Chapter 110: Interlude – Queen of Bread

Father Antonio stared at me with wide, astonished eyes. “D-did you really catch the culprit?”

I nodded and handed him the culprit’s black robe, which I had stripped off before burning the body.

I explained, “Yes. The body was badly damaged during the fight, so we couldn’t identify the culprit exactly. But there won’t be any more victims.”

“Wow! To think you would catch the one even Power Man couldn’t handle,” Father Antonio replied.

He took the robe and inspected it closely. Inside one of the hidden pockets was a small box. In that box were locks of hair, all of them cut from the victims. He frowned as he looked at the strands. Just imagining what else could have ended up in that box had we failed, even the hair of the children, sent a chill down his spine.

He sighed in relief. “Phew! At least now we can breathe easy.”

Then he bowed to me. “Thank you, Dale.”

“I didn’t do it alone.”

Honestly, we were able to catch the culprit so easily thanks to Jules’s soul-baring performance.

Father Antonio gave Jules a gentle smile. “Ah, of course. Thank you as well, Jules. It was brave of you to take on such a dangerous role, even going so far as to dress like a woman. I’m sure even the Seven Gods would be in awe of your courage.”

Jules responded with a smile of his own, but stiff and awkward, clearly not used to receiving this kind of gratitude. He had still not changed out of the outfit, and he clutched tightly at the hem of his skirt.

“Ah, n-no! I didn’t really do much. I just wandered around, that’s all,” he replied.

“Haha! But that wandering led us right to the culprit, didn’t it?” Father Antonio looked between the two of us and made the sign of the cross. “May the blessings of the Seven Gods be with you both.”

Jules mimicked his gesture, albeit clumsily. “Y-yes, thank you!”

Just as I finished talking with Father Antonio, Iris walked over. “Great work, Dale. You’re not hurt, are you?”

I shrugged and spread my arms out casually. “As you can see, I’m perfectly fine.”

“Hmm. Let me check anyway.” She patted me down like a security officer, inspecting me for any injuries. “Y-you have firm muscles no matter where I touch you. These abs, wow, you could even do laundry on them!”

I was speechless. Was she actually checking for injuries?

“Ahem! A-anyway! You’re definitely not injured,” she added.

“You sure that’s what you were confirming?” I asked.

“O-of course!” Iris flinched and quickly averted her eyes, nervously changing the subject. “A-anyway, why was the culprit so obsessed with blonde hair?”

“Who knows? Everyone has their preferences.”

Although, truth be told, liking blondes was a fairly mainstream preference, especially among the Republic folk. They had always had this strange fascination with blonde hair. Now people had all kinds of hair colors, but back in the day, most citizens of the Republic had black hair. I had read somewhere that blonde hair was the most popular color among both men and women during that time.

“Do you like blondes too, Dale?” Iris asked.

“Hm? Like what?”

Iris twisted her soft pink hair around her finger, her eyes narrowing. “Blonde hair. Are you into that?”

“Not really. I don’t have a particular preference for blonde or anything.”

“Then what hair color do you like?”

“Hmm. Hair color…”

Honestly, I didn’t care that much about hair color. Nonetheless, I replied, “I like pink.”

“Really? You’re not just saying that because of me, are you?”

“I swear on my parents’ names.”

“But Dale, you’re from an orphanage.”

“Exactly. That’s how serious I am.”

Iris stared at me with a skeptical look. She stepped closer, as if planning to dig deeper, but we suddenly heard the voice of some of the kids.

“Umm, what are you all doing out here this late?”

“Mmm! So noisy.”

It seemed like we had made too much of a commotion. The kids, who had gone to bed early, came out of the orphanage. As they did, their eyes landed on Jules and widened.

“Who’s that lady?”

“She looks a lot like Jules.”

“Wait. Hold on. Isn’t that Jules?”

“Oh! It really is!”

Jules’s face went pale as the children recognized him in his cross-dressed state.

He tried to explain in a panic. “N-no, kids. Listen, this is—”

However, the kids quickly swarmed around him. Their eyes sparkled with fascination as they bombarded him with questions, clearly intrigued by his appearance.

“Wow, cool!”

“You really look like a girl, Jules!”

“Should we call you Big Bro or Big Sis now?”

“Huh

?” Jules blinked, stunned by their unexpected reaction. “I-it suits me?”

“Yeah! I think you’re even prettier than our girls here,” said a boy.

The poor boy had blurted out the wrong thing and was mobbed by the girls.

“Hey! What the heck is that supposed to mean?”

“Ahhh! Don’t hit me!”

Jules watched them, frozen in place as if struck by lightning. He muttered softly, “So you all don’t find me disgusting.”

***

When Jules had been younger, he once secretly tried on a skirt; it had looked so pretty on the girls he had seen that he couldn’t resist it. However, his father caught him and scolded him like hell. The way his father looked at him that day, his eyes filled with scorn, lingered in his memory even now. It was like an unshakable brand burned into his soul.

It was not like he ever wanted to be a real woman. He just liked pretty clothes and dressing up. When he wore them, even just for a little while, he felt like he could become someone else, someone brighter, freer.

But he knew all too well that his hobby wasn’t exactly something others would easily accept. That was why he kept it hidden from everyone, as if it were a crime. But a part of him still wanted acknowledgment for that.

Jules clenched his fists tightly and looked around at the children gathered nearby. The kids conversed with him without a shred of prejudice.

“So, it’s not King of Bread, it’s Queen of Bread!”

“Big Bro Jules, wait, Big Sis! You pull it off well!”

“Hah, hah! Whether it’s a guy or a girl, if the bread tastes good, does it matter?”

Jules felt an unexpected weight in his chest. Then, his mind flashed back to the way he had once looked at these very same children with disgust the first time he met them at the orphanage. His face flushed with heat, guilt weighing down on him like a stone.

***

“Well, we’re running late, so we’ll be heading back to the academy now,” I said.

“Yes. Thank you again for everything,” Father Antonio replied.

After saying goodbye to the children, I turned to leave the orphanage. Seeing Jules not moving, I asked, “Hm? What are you doing just standing there?”

“Ah, sorry!”

“If we’re any later, the academy gates will close. Come on, go change and let’s get back.”

Jules nodded, a somewhat dazed look on his face. “Y-yeah. Okay.”

***

A few days had passed since we returned from the orphanage. The academy grounds were starting to get busier as students geared up for the final evaluations. I made my way toward the campus store, wanting to grab bread for lunch.

I headed toward the bread section. But there I found Jules, loading an entire box with bread at the corner of the campus store. It was odd. No one had asked him to buy any recently.

So, I tilted my head in confusion and walked up to him. “Jules? What are you doing here?”

“Huh? Dale?”

“Who are you buying all that bread for?”

Jules scratched his head, looking sheepish. “Ah! I found out there’s someone who delivers stuff from our campus store to Valhalla City. So, I thought I’d buy some bread and send it to the kids at the orphanage.”

“To the orphanage kids?”

Jules smiled softly as he continued packing bread into the box. “Yeah. They love the bread from our campus store, remember?”

I let out a short, dry laugh as I watched him. “Huh!”

Jules was buying bread and sending it to the orphanage kids? If this were his previous life, he never would’ve even considered it.

“What brought this on all of a sudden?” I asked.

“Well…” He trailed off, giving a bitter smile. Then suddenly, he began to speak of his past. “Since I was little, I was taught that I should never associate with poor people or orphans. People like that don’t know how to be considerate, they’re rude and lowly, or so I believed.”

“Well, that’s to be expected from someone born into a conglomerate family,” I replied.

Not all wealthy elites were like that, of course. But more often than not, those with everything were taught to look down on those with nothing. It was not out of cruelty; rather, it was just because their worlds were so fundamentally different.

“But seeing it for myself, I realized I was completely wrong.” Jules picked up the box of bread and held it in his arms. “The one who lacked consideration, the one who had no manners, that was me, not them. Once I realized that, I just felt like I had to do something, you know?”

“So, you decided to buy them bread?”

Jules chuckled. “Yeah. They did call me the Queen of Bread, didn’t they?”

He held a piece of bread out to me. “Want one too, Dale?”

“Yeah, sure.”

As I took the bread from him, I thought about the Jules I had once known. He was arrogant and prideful and always looked down on others.

The future is changing, huh…

Yeah, the future was changing in ways I could never have predicted. But that didn’t mean the change was bad. Just like it was with Iris, just like it was with Yurina, and just like it was with Berald, some futures were changing for the better.

And at the heart of those changes was me. This was the future I had changed and the future I built, a future created by someone who once was nothing more than a bottom-feeder hero chasing after others.

I opened the plastic wrap and took a bite of the bread.

“Good, right? It’s a new product they just started selling,” Jules said.

“Yeah, it’s good.”

“Ah! And the change from earlier…”

I grabbed Jules’s arm as he fumbled to take out some money and shook my head. “No, it’s fine. From now on, you don’t need to give me any change. You don’t have to run errands for me either.”

“Huh? Why? Did I do something wrong? W-was it because I bought too much bread for the kids?”

“No, that’s not it…”

Jules clutched my hand tightly, looking at me with earnest eyes. “If that’s not the reason, then I want to keep running errands for you! I-I can even lend you money if you need it!”

His saying stuff like that just made me feel like a total scumbag. I gave a dry laugh and nodded. “Do what you want.”

Jules beamed brightly and nodded in return. “Okay!”

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