Taming The Villainesses novel Chapter 412

I wondered what kind of place the ladies had chosen for the honeymoon.

Falling slowly into thought, I tried to consider each of their preferences.

First of all, Elga. Elga liked wide-open spaces where you could take in the whole view at once, so she’d probably choose a plain or a meadow.

Second were the Draco sisters.

The eldest, Mirna, would likely choose a mountain with good water and air for peace of mind. The younger, Narmee, might prefer the ocean, where the horizon and the sea line stretched endlessly in parallel.

Professor Stella... would probably say anywhere was fine. She was an adventurer who had been to many places, so she’d probably like wherever.

As for Ayra, she might have picked a city where people live, rather than somewhere natural. She doesn’t seem like it, but Ayra secretly likes people—so maybe she chose a big city full of life.

Bringing all of their preferences together and choosing a destination that satisfied everyone must have taken some pretty intense discussions.

If—

If no firm decision had been made about the honeymoon destination, I wanted to give my opinion too. Of course, it might not have mountains, oceans, or meadows like the ones they preferred.

“I’d like to visit my hometown.”

At the very least, I hoped they’d respond favorably to my words. Elga was the first to react.

“Teo, your hometown? Where was it again?”

Mirna also added a comment.

“Come to think of it, I don’t recall ever hearing about Lord Teo’s hometown. I believe you said you were raised in a monastery run by the Church...”

They seemed interested in hearing about where I came from. As if she knew something, Stella lightly brushed her palm over my head.

“If it’s your hometown, then is it that forest beyond the barrier? The one where the giant centipedes came out?”

Stella must have thought I was raised in the witches’ forest beyond the barrier.

It made sense. My mother, the nymph Beatrice, lived beyond the barrier, and at that time, Isaiah also resided in that dark forest. So she assumed as much.

Narmee gasped in shock.

“You lived beyond the barrier, Teo? No way. How could anyone live there?”

Her reaction was perfectly natural.

Beyond the barrier was crawling with monsters and filled with abandoned traps from wartime. A place where even a grown man would struggle to survive, let alone a soft half-fairy like me.

Mirna asked,

“There’s no way a Church monastery could exist beyond the barrier... Lord Teo, was it a lie that you were raised in a Church facility?”

Along with curiosity, there was a hint of disappointment in Mirna’s voice. Perhaps it hurt her to think I might’ve lied to her.

I needed to clear this up.

“It’s true that I wasn’t raised in an official Church facility. But it was a religious orphanage. Whether you’d say it was beyond the barrier or not...”

The explanation was complicated.

How was I supposed to explain to them that there was another world entirely—one without magic or sorcery—where I grew up and became an adult?

Shff.

At that moment, Ayra spoke.

“Teo, I think this is the first time you’ve talked about your past. I didn’t even know your hometown was beyond the barrier. It’s an intriguing thing.”

She hummed softly and then nodded, as if something had clicked for her.

“Come to think of it, it’s not uncommon for criminals or those who committed heinous acts to cross the wall to escape punishment. Maybe Teo grew up in one of those places.”

“In one of those places? Ayra, do you know something?”

At Elga’s question, Ayra met my eyes.

“I’ve only heard the rumors, but they say people who fled beyond the barrier gathered together and created a village somewhere. I’ve heard such a place exists.”

A village of fugitives. As if she knew something about that, Elga shrugged her shoulders.

“I’ve heard that too. But isn’t it just an urban legend? Like a duck-raccoon thing. Sounds plausible, but it’s just a cryptid.”

Something felt off, so I asked,

“Duck-raccoons don’t exist?”

“What? What kind of question is that...”

At that, the ladies’ faces all lit up with bizarre expressions.

I’d seen this kind of look before. It was the same look teachers gave when little kids asked them, “Is Santa Claus real?”

Elga said,

“Duck-raccoons are imaginary creatures. How would a duck and a raccoon even merge together? Teo, you’re kind of weird sometimes, you know that?”

“......”

There are chipmunks, and wolf-spiders... why wouldn’t there be a duck-raccoon? This is a world where dragons and wyverns and unicorns all exist.

It really drove home the fact that their common sense and mine were completely different. So I boldly told the ladies,

“In the place I lived, they existed. Duck-raccoons. If you come with me to my hometown, I might even be able to show you some.”

Elga furrowed her brow hard.

“What kind of absurd lie is that? You didn’t need to say stuff like that. If you’d just bowed your head and asked nicely, we were all ready to go with you to your hometown.”

I suddenly imagined myself taking all of my wives to a 21st-century zoo.

It felt like such a fun and joyful image that I couldn’t help but smile.

***

I kept thinking I could smell wet earth, and sure enough, it began to rain in the afternoon.

It was a sudden downpour—completely unannounced—so we were nearly soaked. Even Basago’s forecast magic hadn’t mentioned rain.

If not for the sensitive senses of a fairy, the brand-new dresses we’d bought would’ve all gotten drenched. While we waited under the overhang of a nearby store, Stella said,

“If it weren’t for Teo, we’d all be soaked. It’s actually raining—pouring, even. What kind of autumn rain is this?”

Angmar’s four seasons were quite distinct. Compared to where I came from, the climate was similar. If I had to name a time of year where this kind of heavy rain might happen, I’d say summer—monsoon season or a typhoon.

So a sudden downpour like this, right in the middle of autumn, was understandably strange—just as Stella had said.

It didn’t seem like it was going to be a short shower, either.

Shff. That’s when Narmee reached her hand out past the eaves.

“Looks like it’s magic rain!”

Magic rain? Even after living in this world for over two years, there was still so much I didn’t know. When I asked, “What’s magic rain?” Narmee explained easily.

“When it rains like this, all of a sudden, we call it magic rain. It means someone summoned the rain with magic. There’s no other explanation, right?”

She had a point.