love?" Mordred became active again.

The voice of the witch was smiling: "You guessed wrong, Mordred. The characteristics of witches are fixed, such as flame witches, frost witches, and poison witches. However, the definition of a word like love is too broad. Everyone's definition of love is subtly different. So, no one can be the witch of love."

"If it's not the Witch of Love, what else could it be?"

"It's 'Dragon Witch'?" The word Witch suddenly made my eyelids twitch, and my heart was startled. "Using flying dragons, manipulating sub-dragons, and accompanying dragons, the 'Dragon Witch' who brought disaster, death, and destruction to the entire kingdom? My spells and potions are only effective on dragons. I don't even need a magic spell." Curse, with just words, I can appease the dragon's fury. Even Mordred, you can feel this, right? Otherwise, how could I still be sitting here, waiting to eat the fried rice made by Arthur himself? Where's the steak? I've already run far away, even out of this city!"

Mordred didn't think much of it, and continued to ask curiously like a child: "Dragon Witch? But your deeds happened in the early fifteenth century, right? Were there dragons in that era?"

"Of course there are no dragons... As for why this is so, I don't know."

"Is the family related to the legend of the dragon? For example, the Tepes family in Wallachia." I put forward my guess.

If the witch admits it, it means that she is not Jeanne Darke, but another existence under the guise of this name—in words that magicians can understand, she is a servant similar to the class of "pretender".

If the witch denies it, then this matter will be quite interesting.Perhaps the saint disappeared for some reason, and the magic family like Einzbern had to create her as a replacement.Or maybe it is a hypothesis put forward by modern times. Joan of Arc is not a peasant girl from Lorraine at all, but the illegitimate daughter of Charles V, who deceives the world as a saint.

However, the witch's answer was beyond my expectation—she didn't answer the question itself at all.

"Where do I have a family? No matter how you think about it, it's impossible, right? And if it's really related by blood, then I should be similar to you, a half-human, half-dragon existence. How could it be the 'Dragon Witch' ?Besides, my memories before I was alive are all forged, and my identity must be forged too. Does it really matter who I was before? Anyway, I don’t think it matters at all. I don’t care about myself. Why do you care so much? Even if you ask It’s crazy, I can’t answer your questions, can I?”

"It seems that you have quite a lot of secrets." I couldn't help but comment.

"Secrets are one of the sources of a witch's power. The more secrets there are, the stronger the witch will be. Only weak witches have no secrets."

Because of the vision, the witch couldn't look at me, so naturally she couldn't feel my feelings.

This is enough to show that this slightly clever witch really doesn't care about these past events, and she doesn't even care about future events.She only cares about the present and only thinks about the present.If you don't have money, you will wander the streets. If you have money, you will boldly spend it for pleasure.If you don't have someone you like, you will reject everything, and if you have someone you like, you will pursue it desperately.So much so that I don't know whether to say that she is open-minded and free-spirited, or muddling along.

"But don't I think you are quite weak? How can you be strong?" Hearing Mordred say this, I almost laughed out loud.

"Didn't I just say that I am the Dragon Witch!" Sure enough, the witch's voice became even more annoyed: "My weapons are banners and swords. My banners can attract powerful dragon species, and even dragon armies! My sword can Release the flames, and can burn any living thing into ashes! Even in this age, as long as I get back my treasure, I can do both! Originally, as a dragon witch, I don’t know many spells , and can only be used against dragons. Without swords and banners, how can I be powerful!"

"So, what's the name of your dragon? It should be famous, right?" Mordred kept asking like an eight-year-old child.And because she is indeed very strong, the respondent has no possibility of rejecting it... However, it can still be prevaricated: "I even forged my own memory, how could I know such a thing?"

"That's a pity, I still want to find a chance to practice with dragons—but it shouldn't be very powerful, right? A dragon that can be used by a witch should be similar to a beast, right? It's really nothing to beat a dragon of this level Bragging. That guy Lancelot is like that, never mentioning that he fought a dragon."

"Tsk..." The witch just made such a sound, and stopped talking to Mordred.

She immediately switched the channel, turned up the TV volume by the way, and the peaceful romantic comedy suddenly turned into a war movie full of gunfire, artillery fire and shouting, and then angrily threw the remote control on the sofa, refusing any subsequent communication.

Mordred didn't say much, just smiled, went to his room, and turned on his computer.

Time passed slowly with the crackling of steak.As the steak is cooked, the lunch preparation phase ends, and it enters the phase of waiting for the rice to come out of the pan.

So, I washed my hands in the sink, took off my apron, and came to the witch.A war movie was playing on the TV, but the witch's eyes were staring blankly at the intersection of the wall and the ceiling, as if daydreaming.It wasn't until I sat next to her that she finally realized it, glanced at me, pretended to be watching TV again, and didn't want to talk to me at all—Mordred's words really made her very upset.As Mordred's father, I am also implicated in this.

Even so, I still have to ask the questions that should be asked, otherwise I will always feel blocked in my heart.

"Witch, are you sure your ability will also work on me and Mordred?"

"About this, can't you feel it yourself?" The witch didn't look at me, but slumped on the sofa.Combined with her current cheap short-sleeved shirt, there is a decadent temperament like a Heisei abandoned house. "Why, you realized that this was not in your heart, so you started to hate me? Arthur, you shouldn't be such a shallow person, right? This ability is beyond my control, it is a kind of talent of mine. The talent of being a pure dragon is the same—for example, the appetite is ten times that of ordinary people."

"Of course I'm not the kind of person who hates others for a single reason. I just think we should understand it deeply, so as not to take this into account when encountering specific situations in the future, which will cause trouble and cause misunderstandings."

"Hmph, it's good that you know... Anyway, that's the truth. What's that sentence called... Reality doesn't depend on people's will? I'm a witch, and you're a dragon, but there's definitely no way to change this. Bar?"

"Mordred and I are not ordinary dragon species, but the embodiment of the mystery of the island itself. Considering the particularity of Britain, we are equivalent to Nidhogg, Yinglong, and Radon in terms of dragon personality. Your witch characteristics are effective for me and Mordred, which is enough to show that your character and status in the ranks of witches is not low, at least about the same as Medea."

"Can I take these words as a compliment?"

Perhaps really attracted by the nature of "Dragon Witch"?Or is it simply the light of the witch shining in my heart?I have no idea.I only know that the feeling from the coffee shop has returned, and my frozen heart gradually warms up, driving away the darkness and pain, making me squint my eyes, making me feel that I am not just a puppet on the stage, I really became Arthur.

"Of course. It's a compliment from the bottom of my heart."

After speaking, there was a "beep" sound from the rice cooker, and the making of lunch was completely over.

I stood up and prepared for the final serving process.However, the witch also stood up together, and went to the kitchen with me, helping to serve the dishes while chatting as before.Mordred also came out of his house to dig rice out of the rice cooker.

A delicious lunch, a peaceful lunch... just the kind of peaceful days I've always dreamed of.

(5000 words in this chapter)

Chapter 21: Cats at Play

In the afternoon, things suddenly changed.

In other words, the backlog of trivial matters can finally no longer be suppressed.

I took the witch and Mordred and walked the streets again.It's just that this time it's no longer aimless shopping, but shopping with a purpose, which is the first big purchase since moving.

Mordred also has a formal suit, and the price is not as expensive as the one I wear, but ordinary people can't tell the difference.Then there are at least two sets of daily clothes for the three of them to change and wash—this time the witch didn’t show off her personality, but chose ordinary clothes honestly, so she had some preferences in colors and patterns , is what a high school girl should look like.

Then contact the landlord to sign the lease contract for the vacant house next door, and move in when Morgan and Merlin actually arrive.

For the consideration of the next three years, there are still two bicycles, one for me and one for Mordred—no way, the age in the passport is under 18, and they cannot obtain a motor vehicle driver’s license, so they can only use bicycles temporarily Come to the top.

In this way, I went around and around, stopped and watched, and returned home repeatedly, and it was already evening.

We went home for dinner, and we went to the theater to watch a movie, which was about family.Probably because of the schedule, the film was lackluster and quite boring, not to mention the actors' acting skills were rather stiff, and the story itself had a lot of problems, which made me drowsy after watching it.On the contrary, the Witch and Mordred watched it with gusto, not feeling bored at all.

As the stars moved, the sun set and the sun rose, the next morning, inside the school teachers, a witch in formal attire bowed her head slightly to the entire class.

"My name is Jona Amano. Please give me your advice in the future."

"Amano's mother works in France. Because she is busy with her career and has no time to take care of her, and it coincides with the start of the French school season, she sent Amano back to Japan to go to school. Because of this reason, Amano's Mandarin will be difficult, especially for The recognition of Chinese characters will be relatively low. Please take care of Amano-san in the future, too?"

When the history of Japan in the first session of the morning ended, the witch was immediately surrounded by people.

This time, unlike my situation where there are only girls, there are both boys and girls around the witch, and the majority of them are boys—after all, it is rare for a witch to have a good figure in the first year of high school, and she has a beautiful face. She also wore light makeup and exuded a charm different from ordinary people. It was not normal if it wasn't for this situation.

Naturally, the witch was bombarded with questions from her classmates.But the witch is a witch after all, she didn't say a word, but her smile became brighter and brighter.Most of the students in the class are inexperienced and do not understand the danger of her smile. If a Briton is overly polite, the more he hates the other person, the more bright the smile of the French, the more it represents suppressed anger and impending explosion. Danger.

After all, no one would feel comfortable being surrounded like this after having been in a daze for the entire class like being in jail.

I got up and went to Jeanne.

"Jeanna, come with me, I have something to tell you."

"Hey, what's your relationship with Amano-san? You're using such a tone? Who do you think you are?"

The person who said this was Kenichi Tanaka, a well-known thorn in the class, and a typical male high school student.

I maintained the curvature of the corners of my mouth and communicated with this person in as calm a tone as possible.

"Student Tanaka, the relationship between me and Jeanna seems to have nothing to do with you, right?"

"You bastard...!"

His expression immediately became fierce.It's just that I'm not very young, and this vicious imitation is very strong. It seems to come from a movie, but the freshman in high school thought it was cool and did it.This can be easily seen from the unmanaged hair, the deliberately crooked clothes, and the two socks of inconsistent colors.

For such a big boy in adolescence, I will not show any sympathy, squinting my eyes, silently releasing coercion.