The scene had descended into complete chaos.

“Uh… So Aya is the son of Uncle Anticas and Miss Luko, then Doris is their daughter, and Doris likes Aya?” The little Angel, who’d been watching the drama unfold from the sidelines for quite a while, helped sort things out.

“Yeah, that seems to be the case—like hell it does! I’ve never heard of suddenly having a little sister! Mom, Dad, what’s going on?!”

Aya had been leaning to one side with his arms crossed, nodding along again and again. But he soon lost his composure, flung out a hand, and pointed at his parents on the sofa, who’d somehow picked up their teacups again. “Explain yourselves!”

Anticas took a sip of the tea Aya had poured him earlier, slowly let out a breath of steam, then looked up at Aya. His expression suddenly turned odd. “More than that, I have serious doubts about Miss Aya being my son.”

“But I gave birth to a son… How strange.”

Miss Luko seemed troubled too. At some point, she’d quietly crept over beside Aya and reached out to touch the airy ruffles on his maid outfit.

“That’s the one thing that’s definitely true! Who calls a married couple like you Mom and Dad for no reason?!”

Unable to take it any longer, Aya yanked off the maid outfit made from transformed scales and changed back into the T-shirt and beach shorts he’d worn to the seaside and the festival. His hair still hadn’t grown back to the length it had when he’d dressed as a girl, so he still looked like a boy.

“Ah! That’s more like it! Little A— Um, did that Miss Tiran from earlier say you go by Aya now? It’s been so long, Aya~ I’m so happy to see you, dear~”

Luko threw her arms around Aya’s neck. But because of the difference in their height, she ended up hanging off him. When Aya straightened up, she was lifted right off the sofa with him. “Whoa, whoa, you’re standing up! Aya, you’ve gotten so tall!”

“Isn’t growing taller only natural? It’s been so many years…”

Aya pouted, but his resistance gradually weakened. In the end, he gave up struggling and let his mom keep hanging from his neck. Then he turned to glare at his dad, who was also reaching out to pat his head. “Scram!”

His dad’s outstretched hand froze in midair. Looking dejected, he went to a corner and started drawing circles on the floor.

“Seriously, why did I have to run into you two here?”

“After your mom and I go on a trip, we always find somewhere to settle down and relax for a while. This time, we picked this place.”

Aya supported his mom with both hands and gently set her back on the ground. Then he planted his hands on his hips and looked down at his parents, whom he hadn’t seen in ages. Thanks to the Dragon’s long lifespan, their human appearances hadn’t changed much. But Aya had grown quite a bit over the years, so from a different angle, things still felt a little different.

For example, his mom used to seem so tall, too. But now…

“Dad, were you sure you weren’t committing a crime when you married Mom?”

“What are you talking about, you little brat?! Your mom just looks young! What kind of things are you imagining?!” Anticas, who was drawing circles in the corner, looked up in outrage.

“It was a reasonable assumption… Ahem!”

Aya felt a little guilty under his dad’s furious stare, so he hurriedly changed the subject. “So, is Doris really my little sister?”

“Of course. Well, what do you think? Happy that your childhood wish came true?”

Anticas lifted his chin, looking rather proud.

That’s right. Like plenty of other only children, Aya had been asked the same question when he was little.

“Would you like a little brother or sister?” or “Would you rather have a little brother or a little sister?”

Little Aya had been lonely because his parents often didn’t have time to play with him. Back then, he understood having another sibling as nothing more than getting someone else to play with, so of course he’d nodded like crazy, full of anticipation.

“Even if it was my wish back then… Isn’t it a little late to tell me it’s come true now?”

You should’ve granted that wish when I was little!

“Tch. You little brat. And whose fault was it that you kept interrupting our grand endeavor…” Anticas reminded him with a cold laugh.

“Uh!”

Aya froze for a moment as memories from the past slowly came back to him.

Like the glorious occasion when he’d used a stone pillar to jab his own dad in the butt…

So I was the one who did that?

“Good. At least you get it.” Anticas nodded in satisfaction when he saw Aya’s dawning realization.

Wait, had he somehow sensed back then that having a little sister could lead to this incest situation, and deliberately sabotaged his parents’ dragon-making project?

Aya sneaked a glance at Doris, who was being exceptionally well-behaved in front of him now—like a completely different Dragon from the one who’d snuck into his room earlier. But the girl quickly noticed his gaze and shot him a burning look in return. He hurriedly turned his head away.

“Are you sure this is okay? She was just saying she wanted to marry Aya.”

Tiran, who’d been listening for quite a while, finally couldn’t hold back any longer.

“Oh, that’s fine. If she likes Aya, we won’t stand in their way. He’s our precious son, of course, but we’re pretty open-minded parents.”

Anticas nodded as he spoke, almost in sync with Doris. Seen that way, they really did look a bit like father and daughter.

“…Huh?”

This wasn’t a question of being open-minded! The Princess pinched herself, wondering if she was actually awake. This was incest! No, if their parents didn’t object, then there’d be no need for anyone to go to the “orthopedics” ward…

“Can Dragons marry close relatives?”

Inside the Dragon Knight contract, the Princess, still questioning reality, tapped Aya on the shoulder.

“Of course they can’t—though I’d like to say that,” Aya sighed, pressing a hand to his forehead. “But now that I think about it, I’ve never heard of any customary rules about it. It’s not even written down in my little notebook.”

After all, Aya had grown up in the deep mountains of the Beastlands and had never dealt with any Dragons apart from his parents. Everything he knew about Dragons had come from them. Anything they hadn’t told him was a blank spot in his Realm.

Thinking about it, Dragons have a very low birth rate, and their population is small. Maybe, for the sake of reproduction… Besides, the biggest problem with close-relative breeding in ordinary creatures is the increased chance of genetic diseases caused by defects. Maybe Dragons, who are known as “perfect creatures blessed by the gods,” can avoid that problem…

Wait, Aya’s albinism should count as a hereditary disease. Could it be that Aya’s parents were also…

The Princess stared at Anticas and Luko in shock, leaving the two of them puzzled.

“Hey, hey, Miss Tiran, what are you thinking?”

As if he’d guessed what Tiran was thinking, Anticas waved both hands. “Though we consider ourselves Doris’s parents, she isn’t actually related to us by blood.”

“Huh?”