by CHIROLU
“Huh? Umm... I think that I’d like to run a restaurant like the Ocelot. But I’d also like to go on a journey again, to see towns and places I’ve never seen before... and I’d like to see Granny and Maya again, too.”
Dale breathed a sigh of relief.
“In the past, I used to think that I’d like to join you on your work, Dale...” Latina said, wearing a slightly troubled and lonely smile.
“Huh?” Dale was taken aback.
“I hated being left behind... so I thought, if I could just go with you on your work, I wouldn’t have to worry about that, right?” said Latina with a laugh. Knowing that he had made her endure all that since she was young, Dale looked troubled.
“I’m sorry...”
“Not at all. I don’t want to trouble you.” After giggling and making a smile to glaze over the matter, her expression suddenly grew serious. “But now that I’ve grown up, I’ve come to realize that isn’t possible for me.”
“Huh?”
“If I did accompany you on your work... I’d just be in the way. So I decided I’d hold down the fort instead.”
“I’d say you’re pretty skilled as a magic user, Latina. You don’t need to put yourself down like that...”
Though he didn’t want her to be an adventurer, he spoke out against what she’d said because he didn’t want her self-image to be so bad. More than anything else, he wanted her to consider herself valuable.
“No, I’ve come to really understand just how amazing you are, Dale. I don’t have all that much mana, or any great power to protect you with. And if things got really dangerous, I know that you’d worry more about me than yourself.”
“Of course I would!” Dale immediately responded. Latina smiled at her guardian’s expected reaction.
“See? That’s why I can’t help out with your work.”
Dale knew that he made her put up with a lot and feel lonely. But Latina had been so understanding and clever even when she was young that she’d been shielding him from that.
“I’m sure you understand, Latina...”
“Hmm?”
“Hearing you greet me with a ‘Welcome home’ makes me so very happy.”
After her shock at Dale’s words faded, a gentle smile crossed Latina’s face. “Yeah... that’s right. A place where someone tells you ‘Welcome home’ is precious.”
“Yup. So you are my source of power...”
While he felt relieved by Latina’s bright expression, in the depths of his heart he thought, She really has been paying attention to all sorts of things...
He let out a slightly worried sigh, wondering why there was still so much she was blind to about herself.
6: The Young Man’s Time with the Infant and the Rose Princess’s Calamity
As the Ahmar night festival approached, the whole of Kreuz grew awash in a bustling and restless atmosphere. It was the foremost celebration for the town. Every shop was working hard to prepare themselves to target the travelers visiting for the festival. The number of adventurers visiting to guard the merchants coming for the festivities grew too, so the Dancing Ocelot was even busier than normal.
“Sis! Big sis Latina!”
“What is it, Theo?”
“Let’s play,” the young Theodore said in the backyard of the Ocelot, but Latina made a slightly troubled face. Currently, she held a mountain of the sheets used in the Ocelot in her arms. Doing the laundry was hard work. She couldn’t even use a magical device to simplify the task. As a result, while they could wash clothing and the like themselves, bigger items like these were entrusted to a place that specialized in such work.
At the moment, Latina was on her way to drop them off.
“Sorry, Theo. I can’t right now.”
She was holding enough that she felt like she’d drop it all if she lost her focus. Kenneth normally handled this job, as it was so much that Rita couldn’t possibly carry it. Latina could use magic to reduce the weight, though, so she could carry more than her thin arms could normally handle.
“Let’s play!”
“Sorry, just let me drop off this laundry, and then we can play. Just wait a little longer.”
Theo puffed up his cheeks as Latina repeated herself.
Theo’s puffed-up cheeks are so cute...
While Latina was troubled by the toddler’s smooth, squishy, puffed-up cheeks, she couldn’t help but smile. She didn’t realize that that mannerism of his was the result of him mimicking his beloved big sister.
“Noooo, let’s play!” The toddler wasn’t that reasonable, so he threw a tantrum and clung to Latina’s apron.
“T-Theo, watch ou—” The moment she shouted that out in a panic, her load suddenly grew lighter. “Let go!”
Theo didn’t stop his struggling and writhing regardless, so Vint grabbed the scruff of the toddler’s neck with his mouth. Because he was so used to dealing with Theo, Vint managed to choose the perfect spot so as not to strangle or harm him.
“Vint.”
Vint wagged his tail, indicating that he was saying “Hurry up and go.” Latina look relieved and called out to Theo once more, saying, “Sorry, Theo. We’ll play when I get back, alright?”
“Noooo!” Theo complained, his gaze fixated on her hair as Latina picked the laundry back up and left.
Vint put Theo back on the ground when Latina was fully out of view. He dropped the toddler rather roughly, but Theo didn’t start crying.
“Sis!”
Theo stood up after having fallen on his backside, then tried to run off in the direction Latina was heading. Vint smoothly obstructed his path.
“Vi, you’re in the way!”
“Woof.”
When Theo tried to cut around, Vint blocked him with his body once again. Even when Theo puffed up his cheeks, Vint didn’t relax his guard at all. From the soaring wolf’s point of view, what mattered most was whether or not Latina was being disadvantaged. The reason he watched after Theo was because he knew how fond Latina was of the toddler.
If anything happened to this tiny human child, Latina would be sad. That needed to be avoided. That was why he couldn’t let Theo interfere with Latina when she had her hands full, nor could he let anything happen to the boy while she was gone.
“Hmph!” Theo groaned in displeasure, but he still didn’t cry.
The toddler looked more like his mother than his father. His hair was soft and fluffy, as was characteristic of toddlers, and was black, which strengthened the resemblance. However, when it came to his personality, it was hard to say who he took after. Both of his parents were strong-willed. Rita naturally thought Kenneth was an outstanding man, and so did the influential adventurers who visited the Ocelot. Behind his friendly demeanor, he was quite tough.
Having inherited all sorts of things from such parents, such a minor issue wasn’t enough to make him break down in tears.
He charged at Vint. The beast dodged agilely, then knocked the now-unbalanced toddler over with a tap of his front paw.
Sure enough, he teared up a bit.
Feeling a paw on his back only annoyed him further. Vint didn’t like it when Theo asked to touch him, but he was fine pushing his paw onto the toddler. When Theo went to stand up again, Vint didn’t try to stop him.
Theo went to challenge Vint again, but his opponent clearly had the upper hand. The two playing always involved Theo tumbling over again and again and ending up covered in dirt.
By the time Dale showed up in the backyard, Theo had already forgotten his initial goal and was now focused on going up against Vint.
Thanks to the night festival, the number of adventurers in Kreuz now exceeded how many jobs were available. That was a problem during this time every year. As a result, adventurers of a certain skill level restrained themselves from taking anything but the most difficult of jobs, leaving work for those who were lacking in experience and funds. This unwritten rule was a form of cooperation between the adventurers. At the same time, acting greedy for work around n
ow would only serve to severely harm one’s own reputation. Having so much free time right now was proof of one’s abilities.
Dale was spending his excess time off at the Ocelot.
Over these past years, whenever Dale was free, he’d spent as much time together with Latina as he could. As a result, he didn’t have any true “free time.”
This year, however, Latina was pressed for time due to work, and on top of that, she was using her breaks to study magic. She was just too busy to make time for Dale right now.
Even though he knew he should feel glad to see her growing up, he still felt like crying from time to time.
And so, Dale sought out the toddler and the pup in order to kill some time.
“What are you two doing...?”
“Woof.”
“Dale.”
Theo called Latina “Sis,” but for some reason, he just called Dale by his first name. It felt irrational to him. He just couldn’t understand it.
“Have you been playing with Vint?”
“I’m gonna beat Vi!”
“That may still be a bit of a tall task for you, Theo...”
“Woof.”
He was still just a cub, but Vint was a mythical beast, and mythical beasts were even stronger than magical beasts. He wasn’t the sort of opponent a toddler could defeat. Apparently, that was the source of the self-satisfied look on Vint’s face.
“I can do it!”
“It’ll be tough...”
Even so, Theo kept insisting, so Dale shrugged his shoulders a bit and then picked up a stick lying on the ground. After giving it a test swing, he looked over at Vint.
“Are you ready, Vint?”
“Woof!”
The instant after that bark, Vint leaped at Dale. Dale nimbly and easily dodged, only for Vint to pounce at him once more immediately after landing. Twisting his upper body the minimum amount necessary, Dale avoided the attack once more and then swung his stick. Vint ducked down to the ground, and Dale’s attack missed him.
Theo watched this frantic offense and defense intently with his mouth wide open.
Vint was still just a cub. He was no match for Dale on his own, as the difference in ability between them was just too great. That was precisely what made him the perfect opponent to offer Vint some challenging “play.”
“Is Vi stronger than Dale?”
“Is that how it looks to you, Theo?”
Dale occasionally stopped Vint’s blows with his left hand, whereas Dale’s stick didn’t even graze Vint. From Theo’s point of view, Vint may have appeared to be the dominant one. However, that was because both of them were just “playing,” with neither displaying their full strength. If they were to do so and got fired up, then one of them would probably get injured. They obviously wouldn’t hurt one another badly enough to endanger their lives, though, and there was always healing magic. That wasn’t where their worries lay.
If one of them got injured, Latina would find out, and they’d probably get scolded. They’d have to sit up straight next to one another as Latina lectured them with her hands on her hips. That much would be fine. Well, not fine, but they could deal with it. The real issue is that when she was angry, Latina may not talk to them for a while. That absolutely had to be avoided.
He played with Vint for a while, but Dale knew that while Vint was a very sensible animal, they couldn’t keep going for too long. It was important to end things before Vint started getting too worked up.
Dale then looked over at Theo. The boy had picked up a thin stick and was swinging it around, mimicking him.
“Theo, make sure you don’t swing sticks at people.”
“That’s bad?”
“If you hit them, it’ll hurt. You shouldn’t do something to others that you wouldn’t want done to you,” Dale warned.
“When you’re a bit older, I’ll teach you how to use a sword...” Dale said, wondering absentmindedly all the while if that should be Kenneth’s role. Still, he got the feeling that it might be too difficult for a toddler to start off learning the basics with a battleaxe. It wasn’t as if Kenneth never used a sword, but Dale couldn’t picture him using anything but a battleaxe. Just trying to imagine it felt wrong. It seemed that impressions really were a powerful thing.
As Dale gazed off into the distance, thinking such things, the toddler had the stick knocked out of his hand with the cub’s tail, then was knocked over once more.
The next day, Dale kept Theo company.
Dale walked through town with the toddler under his arm, his limbs flailing about as he screamed. It wouldn’t be strange at all for the town guard to be called on him at any moment. But the surprised passersby decided from the man’s composed posture and what the boy was wailing about that this wasn’t something to report, and their expressions grew full of understanding.
“I want Sis, not you, Dale!”
“Sorry, but I’m all you’ve got.”
“I wanna go with Sis!”
“Latina’s busy with work.”
“Woof.”
“Nooo!”
Dale was heading for the park in the center of Kreuz, with the cub by his side. Theo was generally in a bad mood lately because Latina was so busy. He wanted his beloved big sister to pay more attention to him, but she said she couldn’t play with him because the shop was packed. On top of that, she was also “studying” and talking to customers. It wasn’t fair that she wouldn’t play with him. If she had time to talk with customers, then she should be able to play with him, right? That’s what Theo thought. Playing with Vint was fun, but Theo wanted his beloved big sister to dote on him more.
They arrived at the park, where a great number of townsfolk were spending their free time again today. Vint wagged his tail when he saw the wide-open space.
“Vint, don’t use magic. And don’t go digging around randomly.”
“Woof.”
“I’ll be reporting back to Latina later.”
“Woof!” It was a favorable response. He got the feeling that Vint was still making light of his words, but it’d be his loss if he let that bug him.
Vint only listened to Latina’s orders. She may not have intended to give him orders, but Vint would always obey her requests, so it was essentially the same thing as a result. However, Vint did have some respect for Dale and Kenneth in his own way. This was both because Latina respected them and Vint recognized them as being stronger than he was. By his canine sense of values, he recognized them as superior.
He was a very clever animal, so he mostly understood what was said to him.
However, in the hierarchy of the residents of the Ocelot, it was Rita who came after Latina. He didn’t follow her orders, but he did pay attention when she scolded him. This may have been because he saw how the men of the Ocelot were no match for her.
Dale lowered Theo down onto the grass in the park, and the toddler broke out in a run. Dale smiled a bit while watching the young boy, and his mind started to wander.
Oh right, Yorck will have his second kid soon... What should I send to congratulate him?
It seemed that his younger brother was getting along quite well with his wife, Frida. The letters he periodically sent back and forth with his home village were not just updates on how they were doing, but also served as reports on the state of the world. When they came back with his grammar and spelling mistakes corrected in red, it pissed him off. It was largely his grandmother who did that.
Vint had picked up a stick from somewhere and brought it to Dale, so he tossed it. Vint caught it while Theo watched, then wagged his tail, looking satisfied with himself. Hating to lose, Theo puffed up his cheeks and then looked motivated.
Is that alright...?
Competing and playing with a dog may have been good for a toddler’s upbringing, but playing with a mythical beast every day may have been a bit excessive.
Well, his parents aren’t stopping them, so... I guess it’s fine.
Dale threw the stick again and gazed
on at the peaceful sight of the two of them competing over it.
After a while, he took a now-exhausted Theo to the shade of a tree. When the boy started dozing off, Dale scooped him up as he was accustomed to doing, and then Theo nodded off.
Vint was running about the park, doing his own thing, only to suddenly stop and sniff the air a few times. Just when Dale noticed that, the cub went darting off somewhere.
“Dale!” he heard before long. Sure enough, Vint had run off to greet Latina. She was heading towards him, holding a wicker basket in her hand.
“Is it okay for you not to be working?”
“It’s not like I’m always working,” Latina responded with a laugh before sitting down at his side. She stared at the sleeping Theo with a smile. “I brought Theo a snack, but he’s sleeping so peacefully, we shouldn’t wake him.”
“You could sleep anywhere, too...”
“I don’t do that anymore.”
“That’s true.”
Latina puffed up her cheeks a bit not because she was upset, but because she was embarrassed. It made Dale glad to see that this childish habit still remained despite how much she had grown.
“You really are cute, Latina...”
“What’s that about, all of the sudden?”
“It’s really hit me, watching Theo. You were always trying your hardest.”
He then patted her head like he used to when she was young, and Latina looked a little troubled. It may not have been proper to do that with a girl of her age.
That’s a lonely thought...
Had she come to find it annoying, being together with him? Was he the only one feeling lonely? Were kids destined to leave the sentimental adults behind as they steadily grew older?
Latina stared at him with her big grey eyes, looking confused.
“Have you made your plans for the night festival...?”
“Yeah. We’re going to meet up at Chloe’s house. We’ll be back late, so I’ll be back after seeing Chloe and Sylvia home.”
“You’re going to see them home...?!”
“It’d be dangerous to let them go home late on their own. I’ve been studying magic for self-defense lately, and there will be a lot of guardsmen and adventurers hired as bodyguards around, so I’ll be fine.”