房客(糙汉)何璐程曜坤

Well... more like he prepared the light porridge for Zoemi to try so that they could see how his body would react to actual food after months of getting his nourishments through healing spells.

The result was...

"That\'s all I can fit... it actually feels like I\'m going to burst..."

...positive.

Zoemi did not throw up the food, although the amount of food he could eat was less than half of a child\'s portion.

"It\'s okay, you don\'t have to force yourself on your first meal."

Burushi nodded, taking the bowl away from him and putting it on the desk.

"Now, then. Let\'s continue from where we left off."

The blond girl looked between the black-haired boy and the dark-blue-haired man and nodded.

"Yes, let\'s... say... what happened with the tournament?"

Zoemi breathed out and asked immediately, with an anxious expression, although it wasn\'t all that difficult to guess the answer to that question.

"You were in no condition to step onto the arena, so you lost by default."

The blond girl said flatly without trying to dress up her words.

"So the tournament was won by the representative of the..."

"Nah."

Zoemi sighed and was about to name the other person who won their semi-finals duel, but Burushi cut him off, shaking her head with a bitter expression.

"...what – do you mean they canceled or postponed the tournament...?"

The black-haired boy raised his brow and questioned the short answer, to which the blond girl rolled her eyes and breathed out, sounding as if just recalling what happened was giving her a headache.

"Zoemi, don\'t get me wrong, but... why would anyone postpone or cancel an official tournament just because one participant couldn\'t show up?"

She asked before revealing what actually happened.

"Because the organizers, the Victureo family didn\'t actually want to give Ehmi to the winner... but since they had everyone\'s eyes on them and the queen..."

"See? I knew you weren\'t just a pretty face. The keyword here is once again, queen."

Zoemi lowered his head awkwardly and murmured, in a shy attempt to justify himself – which gained him a tired sigh from Burushi.

"Then what happened?\'

The black-haired boy furrowed his brows, tilting his head in confusion.

"The Victureo family couldn\'t postpone the tournament because that would show how biased they are but then, in the same way, the queen couldn\'t have just brute-forced her way there because that would be a sign of the royal family pushing the high nobles around. Those are both bad options and no amount of plot conviction she has on her side would work in the real world to fix that!"

Zoemi blushed from embarrassment over apparently missing something and declared, raising his head with a challenging look in his eyes.

"Oh, believe me, what actually happened is somehow more annoying than the queen just walking on the stage and changing the result."

Burushi scoffed and glanced over at Benevirau whose expression got cloudy the moment she and Zoemi started talking about the tournament.

Following her line of sight, Zoemi also turned to the misty-gray-eyed butler and then faced the blond healer with twice the amount of confusion in his eyes.

"You do know that there are other sages aside from uncle Benevirau and Ghosts of Bellcephora, right?"

"Obviously."

Burushi wanted to confirm, which Zoemi did without asking any more questions and waited for her to continue the explanation.

"According to uncle, most of the high-noble families have or at least had a sage as their progenitor."

"Most of them were killed by the Ghosts when they were actively hunting anyone with a large mana reservoir they cold take for themselves."

The blond-haired girl revealed and the dark-blue-haired man added from his side.

"Exactly.\'

Burushi nodded to him and then looked back to Zoemi.

"So imagine this situation – it\'s the final day of the tournament, your opponent is waiting in the arena and the judges are calling for you to show up. Since you do not, they call in that you are disqualified. The case closed, right?"

The blond girl asked, waving her hand dismissively.

"Wrong."

She then shook her head and eaved her hand angrily.

"The next moment, before the winner of the entire thing is officially announced – you know, rule-wise, half of the arena bursts into flames and this crimson-haired fox-eyed guy walks straight out of it as if he teleported, leaving everyone speechless!"

Burushi recounted, throwing her hands up in the air, imitating an explosion.

"I... don\'t like where this is going..."

Zoemi flinched at the description of the person showing up – especially since it was preceded by the question about sages. Although having crimson hair and foxy eyes wasn\'t the most informative, Zoemi did know about a certain sage who would meet the requirements.

Considering that Zoemi\'s puppets were all previously a gang of bandits that frequently worked for said fire sage – and Zoemi even saw the sage in question while one of said dals was taking place and knew the man\'s surname - he could ask about the man\'s name or wait for Burushi or Benevirau to confirm or invalidate his guess.

"That guy introduced himself as Vanterl – you know, the progenitor of the ENTIRE Vanterl family... "And the queen\'s maiden\'s name is Vanterl. I see."

Burushi explained, speaking as if the revelation was a big deal, but for the black-haired boy, it only confirmed what he was already expecting.

Interestingly enough, while Zemi was quite indifferent, Benevirau\'s face twisted in anger at the mention of the fire sage\'s name.

"Huh? Grandpa? You know that guy too?"

Noticing that, Zoemi furrowed his brows and asked, maybe not surprised but more like intrigued by the young-looking butler\'s behavior.

"...Vanterl is the person that robbed me of my vision..."

"...!"

"..."

Benevirau answered with a bitter smile, making Zoemi flinch while Burushi only nodded sadly as she must have already heard the story from the misty-gray-eyed man.

"Well, that Vanterl guy simply waltzed on the arena, activated the armor spell just like yours but with fire and not the shadow, and knocked out the person who should have won the whole thing – Vanterl didn\'t even challenge them for a duel, and then had the audacity to proclaim himself the winner!"

Burushi spoke angrily, making it sound as if she was adding to the list of fire sage\'s bad deeds.

"And he wasn\'t stopped by anyone? And by anyone I mean Ehmi. Not only she is a sage too, but she also has that flame absorb ability that lets her absorb all kinds of fire and add it to her own power - wasn\'t that exactly what she has done when I was fighting Arreta and her spell got an upgrade – she should have the advantage no matter how much more experience that guy was!"

Zoemi gasped and declared.

"I don\'t know what she was thinking back then, but she did not interfere."

"Wh-what...?

But then he was shocked yet again by Burushi clarifying things for him.

"If I had to guess, I think she just didn\'t want to fight that guy, and probably hoped that if she went along with him, the rules of the tournament would help her out."

The blond heroine continued and gave Zoemi a meaningful look.

"it didn\'t work out?"

Zoemi asked, clicking his tongue.

"It did not work out as she hoped for, no."

Burushi sighed and nodded.