Taking in Noctiluca… no, she should be called Katy now.
Mrs. Farley, who had taken Katy in, seemed to have gone out on some temporary business, which was just as well.
It saved Katy from having to explain who this man was—a man who looked as disheveled as if he had just crawled out of a garbage heap.
At the moment, this A-rank Hero was ravenously gnawing on a baguette so hard it could have been used as a blunt weapon, washing it down with milk.
He ate with such frantic speed that Katy wondered if he hadn’t had a meal in three days and nights.
“There’s no need to rush, Mr. Gray. There’s plenty more to eat. Be careful not to choke.”
Seeing that his wooden mug was empty, Katy followed the flow of the conversation and lifted the ceramic pitcher to refill his milk, pushing a plate of evenly sliced ham toward him as she did.
Smelling the aroma of smoky fat, Gray felt like he was about to burst into tears.
If this was heaven, then please, let time stop forever at this moment.
However, a sight out of the corner of his eye nearly caused him to choke to death.
The girl with the angelic face and kind heart was currently rolling up her sleeves, using a cloth to wipe down one end of the dining table.
Gray quickly finished the bread in his hand and reached out, attempting to take the rag from her.
“I’m already so grateful for your hospitality. How could I possibly let Miss Katy do chores? Leave this kind of rough work to me!”
But the girl’s wrist turned nimbly, evading his outstretched hand.
Katy blinked, her azure eyes filled with a hint of confusion.
“Do you mean to say, Mr. Gray, that wiping a table is a bad thing?”
“No, that’s not it,” Gray said, momentarily speechless by the counter-question.
“I mean, it doesn’t suit…”
“For me, this is a very happy thing.”
Seeing that Gray didn’t continue trying to snatch the rag, Katy gave a faint smile and leaned over to wipe away some grease stains in the center of the table that she couldn’t reach while standing.
Gray found it difficult to look away from the curves of the girl’s figure.
Her slightly mature body, separated only by a layer of faded fabric, was pressed against the wooden table into breathtaking arcs.
What should have been a normal act of wiping a table took on a touch of unintentional charm under the afternoon sun.
Realizing he shouldn’t be staring, the young man pinched his thigh hard, using the pain to force his gaze away.
Gray, oh Gray, the person in front of you is your benefactor.
How could you look at her like that?
“Miss Katy…”
He took a deep breath, his voice tightening slightly.
“Although I know it might sound a bit affected to say this now, it’s really best not to invite a strange man into your home so defenselessly—especially an adventurer.”
“But to me, you aren’t that kind of dangerous stranger, Mr. Gray.”
Again exceeding Gray’s expectations, Katy—who was busy battling a stubborn stain—looked up and spoke as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
After all, you’re just a small-fry A-rank who has never beaten me, while I was once a Calamity Pillar comparable to an S-rank—reasons like that, of course, could not be said aloud.
“I’ve always admired the free and cool adventurers in stories. So, Mr. Gray, to me, you’re someone I aspire to be.”
Though the words “aspire to be” often heralded a bad ending in certain contexts, Gray, who did not hail from Earth, naturally couldn’t pick up on that layer of meaning.
He simply felt his face turn red, frantically explaining to himself in his head that Katy might just be at an age where she didn’t understand the true weight of the word “aspiration.”
But… “aspiration”?
A visible gloom flashed through Gray’s eyes before he downed the milk in his cup like it was hard liquor.
“Ha…”
Setting the cup down, Gray stood up straight.
“Miss Katy, I think it’s necessary for me to reintroduce myself.”
As if worried that her image of him might still hold unrealistic fantasies because of the A-rank title, Gray, emboldened by the milk, stood tall and looked at the puzzled Katy.
“I am—”
He swallowed hard.
That title, which he had clearly accepted and mocked himself with during countless late nights, was still incredibly difficult to speak aloud to this kind girl he had met by chance.
“I am not the hero you imagine, Miss Katy. I am… ‘The Weakest Winless A-Rank Hero’.”
The air seemed to freeze for a moment.
Gray didn’t dare look into the girl’s eyes; he just stared at a crack in the corner of the table and continued with a self-deprecating tone.
“Even if I might have accomplished something once… now, I’m nothing more than a piece of trash who can’t even complete a single dungeon crawl before it closes.”
“A failure without a single success…”
“He probably used connections to get into Dawn Blade…”
“No wonder he’s been solo ever since he left the party…”
The insults from his past suddenly stung his back.
Even though he stood more than a head taller than Katy, Gray felt like a pathetic dwarf at this moment.
The young man, who usually considered his skin thicker than a Soil Golem’s, lowered his head, not wanting her to see the bitterness in his eyes.
“…”
Seeing Katy remain silent, Gray couldn’t help but smile bitterly in his heart.
As expected, that expression… she had probably finally confirmed that he was a worthless loser and saw no need to maintain a fake respect for a “hero” anymore, right?
Tap, tap.
The sound of bare feet on the wooden floor was light, but in the silent room, it was exceptionally clear.
And the sound was stepping closer.
Gray’s gray eyes shifted slightly upward, and a pair of fair, slender ankles appeared in his field of vision.
Immediately after, the girl’s petite figure leaned in front of him, and she stood on her tiptoes.
What is she doing?
Is she going to slap me and tell me to get out?
Before Gray could think of a reason, a soft, warm sensation lightly brushed his upper lip, accompanied by a pleasant scent of soap.
It was the handkerchief in the girl’s hand.
“There was milk on your lip.”
Katy looked at Gray as he lifted his head with a dazed expression.
She couldn’t help but use her free hand to trace a mustache shape on her own face, then burst into laughter.
“Sorry, just now, Mr. Gray looked like a grandpa with a white beard. Hahaha—”
Clear laughter echoed through the small room, like the ringing of wind chimes.
Gray looked at the girl laughing with her hands over her stomach, and the stinging insults and feelings of inferiority seemed to fly out through the cracks in the window frame along with her laughter.
Before he knew it, the corners of his own mouth turned upward.
“…Is it really that funny?”
“Sorry, it’s just…”
Katy tried her best to control her laughter, urgently thinking of a reason why she was laughing so hard in her head.
She couldn’t exactly say:
“Keke, actually, I’m the Noctiluca who caused you to end up like this! Seeing you struggle in pain because of me makes me feel so high!” right?
With her current body of an ordinary girl, she’d probably be obliterated by his Magnetic Field Rotation Punch on the spot.
She took a deep breath and suppressed her laughter, but the sparkle in her eyes didn’t fade.
She seemed not to care at all about the defeats Gray had mentioned.
“Rather than some grand logic about ‘not being able to clear a dungeon,’ I think Mr. Gray, who doesn’t even remember to wipe the milk off his face, really doesn’t seem like an A-rank Hero. You have to remember to wipe it clean next time.”
“…”
Gray suddenly felt a deep urge to pull the girl in front of him into a tight embrace and pour out everything to her.
If he hadn’t immediately bitten his tongue, using the sharp pain and the taste of rust in his mouth to force his reason back, he might have truly done something untoward to the angel before him.
“But I—”
“If you really feel like you’re some ‘Weakest Winless’ person, then—”
The girl suddenly interrupted him.
Like a magic trick, she produced another dry rag and stuffed it into Gray’s hand without taking no for an answer.
“Let’s have a competition.”
Katy extended her finger, tracing an imaginary line on the long table.
“Using the chair you’re sitting in as the boundary, let’s see who finishes wiping their half of the table first. How about it?”
Gray looked down.
He was sitting in the second position from the right of the long table.
If that chair was the vertical boundary, and considering the area Katy had already wiped, he was at a massive disadvantage.
However, when he met the girl’s smiling eyes, Gray felt like every choice other than agreeing was being rejected by his body’s instincts.
It was just like playing a Galgame where all three choices on the screen were “Agree to her.”
“…Alright.”
“Then work hard, Mr. Gray! To get rid of the ‘Weakest Winless’ title!”
With Katy’s command, the somewhat ridiculous one-on-one match began.