But Ash easily tilted his head aside and avoided it, saying speechlessly, "What kind of nonsense are you suddenly talking about? I'm alive and well. I've never died, have I??"
"Don't... use that child's voice! You! Evil God!", It was not surprising to her that the sinister and cunning Evil God of legend would possess such a technique, but she became even more furious and directly kicked at him with both legs.
With no other choice, Ash simply reached out and grabbed her leg, then lifted her upside down, shaking her body in hopes that she would calm down as soon as possible. He could not help sighing as he said, "Roxy, did you eat something strange? Or are you deliberately looking for a lousy excuse to kill me and silence me?"
"Stop using such despicable methods! Stop playing with people's hearts! You Evil God! If you're going to kill me, then kill me! Don't..."
"First! I'm not an illusion! Second! I've never used any despicable methods! And finally...", Ash looked down at the girl in front of him, who was still struggling nonstop, with her other foot kicking at his wrist in an attempt to make him let go. He interrupted her speechlessly and warned her, "If you don't calm down, I'm going to use force."
"Stop pretending! Who doesn't know that various despicable methods are what you're best at?"
"I don't even know about such a thing myself. What strange rumor did you hear?", With an expression of restrained headache, he casually grabbed her other leg as well. Hanging his master upside down, he slowly said helplessly:
"You should still remember, right?.That last night before we separated, when you suddenly lost control in the middle of the night and used my clothes to comfort yourself."
"Eh, e-eh?"
Upon hearing those words, Roxy's cheeks instantly flushed bright red, like a fully ripened apple. Her entire body stiffened, and she stopped struggling. She simply stared blankly at him from below, unable to make a sound for quite some time.
Seeing that she had finally calmed down, Ash continued on his own, "Only the two of us should know about this, so that's enough to prove my identity, right? Although there's a third person who knows now."
"T-The third?"
The joy Roxy should have felt at Ash still being alive had now frozen because that unbearable piece of embarrassing history had been brought up again. She repeated Ash's words blankly and subconsciously looked toward the red-haired little girl beside him.
Unsurprisingly, Eris, who had happened to overhear their conversation, was looking at her as though she were a bug. The coldness of that gaze made Roxy want to find a crack in the ground and crawl into it for a while.
At the same time, with the light seemingly leaving her eyes, she suddenly remembered... The person who had said the Evil God was despicable and cunning was none other than herself. She had simply said too much and forgotten that she was the one who had brought it up first.
———
Under Eris's completely undisguised look of disgust and cold gaze from above, Roxy, whose body and mind had already frozen, suffered another blow.
For a moment, her mind was filled with thoughts of how she should deal with the situation... just like when Ash had first caught her doing something embarrassing.
She was too flustered even to notice the state of her clothes, and her unfocused eyes seemed to have already lost consciousness.
"What should I do?", Ash looked at his little master, whose skirt had fallen downward under the influence of gravity, then glanced back at the red-haired little girl beside him with an expression full of disgust.
"To some extent, he could understand. If a little girl disliked him to this extent, he would probably take quite a hit from it too, right?
And especially when she knew about something this embarrassing...
But after Ash muttered only one sentence, Eris directly raised her hand and pointed toward the dark ocean beneath the night sky behind them, saying coldly, "What else is there to do? Just throw this thing into the sea and feed it to the monsters."
"This thing..."
"What? This bug?"
"You're unexpectedly sharp-tongued," Ash laughed and freed one hand to rub her head, "Although she looks like this, she's actually my master?"
"Isn't that even worse! You actually have such thoughts about your own disciple?"
"Uh, this... Although that's true, she's actually just lacking in self-control, a little slow, and somewhat clumsy. She should be the straightforward type who does whatever comes to mind. She's definitely not a bad person."
Ash said this seriously, hoping to make Eris understand and be a little more tolerant of this scatterbrained girl.
But to Eris, his words only made the disgust on her face even more obvious, "After all this, does she have any good points?"
"No, if I really think about it, she actually does."
"Don't think about it! Just hurry up and tell me!", Roxy, who had finally recovered somewhat from being dizzy upside down, subconsciously held down her hanging skirt.
Her face was so red it seemed almost ready to drip blood, but just as she was about to speak, she thought of something and shouted in self-abandonment, "Forget it! Forget it! I'm just a pervert who has strange thoughts about my disciple! Hurry up and throw me into the sea and let me die!"
Ash lowered his head again in distress and moved his gaze away from beneath her skirt, looking at the upside-down girl's face instead, "Master..."
"That's enough! I don't want to live anymore!"
"Uh, actually, I was just going to correct you. Drowning after jumping into the sea would actually be very painful."
"Guh?"
The shock seemed to make Roxy stiffen again.
Ash also realized that his words seemed somewhat inappropriate and hurriedly explained, "Of course, I just hope you won't do anything foolish. And in my eyes, you've always been that... interesting master?"
This excessively strange explanation left Roxy speechless for a moment. Even Eris felt speechless listening to it and could not help commenting, "Is that really a compliment? Your relationship with this master of yours is actually bad, isn't it?"
"How could it be? Isn't she cute like this?"
"Even I know that's not how you compliment your master!"
"You don't understand. Cute is justice."
"What does that have to do with justice?"
Although the scene was somewhat strange, Ash still patiently tried to persuade Eris, sparing no effort to explain the unique meaning and value contained in cuteness.
As the two went back and forth, arguing intensely, Roxy had been stuck between them for quite some time before she could no longer help carefully poking Ash's instep. With an expression as though she had been tormented until she was almost completely worn out, she let out a weak and empty sigh, "If possible, could you help me down first before talking about all this?"
"Ah, sorry. I almost forgot," Ash finally came back to his senses. He hurriedly reached out to support her waist and gently turned her back upright, allowing her feet to return to the ground. He then thoughtfully patted the wrinkles from her skirt caused by being upside down.
He really looked like a disciple who respected his master, but in the end... Ash rubbed Roxy's head, a trace of nostalgia showing in his eyes.
As he bent down to pick up the hat from the ground and gently put it back on her, he could not help bending down with both hands on his knees and looking at her overly flushed face as he teased, "But Roxy... after all these years, your skin is still just as thin as ever. Is this really all it takes to make you like this?"
"My face is red because you hung me upside down! And! What normal person forgets that they're holding someone in their hand? And besides! I'm your master! Of all things, shouldn't you at least remember that?"
"Compared with that, since it's rare for us to meet again, how about a touching hug first?"
"What do you mean, 'compared with that'? And I don't think there's anything touching about this situation!", Roxy puffed out her cheeks slightly like a sulking child, but after hesitating for a moment, she still pursed her lips and slowly stretched out her arms to hug him. She muttered unwillingly, "But since you want a hug so badly... I'll give you one for now."
"Good girl, good girl~"
"Why am I the one being comforted?"
Although the feeling of having her hair gently stroked made Roxy miss the past quite a lot, their respective positions had once again unknowingly been reversed, which made her raise her head and complain.
Ash said with a slightly troubled expression, "Because... if I don't do this, I feel like you'll immediately crouch down and start drawing circles on the ground again."