Epilogue: The Town Doctor & the Horsewoman Princess

EPILOGUE:
The Town Doctor & the Horsewoman Princess

 

Skadi Dragenfelt was a dragon.

There were a multitude of types of dragons, but there were many things they all shared in common. They all had a great power within them, so great that normal living things—such as humans and other species of monster—were no match for them. This power wasn’t limited to physical strength; it also included the power of curses and magic.

One thing Kunai Zenow, Skadi’s bodyguard, often heard people wonder was whether a dragon like Skadi really needed a bodyguard. However, Kunai’s status as a bodyguard was nothing but her public-facing position. There was a group of people who thought that unofficially Kunai and Skadi had some sort of improper relationship, which was why Kunai was always at Skadi’s side. Suspicions always haunt the guilty mind, after all. Of course, Kunai always made sure those sorts knew that such wasn’t the case—all while she wrung their necks.

There was a reason Kunai had been chosen to be Skadi’s bodyguard.

That reason was especially on display at night.

They were in the Lindworm Council Hall, in a private room that had been prepared for Skadi. It contained a bed for light naps, upon which Skadi was now resting. Naturally, her master’s face veil was off while she was sleeping. However, her face was covered by the blanket, stubbornly making sure not to show her face to others.

Kunai Zenow sat in a nearby chair with her legs crossed. It was a standard midnight scene for the pair.

“…!”

The glass on the window broke in a loud clamor.

Kunai was quick to move. Her status as the former top-ranked fighter in the arena wasn’t just for show. In an explosion of movement, she apprehended the person who had burst through the glass and flown into the room.

“Eeek!” said the intruder.

“Quiet!” Seizing both arms of the intruder, Kunai immobilized her with a joint lock.

Kunai could tell from the feathers fluttering down around her that the intruder was a harpy. The bodyguard thought that her wings were a rather flashy color and mused that it was quite bold of her to try and sneak into Skadi’s bedroom with such a conspicuous pair of wings.

It was situations like this that made Kunai’s position as Skadi’s bodyguard important. Even though Skadi was a dragon, she still needed to sleep. No matter how strong a person was, once they fell asleep they became vulnerable. However, with her body made out of corpses, Kunai Zenow didn’t need to eat or sleep. For this reason, she had been assigned to be Skadi’s sleepless, ever-wakeful bodyguard.

“Who are you?! You didn’t think you’d just be able to sneak into the Lady Draconess’s room…did you?”

“Aaaaah! Let me goooo!”

“…It can’t be—Illy?”

Kunai let go of Illy in spite of herself, recognizing the face of the intruder as the girl’s wings wriggled in her grip.

“That hurt, you know!” Illy shouted. “What do think you’re doing?!”

“Suddenly flying in here like that is much worse, isn’t it? But…you’ve gotten very colorful, haven’t you?”

“Tee hee hee heee! Beautiful, aren’t they?”

With Kunai’s hold on her loosened, Illy stood up abruptly and spread out her wings.

Kunai had been the one to make the various preparations necessary to send her to the harpy village, but because of how much her wing color and the shape of her crest had changed, she hadn’t realized it was her at first.

She had been told Illy’s symptoms were related to molting but couldn’t believe the change was so dramatic.

“Wait!” the harpy said. “Now isn’t the time for this! This is serious!”

“You’re right, this is serious. Flying into the Lady Draconess’s sleeping quarters like this! It’s extremely rude.”

“Not that! We have an emergency!”

“Emergency?” Kunai tilted her head in confusion. No matter how pressing the emergency was, Kunai was certain it didn’t merit disturbing her master’s sleep. However, there was a look of desperation on Illy’s face.

“I don’t really understand it well, but there’s some kind of Giant God? It’s coming, they said. Everyone’s faces in the village went white when they heard!”

“Oh, right,” Kunai said. “You only arrived at the village recently, so I guess you wouldn’t know. The old story of the Giant God of the harpy village is a famous one, but—wait a second. Did you just say the Giant God is coming?

“Yup, I did!” Flashing open her wings, Illy repeated her claim.

“But that’s just a fairy tale.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you! It’s not just a fairy tale or a legend! The Giant God is already on its way! Their footsteps are causing earthquakes, the village is close to being attacked, and everyone is escaping to Lindworm! Tisalia told me to get the message to Skadi as quickly as possible!”

“Don’t be disrespectful; it’s Lady Skadi to you,” Kunai scolded her, but Illy was looking around restlessly. Kunai figured that she was searching for Skadi.

“Don’t worry about that!” Illy said. “We have to prepare somewhere for all the villagers to stay! They’ll get here before we’re ready if we don’t hurry! Actually, the Giant God might come all the way down to Lindworm…”

“If that happens, I’ll make sure to turn the tables back on them. For now, I’ll speak with the Draconess about it, so just hold on for a moment… Oh.” Kunai approached the bed, thinking to herself that she couldn’t bear to disturb Skadi as she rested, but her small master was already sitting up on top of the bed. Kunai hurriedly knelt down on one knee.

“Lady Draconess, were you woken up?” Kunai figured she must have been, what with the all the noise Illy had made.

The Draconess Skadi took the veil she always wore from beside her pillow and tied it to the two horns that rose up from the top of her head.

When she was appearing in front of others, she was always wrapped in a long, flowing robe, but now she was only wearing her thin nightwear. The lines of her body made her look like a young girl, but she was far stronger than Kunai. If she were to return to her original body as a fire dragon, Kunai was sure that even she would be like a speck of dirt to her.

“There’s no need for worry.” Skadi’s words came like the sounds of a wind chime.

Her voice was crackled and high pitched, like something metal toppling over. Now that Kunai thought about it, she had never really seen any wind chimes in Lindworm. The characteristics of her voice were peculiar, and it seemed that most people couldn’t hear it—just those she was close with. Cthulhy and Kunai, for example, could hear her voice properly.

All in all, Skadi was a delicate character, similar to a piece of crystal glass—in both voice and personality.

“That girl in the Vivre Mountains—she doesn’t mean any harm,” Skadi said.

“Understood… But what do you mean by ‘that girl’?” Kunai asked.

“The Giant God from legends. A gigas. Her fellow gigas gradually declined, but that girl has endured. Normally, she accidentally scares the animals of the forest when she moves around, so she lives quietly in a cave up on the summit… Her going to the village is simply because she has some sort of business there.”

“As to be expected of My Lady Draconess, you are quite knowledgeable.”

“It was only once, but I’ve met with her before.”

Kunai thought about a dragon visiting with a Giant God. She imagined that they had discussed Skadi’s plans to step into the Giant God’s territory and govern over the city that was to be built there. Kunai wondered if, much like Skadi’s relationship with Cthulhy, who was the descendent of a malevolent god, the long-lived races of monsters all had an understanding amongst one another.

“Her name is Dione Nephilim. Tell her, Kunai. She means no harm.”

“Yes, understood.”

After bowing her head to her master, Kunai conveyed to Illy everything Skadi had said.

Conveying the words of her master to those who couldn’t hear them was yet another duty as her bodyguard. The honor was all Kunai’s, and it was impossible for anyone else to do it in her stead.

Without changing a single word or phrase, Kunai passed on what Skadi had said to Illy. But the look of dissatisfaction didn’t disappear from Illy’s face.

“Mrrr…but it’s strange, isn’t it?!” Illy asked.

“What is?”

“The village elder—he said that long ago, because of the Giant God, the village was ruined…!”

Kunai did remember that sort of story being a part of the harpies’ lore. She had thought of the whole story as a fairy tale, though, so she didn’t remember the specifics.

“Harpies forget quickly,” Skadi said, remaining calm even in the face of Illy’s protestations. “The more elaborate details haven’t survived over time. The harpies don’t worry about the finer parts of a story—that’s why these old stories become twisted into their folktales. The part about the gigas revolting against the gods was all added later.”

Kunai communicated Skadi’s eloquent reply to Illy just as she had heard it.

Illy’s eyes grew wide as she listened attentively to Skadi’s story. Kunai wondered what it was that always made her audiences listen so raptly. Maybe there was something in Skadi’s words that fascinated those who heard them. She supposed it was the charisma necessary to be the representative of a big city like Lindworm.

“The ruin of the village is a lie,” Kunai said. “The houses simply collapsed because of Dione’s giant steps.”

“R-really?”

“That’s right. You can return to the village. I’m sure by now—” There, Skadi’s words broke off.

By now? What’s going on? Kunai wondered.

Now that she thought about it, that doctor and the Scythia daughter were there in the village. She wondered if they were meeting with the Giant God.

“I’m sure by now, they’re having fun.” Skadi smiled.

Her face wasn’t visible under her veil, but Kunai could still hazard a guess about her change in expression. It was a result of her long years of loyalty, serving as her bodyguard.

Thinking about the fun going on up in the village, Kunai felt a slight longing to join in. Of course, she was a bodyguard, so it was impossible for her to leave Skadi’s sight—yet she sensed that even Skadi herself wanted to join in with everyone else and their fun.

In a hurry, Illy took off through the window she had destroyed. Skadi watched her head back to the village as a cold wind blew into the room. Her long tail swung back and forth.

“How about you take yourself to the village, Lady Draconess?” Kunai suggested.

“Unnecessary. My appearance would only bring chaos.”

“I’m sure that wouldn’t be the case.”

“I have you, Kunai—so it’s fine.”

Kunai bowed her head without saying anything in response to those few short words of trust.

It seemed that there was a slight tinge of disappointment, traces of regret, in her expression, but Skadi simply continued to stare straight out at the mountains that could be seen from the city.

Yet no matter how much of a giant the Giant God was, it was obviously unlikely that they would be able to see her from all the way down in the city.

 

***

 

The snow had stopped.

In the harpy village that had emptied just the night before, the weather was surprisingly fair. It was as if the snow from the previous day had been a dream.

Everyone in the village had returned to their normal way of life, as if the extreme panic and chaos of the night before had also been nothing but a dream. The young harpies of the village had immediately started to restore the destroyed houses, and those who had flown down to Lindworm were returning one by one.

The reason for all of this was simple. The Giant God, the woman who had introduced herself as Dione Nephilim, had made her lack of hostility clear to all.

“Oooooooooh! Is this the exaaaaaaaaaaaaam?”

“Yes, please remain still.”

“Okaaaaaaaaaaaaay.”

In the village square, Dione sat with both her knees held in her arms. It seemed she was good at staying still and had been in this pose ever since she arrived in the village.

She had gone the whole night without moving her body. In fact, it might have been harder work for her to come down to the village than it was for her to stay in the same seated position for a long period of time.

“Doctor! Be careful!” Sapphee said.

“I will—I’ll be fine!” Glenn smiled as he answered the words of warning from Sapphee, who was down below.

He was standing on top of scaffolding that had been assembled out of wood. The harpies excelled at constructing things with wood and had erected it quickly around Dione where she sat. By climbing up the scaffolding, Glenn was able to get face to face with Dione and speak with her.

Her face alone was bigger than Glenn was tall. It was impossible not to think about how he would be swallowed whole if she were to open her mouth wide. Even so, Glenn knew that—despite her anxiety and apprehension—Dione had a gentle personality. When Illy had returned from Lindworm and given her explanation the night before, it became clear the Giant God meant no harm.

Illy had immediately grown attached to the Giant God and was now sitting on top of her head, playing around. Dione’s green, soft, and fluffy hair felt quite nice to the touch. The giant didn’t reprimand Illy at all for sitting on top of her head and left her as she was.

“When did you start to feel sick?” Glenn asked.

“Hmmmmmmmmmm? Ummmmmmmmm, ten years agoooooo?”

“…That’s right around when Lindworm changed from being a fortress town into the city it is today, isn’t it?”

“Yes, yeeeees, right around when the dragon lady came to say helloooooooo. I thought maaaaaaaaaaaaybe it would go away if I slept it oooooooooooooooff, but it slowly got woooooooorse.” The Giant God sniffed her nose loudly.

“Your face…is a little red, isn’t it?”

“So, it is after aaaaaall? My head feels…kind of liiiiiiiiiiight.”

“Please excuse me. Hup!” Climbing the scaffold, Glenn put his hand on Dione’s forehead. It was just a simple medical examination, but he was getting a workout.

The giant’s bangs covered and hid her eyes. According to Dione herself, she was rather shy.

Glenn pushed her hair aside and felt her forehead. Her skin had a hardness to it that felt like tree bark. It seemed likely that her skin was strong and sturdy, instead of her bones, to support her immense weight. If that were the case, it was possible that the structure of her body might actually be closer to the plant-like monster races. Indeed, on closer inspection, Glenn could see that the green color of her hair was due to the moss growing on it.

The more Glenn knew about her, the more he felt like he understood what the tender-hearted Dione was really like on the inside. She was completely different from the brutal giants described in legends.

“Yup… It seems you have a little bit of a fever.”

“Oooooooh, reeeaaaalllly?”

“Have you been experiencing any throat pain?”

“A liiiiiiiiiittle.”

At first, Glenn had thought that Dione’s voice had rumbled as if it were rising from the bowels of the earth, but now he clearly understood that it was due to nothing more than the pain in her throat.

“Hmmm… Sure enough, this is…”

“Doctor!” Sapphee shouted. “You should come down soon!”

“Yeah, I’m coming down!”

The scaffolding was quite tall. There wasn’t much that could be done about that, however, as it had been built to match Dione’s size. Glenn began carefully climbing down the scaffold’s ladder. In total, there were four ladders attached to the scaffold. Climbing all the way up to Dione’s face had been difficult, but going back down was hard work, as well. It was tough exercise for Glenn, who had gotten only a few hours of sleep thanks to the uproar of the previous night.

“…!”

“Doctor?!”

As he climbed down the ladder, the world suddenly swayed around him. He had lost his footing—by the time the thought had crossed his mind, his body had lost the support of the ladder. Glenn stretched his hands out toward it, panicking, but it was too late. It appeared his lack of sleep was going to harm him after all.

“Ngh!”

He could hear Sapphee’s cries below. Glenn hoped for a second that an agile harpy would come and save him, but it was no use—there wasn’t enough time.

Yet—

“Hwah?!”

“Oooooooh? That’s dangerooouuuus, you know.”

A cushion for his fall had appeared in midair. Held up by something elastic and flexible, Glenn had avoided violently crashing to the ground.

A mass of flesh had broken his fall—Dione’s chest. That was how he had escaped his predicament: by being squished together between her ample breasts.

“Th-thank you very much! You saved me…”

“Noooot at all, I’m glaaaaaaaaad I was able to heeeeeeeeeeeelp.”

Glenn had thought her skin was like tree bark, but…her chest seemed to be like a human’s, a mass of elastic and bouncy fat. Her brown skin was soft, and Glenn’s arm easily sank into it. Considering Dione’s height, it wasn’t surprising that the size of her breasts would also be completely beyond normal—and that someone of Glenn’s size would be totally buried in her cleavage.

“Th-this…might be a little hard to escape from…”

“Doctor! How long are you going to keep that up?!” Sapphee shouted.

“I know, I know, but…” Glenn knew that it might seem from the outside that he was enjoying himself in Dione’s cleavage, but in actuality, it was taking a great deal of skill to get himself free. Everywhere he touched felt like a bouncy cushion. He had nothing he could grab on to.

“Hwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, i-it tiiiiiiiiiiiickles!” Dione said.

“I-I’m very sorry. I’m going to move out of here, so—”

“Theeeeeeeeeeere we go.”

A thick finger hooked the collar of Glenn’s white coat. The digit was big even in comparison to Dione’s physique. Despite its girth, however, it grabbed Glenn’s collar with skill and lifted him up with no trouble at all. She wasn’t good at moving quickly, but it seemed she could use her big fingers with unexpected delicacy and subtlety.

She was a colossal woman, but that wasn’t her only defining trait.

Up until she had come to the village, Dione Nephilim had moved with sluggish steps as she walked. Apparently, she had been moving for close to two months. She would take a step, rest, then take another step and rest.

It was an exhausting story to listen to. When Glenn considered the frequency with which the earthquakes had been occurring when he arrived in the village, however, he realized that they were consistent with the timeline she had given.

But why had it taken her so long?

According to Dione, it was because she was worried about all the living things that might have been hurt by her passage. She would have hated to make a mistake and crush something with her feet, or frighten the animals of the mountain with any sudden movements.

She was a kind and gentle woman of great strength, but that wasn’t all. Glenn thought her ability to carry her massive frame so gently and tenderly was incredible.

However, as these thoughts came to Glenn’s mind—

“Agh?!”

“Huuuuuuuuh?” Dione said incoherently, and Glenn’s body slipped through her fingers.

It seemed she had carelessly let him drop. Once again, he found himself diving into Dione’s colossal cleavage. Not only that, but he fell even deeper in this time around, slipping into the ravine between her breasts.

The overwhelming mass on both sides of him felt like it was going to crush him.

“Oooooooh I-I’m sooooooooooorry,” Dione said.

“I-It’s okay, it’s okay.”

It has been said that it is a man’s dream to be buried by a woman’s chest, but in Dione’s case the end result wasn’t just a joke. Indeed, Glenn thought his life was in serious danger. It took everything he had to raise his arms up to the sky and seek help.

She was a compassionate woman, yes, but it seemed she also had a bit of a ditzy side to her, as well.

This time, Dione properly pulled him out from her chest and gently set him down in the middle of the village square. Glenn didn’t think he would be forgetting that feeling of softness and body warmth any time soon. In fact, the experience, had been strongly engraved into his memory, thanks to how close it had put him to death.

“Thank you. You saved me.”

“Doctor! Doctor!” Sapphee immediately slithered up to Glenn. “Honestly, Doctor! Before you fell into the canal at the Waterways, and now you’re falling off of ladders! Just watching you makes me beside myself with anxiety, you know! So—what about your exam?”

“Oh, yes, I finished it without any trouble.” Glenn looked up once again at Dione’s face.

She straightened her clothes and cleared her throat with a cough. Her eyes were wide with wonder, waiting for the results of her examination—at least, that was the feeling Glenn got. It was hard to read her face with her bangs covering her expression.

“It’s a cold, after all,” he said.

“A cooooooooold… Just a cold?”

“Just a cold.”

At Glenn’s extremely normal diagnosis, a stunned expression appeared on Dione’s face.

The Giant God Dione Nephilim had caused earthquakes and thrown a village into chaos all because she had caught a cold and gone to see the doctor. It was easy to see that her influence on the world around her was by no means ordinary.

Though the harpies’ folktale hadn’t portrayed her properly, her power nonetheless made her a special creature.

 

***

 

Gigas had extremely slow metabolisms.

That was the conclusion Glenn came to from the exam he gave Dione. She had moss growing on her hair because of how exceedingly slow-growing it was. If she stayed almost completely still, her body expended only a small amount of energy, despite its size.

“That’s how she supports her large body—with a low metabolic rate,” Glenn said. “However, because of that, a cold can end up staying around for quite a while.”

“Dr. Glenn, it’s finished.” Sapphee pointed to a tub filled up with hot water. It had originally been a tub the harpies used to wash themselves, so it was quite large. Glenn doubted he could lift it himself. In the hot water was an infusion of herbal ingredients, which gave it a dim color. “Will this even work on Miss Dione? It’s just normal cold medicine.”

“It should be fine. Miss Dione’s body is on a much grander scale, but ultimately, gigas are just one species among many of giant monsters.”

Glenn thought that Dione’s species was possibly the primitive ancestor of modern-day giant monsters. She didn’t seem to belong to some completely unknown species, neither human nor monster.

Whatever she was, monster evolutionary theory was his teacher Cthulhy’s territory. All Glenn could do was heal Dione’s cold—that and prevent her from catching another one.

“I suppose that means it’s my time to shine, then? How I’ve been itching to get started.” Standing there was Arahnia, fresh and lively.

Glenn had been telling Dione that it was important for her to protect herself against the cold. However, the clothes she wore were shabby and falling apart. Even if her cold healed, Glenn was sure that it wouldn’t be long until she got another, considering her current state.

As such, Arahnia had volunteered to make Dione a new set of clothes.

“Heh, to be able to design clothes for the Giant God! My, my, my, I’ve used up all of my designer’s luck, haven’t I?! I’m going to boast about it without end once I’m back in the city!” Her ambitious words were, perhaps, misleading—but either way, Arahnia put everything she had into the hard task of making the Giant God’s clothes.

“I have a limited amount of material,” she said, “so making a whole outfit is out of the question, but, yes, that’s right—I suppose I’ll make an apron and a hat.”

“Apologies for the inconveeeeeenience,” Dione said.

The material was delivered by all of the harpies in the village. They were happy to prepare cloth and thread to help out the Giant God. Enshrined in the village square, it seemed the harpies of the village were really starting to like Dione. Glenn was sure it was thanks to her gentle personality.

“Now then, we…”

“…will attend to the Giant God’s grooming.”

Kay and Lorna brought with them a pair of pruning shears typically used for tree branches. It appeared as though they were going to trim Dione’s hair, which had been free to grow indefinitely. Using the scaffolding that surrounded her, the two centaurs begin cutting Dione’s hair, which had grown all the way down to her waist. It seemed that they were acting out of their concern for her, thinking that it was quite pitiable for a woman to have such a disheveled head of hair.

The two of them tied up Tisalia’s hair on a daily basis, so they were able to cut Dione’s hair quite quickly. Getting rid of the uncouthness of her haircut without changing its length seemed to be their intent. The two of them were very skilled, but dealing with so much hair was still a lot of work.

Someone brought up the idea of making Dione a pair of boots. Their size would be massive, of course, but it turned out that cobblery was also in Arahnia’s territory. She supervised the creation of Dione’s boots, commanding even the especially skilled village harpies.

Thanks to an idea Illy had, a clapper was installed in each of Dione’s boots. Whenever she walked, the clappers would rattle and cause the animals of the mountain to avoid her steps. They would announce her arrival when she was visiting the village, as well.

In this way, everyone in the village worked together and did their best to do this and that for Dione.

“Sniff! I caused you all so much trouuuuuuuble, but you’re still doing so much for meeeeeeeeeee.” Good-natured Dione was deeply moved and looked on the verge of tears. “A looooong time ago I destrooooooyed the village just by moving a little, so I tried to be caaaaareful this time, but…”

“It’s totally okay! It’s tough to deal with everything that happens to you, after all!” Illy energetically declared from atop Dione’s head. In the short time they had known one another, the two had become fast friends.

Hearing this, Dione again sounded on the verge of tears, loudly sniffing her nose. Glenn felt that her cold would still take time to heal, so he told Dione to stay in the village until she began to feel better. He was sure that Dione and the harpies would get along.

With this, Glenn had solved almost all of the problems in the village. The snow had stopped, and Glenn knew they needed to quickly head back to Lindworm. They had been there a long time and needed to reopen their clinic back in the city.

However, there was still one problem in need of resolution.

It was Tisalia.

Seated with her at a restaurant, the centaur seemed at a loss for what to do and had a frown on her face. In front of her was a heaping bowl of salad; she seemed almost desperate as she brought the vegetables to her mouth.

“Miss Tisalia, slow down a bit…” Glenn said.

“I can’t just sit here without eating this!”

Glenn and Sapphee had descended the mountain without issue and returned to Lindworm. They had returned—of course—along with Tisalia pulling their carriage, and Kay and Lorna, too.

After getting back to Lindworm, the first thing Glenn did was invite Tisalia out to eat. During their trip up to the village, he had caused a lot of trouble for the centaur princess. First had been Kay’s sprain, then her anxiety for Illy, followed by the difficulties with Arahnia—and then, after all that, Tisalia had taken up her spear to face the Giant God in combat.

Glenn was sure many of those problems wouldn’t have been resolved without her. As such, he wanted to reward Tisalia for her hard work in whatever way he could. He couldn’t agree to a marriage interview, so he had invited her to share a meal as a thank you.

The place they decided on was a restaurant managed directly by the Alraune Plantation. It was a restaurant with a very specific clientele, what with plant-type monster races serving the food and a menu consisting only of vegetables. It was quite popular among herbivorous races of monster.

“I had the resolution of a lifetime, you know!” Tisalia said.

Glenn thought that Tisalia’s red face was most likely caused by her own embarrassment.

“I went to face the Giant God, I was even prepared to die…but in the end, all she wanted was to have you treat her cold! My resolve! My pride! What am I supposed to do?!”

“Isn’t it a good thing that nothing ended up happening?”

“Well…yes, that’s true…but!” Tisalia was in agony. She started to eat again as she languished.

She had been like this ever since they all returned from the village. Glenn, of course, understood the conflict going on inside her. She had resolved herself to a hopeless battle with the Giant God, yet she had returned home without crossing swords.

As a warrior, she didn’t know how to let go of her pent-up will to fight without having an opponent she could do battle with.

The person she had planned to fight, Dione Nephilim, had received a wonderful hat and apron right before Glenn returned to Lindworm, made specifically for her. Made of copious animal furs, her new clothing was quite fluffy and looked very warm. There was no way Tisalia could have brandished her spear against Dione while the Giant God smiled bashfully at the presents she received.

“Aaarggghh… What should I do?!” Tisalia groaned.

Drinking the vegetable juice that had been brought to him, a charmed smile on his face, Glenn stared at Tisalia with her head in her hands. If she could vent her frustrations with just some grumbling and complaints, then Glenn was more than happy to lend an ear, and he had already planned on spending the evening with her anyway.

“Besides! There’s something else I can’t accept! Up there, by the ceiling!” Tisalia pointed her finger upwards.

“Don’t mind me, Tisalia,” came a voice from above.

Glenn had felt the same way regarding the presence above them.

He had planned on spending dinner alone with Tisalia, but for a while now, he had sensed the weight of someone’s gaze watching him. It wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on. From one of the beams near the ceiling, a single lamia hung upside down. With her long lower body and her tenacious tail, hanging was easy for her, but Glenn just couldn’t take the situation calmly.

The same was true of the waitresses and other customers who were staring unabashedly, wondering what in the world the lamia in the ceiling, Sapphee, was doing. Glenn felt like he should apologize for her disruption, but Sapphee herself pretended not to notice the commotion she was causing.

“And just why are you dropping in on our date?!” Tisalia demanded.

“I should be asking you the same thing,” Sapphee replied. “What exactly are your motives in going on a date with Dr. Glenn?”

“I simply accepted the personal invitation he gave me!”

Sapphee fixed a hard stare in Glenn’s direction. He hadn’t said a single word about them being out on a date, but, well—there wasn’t much he could do if Tisalia had taken it that way.

Glenn could keenly sense the jealous Sapphee’s immediate shift into a bad mood.

“Tisalia,” Sapphee said with detachment. “Even with this affront, I still think highly of you. I think that your courage in deciding to face off against the Giant God was particularly wonderful.” It was rare for her to praise Tisalia, but her words didn’t have much of an effect on Tisalia’s mood, dangling from the ceiling as she was. “If I were in your shoes,” Sapphee went on, “I don’t think I would have been able to do the same. I have respect for you, as a woman.”

“In that case, won’t you at least allow me to have a meal with the doctor?”

“That’s exactly why I won’t.” Sapphee’s eyes grew even more terrifying. “I have to be on guard and make sure a marvelous person like yourself doesn’t cause Dr. Glenn to have a change of heart. To be perfectly clear, you’re much, much more troublesome a person than Arahnia!”

“I’ll thank you for minding your own business!” Tisalia said. “If you’ve accepted your defeat, then just say so!”

“I haven’t lost—not yet.”

The two women’s quarreling was endless. In a panic, Glenn stopped both of them as Tisalia threw her fork and Sapphee feigned disinterest as she caught it in the air.

If things went any further, they would end up causing trouble for the restaurant.

“…Hold on, hold on. For now, how about we eat together, all three of us?”

At Glenn’s words, Sapphee slid down from the ceiling, but for some reason, she settled beside Glenn so that she was facing toward Tisalia.

“This was supposed to be a wonderful date just for the two of us…” Tisalia muttered.

“How unfortunate. Now it’s become three.”

The two of them glared at each other like they were trying to keep one another in check.

Being flanked on either side by them was unbearable for Glenn. That said, even as they fought with each other, Glenn still felt a sense of friendship between them. The fact that they had both dropped formalities when speaking with one another was good evidence of this friendship.

“Infidelity is said to be a man’s illness,” Sapphee said. “We’ll have to make sure you don’t suffer such an illness—right, Dr. Glenn?”

“I’ll make you catch the fever of love,” Tisalia said. “Prepare yourself, Doctor!”

It seemed that the busy doctor of monster medicine wasn’t going to have any time to take care of himself.