Falke’s parents were finally coming to visit, along with their friends, who were something like uncles and an aunt to him. Currently, he was waiting to welcome them at a highway a short distance from Greer, the Academic City-State, accompanied by Aldrick and his wife Agnes.
However, an outrageous bomb lay in wait at this location. Immense bronze statues of high-ranking mages created with magic had been placed on both sides of the highway in order to welcome people visiting Greer, or perhaps to show off the splendor of magic. The elaborate craftsmanship was nothing short of art, with close attention being paid to every single wrinkle on their clothes, their faces so perfectly reproduced that they were truly lifelike. And yet...the personalities of the people serving as models for the statues hadn’t been taken into consideration.
“This is really bad...” Falke said.
“Yeah, it might be...” Aldrick agreed.
The two men were looking up at one of the bronze statues, which numbered over ten in total, and they sighed as they were confronted with a problem they had been ignoring up until now.
“But it’s too late to do anything about it now...”
“Yes, it’s a bit late...”
The two friends of similar age had expressions of resignation, as if to say, “Whatever will be, will be.”
“It’s very well-made, but...it really is bad...” Agnes was similarly concerned, and she had dropped her facade.
Falke and the rest were looking at the statue of a young woman. The person raising a twisted staff to the sky and wearing heavy robes was the greatest Witch in history. She’d reached the abyss of magic and served as the strategist of the Hero’s party, ultimately becoming one of the distinguished individuals who defeated the Great Demon King and saved the world. Lara, the Witch of Annihilation, was a dazzling beauty who overflowed with wisdom as she smiled up at the blue sky. The statue of Lara created by the mages of the past, who hadn’t been aware of her inner self, depicted her as something like a sage, completely unlike the real Lara, who had a sharp tongue and constantly had her lips curled up into a smirk.
“I don’t think she’ll blow it away or anything, but it will make her brow wrinkle more than ever before,” Aldrick said with some optimism.
“Aldrick, that would be true if my mother was alone. With my father teasing her, she might blow it away, along with him.” As their son, Falke knew how his parents interacted, so he thought it was too soon to relax.
“When Mr. Sazaki is involved, Miss Lara’s boiling point lowers drastically,” Agnes said in agreement.
“If worse comes to worst, I’ll calm my mother down somehow.” As evident by the normal conversation they’d been having so far, Falke was surprisingly sensible for the son of Sazaki and Lara; perhaps they’d served as the perfect examples of what not to do.
I can only describe them as unusual parents. Falke thought back to his childhood and could only describe his parents as eccentrics. Although both of them had sharp tongues and constant sneers on their faces, they somehow got along well, and Falke had never seen them fight.
As a sidenote, Sazaki had stopped drinking while Falke was a child, so he’d gotten worried when he saw his father suddenly start drinking one day, but he was later shocked to find out his period of abstinence from alcohol was actually the unusual part.
But mom was probably the one who pushed dad into it. The power dynamic in the household with these two peculiar parents was clearly in Lara’s favor, so Falke believed that his mother had most likely convinced his father to temporarily cut the alcohol. But Lara would never honestly admit that, so it would forever remain a mystery.
“Oh, there they are.”
Aldrick’s voice pulled Falke back to reality, and he turned to look at the approaching carriage.
“Aldrick, have you brought your fancy paper for autographs?” Falke knew that his friend was a fan of the Hero, and strangely enough he said the same thing as Lara had.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Aldrick replied in the same way as last time.
“Heh heh heh heh!” Agnes smirked.
“He just cut me...” Falke suddenly started scratching the back of his neck and grimaced.
“Oh, Master Sazaki?” Aldrick could guess the reason behind his friend’s behavior.
“Yeah.”
The carriage was still some distance away, but Falke could tell that Sazaki was inside it, judging whether he could cut everything around him or not.
“I once asked him why he was constantly checking whether he could cut everything, but he told me to give up because he’d been doing it for as long as he could remember. I’m sure it was a joke, but this is my dad we’re talking about...” When Falke had mastered the sword, he’d noticed that Sazaki was always aware of how easily he could cut everything around him and asked him why he did that, but it was unclear how genuine his reply had been.
“I thought I’d noticed something tough, but this is a familiar distance.” Sazaki was sitting in the driver’s seat, grinning as he chugged a drink.
“Don’t check to see if you can cut your own son,” Falke complained to his father as the carriage pulled up near him and the other two.