Reborn in another world as a Hermaphrodite

Meanwhile, over at Katherine's perspective...

As she walked down the road with Flamebeard, the two soon arrived at a small wooden house.

"The king has been ill for the past few days. Sorry if he——"

"It's okay. I don't actually need to see the king unless he wants to see me... I'm actually here to ask a question."

"I'll try my best to answer it, Duchess Reid."

The two stopped right at the doorway, not going inside as Flamebeard waited for Katherine's question.

"Is the rumor about a dragon roaming nearby true?"

Flamebeard fell into silence as he looked to the side before turning over to Katherine.

"That rumor is obviously false. Why would a dragon go towards here out of all places?

Whoever spreads those rumors is either delusional or has another motive. But there was a sighting of a relatively big monster."

"Big monster?"

"Yeah. A big monster that had been evading our search... It has furs, so it's definitely not a dragon."

Katherine nodded in acknowledgment, as it has been well-known that all dragons only have scales.

"Thank you for answering my question... Tell the king that I wish for his speedy recovery."

"Will do."

As Katherine turned around and started heading back, Flamebeard suddenly yelled.

"Wait! Duchess Reid, is your family giving up on revenge? After all those years of enduring?"

"Revenge? We gave that up a long time ago."

Katherine answered as she continued heading forward, showing no signs of turning back to explain any further.

---

When the five of them finally exited the church, Meiya was the most stunned.

She couldn't believe how beautiful the inside was.

The details of the picture had blown her mind, and the art style was completely different from what she had seen before.

It had zero signs of a realistic appearance compared to the nearby statues that tried to mimic a dwarf's appearance.

"What kind of art styles are these paintings?" Sophia asked curiously, as she was also intrigued by them.

"It's called Valoo. It's an art technique that had been passed down for millenniums."

As the knight answered, they quickly noticed Katherine walking towards them in the distance.

"Thank you for the tour. We'd like to leave now."

The knight hesitated for a second but agreed to it as he began leading the six of them toward the castle exit. Stay tuned with mvl

"We're leaving already?" Mary curiously asked as she felt there were still a lot of things to explore in the castle.

"You guys look so tired. You all need a nap."

Katherine's stern voice made all three of the kids fall into silence. They could tell she was just making an excuse to leave.

After walking for a bit, they finally arrived at the main entrance.

"Thank you for the tour." Meiya and Luqing both bowed down a little in gratitude.

"No problem."

"Thank you!"

All three of the kids said out loud at the same time before following Katherine out of the castle.

As the six of them walked down the road towards the Inn, Meiya finally decided to speak up.

"Is there something wrong?"

"There's nothing wrong. I just don't like being in that castle... It just keeps giving me a weird feeling."

Meiya didn't question any further as they arrived all the way back to Alice's Inn.

"Welcome back. You guys need food or drinks?"

"We're good."

As the six of them headed upstairs into the hallway, Katherine dismissed everyone back to their room.

---

"What was weird in the castle?" Alex wondered as he couldn't feel anything weird at all.

Inside his mind, he could tell Katherine and the Flamebeard dwarf had met before or had known each other to a certain degree.

His mind was only getting more curious, as the mystery couldn't be solved no matter how he tried to think of ways to solve it.

In the end, he gave up and closed his eyes, lying on the bed as he started to get a little sleepy.

"I should just take another nap... Surely it wouldn't hurt, would it?"

After a while, Alex eventually fell asleep on the inn's bed for the second time in a single day.

But when he woke up again, he was once again dragged into something else as he was no longer in the inn.

Instead, he was in some place back on Earth, as rows of computers were right before him.

"Where am I?"

Alex wondered as everything around him looked a little familiar, yet he couldn't recall it at all.

Everywhere, desks were lined up next to each other, with full sets of computers and all kinds of gear lying on the side.

As Alex walked down the computer aisles, he soon found one that had lights reflecting on some faces.

Getting closer and closer, Alex soon realized it was no one other than Sarah sitting before the computer that was turned on.

"Hey Sarah, what's this place——"

"Ah!"

Sarah jumped out of her seat for a second before taking off her headphones.

As she turned towards Alex, her face was clearly irritated by the unannounced appearance.

"Why are you here?"

"That should be the question I should be asking. Why am I here, and what is this place?"

"This is just your dream... Anyway, see you later——"

Before Alex could react, everything faded to black, as if she had just kicked him out of his own dream.

When he could see again, he was back in his bedroom in the inn, with the wooden ceiling above him and a warm blanket touching his skin.

Unable to fall asleep, Alex got out of bed and decided to go to the bathroom.

However, as he stepped into the hallway, he quickly realized he didn't even know where the bathroom was located.

After thinking for a bit, he headed towards Katherine's room before knocking on the door.

"Come in."

As Alex opened the door, Katherine was sitting on a chair, writing something on a piece of paper.

"Hey Alex, you need something?"

"Mom, do you know where is the bathroom?"

"It's just downstairs."

Alex quickly headed downstairs, going all the way to the 1st floor before noticing there was not a single bathroom sign.

"You looking for something?" The young waitress asked after noticing Alex standing there for a solid minute.

"Can I ask where is the bathroom?"

"It's down the hall. You don't need to take these stairs to get there... Let me bring you there."

Alex followed the young waitress past the counter, and they soon entered the kitchen.

"Hey Alice, who's this boy?" A man wearing a chef hat curiously asked.

"Just a customer looking for the bathroom."

As they walked past the kitchen, they finally arrived at two bathroom signs on both sides, with an upright staircase in the middle.

"You can take this stair to head back to your room. This is just the end side of the 2nd floor hallway."

Alex nodded as he quickly realized Katherine meant this staircase earlier, not the one that they came from.

"Thank you."

As Alex headed to the men's bathroom, he was surprised to see two dwarfs standing at the sink.

One of them was clearly dizzy, while the other was supporting him from falling onto his face.

"I feel so bad——Ugh."

Seeing the young dwarf throwing up, Alex turned his attention to walk past it and arrived at the urinal.

After taking care of business, Alex headed back to the sink to wash his hands.

"You got to have a stronger belly if you don't want to get laughed at." The older dwarf lectured as the young dwarf threw up again.

"Is he okay?"

Alex worryingly asked as he could feel the young dwarf throwing up his stomach at this point.

"He's fine. He just forgot to eat before drinking. Don't worry about him."

Alex nodded as he finished washing his hands. He then left the bathroom and went upstairs to his room.

Sitting down in the seat, he was a little bored with nothing much to do.

After sitting for a bit, he decided to close his eyes and started meditating.

Soon, time began to fly by as he made little progress towards mage level 2, but it was still progress nonetheless.

"Alex, you want to eat dinner?" Sophia's voice appeared outside the door.

"Sure. Just give me a minute."

With his shoes back on, Alex headed out into the hallway before following Sophia downstairs to the 1st floor.

To his surprise, almost the entire inn was full, with the only table remaining being the one that they sat on earlier.

Katherine and the rest of the group were already sitting at the table, and food was already being served.

"Here."

As Alex sat down next to Mary, the noises got exponentially louder and louder until he started to get a little annoyed by it.

It was almost as if being quiet or considerate of others was not in their vocabulary whatsoever.