107 – Grandfather’s Words

Edited by Poor_Hero

Zen and Selphy were chatting in the lounge when Selphy slapped her knees all of a sudden as she raised her voice.

” I had Lilisu-chan bring a letter to my village stating that I am going for the skipping of grades exam. And you know what happened? Grandpa said ‘This is the biggest disaster I had ever saw since I was born! How scary!’! Can you believe it?! Really! What exactly is his image of me? ”

Although it seemed a little rude to Selphy, who was raging, we would only smile wryly at that. Zen and I then looked at each other. Well, the Selphy that used to live her village was slightly weir… no, it was just that she tended to say some funny things. Yep.

Even now she sprouted some funny stuff sometimes.

As for Zen, it was not his speech nor his knowledge but his actions. His nature was not bad but… it was just that he was really quite an airhead. But Selphy had been plagued with constant chatting from the faeries the entire time she was living in the village so there was no helping that her grandfather had that image of her. That must be it.

” ‘Since he was born’….. Selphy, is your grandfather an elf too? ”

I had a faraway look in my eyes before I noticed it. And when Selphy looked at me with weird eyes, I changed the topic with a question in haste.

” Yes. He should be around 200 years old right now. ”

I had no idea if she knew my intention for asking that question but she answered it while tilting her head, tapping her finger against her chin. 200 years…. if we were talking about age, there seemed to be one too many zeros. As expected of elves. They did not betray the fantasy image I had of them.

” 200 years old?! ”

There I was, accepting that fact when in reality, anyone would be choked at that number as not many had an understanding of elves. Zen’s voice did a funny little dance as he jumped.. fly out of his chair.

Oi. What was that exaggerated movement? What was that gag-manga like movement? Didn’t he just ignore the laws of physics? My dear Zen-kun.

Oh yes, magic existed in this world, wasn’t it? The laws of physics can say sayonara good bye. When stuff like a fireball appeared, I wondered why they appeared from. The image of the law of conservation of mass was dashing away while sobbing came to mind.

…Ah, wait a minute.
Did it mean that Zen activated magic just to do that?! There was no sign of magic being cast whatsoever! Being able to activate magic without knowing did make him some kind of genius. Although it was super meaningless.

Zen was way too unpredictable.
This was definitely a problem one can’t think too hard about.

 

As I got dragged into the endless mess of thoughts that always happened whenever I started looking for answers to Zen’s unpredictable actions, the direction of the talk had steered towards grandfathers.

” My grandfather was a magic tool crafter as well, although he retired. He said ‘My jaw and teeth are getting weaker as I grow older’ so recently, he would seclude himself in the workshop for a week working on building a pair of magic dentures that could auto-chew food. ”
” Ha ha. What happened then? ”

They were chatting really happily and Selphy was really into the conversation. Even me, who entered into the conversation mid-way, was very interested in the ending.

Grandpa…. what a strange reason to build magic tool for. Weren’t magic tools expensive? To think you would want to make dentures. To put it in previous world terms, it would be like the latest powered-up AI technology was placed into a set of full dentures. Imagine looking at a smile full of white mechanical teeth smiling at you.

” Then, he came out of the workshop, happily saying that he finally created it and put it into his mouth. But it failed, turning into a defective tool which continuously opens and closes. But then grandpa said ‘This have its uses too’ through his chattering teeth. ”
” What is that about?! ”

Selphy tsukkomied Zen. Well, what was going to happen to Zen’s grandfather’s teeth and jaw?!

” Yea. In the end, he said ‘It’s like training my jaw muscles!’ and after removing the dentures, he could eat anything he wanted! ”

Gramps! Wasn’t that just a jaw training tool?!!! What did you make exactly!

Thanks to that, I laughed till I thought my jaw was going to fall. Hey, jaw again! …..Yes, I’m sorry. I was lying. It was only to the extent where my cheeks cramped up a little.

Grandfather….

I finally began to think about my case. Ever since I reincarnated, I had never once met my grandfather before. No one had even spoken about him. Can it be that he was not around anymore? If that was the case I understood, but still, I was the one who did not ask about him.

When I realized it, I felt a deep sense of regret. My grandfather took really great care of me in my previous world and I died before I could pay him back so I thought that I would love the grandfather in this world instead but to think… I did not even ask about him.

I took great pains to retain my previous memories but I often used them poorly. Really, I really am a bastard.

 

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