Chapter 7

I Became the Hero’s Bride – Chapter 7 – I’m a woman?!

TL: Eevee

Ed: Hungry_Panda

Chirp chirp. Clarice woke up to the sound of birdsong. The sunlight streaming through the windows fell onto Clarice’s face, and he woke up, rubbing his eyes. After a good stretch, savouring the morning air, Clarice murmured.

“Hero-nim.”

“Mm.”

“I had a really bad dream last night.”

“Mm.”

“Haha, I dreamt that a weird potion turned me into a woman.”

“Mm.”

“It must have been because of Father’s ridiculous comments.”

“Mm.”

“Jeez that dream was horrible, my chest still feels heavy.”

“Clarice.”

“Yes.”

“That wasn’t a dream.”

Ding.

The morning sunlight that fell on him, no, ‘her’ froze instantly. She lowered her head to the sight of two abundant hills that blocked her entire torso from her vision. No, what is this? Clarice’s eyes shook without mercy. It was a Richter Scale 8.0 Super Magnitude.

“He, hero-nim. Something’s not right. My chest has l, lumps on it. I’ve become Old Man Lump…. Twin lumps…!”

“Calm down! Those aren’t lumps.”

“If they’re not lumps! If they’re not lumps!”

Clarice yelled at Minwoo in fear. Minwoo’s line of sight strayed everywhere as they desperately drifted around those full breasts. No, do I have to say it?! Can I say it?! Is this something I should be saying?!!

“My chest…! Something weird’s there, what’s going on…!!”

Drip drip. Freely weeping tears the size of chicken gizzards, Clarice grabbed Minwoo’s lapels. Minwoo screwed his eyes shut, and feeling like he was swallowing needles, opened his mouth.

“Ah… It just happened, that the bottle landed in a particularly bad place…”

“What… what does that mean?”

“I was going to tell you after you’d calmed down somewhat. Clarice. Listen up.”

Minwoo grabbed both Clarice’s shoulders and faced him dead in his teary eyes.

“You’re a woman. In other words, you are a woman that can bear children.”

Thump!

“Wh, what? No, it can’t be, hero-nim! Ayuu….”

She cried, clutching her jiggling breasts and collapsing to the floor. They were pointlessly big to the point they actually hurt.

“I know you’re shocked, but calm down. Otherwise you might faint again.”

“Ahhurhhuu.…”(1)

Minwoo lifted Clarice and laid her back down on the bed. Faced with the unbelievable reality Clarice flailed around and started bawling.

“I’m a woman, no I’m a woman! What is this bulls…. Aaaagh! I’m a woman!! I, I’m a woman!! I, aghrhhghh….(2) This isn’t happening, this isn’t happeningrahrhahharehehagheghaah!(3)”

At her pitiful appearance even Minwoo’s eyes couldn’t help but tear up.

***

“Umm… Excuse me.”

After Clarice cried herself to sleep from exhaustion, the door opened and someone entered. Minwoo, who up till then could only sigh despondently while looking at Clarice’s sleeping face, turned his head to face the newcomer.

“Senyun.”

“Urk!”

Minwoo’s eyes were dark enough to even make the stubborn Senyun unconsciously take a step backwards.

“Wh, wha’s with that gaze of yours, leering at someone like that.”

“Senyun.”

“What?”

With a blinking light at his back, Minwoo asked in a low voice,

“That potion. Was that really a supplement?”

The mood turned frigid and Senyun clenched her fists.

“…….No.”

It absolutely wasn’t because of the icy atmosphere that Senyun fessed up. This was the first time she’d ever seen Minwoo this angry.

“It was a Potion of Changing Gender.”

“Ha!”

Minwoo let out a laugh. Senyun quickly added on,

“I didn’t think things would end up this way either.”

“Wouldn’t end up in this way?”

You bullshit on me and you die. Was what Minwoo’s eyes said.

“S, sorry for fooling you. His Majesty said he wanted to give the potion to Prince Clarice as a surprise present. That’s why I said it was a supplement…”

“And just why would a Potion of Changing Gender be a surprise present?”

Minwoo’s face was that of someone who just didn’t get it. Senyun started thinking that this was all just ridiculous.

“You, do you not know?”

“What?”

“Prince Clarice li….”

Senyun shut her mouth. Was that right. No matter how much Prince Clarice liked Minwoo, it didn’t necessarily mean that the two of them were dating. Senyun’s hands furiously raked the sides of her head. How on earth could anyone be this stupid! She’d just instantly jumped to the conclusion that the two of them were already at that stage!

Minwoo suddenly stopped talking, looked on at Senyun’s despair, and imagine what might have happened. This idiot. There was no mistaking that she’d fallen for the king’s sugar-coated words that this was all for Clarice’s sake.

In that case, the one who needed discipline right now wasn’t Senyun but the king.

“Anyways. His Majesty, no, that field snake asked you to make a Potion of Changing Gender? To use on Clarice?”

“Hm? Oh, Yep. That’s right.”

Senyun said blankly. For some reason it felt like she was avoiding responsibility but it was the truth.

“So that’s what’s happened…”

Minwoo murmured, before moving past Clarice to the door.

“Oi! Where’re you going!”

“To beat up the king.”

“What? Beat up?”

“I’ll trust you to look after Clarice while I’m gone.”

“Hold on!”

Slam! The door shut angrily. Senyun, who had been left behind not knowing anything, could only look at Clarice’s peacefully sleeping face with pity.

How could she do anything. She was a victim, too.

***

They say that you meet your enemies on a log bridge. At the end of a long corridor Minwoo discovered the king moving towards him with his posse of servants. As Minwoo cracked his knuckles, the king, who had been leading the procession, flinched, stopped and turned right back round the way he came.

Naturally there was no way he’d let him escape. The sound of footsteps echoed in the hall. With clear and heavy steps, Minwoo strode towards the king.

“Please wait.”

The words that came out of Minwoo’s mouth were much more polite than what were originally intended. Incidentally, the correct way to interpret his words were ‘stay right where you are, you little s***.’

“Ha, haha. What’s the matter, Minwoo? Calm down.”

The king couldn’t even think of running away and held up his hands in a gesture to calm down. He’d known that he’d lose teeth for this even before he started all this, but that didn’t necessarily make it any less scary. At Minwoo’s merciless aura got closer, to say nothing of the king, even the servants were quaking in their cold sweat.

“Your Majesty.”

“Hmm?”

“Clarice has become a woman.”

“I, I heard. I heard it was because of Senyun’s mistake in the potion? I was just going to check up on him now.”

Minwoo smiled brightly.

“Your Majesty.”

“Hmm?”

“Senyun told me, that that was a supplement that was requested by Your Majesty. Does it not ring any bells?”

“I, I mean, I’m sorry. Minwoo. Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten old, I don’t know anything…”

Minwoo raised his fist.

“Your Majesty.”

“Hmm?”

“It seems like you still have enough vitality to lie. Do you need a knock upside the head to understand?”

“Kn, knock upside the head. Ho ho, good joke. Should you be using such coarse words.”

So he said it very elegantly.

“Your Highness.”

“Hmm?”

“My fist is demanding that it knocks out some of Your Majesty’s teeth, whatever should I do.”

“………”

Minwoo spread open all ten of his fingers.

“I’ll give you time to explain yourself.”

The king rattled his teeth and asked.

“Ten minutes?”

“Ten seconds.”

Wwaaaaahh!

“C, coincidence! Coincidence, I say! A coincidence!”

“A coincidence?”

Minwoo smirked and brightly parroted it back at him.

“Coincidence. So the thief sneaking in at that time was a coincidence, said thief snatching away the potion was a coincidence, the mage being there at that time was a coincidence, and that he used not just any magic but wind magic was a coincidence, that said wind magic would graze the potion and make it fall on Clarice was also a coincidence. Well, is that what you’re saying?”

“Th, that’s right! That was exactly what I was going to say.”

The king quickly nodded his head. As he did, as if he was amused, Minwoo tucked his hand under his chin and asked.

“So if those supplements caused unforeseen side effects and caused a sex change. Was added on then that’d be even better?”

“Haha. It seems we’re talking on the same wavelength.”

The king rubbed his hands and begged to be spared. The servants that had been watching this shameless person all thought as one.

And you call that a king.

“Your Majesty.”

“Hm?”

“In the world I came from, we have a saying.”

“And what would th-”

Smack!

With a crisp sound of impact the king flew sprawled out backwards. Looking on at the horrified servants helping the king up, Minwoo shook his blood-covered hand.

“That three coincidences are no different from fate.”

Turning back towards the room, he added.

“Incidentally, I’ve already heard all this from Senyun. By all means please come with me.”

The king let out a weak laugh and wiped his bloody mouth. So he asked having already known. Hm? The king’s eyes opened wide. There were white objects fallen on the ground. Teeth. And having realised what they were the king noticed an empty feeling and felt around the inside of his mouth.

Indeed a hero. One punch three teeth.

***

Senyun sat beside Clarice’s side quiet as a mouse. She gulped down her saliva that formed while admiring the beauty that seemed like the product of a master craftsman’s sweat and tears, but remembered what she’d done to the prince and clutched her head. Whatever else happened from here, the CLC were going kill her. Exile was given, but more than that it was certain that she was going to suffer the punishment of losing all her Clarice goods and never being able to be by Prince Clarice’s side again.

‘But at least I’ve done this.”

On the other hand she also thought ‘so what.’ So what if she’d be exiled. So what if she’d lose all her goods. She was someone who had helped fulfil the prince’s love. At the very least it was better than being a coward that could only look from a distance.

……..And so Senyun scored a mental victory.

“Mmm.”

Clarice’s body turned. Senyun snapped to attention.

“Prince… no, princess! Have you woken up?”

She should be calling him princess now that he was a woman. Having accepted that line of thinking Senyun felt like her insides were being scraped out with sandpaper.

“Senyun? Where?”

Oh my! He said my name!

“Y, your room, princess.”

“So that’s….. Hm? Princess?”

Clarice’s bleary eyes snapped open. It felt like cold water had been dumped over her with no warning whatsoever.

“Congratulations on becoming a woman. Here, a bouquet.”

Senyun brought out a rose bouquet from her storage magic and gave it to Clarice. Having blankly accepted it Clarice started laughing as if denying reality.

“Ha, haha, hahahaha. I’m a woman…. I’m a woman…. Damn it, it wasn’t a dream…”

Why is she doing that? Is she too happy? Senyun thought, happily unaware of what Clarice was thinking. As if in time with Clarice’s heaving shoulders, her breasts jiggled around. Having noticed those overwhelming movements Senyun narrowed her eyes.

‘How is she bigger than me.’

It didn’t occur to her that she might just have been small, regardless of Clarice’s size.

“Hero-nim. Where did hero-nim go?”

As if to answer her the door swung open and the hero came in.

“Clarice? Are you awake?”

“Hero-nim!”

And the king followed behind the hero. With a beaten-up face.

“Ohh. Clarice. So you really have become a woman.”

“Father!”

The king looked Clarice over, rubbing his swollen cheeks before muttering,

“….I don’t think much has changed aside from the hair.”

“Father! Don’t say such words!”

Clarice’s horrified rebuttals only served to make her breasts swing and jiggle around even more. These breasts were pointlessly big to the point where she was actually self-conscious of them. They were heavy enough that her shoulders had actually started to hurt.

“Mm. It appears that you have turned into a woman.”

The king smiled proudly. Now that he thought about it, she took after the queen in not only looks, but also her bountiful chest.

“Father.”

“Hm?”

“Why do you have a nosebleed?”

Wipe. The king wiped his nose with his sleeve.

“You must have seen incorrectly. This is not a nosebleed, but from my mouth.”

“No. There’re bloodstains on your nose…”

“It’s from my mouth.”

“……”

Minwoo smiled brightly (albeit firmly looking down at her thighs) and grabbed the king’s shoulder.

“Your Majesty. Don’t you have something to discuss before that?”

“Kh, Khehurm.(4) Of course.”

The visibly shrunken king glanced around gauging everyone’s reactions and started his story.

Of the things he had done behind everyone’s backs to change his son’s gender.

***

When the king’s long story concluded, everyone’s reactions were as follows.

Minwoo said with eyes of disgust.

“I was aware that I’d seen you in the wrong light up till now… I didn’t think I’d see you in an even lower one.”

Senyun grabbed her hair and screamed.

“Wh, what have I done to His Highness! Aaagh!”

Clarice smiled with dignity as she comforted Senyun who was despairing on her knees.

“It’s alright, Senyun. You are not to blame for this.”

And then her elegant eyes flared with rage, her gaze aimed at the king.

“Is that not so? Father.”

D’hic. He couldn’t help but hiccup at his son, no daughter’s pressure emanating from her. A demonic aura burst out behind the beautiful and elegant girl. It felt like it could grab the kidnapper demon king by the lapels and smack her around.

Minwoo was shocked, and yelled,

“S, Stand?!” (5)

Senyun, sniveling, flicked a glance at Minwoo that said ‘and what on earth are you on about at this time.’

“C, calm down. Son. No, sweetie.”(6)

“Sweetie?”

Fhwick!

“Father.”

The scissors in Clarice’s hand were emanating a blue aura.

“If you wish to be called ‘mother’ from now on then by all means, keep flapping that mouth.”

“Hiiiiiik…!”

The tips of the scissors were aimed straight at the king’s groin without a trace of error. At the pressure that would even make the demon king cry and run away, Minwoo and Senyun frantically tried to stop her.

“C, calm down! Clarice! You can’t cut it so cleanly and easily like that!”

“You’re right! Prince! Scissors are too kind so use a saw instead!”

……..even though they looked like this they were still trying to stop her.

Even so, as the unstoppable scissors continued their merry ‘snip snip’ dance to hand down their judgement to the king, a loud shout burst out to announce the arrival of royalty.

“Her Majesty the Queen-!!”

Everyone’s eyes turned to the door. The door swung open with a thud! and a beautiful woman wearing a brilliant white dress appeared.

The woman famous throughout the kingdom for her devotion to her husband, the queen.

Author’s Note

The irony that the king enters without even a word of greeting but the queen even gets her own parade

The next episode might get a little bit serious.