If It’s for My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord: Volume 7

by CHIROLU

  “Ooh... Sounds like fun. What are we doing? Is there anything Latina can help with?”

  There were an unusually high number of girls who were good at getting things rolling in the class this year. The girl who displayed an exceptionally high level of leadership and the one who was extraordinarily skilled at manipulating information managed to skillfully spread the plan to the other children in the school. And thanks to the presence of the remarkably charismatic girl, there wasn’t any significant opposition or blow-back. Additionally, that girl’s charisma took hold of more than just the children their age.

  “Hey, listen! When the snow stops falling, Latina is going to have a snowball fight with everyone!”

  “Oh, I see, little lady. You sure are looking forward to it, huh?”

  “Yeah. Latina will play a whole, whole lot!”

  She reported to all of the regulars of the Dancing Ocelot with a smile, just like that. It was obvious just how excited she was for the event from how wide her grin was.

  By the way, when there was a large snowfall like this, a great many requests for snow shoveling from the townsfolk came in to the Ocelot. It wasn’t like the adventurers wanted to go out of town and fight magical beasts in weather like this, either. The fact that they worked out to both side’s advantage made for quite a few such simple jobs popping up.

  As a result, the adventurers spread the news that “Our beloved Fairy Princess is really looking forward to the big snowball fight” throughout all of Kreuz. And in turn, the snowball fight itself became common knowledge.

  And then, the day before the snowball fight came.

  Latina was fidgety throughout the entire day. She looked out the window over and over and over, absolutely tired of waiting.

  “Latina, if you want to go outside that badly, then... Do you want to shovel snow in front of the shop?”

  “Yeah!”

  “It snows pretty often back in my home village, so I’ll teach you how to do it easier. If you do it normally it’s pure manual labor, which would be pretty rough.”

  Dale wrapped a scarf firmly around Latina, smiling at how the girl had already ran and grabbed her coat.

  “Kenneth, is it alright if we pile it up alongside the shop?”

  “To be honest, I was thinking it was about time to break it all down... Could you manage it?”

  “I can’t use Fire magic but, well, Holy magic should be able to handle it, so I was thinking of having Latina help out...” Dale looked to the girl at his side as he said that. She looked distraught at the thought of having to clear away a precious mountain of snow. Seeing that, Dale turned to Kenneth with a strained smile.

  “...Is it alright to leave things like that for a while?”

  “Yeah, I suppose.”

  Dale wasn’t the only one who tended to be soft on the young girl.

  “If you’re going to be piling it up anyway, how about making a snowman?”

  “Snowman?”

  “It’ll be up to you to make the head, Latina,” Dale said with a smile, then took her out in front of the shop.

  They finished with the snow shoveling in no time at all, thanks in a large part to how good Latina was at remembering things. Afterwards, they had plenty of time for playing in the snow. They had already made a big pile of snow while shoveling, and then they put the big snowball they made together on top for the head. Latina’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the completed snowman, which was bigger than her.

  “I got some charcoal from Kenneth. Do you want to use it to make a face?”

  “Yeah!”

  Latina squared off with the snowman with a serious look on her face, charcoal in hand. Her tool was pitch black charcoal on a pure white canvas. Knowing that there was only one round in this battle and full of fighting spirit, Latina thrust the charcoal that would serve as the nose into the snowball.

  She was surprisingly decisive at times such as this.

  “I get the feeling if you make it then it’ll end up with an adorable face. I mean, you love cute things, after all.”

  Despite the cold, Dale’s expression made it look as if he was experiencing everlasting spring. Latina just looked like she was having so much fun, so Dale let her enjoy her time in the snow until Kenneth peeked his head out and yelled, “If you don’t bring her in soon, she’ll catch a cold!”

  The customers who visited the Dancing Ocelot that day were startled by the sight of the king snowman surrounded by numerous subordinates.

  The next morning, Latina found her snowman’s head on the ground. That made her feel down, but it wasn’t enough to crush her fighting spirit for the day. Today was the day of the long-awaited snowball fight, after all. There was no time for wallowing in grief.

  “Today’s the day that I finally beat Rudy!” Latina yelled out in front of the Dancing Ocelot, working herself up. She was clad in a cream-colored fluffy jacket she was fond of, as well as a matching pink knit hat, scarf, and gloves.

  “I wanted to go too... I really, really did...”

  “It’s not like you can change prior arrangements with them for personal reasons like that, though,” Rita said, sounding exasperated.

  “Yeah, when it’s a summons from the temple... That’s technically my primary occupation, after all...”

  It was easy to forget, but Dale was officially a high-ranking priest with powerful divine protection. The divine protection granted by the gods was something you were born with. However, he also had received enough training as a priest to hold ceremonies in his home village, which was called the holy land of Quirmizi. And so, his official occupation was as a high-ranking priest of Quirmizi. At the very least Dale himself must have considered the mask he wore of a “hero” who specialized in fighting to be secondary to the skills as a hunter and priest that he had obtained in his training to become head of the village.

  There was no helping that, though, as the title of “hero” was an indicator of the ability to serve as antithesis to the demon lords. It wasn’t an occupation.

  “Still, well... Go ahead and enjoy yourself, Latina.”

  “Yeah!”

  “Ah, hey...! Don’t run! That’s dangerous!”

  Latina had taken off running towards the central plaza with her hands swinging by her sides as Dale saw her off with a smile. When he turned back to the collapsed snowman, though, his expression grew cold.

  “Hey, Dale,” Sylvester called out, finding Dale in that state on his way to visit the Ocelot.

  “Hmm?”

  “There are footprints...”

  “Well, it was probably the work of drunks...”

  “I suppose there’s no lack of those around here...”

  “This sort of thing does happen a lot.”

  “Yeah.”

  As the pair held that conversation in front of the fallen snowman, they didn’t break out in even the faintest of smiles. The image of that adorable young girl looking so happy as she finished her snowman remained burned into both of their minds.

  The two of them stared for a while at the footprints left behind as evidence.

  Just seeing Kreuz coated in pure white was enough to excite Latina. The sort of wooden boxes and assorted junk that could usually be seen cluttering up the roadsides around town were now completely hidden by the snow. In fact, they weren’t just hidden, as the gentle contours drawn by the snow covering them made them look like works of art.

  The sudden sound of snow falling from the eaves of a nearby house caused Latina to turn around in surprise. She approached and found a mountain of freshly fallen snow, which she poked at with her foot. The crunch, crunch that it made caused her to break out in a smile. Though the temptation to stay there and keep on playing was strong, she resisted it and faced forward.

  It may have been the same path she always walked, but moving down it was much harder because of the way her feet kept getting caught in the snow. Though with that said, the southern district was a commercial area aimed at travelers, so a number of shop owners
had started shoveling away the snow in front of their stores. At first, Latina took a route through the freshly shoveled paths. That felt somehow lacking, though, so she changed her route to pass through the places where the snow remained piled up.

  By the time she made it to Kreuz’s central plaza, she already saw familiar faces scattered about.

  It was going to be a large-scale event, but it wasn’t as if they had a facilitator or even any firm rules. Still, when Latina saw folks gathering in a corner of the plaza, she went ahead and approached. She found the one in the center of the group giving orders to the children was her brown-haired friend, who was wearing a coat that looked nicer than what kids from the rough part of town would have.

  “Good morning, Sylvia!”

  “Ah. Morning, Latina!” Sylvia said, waving her hand at her approaching friend.

  “What are you doing?”

  “The snow’s just so cold, you know? So I’ll be sitting this one out and just watching. Well, just watching would be boring though, so I’ve decided to just coordinate things.”

  “Will you really still have fun, even if you’re not playing with everyone?” Latina asked, tilting her head at the way her friend seemed to be enjoying herself even so. Latina couldn’t even understand the concept that playing together with everyone could possibly not be fun. To her, the cold was just a minor issue, nothing that would prevent her from enjoying herself.

  “It is fun... I mean, how could it not be enjoyable, getting this many people to move as I please?”

  “Huh?”

  Latina was already aware that she and her friend had a different sense of values.

  “There are other kids who like taking the lead like I do, and also ones who aren’t good when it comes to exercise. But it’s a big event, so everyone still wants to participate. Here Latina, take one of these.”

  “Right.”

  She drew a single stick that came poking out of the box her friend offered her, and found a black mark on the tip. After confirming what she had drawn, Sylvia pointed behind her.

  “Latina, you’re with the right team. Go join up with your group, alright?”

  “Yeah.”

  There were a lot of kids gathered together in the direction Sylvia had pointed out. And then a little further away, there was another group. Judging from the way that another child had made a mark on the ground when Sylvia had called out, they were apparently marking the numbers as they decided groups. Yes, Latina had grasped her friend’s actions.

  By the way, it was Sylvia’s casual consideration as a manager that led to the teams being divided into “left” and “right.” If they went and carelessly used colors for the team names, especially if one side got to choose red, then the other team would definitely object. After all, even little kids knew that Ahmar was the god of war.

  East, west, north, and south could also prove problematic, since those cardinal directions were used in the divisions of Kreuz. All of the children would want to be with the district where they lived, naturally. And on top of that, many kids from the east and south would be sure to have plenty of thoughts about the children from the high class residences to the west. And when it came to the nobles who lived in the north district, some may even hold outright animosity.

  Sylvia’s management skills were rather exceptional, to have taken all of those feelings into account.

  Latina looked a little relieved when she found one of her friends amongst the right group. She just couldn’t help but feel lonely when she didn’t know anyone.

  “Marcel!”

  “Good morning, Latina.”

  Her darting gaze didn’t spy anyone from their usual group aside from Marcel. Seeing what she was wondering, he calmly stated, “Chloe and Rudy are on the other team. Anthony got pressured into helping out Sylvia. I think he’s wandering around over that way.”

  “Latina sees.”

  Latina didn’t look to be disappointed by the fact that her best friend was on the other team. That was because she cared more about the news that she and Rudy were on opposing teams.

  In the meantime the number of children grew significantly, and Latina started to see more familiar faces. There were a lot of kids from her class there, and she even had acquaintances who were different ages too, because they had played together in the plaza. Latina had made quite a few friends in this past year and a half.

  Already all worked up, the girl declared her objective for the day to her friend. “Today, Latina is definitely going to beat Rudy!”

  “Do you really want to beat Rudy that badly?” Marcel inquired as he skillfully mass-produced snowballs. The gentle-natured boy was quite a good listener.

  Since Latina didn’t want to lose out to Marcel’s rate of snowball production, they were soon utterly surrounded by the things.

  “Rudy is always calling Latina weak, or small, or slow! So Latina doesn’t want to lose to Rudy!”

  Despite her small build and adorable appearance, Latina was highly competitive. Still, Rudy’s physique and stamina gave him the advantage in simple games of tag and the like. Latina wasn’t about to simply give up, though.

  Rudy’s childish teasing was so transparent that his friends all knew exactly who he was fond of, but the girl herself had no idea whatsoever. Not only was Latina born in a foreign nation with its own customs and values, she was exceedingly critical of herself, and sensitive to the hostility of others. The idea of expressing fondness through teasing was completely lost on her. There were many reasons for it, but frankly the greatest was just that she was so naturally airheaded.

  And so, Latina wanted to leave Rudy crying uncle someday. She couldn’t just accept losing as inevitable. This brought out a level of determination belied by her gentle personality.

  Marcel, who knew of his friend’s affection for her, just listened with a smile as Latina ignited her competitive spirit, ready to even the score that been piling up day in and day out.

  Though they had some management to run things, there had been no time to properly discuss rules, so the game began with such matters only very roughly defined.

  If you got hit by a snowball you were out, and if you took the other team’s flag, you won.

  A number of walls made of snow had already been constructed here and there about the plaza. It would have taken the children quite some time to set all that up on their own, but for some reason it had already been done. Honestly, it would normally be a big task for adults to handle, too. It really was a mystery...

  The teams chose walls on opposite ends of the plaza and made them their forts, planting their flags.

  The word that the kids were planning something spread to the adults, and no small number of them gathered around the plaza to watch. To the adults, the big jumbled mess didn’t seem like a proper game that could be won. None of the kids seemed to mind, though, so the adults weren’t thoughtless enough to throw a wet blanket over their fun by pointing that out.

  There were quite a lot of children covering a wide range of ages, and all of them were waiting impatiently for the signal to begin.

  “Start!” Sylvia, leader of the group managing the event, yelled out from the center of the plaza, raising what looked to be an improvised handmade red flag. With that signal, those in charge of both camps lowered their own red flags and then banged on metal pots.

  Latina broke out in a run the second she heard that sound.

  The distance between them was still far enough that the enemy snowballs wouldn’t reach her. There was no need to worry, so she could run at full speed. She calmly assessed the situation and plotted out a safe route as she went. All the while, the pompom on her pink knitted hat bobbed along atop her head.

  The second she slid behind the barrier she chose as her first shelter, she heard snowballs crashing into it. She had entered into the enemy’s firing range.

  Rudy’s sure to come to the center, so this is where Latina will get him!

  She was so confident in that fact because she was well
aware of her friend’s personality. He was the type to push through using the power provided by his large physique, rather than bother with any clever plans.

  Normally that strength of his would bowl Latina over, but today things were a little different. Thanks to the cover of friendly snowballs, she was able to peek out ahead and search for her target.

  There he is!

  Having confirmed his presence, Latina quickly moved to execute her plan.

  Meanwhile, Rudy had also figured out Latina was there. Though that was no surprise, seeing how a small silhouette wearing a familiar pink hat and scarf had come flying out of the pack of children immediately after the start of the game. Even baby bunnies at least have a bit of camouflage to protect them... It did look nice on her, though. Something inside him instinctively urged him towards wanting to grab that big pompom bobbing up and down every time she walked. Every time he did she’d turn and face him with a real glare, but he found that cute, too.

  She really is slow, thinking of something like that as hiding...

  Her pink pompom was poking up a bit over the wall of her shelter. She was good at studying and supposedly had a good head on her shoulders, but occasionally made dumb mistakes like this.

  Rudy moved forward while keeping an eye on the other team. He steadily approached, weaving his way towards Latina’s shelter.

  I’ll settle this in a single shot!

  He eyed up the distance, then took a big leap forward. He’d finish things with the snowballs he had in both hands, before Latina even had a chance to fight back. She’d get distracted by his movements, and then the snowball he threw in an arc would come down on her head from above. There was no way someone as slow as Latina could react to that.

  The arched snowball landed a blow on the pink hat in no time at all with a thwump. Rudy peeked into the shelter, eagerly imagining Latina’s frustrated face.

  What he saw inside, though, was a pillar of ice supporting a pink hat.

  “Huh?!”

  The second Rudy realized it was a trap, Latina stood up from a crouched position in the rear of the shelter. Out of the corner of his eyes, the boy saw a light shining brightly.