Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 1042 - Taming Forced Contentment - 2

It was an infantile formulation with little logic, even if the surname she invoked had belonged to a man of numerous accomplishments, Ren showed potential that was at least comparable, if not superior. The great irony was that the mother had an illogical and not particularly intelligent mentality that was the complete opposite of her perceptive daughterʼs, despite being her living image in every physical respect.

The unpleasant first official wife and the weak point of Dragarion, proof, as Selphira knew her, that love was one of the worst things in existence.

The lady was demanding news of the ceremony from her maids, the one Larissa had told her about, invited only by protocol and out of filial obligation, but which she had not intended to attend. She was still displeased regardless.

Many people thought Ren had a high probability of surpassing Dragarion.

Lutea didnʼt have that information. Or perhaps she did, but she didnʼt believe it.

And she never would, not because the possibility didnʼt exist, but because she had spent her entire life in a space small enough that this kind of information could never reach her there in a form that required a real response. The world was as large as the world one was willing to inhabit, and Luteaʼs was not large.

”Have them bring the tea,” said Lutea, and the maids moved with the relief of people who had finished the part of the conversation that required staying still and could now do something on the other side of a door.

Outside, on the northeast wall, the last groups of corrupted creatures were being eliminated with the efficiency of a team that had been operating together long enough for the process to resemble a routine task more than an emergency.

Larissa was not thinking about her mother.

She was thinking about what was in front of her.

Which was the only choice available that made sense.

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It wasnʼt the largest.

Not the one with the two-story ballroom or the one that nobles from the district examined from the street with the expressions of people calculating what they were looking at. Centrally located but not excessively so, with gardens that Reed had converted into the place where he spent most of his mornings since Fern had announced that now that they could, she was going to spend whatever time he wanted doing nothing productive.

Reed had discovered, with some surprise, that doing nothing productive was considerably harder than he had calculated. So he had ended up tending the garden, which was productive, but in a way that Fern had decided to tolerate because the plants were beautiful and Reed was happy. It was, she had concluded, a reasonable trade.

It was Renʼs favorite for reasons that had nothing to do with size or price.

It had the right sound.

And this morning, the right sound included three pairs of eyes looking at him from different angles of the room before he had finished processing that he was awake.

Ren blinked.

All three of them were there.

Larissa standing by the window with the morning light arriving from the angle that made the effect of this morningʼs clothing entirely different from yesterdayʼs ceremony dress but still great, and with the expression of someone who had been awake long enough to have already formed several opinions about the day.

Liora was sitting at the far edge of the bed with her feet folded underneath her and a cup of something warm held between both hands, watching him with the energy of someone who had been waiting for him to open his eyes.

Luna in the armchair by the bedside table, with the exterior composure she always had and with the eyes that Ren had learned to read well enough.

ʼEarly risers,ʼ Ren thought, with the affectionate resignation of someone who has learned to recognize a pattern. ʼAt the worst possible moments.ʼ

Taro, Liu, and Min were still sleeping somewhere in the house, undoubtedly with the deep and peaceful sleep of people who had not a single shred of urgency about the current situation. Ren thought briefly that if they also got up early, the collective awkwardness would be distributed across enough people to become manageable.

But no… They were sleeping.

”Good morning,” said Liora, with the energy of someone who had been waiting for exactly that moment to begin.

”Good morning,” Ren repeated, in the voice of someone still calibrating how many layers of the situation needed to be managed before coffee arrived.

A voice came from the corridor.

”Lord Ren, breakfast is ready!”

Li… At the volume of Li, which was the volume of someone for whom the distance between the kitchen and the second floor was an acoustic obstacle that could be resolved simply by speaking louder.

Tao, from somewhere that should have been far enough away to be inaudible but that with Tao was never the case, added: ”Anuar says if you donʼt come down in ten minutes heʼs eating all of it!”

”I didnʼt say that!” came Anuarʼs voice from the kitchen, with the indignation of someone who knew exactly what was happening and preferred that Lord Ren not believe things he had not said.

Ren sat up.

The girls looked at him with the expressions of people who had no intention whatsoever of hurrying.

♢♢♢♢

The favorite mansion had a layout that Reed had once described as ”honest”, his way of saying that the spaces did what they said they did without pretending to be more than they were. The dining room was just a dining room. The kitchen was a kitchen. The back garden was Reedʼs garden, which meant it contained more varieties of plants than any garden of that size had any right to contain, and each of them was exactly where Reed had decided it should be for reasons that had their own logic even when that logic wasnʼt immediately evident to someone who wasnʼt Reed.

The main staircase had the specific creak of the second step from the top, which Ren had attempted to fix twice and which had returned both times, as though the house considered that sound part of its character rather than its deterioration. He had stopped trying.