11-3 The Orston House

Instead of a ding-dong, the caller mechanism attached to the door let out a dry clatter.

Without any pause, Butler opened the door for me.

“We have been awaiting your arrival. Al-sama.”

I had asked the butler here to skip the stiff formal greetings.

After all, I was basically a man who had settled into the role of Antonio’s partner.

I was promptly shown inside and greeted the head of the house and his wife, who were waiting in the salon.

“Hey, I heard the good news? Congratulations~. Here, this is a gift to celebrate.”

Naturally, the celebratory gift was wrapped beautifully using materials I had made.

The wrapping preparations were specially made by Aoi-chan.

Margarita-san accepted it happily, looking a little entranced.

“My, thank you very much. What lovely wrapping~”

“If it pleases you, I can give you wrapping materials and such separately. And also documents on how to do the wrapping.”

Yes, I thought this could become a fine weapon for the newly reborn Orston House, so I had Aoi-chan make explanatory materials with illustrations in this world’s writing on various methods.

Just as expected of someone who had been an active high school student until recently, she learned the written language quickly.

An old man like me could not keep up with her at all.

I was especially bad with foreign languages, after all.

Also, I had obtained that spirit-world global live-broadcasting technique unconditionally as well, because it had made full use of my magic power.

I tried imbuing that into a magic stone and processing it into a magic tool.

It was basically like a portable DVD player.

Into that magic tool, I recorded translated video footage like online videos explaining how to do wrapping and such.

One of the reasons this house had fallen was the label of being a rigid family of muscle-brained warriors.

If they unveiled this wrapping technique as a return gift for childbirth celebrations, people would surely say in no time that the new Orston House was something else entirely.

After all, the lovely wrapping materials were all special materials that only I could make in this world, so there was absolutely no way to obtain them except through the Orston House.

Besides that, items wrapped crisply in various Japanese-style designed wrapping papers would surely impress people here the way Earth foreigners are impressed.

I hoped they would work hard and make good use of this.

This also carried the meaning of protecting Margarita-san.

Given her background, people around her might say all sorts of things, so this was to be used as a killer social weapon to silence them.

If necessary, I planned to give them other things too, and Aoi-chan was in charge of that side.

She was a formidable agent who manipulated the internet and could gather live information through local field operatives who were her friends and juniors, female high school students living on Earth.

When it came to this kind of clever little technique, there was not a single nation in either world that could surpass my homeland Japan.

And if I could reproduce various things further with my item-creation ability, then we would be nearly invincible.

It was only a matter of time before pro-Orston factions were born in noble society.

Anyone who tried to criticize them… probably did not exist.

Margarita-san’s supporting firepower was this noble-killer Granburst, and her husband was no slouch either.

Antonio himself was not very aware of it, but his name had already spread far and wide as “the man who could casually form a duo with Granburst.”

On top of that, he himself also held the title of dragon slayer.

His house had originally been one of the foremost martial lineages in Albatross.

For the time being, I assembled a special stand and hung up the present I had painstakingly made with all my heart.

After looking it up since then, it seemed this was called a smile merry or a bed merry.

Yeah, it looked quite nice.

Various enchantments had been placed on this stand so that it would not easily topple even if shaken or struck.

I had Antonio shake it and test it too.

This was one of those skills that had naturally been polished to a great degree because the brats at my place were always causing one thing or another.

Antonio narrowed his eyes as he looked at it.

The sharp atmosphere he had when I first met him could no longer be felt in the slightest in the man he was now.

He had passed through many deadly ordeals and fulfilled a long-cherished wish of nearly twenty years.

It must have given him very deep feelings.

In the prepared baby bed, Fal quickly climbed up into it and looked utterly pleased.

Margarita-san happily entertained her in her adorable Fals form with the baby rattle I had given as a present.

Come to think of it, I had forgotten to give them the food, so I hurriedly brought it out.

That was well received too.

Naturally, I had brought the dragon as well.

Apparently, in the Orston House, there was a custom of celebrating happy occasions with dragon meat.

What kind of family was this?

Antonio had apparently kept the meat of the dragon he had hunted himself as well.

For the day when he might someday restore his house.

When the house was restored, he held a celebration and even distributed it to the people of his territory.

I stuffed the entire thirty-meter dragon I still had into Antonio’s item box.

Come to think of it, during the stampede, he had hunted three more at once too.

“Oh, you are sure it is fine for us to receive something like a dragon?”

“Yeah, because you guys… still have not had the wedding yet, right? And in this place, you need a dragon for celebrations, don’t you?”

“Y-yeah. But with everything we have been through. I had been wondering what to do about that, but now this is already a happy occasion.”

“Ah—but wouldn’t that be bad for nobles?”

“W-well, yeah.”

Antonio said that and smiled gently.

Maybe he thought that even if they forced a public unveiling, it would only cause people to say things about Margarita-san.

That if he could protect her from slander and abuse, that was enough, even more than noble appearances.

That really was just like him.

But Al-san was not the sort to quietly watch something like that.

What was needed had already been prepared.

It might just need a bit of touching up now that Margarita-san was pregnant.

I would consult Aoi-chan about that matter.

We had to finish the preparations before the sports day.

So, I promptly took my leave from the Orston House and stood before His Majesty the King.

In that same king’s office again.

This king really did meet with someone like me awfully readily.

“…And that is the situation, so could I ask you to do a bit of groundwork with the various parties?”

“Mm. So you mean to turn what was once the kingdom’s shame into a fine tale. Very well. I shall take care of that side. I leave the wedding preparations to you.”

“Leave it to me.”

I promptly returned to the garden and checked with Aoi-chan.

“Aoi-chan, what about that thing from before?”

“Yes, it needs some touching up, right? If you transport the seamstress group to the site with teleportation magic, it will be fine. Of course, with the sewing machines brought along too. I have prepared one that was used by royalty in a kingdom on Earth, just in case.”

Aoi-chan answered with a smile.

Girls really loved this sort of thing.

“Yep, I’m counting on you. Also, how is the sports day looking?”

Another lovely smile came back to me.

Aoi-chan really loved events.

Come to think of it, she was quite the otaku.

“It is already completely set. The little ones are all fired up even for the rehearsal.”

Next, I headed over to Eri’s place.

“Hey, how is it going~?”

“Al-onii-chan! It is already perfect. I have something almost finished. Try it.”

What was there were things like pudding à la mode, chocolate sundaes, and banana? parfaits.

The thing used in those was a fruit very similar to bananas, but it was such a fine fruit that even I, who disliked bananas, thought it was delicious.

And then there was cheesecake.

I loved cheesecake, and this one again had restrained sweetness and turned out wonderfully.

This girl really did understand well what high quality meant.

Apparently, whenever she had free time lately, Erin had been constantly hanging around Eri’s place.

Ed had said that with a sigh.

It was a combination of someone who enjoyed making things and someone who enjoyed eating them, and even their names were similar.

It was good to see them getting along.

“Excellent, excellent. I’ll have Aoi-chan sample it later too.”

It probably would not stop with just Aoi-chan.

After all, we had a huge number of creatures at home with sensitive noses.