In the living room, Ryn and Mei placed the midnight snack they had made on the dining table, then happily began to eat.
Judah went to deliver a portion to Bronya and Sirin as well, but those two—one an old internet addict and the other a new one—didn't even glance at the snack. Without even knowing what it was, they just told Judah to put it aside.
By the time they get hungry in the middle of the night and decide to eat, it will probably be completely cold, right?
But it didn't matter. After all, if Bronya got hungry, she would just go dig up some snow to eat…
So, Judah thought she might as well go ask Himeko if she wanted to join them.
Unfortunately, after Himeko finished her drinks every night, she would come home and sleep like a log, completely motionless, as if she were dead.
Judah called out to her for a long time but couldn't wake her up, so she simply tucked her back into bed and let her continue sleeping.
Then she went downstairs, ready to eat with the others. However, based on Judah's past experiences, by the time she got back, she'd probably only be able to lick the plates.
Sure enough, before she even reached the bottom of the stairs, she heard Ryn and Kiana's shouts…
"Kiana! Leave some for me! I haven't eaten in a long time either, I'm hungry too!"
"Ridiculous. There's no family on the battlefield of food. Foolish Ryn, this is a war purely of speed-eating! If you eat slow, then don't eat at all! It's all mine!"
Kiana grabbed a plate with one hand to pour food into her mouth and held a bowl with the other to pour soup, without the slightest pause. It was like pouring things into a funnel, utterly relentless. Her speed-eating was appallingly fast.
As for Ryn… he dumped a whole plate of food into the basin in front of him, mixed it with rice, then lowered his head and moved his hands at superhuman speed, shoveling food into his mouth.
Judah leaned against the wall, pressed a hand to her forehead, and sighed helplessly. She had a Kiana and a Ryn in front of her, and a Kallen at home…
Thankfully, she didn't actually need to eat to survive, otherwise… she would sooner or later starve to death on the streets.
By the time Judah walked into the living room, Mei had also returned from outside, holding a huge dragon egg.
The red dragon egg was wrapped in a large fleece blanket. From a distance, it looked like a large, somewhat fat ear of corn…
No, that's not right. It looked more like a well-dressed, humanoid Azure Empyrea Bird…
"Let me help." Judah walked over to help Mei support the dragon egg.
"Okay, thank you, Judah." Mei smiled happily, and together with Judah, they moved the dragon egg to the center of the living room.
"We can put it here."
"Mm."
Mei was extremely careful, afraid of bumping or scratching it, as she placed the dragon egg on the carpet. At the same time, she adjusted the fleece blanket draped over it.
Ever since she saw the dragon egg and heard Kiana say it was a gift from Ryn, especially after learning it was a dragon-type Honkai Beast prepared for her, Mei had been overjoyed. She treated the egg almost like her own child, taking meticulous care of it.
She even Baidu-searched how to hatch an egg, then ran off with the egg to find Benares, asking for its help to incubate it.
Unfortunately, Benares didn't know how to incubate eggs, so Mei had to take the egg to Fu Hua, hoping to get an incubation method from the widely knowledgeable Fu Hua.
But Fu Hua said, "They say this is how Azure Empyrea was grown. A dragon egg should be more or less the same, right?"
Then Fu Hua raised a shovel, about to help Mei bury the dragon egg in the ground. Mei was so scared she didn't even have time to refuse, grabbing the egg and fleeing from Fu Hua's house as if her life depended on it.
She then temporarily placed the dragon egg in one of St. Freya High School's constant-temperature incubators, planning to go home and make a midnight snack for Ryn and Kiana before asking Ryn if he had any special instructions.
The result was her cracking eggs in the kitchen, which made Ryn think she had cooked the dragon egg…
"Phew—, little one, I wonder if you'll be as big as Benares someday? Not too big, not too small, just right~
I hope it's not a three-hundred-meter-tall behemoth like Kukulkan. That wouldn't be good. It'd be too big, not pretty…"
Mei patted the dragon egg, her face full of longing as she imagined what her dragon would look like in the future.
Ryn looked at the little food and rice that was left, then at Kiana, who was still eating at an unabated speed. He set aside a portion of the food for Mei before pushing the rest of the dishes toward Kiana.
He had originally planned to save a portion for Kika as well, but it seemed Mei had already made a separate meal for her, which had been kept in a warmer all this time. So, Ryn didn't worry about Kika's share.
Ryn walked over to Mei's side and looked at the dragon egg with her.
"Mei, this egg was chosen by your counterpart from another world. She said this one was pretty and that you would like it very much. So, do you like it?"
"I love it! But if it were a bit more purple, a reddish-purple, I'd like it even more!"
"That's simple~"
Ryn's eyes curved into a smile, revealing a mischievous expression.
Then, under Mei's confused and shocked gaze, he pulled out a bucket of specially-made purple paint from behind his back and started painting the dragon egg, dyeing it reddish-purple.
"Ahhh! My egg! Ryn! What are you doing!" Mei covered her face in horror and shrieked.
She then quickly grabbed a cloth to wipe off the paint Ryn had applied to the dragon egg. What if the paint contaminated the little dragon inside the egg!
But after wiping for a long time, the paint wouldn't come off… Mei looked at Ryn, both angry and annoyed.
"I was just saying… How could you use paint to dye it! What if… what if it harms the life inside!"
Ryn chuckled, then took out several more buckets of paint in other colors and placed them in Mei's hands.
"Don't worry about that at all. Because these are special dyes unique to the Kukulkan clan, which their matriarch specifically gave to me when I was leaving.
They are made from many special materials that are beneficial to them. Painting their dragon eggs is the only way to determine the final color of the dragon's form.
After all, normal Kukulkan are only white, black, or blue; there are no other color varieties. So, this method of dyeing came into being…"
"Is that really a thing? That's too reckless… The child's future appearance is decided by the parents' whims?"
Mei held the paint buckets, murmuring woodenly, and couldn't help but sigh for the children of the Kukulkan clan for a second.
"Therefore, having a master who loves them and has a normal sense of aesthetics becomes crucial. Mei, do you think you'll be a good master?"
"Mhm…"
Mei raised the paintbrush and the paint. For some reason, after Ryn said that, she suddenly felt her actions were filled with a sense of sacredness and destiny.
"Kurikara, your form shall be painted by my own hands!"
"Kurikara? Is that the name Mei gave it?"
"Mhm, Fudō Myō'ō Kurikara. The great dragon Kurikara, swallowing a sword, with its four feet coiled around it. I think it's very fitting."
"Indeed… but doesn't Kurikara refer to a black dragon? Why are you painting it red and purple?"
"Hehehe, because I like red~"