Reborn as a Succubus: Time To Live My Best Life!-Chapter 278: Loyalty, Part Thirty-Six

{Melistair}

Melistair's muscles ached as he packed up his tools. Nine hours of trying to focus on construction while wondering if his best friend was a would-be murderer had left him exhausted in ways that had nothing to do with physical labor.

"Psst! Dad!"

He nearly dropped his hammer at Melisa's voice from a nearby alley. His daughter's silver-dyed hair caught the evening light as she waved him over.

"Have you been waiting here all day?" he asked, glancing around to make sure no one was paying attention to the nim girl flagging down a construction worker from an alley. That would be... difficult to explain.

"Of course not!" Melisa grinned, reaching into a bag at her feet. "I've been very busy doing very important investigation things. Also, I got us these!"

She produced two street-vendor mystery meat pies, still steaming. The kind that probably contained more mystery than meat, but smelled amazing after a long day's work.

"Well... Thank you," Melistair took one.

"Come on," Melisa said, already heading deeper into the alley network. "I found out some things. We should probably discuss them somewhere less public."

"Should I be worried about, uh, how far your investigation went?" Melistair asked, following his daughter through Syux's back streets. He tried not to think about the various ways she might have gotten information.

"Not at all. It was all very pure and very innocent," Melisa took a bite of her pie, managing somehow to make even that look suspicious. "Aaand you don't believe me."

"Nope. But, whatever, I don't want to know," he decided. "Just... tell me what you found out."

"Oh, you'll definitely want to know this," Melisa said, leading them toward what looked like an abandoned courtyard. "Though you might want to sit down first."

[Nine years of friendship,] Melistair thought as they found seats on some old crates. [And now I'm about to find out if it meant anything at all.]

He looked at his daughter. Whatever she'd discovered, whatever she'd had to do to find it out, she'd done it to protect their family.

"Alright," he said, settling in with his questionable meat pie. "Tell me everything."

Melisa took another bite, clearly thinking about how to start.

[This,] Melistair thought with grim humor, [is either going to make me feel much better or much worse about everything.]

Knowing his luck, maybe both.

Melisa took another bite of her pie, chewed thoughtfully, then looked her father dead in the eye.

"Rax didn't order the attack."

Melistair's pie stopped halfway to his mouth.

This content is taken from fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm.

"What?"

"He didn't order it," Melisa repeated. "But he did something arguably just as stupid."

Thus, she began to explain about the drinking, about Rax bragging to the wrong person at the wrong time. About accidentally painting a target on their backs through sheer carelessness.

"He was drunk," she said, watching her father's face carefully. "Proud of his friend who'd done so well for himself. Living in a noble's house, friendship with the former court sorceress. He told this guy called Koros everything."

"Koros?" Melistair's voice was quiet. Dangerous.

"Someone I'm aware of," Melisa explained. "Not someone I've really spoken to, though. Apparently, he got real interested in where exactly we lived." Melisa took another bite of pie. "The rest, as they say, is arson."

Melistair sat in silence for a long moment. The remains of his pie cooled forgotten in his hands.

"You're sure?" he finally asked. "About all of this?"

"Dad, my methods got the actual late queen of Syux to spill centuries of royal secrets while riding my face." Melisa rolled her eyes. "Trust me, Rax was telling the truth."

"I really didn't need to know that about the queen."

"Hey, you asked about my methods." Melisa shrugged. "Point is, I'm sure. He didn't try to kill us. He just... fucked up. Spectacularly."

"I was ready to kill him," Melistair said quietly. "Had it all planned out."

"I know." Melisa reached over, squeezed his hand. "But hey, at least now you don't have to figure out how to dispose of a body. Though I do have some suggestions if you're still interested..."

That startled a laugh out of him.

"Sometimes you worry me."

"Only sometimes? I must be losing my touch."

They sat in companionable silence for a moment, finishing their questionable meat pies while the sun set over Syux's rooftops.

"So," Melistair finally said. "Koros. Where do I find him?"

"No no," Melisa shook her head, wiping pie crumbs from her mouth. "That's my job."

"Absolutely not. I can't let you put yourself in danger like that."

His daughter fixed him with a look that managed to be both amused and exasperated. She'd perfected that expression somewhere between accidentally blowing up half the academy's east wing and developing her first combat spells.

"Dad," she said slowly, like explaining something to a particularly dense child, "I've killed more actual, trained assassins than I can count. The Shadow Mages sent their best after me and I turned them into girlfriends or corpses." She smirked.

"Melisa-"

"This?" She gestured vaguely. "This is nothing. Some angry nim with a match doesn't exactly rank high on my list of 'people who've tried to murder me.' Hell, he's not even in the top twenty."

[That's... not as comforting as she probably thinks it is,] Melistair thought.

But she had a point.

His daughter wasn't that confused child anymore, studying magic relentlessly in her room. She'd grown into something... else. Something that apparently made ancient queens spill secrets and hardened assassins switch sides.

So, instead, Melistair's mind shifted.

[So... Rax really didn't betray me?] The thought hit him suddenly. [At least, not intentionally?]

Nine years of friendship. Nine years of trust. All nearly destroyed because his friend got drunk and bragged to the wrong person.

Somehow, that felt both better and worse than what he'd suspected.

Melistair stood up.

"Well... I guess that's it then," he extended a hand to Melisa. "Come on. Your mother's probably worried sick."

"Alright. But, really though, dad," she added, "let me deal with this."

"... I know," Melistair nodded. "I know."