Chapter 4: Was my grandfather crazy about hot girls?

I did not sleep.

I stayed awake until the sky outside my window faded from black to that dull gray that means dawn is coming, ready or not. I stared at the ceiling. It stared back. We silently agreed that neither of us was happy with my life choices.

When the first rooster started up, I gave up and got dressed.

I put on my travel clothes and good boots, then slung my cloak over my shoulder. My bag waited by the door. The scarf my mother added last night was folded neatly on top, as if daring me to leave it. I didn’t unpack it. Only a fool refuses his mother’s scarf.

The kitchen smelled like bread.

My mother was already awake, naturally. She handed me a wrapped parcel and kissed my forehead without saying anything. Her eyes looked a bit red at the corners. She turned back to the stove before I could comment, which was a relief, since my own eyes were just as red, though I planned to pretend otherwise.

My father was at the back door.

He wasn’t wearing his training clothes. Instead, he had on his good dark coat—the one he wore to the guild council meeting, the funeral, and the day my grandfather died. Under one arm, he carried something long and flat, wrapped in black cloth and tied with a red cord.

He did not say good morning.

“Out back. Now.”

“I haven’t eaten.”

“Bring the bread.”

I brought the bread.

At this hour, the training yard looked silver. The practice dummies seemed like ghosts, and the sword rack was still damp with dew. My father stopped in the middle of the yard, turned around, and held out the wrapped object with both hands, offering it like a sword instead of a gift.

“From your grandfather.”

“…what?”

“He left this for you. Specifically you. He was very clear.”

“He died before I could walk.”

“He was still clear.”

I took the bundle. It was heavier than it looked. I undid the red cord. The black cloth fell open.

It was a scroll.

The scroll was made of thick, old paper that crackled under my thumb and smelled like a dry, quiet place. Its edges were tied with a silver ribbon, and a wax seal stamped with a symbol I didn’t recognize sat at the center. The seal was a cat.

A cat.

My grandfather. The Hero. Slayer of the Demon Lord. Savior of three kingdoms. Final resting stamp on his legacy: a cat.

“…is this a joke?”

“I did not laugh when he gave it to me.”

“You are laughing now.”

“I am not.”

“Your shoulders are laughing.”

“My shoulders are cold, Alfred.”

I turned the scroll over in my hands. It was a summoning scroll. I’d seen pictures of them in books. They were so rare that most people only knew about them from stories, and so powerful that those stories often involved wars. A hero’s summoning scroll would call a beast, a spirit, or a partner in arms—someone or something to fight beside you.

Grandpa had been a hero.

So this was, probably, a beast.

It would be a strong beast. A noble one. A partner worthy of our family. I straightened my shoulders and took a breath. For the first time in two days, I felt a small warmth in my chest that wasn’t fear.

My grandfather had left me a weapon.

My grandfather had believed in me.

“Stand back, Father.”

“Oh?”

“I do not know what will come out of this. It could be enormous.”

“Mm.”

“It could be dangerous.”

“Mm.”

“Stand back.”

My father stepped back—just once. He crossed his arms and kept doing that thing with his shoulders. I ignored it, because this was an important moment, and moments like this don’t care if your father is quietly laughing at you.

I broke the seal.

The wax cracked clean down the middle of the cat. I unrolled the scroll. The paper was covered in my grandfather’s handwriting, which I had never seen before, and in the center was a summoning circle drawn in red ink. The circle was beautiful. Precise. Layered. Genuinely, properly made, the work of a man who had summoned things for a living.

I placed my palm on the circle.

I pushed mana into it.

I didn’t use much mana—I didn’t have much. Maybe just what a lazy eighteen-year-old has after avoiding practice for five years. Still, the circle absorbed it eagerly. The red lines glowed like embers in the wind, the paper grew hot under my hand, and a sudden wind picked up the dust in the yard, spinning it into a tight column in front of me.

The column flashed.

The dust fell.

Something small and warm sat on the packed dirt in front of me.

It blinked up at me.

It had ears.

On top of its head.

They were pointed, fuzzy, and twitched a little in the cool morning air. Below the ears was a face that, honestly, was a problem. She had very large eyes the color of fresh honey, a small nose, a slightly open mouth, a few freckles across her nose, and cinnamon-colored hair falling in soft, messy waves. Below the face was a neck. Below the neck was a—

“Father.”

“Yes, Alfred.”

“Why is she not wearing enough?”

“I did not pack for her, Alfred.”

“FATHER.”

“Calm down.”

“She is WEARING A BLANKET.”

“It appears to be a cloak.”

“IT APPEARS TO BE A SUGGESTION OF A CLOAK.”

The cat girl—because she was definitely a cat girl, with a tail curled neatly around her bare feet—tilted her head at me. Her ears twitched again. She sniffed the air once, delicately, in my direction. Her eyes widened just a little.

Behind her, on the dirt, a folded piece of paper had fallen out of the summoning circle and landed face-up.

I lunged for it before she could move. My face was on fire. My whole head was on fire. I grabbed the paper and opened it with hands that were not entirely cooperating.

It was a letter.

In my grandfather’s handwriting.

【Dear grandson,

This is your grandpa.

Suppose you are reading this, congratulations. You figured out the scroll. Good boy.

I am going to be honest with you, because I am dead, and dead men have no reason to lie.

I wanted a harem.

I wanted a harem very badly.

Your grandmother, may she be in good health as you read this, did not permit a harem. Your grandmother is a wonderful woman, and I loved her with my entire heart. She once threw a table at me for looking at a barmaid for three seconds. Your father’s mother, as I understand it, is similar. Your father has my sympathies.

You, however, are a new generation.

You have, I am told, inherited my eyes.

Do not waste my eyes, grandson.

I have left you a head start. The hottest girl a young man could ask for. She has been waiting for you. Be kind to her. Feed her well. She likes fish.

Go forth and build the life I was not allowed to have.

With love and deep, deep regret,

Grandpa】

I read the letter once.

I read it again.

I read it a third time because surely, surely, I had misread it the first two.

I had not misread it.

My grandfather. The hero of legend. The man whose statue stood in the square. The man whose name I carried. The man whose sword hung in the guild hall behind a pane of enchanted glass, polished once a month by an apprentice who considered it the honor of his young life.

That man.

Had left me.

A girl.

Because he wanted a harem, and my grandmother had not let him have one.

“Father.”

“Yes, Alfred.”

“Did you know?”

“I suspected.”

“Did you know?”

“…I read it once. When I was twenty. Your grandfather left it out on the kitchen table. I assumed it was a joke. Your grandmother walked in. He ate the letter.”

“Did he eat the letter?”

“He ate the letter.”

“In front of her?”

“He chewed very fast, Alfred.”

I sat down on the dirt.

I just sat there. My legs refused to hold me up, so I stayed on the ground. The cat girl was still watching me from inside the faded summoning circle, her head tilted, tail curled neatly, and ears tracking the small sounds of the waking city beyond the yard. She didn’t look confused—she looked patient, like someone who had waited a long time and finally saw the door open.

My father crouched down next to me. He rested one hand on my shoulder. His voice, when he spoke, was softer than it had been in years.

“Alfred.”

“Don’t.”

“Alfred, listen.”

“Don’t start.”

“Your grandfather was the greatest swordsman of his age.”

“Yes.”

“He was the savior of three kingdoms.”

“Yes.”

“He was, in his personal life, a complete and absolute idiot about women.”

“…”

“It appears to be hereditary.”

“FATHER.”

He patted my shoulder. He stood up. He walked back toward the house with the calm, even pace of a man who had, after many years of quiet waiting, finally been paid back for every difficult moment of raising me. At the door, he paused.

“Your mother has breakfast. Bring your guest.”

“She is not my guest.”

“She is your grandfather’s gift.”

“Same problem, different word.”

“Bring her anyway, Alfred. She looks hungry.”

The door shut behind him.

I did not look at the cat girl. I looked at the dirt. The dirt did not have answers, but it was also not looking at me with honey-colored eyes, and I was grateful for that much. My ears were still hot. My brain was still refusing to process what had just come out of a piece of paper written by my own blood.

A soft sound.

Bare feet on packed dirt.

I realized, too late, that she had gotten up.

I realized, even more too late, that she had been walking toward me the whole time I was sitting there, not looking at her.

I lifted my head just as she reached me.

Up close, she was smaller than I expected, with narrow shoulders and small hands. Her cinnamon hair smelled faintly of sun on dry grass, which made no sense since she had come out of a scroll, and scrolls don’t smell like summer. Her ears flicked nervously, and her tail gave a slow swish behind her.

She looked at me for a long moment.

Then she knelt.

Then she wrapped her arms around my neck, pressed her face into the side of my throat, and held on tightly, like someone finally getting to touch something they’d only heard about for years.

She was warm.

She was shaking, just a little.

She whispered one word, right against my skin, in a voice that had not been used in a very long time.

“Master.”