Akira was on Vermillion’s shoulders, who was resting on the hill, a little away from the knights for a private conversation.

“So, let’s first explain how marriage works for humans. The idea is simple, once you marry, you are to stay married and happy with each other for the rest of your life, usually only by themselves… Although now that I think about it, does this world has the Harem setting? .... I should ask the prince tomorrow… Damn, whatever, forget it, did you understand what I said about marriage?”

“Hm, 2 humans stay tied together, and live for the rest of their lives together, and they have children, and they just take care of their children, no attacking, or sucking tits, or acting like animals towards them. Was that it?”

“Yes, but do understand that the actions of your mother towards you are exceptions, your father told me he never saw anyone other child being treated like how his mother did to him, and he confirmed that with you too. You mother is the exception here.”

“I see… But what happens once one of the couple dies? The other must die too?”

“No, they continue living, but usually both are already old enough, so they just live the rest of their lives like that until they die themselves.”

“And what happens when the lifespan is too different?”

“Oh… I guess demons have that to consider, but humans usually have a similar lifespan to each other, and most of the time marry someone of similar age. But if that’s not the case, and they can still marry off, then they can.”

“I think I understand, so why did the Princess react like that?”

“That… Good question…”

“You seem to not like her very much, and I didn’t like the way she talked about you…”

“You could say that, but… Will you listen?”

“Sure, I will try to stay awake.”

“I guess it could be described as a boring story.”

--- FLASHBACK ---

Akira was suddenly summoned into a weird hall with some weird glowing drawings on the ground, and some pretty tall people away from it, they were all like models and beefed up men in armor knights.

Akira had an idea already, the Goddess that summoned him and gave him a cheat ability had told him the sort of world he was going to. He complained, but she told him it’s too late. Akira had already read stories like that on Earth, so he had some idea.

There were no levels, no status screens, no cheat Appraisal, no cheat Item Box, no cheat Undead for infinite workforce, no cheat Golems for similar infinite workforce, but at least the language was properly translated.

So the most important looking old man, the King, and the pretty young woman right by his side approached and welcomed him with open arms. The princess was certainly beautiful, and like everyone else around, she was super tall, but she was gracious and friendly.

Then, in the hall, the King and his whole family were having dinner, and explained to Akira the threat of the Demon King. Of course, as a person who just came from a pacific world, the idea of “you must fight for us, and if you lose, everyone will die” was too much, the Princess was by his side to support him in understanding the world.

When Akira asked about other heroes, she would heartily talk about the legends, of the great feats, about the old heroes, she even didn’t forget to include the princesses that they married, but Akira could only feel pressured upon imagining his “Artifact Creation” cheat being compared to divine swords capable of cutting mountains in half, or hell fire magic capable of creating huge craters of destruction on the land.

When he selected his Cheat he thought “Since the world doesn’t have technology, it would be nice to be able to reproduce some stuff that doesn’t exist there.”, there was no intention on “How to kill demons or destroy everything”.

Not even a week in the world, Akira was scared, he started to study the history of the world, especially about Demons, who or what they were, what they seek, what they need to survive, there was a lot of contradictory info, some would describe them as the forces of evil, another would explain them as monsters. Reading some of the species, like the horse people, who were like Centaurs, and bird people, like Harpies, Akira wondered… If they are like humans… Why don’t they think like humans?

And from that, he realized that maybe the info from the human side is just wrong, and whatever the reason this Demon King wants to attack, maybe it’s possible to make a counter offer. He suggested it to the King, who didn’t accept it.

Starting from the middle of the second week, Akira started researching his ability, trying to understand that smaller details of it, limitations and such starting from small and effective to later try bigger things as necessary, he understood that different materials are capable of different things, so it’s not like some stories where you just take a piece of wood, place some magic circle, and now it’s an invincible magic sword, it requires knowledge and resources, but the ability to use powerful abilities and low mana cost was a big advantage.

Four months had passed since he was summoned, the royal mages were very interested in Akira’s studies, and helped him as much as he needed, he had created a number of artifacts that would help in his endeavour, but the relationships with the royalty were bad to worse, although thanks to his status as a Hero, he was still treated well. His only good relationships in the castle were with the mages that helped him.

And the Princess? During all those months, she was not by his side anymore, any time they met from there on she would insult or physically attack him, always humiliating him in front of others. Most of the time it actually felt like she went out of her way just to meet him solely for the sake of bullying.

And then, he left, taking the Artifacts he created, with some references to how to pass through the Ice Lands.

When he passed through it though, he wasn't sure how he would find the Demon King, but locating the castle was easy, so he just needed to go towards it.

--- FLASHBACK END ---

“I see, but she seemed pretty enthusiastic at first, right?”

“I can’t deny that, but it was just a couple of weeks, the mask fell off early.”

“You said she sometimes she went out of her way just to bully you?”

“Yeah, at least, it felt like that, you know like before, you may not have noticed, but she was walking towards me faking that she hadn’t seen me just to kick me, you know.”

“You know, that reminded me of Mama.”

“You are joking right?”

“Not really, you know, you said that the Princess was annoying, right? You know, when I tried to play with my friends… Mama always joined us, and she would always be glued to me. It was… Annoying. We would play climbing on me, so when my friends would start, Mama would sometimes even shake them off just to win.”

“... I can’t understand the similarity…”

“Mama would do anything to be around me, she would even ignore her tasks, Papa had a lot of work… Of course, as I grew up, I started to stop her sometimes, but then she started to like even when I forcefully stop her… It’s not that I dislike her, my mother feels good, I feel good, and she knows what I like, but… Well, that was what I meant.”

“... I don’t see any reason on why she would start attacking me.”

“... Well, my case was about mama kissing and licking me, I can’t say I understand much, but anytime you want to talk, I’m all ears.”