Sizzle—
Chunks of fat and lean meat rapidly shrank under the high heat, the rendered grease merrily dancing across the bottom of the pan.
The rich aroma of meat mixed with cracked black pepper and coarse salt spread through the air, drifting through the half-open kitchen door and gradually filling the entire living room.
"So when you were fooling around with that dark-skinned elf, Zoya was nearby!?"
At the table, Fivik's eyes widened slightly, brimming with disbelief.
"What do you mean, fooling around, Teacher? I didn't do anything... I basically avoided looking whenever I could."
"Nimo didn't put it that way."
"How did she put it?"
"This... this kind of thing isn't easy to talk about. Anyway, it's enough that I know what happened."
Fivik raised her teacup, using the motion of drinking to hide her expression.
That little Nimo had started spouting nonsense without even figuring out what was going on.
Thinking back to that night, when the little fairy had scrambled out of the portal in a panic, waving her arms about wildly, Fivik had thought He Xi was in danger and had been ready to teleport over at once.
But then Nimo had opened her mouth and dropped a thunderbolt—
"This is terrible! The naked dark elf has her butt sticking out at your bad disciple!"
Looking at He Xi, who sat across from her with a face full of frank innocence, Fivik silently thought, My disciple is an upright mage devoted to the exploration of magic, not the sort who goes around fooling around...
But as her gaze drifted slightly downward, it inadvertently came to rest on He Xi's wrist.
Uh... forget it. She should stop deceiving herself.
Fivik sighed inwardly.
She set down her teacup, turned to look at the little elf quietly reading beside