by CHIROLU
Dale, of course, realized what she was doing, so he took deliberate care to make sure he served as a proper model. Due to his pride as her father, however, he made sure not to let it show on his face that he was putting in such effort.
Once Latina finished her soup filled with the flavors of the ocean and her whitefish péla, a dessert that was also exquisitely presented was carried out before her. The plate had several pieces of cake on it, adorned with carefully cut slices of fruit and sauces of the same colors.
“Wooooow...” Latina let out happily while taking care to make sure she wasn’t too loud. She was absolutely spellbound, and she gazed at the various pieces atop the plate with the tip of her fork wavering slightly, uncertain where to start. As she settled on her first bite, sliced it off, and put it in her mouth, she looked overjoyed. Meanwhile, Dale stuck with a simple flavored ice. He wouldn’t go so far as to say that he disliked such things, but he didn’t eat anything really sweet very often. Honestly, the look on Latina’s face was the true dessert here for him. Seeing her so blissful soothed his soul. She was just too cute. That alone was more than worth the cost of the dinner. He’d have to be sure to thank the workers at the inn who had recommended this shop again.
Just then, the music suddenly shifted. The big change in melody made Dale turn his attention towards the stage. A single female musician was strumming a stringed instrument he’d never seen before. She had a purple cloth with an exotic air to it wrapped about her head, and the golden decorations hanging from it swayed back and forth with her movements. The flowing dress she wore over her slender body was also of a sort you didn’t often see in Laband. She wore a necklace of large beads on a golden string around her neck.
This foreign-looking woman was playing a foreign-sounding melody. The quiet tune almost seemed to invite homesickness, and it blended in perfectly with the feel of some far-off nation that the town of Qualle had to it.
“Hey, Dale...”
Seeing him looking at the stage, Latina’s attention was drawn that way as well, and she tilted her head a bit.
“What is it?”
“Is that woman a devil?”
“Why do you think that?”
The musician had the purple cloth wrapped about her head, so it was impossible to tell if she had horns, which were the devils’ most identifying trait. Dale was unable to say one way or another.
Latina pointed and said, “That woman’s bracelet is just like Latina’s.”
Looking at the musician once more, he saw that the woman had a silver bracelet on her upper left arm. There was a shine coming off of the simple metal ornament, but it blended into her outfit so naturally that he didn’t even notice it until Latina said something.
“You’re right... It does look a lot like your bracelet.”
Was there some deep meaning to that? Humans as a whole didn’t know much about devils, so it was no surprise that he had no idea.
“Latina wonders what that bracelet is for...” Latina murmured with a sigh. “Rag told Latina to keep it with her. There’s something written on the inside, too.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, but Latina doesn’t know what it says. She left where she was born before she learned letters...”
Seeing her somewhat lonely smile, Dale made an immediate decision. He called over the waiter, and along with a tip, he also handed over a message for the musician. It told the name of the inn where they were staying and said that he’d like to meet up with her if she had the time. If she was open to it, then they may be able to hear about the devil race and perhaps even some information related to Latina herself.
Even though Dale had wanted to leave her with good memories of a delicious meal, shop, Latina looked to be sinking into depression as they left the restaurant. Holding hands, they took a detour on the way back to the inn and went for a nighttime walk, which Latina didn’t often get to do. Just as Dale had hoped, the novelty swept the gloom away from the young girl’s face.
Dale sighed in relief.
I want Latina to smile... thought Dale, a gentle smile on his own face.
Thus, their first day in Qualle came to a close.
†
The next morning, Dale awoke to the sound of rain. That may have actually been for the better, as it made for a good chance to have Latina rest up properly rather than running all about town. While eating breakfast down on the first floor, Dale told Latina they wouldn’t be going out today, and she accepted it without putting up a fight.
The rain could be heard from their room, but it wasn’t too much of a downpour, so Latina opened the window and looked out at the town of Qualle, which was now a hazy, light-grey color. Occasionally, she’d lean out a bit, seeming to have spotted something; at such times she’d stop and stare carefully at a single spot. She was quietly, calmly enjoying the day in her own way.
Dale took advantage of this chance to carry out a careful inspection of their luggage. It was essential that he not just examine their food supplies, but also made sure their tools were still in good working condition. He’d been putting it off when they camped out and had single-night stays at inns, so this was an important opportunity.
The pair didn’t talk much, but they spent this calm, gentle, yet still plenty enjoyable time together in the same place, and after a simple lunch, they took a drowsy nap together, drifting off to the sound of the rain instead of a lullaby.
An answer to Dale’s message arrived from the Silent Seagull after their nap, around when Latina was sitting with stationery in front of her and groaning a bit. There was too much she wanted to write, and she couldn’t possibly fit it all on the paper; she didn’t know what to do.
After checking the card he was handed, Dale gave the messenger both a tip and a reply. “Well then, please tell her that we’ll meet tomorrow afternoon, alright?”
“Very well.”
After the messenger departed, Dale noticed Latina was by his side, looking up at him.
“Was that person from the restaurant yesterday?”
“Yeah. They delivered a message from that musician. She said could make time to see us tomorrow night before work starts. Looks like we’ll be able to talk to her.”
“Is she really a devil, then?”
“I didn’t ask all that just yet. I just told her we wanted to talk about her silver bracelet, and she agreed. At the very least, we’ll probably be able to hear something about any traditions that might be related to it.”
Latina thought for a moment. “There’s a lot that Latina doesn’t know. She doesn’t know anything about devils... Will she know by the time she’s an adult?”
“I don’t know anything, either. So we can learn together, right?”
“We’ll both be learning?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
The pair exchanged a smile.
But internally, Dale was thinking, I’ve gotta make sure I know more than Latina... I can’t slip up on that... He broke out in a sweat, secretly worried that if he wasn’t careful, this sharp girl would end up passing him by. As her father, he couldn’t let her get disillusioned, at least for a while longer. For a little more, at least.
Is this how Kenneth feels...? Now he really understood how his “big bro” felt struggling to come up with new recipes day in and day out.
After dinner on the first floor of the inn, Dale and Latina hurried to bed. At some point, the sound of raindrops ceased.
The next morning, the sky was still cloudy.
When they were preparing to head out to buy food and other perishables for their trip, Latina’s eyes absolutely sparkled. She looked up at Dale, clearly filled to the brim with anticipation.
“Dale, Dale! Um, Latina wants to get fish.”
“We can’t take fresh fish with us, though.”
“No, dried fish! There aren’t many in Kreuz, but there are lots here! And Kenneth taught her how to prepare them!”
Normally a kid around her age would be interested in souvenirs and sund
ries, but he felt this was a very fitting declaration for Latina.
Well, I guess it’s fine. Latina seems excited, after all.
Such concerns about what “normal” children liked were trivial when Dale saw Latina skip along joyfully as they walked.
Going around the marketplace, they stocked up on medicine and similar items. Because both Dale and Latina could use healing magic, they didn’t need much for dealing with wounds, but such spells wouldn’t work on illnesses. They needed to keep medicine for that on hand.
Just like Latina wanted, they ended up adding dried fish to their stock of rations. From now on, they’d be heading deeper and deeper into the mountains—truly inconvenient terrain. They wouldn’t be able to restock their food as often as they had up until now, so it was crucial that they choose things that would last for quite some time.
Carrying what they’d purchased, they entered a cheap restaurant filled with locals for lunch. The bread and hearty seafood stew would have been plenty of food, but when they smelled the fried fish over on the next table, they made a last-minute addition to their order.
When Latina cut through the light breading, steam wafted up from the tender, white flesh. She wanted to eat it while it was still warm, so she stuffed her cheeks full of the piping-hot fish and had to puff the hot air out of her mouth over and over again.
“Looks like it’s tasty!”
“It is!”
Latina was always eager to learn more about food, so after they were halfway through, Dale squeezed a lemon over the fish. If he’d done it at the beginning, it would have been too hard for her to tell the flavor of the dish itself.
After finishing their meal, they returned to the inn to drop off their bags. If they left now, they’d make it right on time.
When they arrived at the Silent Seagull once more, the lunch rush was over and there weren’t many customers. The musician from the day before yesterday was seated in the corner. Rather than being showy or flashy, the woman gave off a cool, relaxed vibe. Unlike her stage attire, she was wearing an extremely ordinary shirt and long skirt. She had a round hat on her head, so it was impossible to tell if she had horns or not.
She may have been on guard if Dale had come alone, but he’d brought Latina with him. The adorable little girl was a bit nervous, so she was half-hiding behind Dale, which was quite charming. The woman smiled when she saw her, and when she gestured, they sat down.
“Thanks so much for making time to talk to us. I’m Dale Reki.”
“Oh, not at all. So, you have something you want to ask me?”
“Yeah. It’s about that bracelet you’ve got on...” Dale said, looking straight at the silver bangle on her upper left arm.
With a gentle smile, the woman tilted her head. “It’s nothing so unusual, is it?”
“Someone I know has something very similar, so I’d like to ask about where it came from—”
“Um....” Latina spoke up, cutting Dale off. “Latina’s horns are broken, but she’s a devil.”
“Latina...”
“Oh, my...”
Both Dale and the woman looked at Latina with surprise. She parted her hair and showed the remains of her horns.
“But Latina’s still just a kid, so there’s a lot she doesn’t know, and she’d like to learn.”
Latina understood that Dale was trying to hide the truth because he was thinking of her wellbeing. But that’s precisely why she felt the need to say it herself.
That truth was both disadvantageous and dangerous for Latina. She was afraid that if the woman before her really was a devil, she may realize that Latina was marked as a criminal, which would earn her distaste. Dale had wanted to avoid that if he could, but it wasn’t possible at this point, so he steeled himself for the worst.
“But why...? You’re so young...”
“I don’t know the specifics either.” It was Dale’s turn to speak up. “I found her after her father died, and I’ve been taking care of her ever since. She was even younger then, and the only thing she had on her was a bracelet that looked like yours.”
“This is...” she muttered quietly, putting her hand on her hat. The shape was rather different than Latina’s, but she did indeed have horns growing vertically from each temple. “This bracelet was something fathers gave their children back where I came from... the only country belonging to the devil race. It describes the owner’s heritage.”
Sure enough, this woman was a devil. She gave her name as Glaros. Rather than being exiled like Latina, she left on her own on a journey to see the world, met and married a human man, and ended up settling down in this town.
“Can I ask you something?” said Glaros.
Dale nodded. “Yeah.”
“How much do you two know about devils?”
“Pretty much nothing, I’d say. She was just too young, so she apparently left her village before she learned much of anything,” Dale responded, and the woman nodded in understanding.
“I see... We devils don’t grow differently than humans when we’re children, so she’s about as young as she looks. I’ve never heard of someone having their horns broken at such a young age,” she said with a pained voice. It would seem that Latina’s circumstances were strange, even to a devil like Glaros. “I come from a country far to the southwest of here called Vassilios, which is ruled by the First Demon Lord. My hometown was on the outskirts of that nation, which is the greatest territory of the devils. Devils have villages spread the world over, but with a proper government ruling over it, Vassilios is the only one that can be called a country.”
“So demon lords really are the kings of the devils?”
“No. The First Demon Lord is the only one with a ‘kingdom’ like you humans have. The others don’t govern any nations,” Glaros replied. “In Vassilios, children are raised by their mothers. Unlike humans, devils don’t have any custom of men and women marrying and living together.”
This was the first time Dale had heard such a thing. He’d faced off against demon lords and the demons serving under them many times for work, but he’d never had a chance to learn about their lifestyles.
He looked Latina. It was hard to tell just what she was thinking, but she was clearly surprised.
“Still, it’s difficult for devils to have a child, so of course fathers want to celebrate the birth of their child as well. When that time comes, they give their child a bracelet with their name engraved on it along with a blessing.”
Glaros took off her bracelet and showed them the reverse side. Dale had never seen the symbols that were engraved there before.
“This is devil script... It’s pretty different compared to human letters, right? It says here, ‘My name is Korydallos, and I gift this to my beloved child Glaros. I pray that much happiness comes her way.’ Korydallos is my father’s name, and then this is my name, Glaros. And this part is the blessing,” she explained, pointing to the letters as she read them.
Latina stared intently, trying to take it all in. Dale called over an employee of the Silent Seagull and borrowed a pen and paper. With a serious expression on her face, Latina copied down the writing off of the bracelet.
“Is what’s written on the bracelets all the same?” the girl asked as paused in her writing.
“Well, the blessing may vary a bit regionally. But there shouldn’t be too much of a difference.”
“Latina sees,” said the young girl with a nod, before comparing what she’d transcribed to the bracelet itself. After a bit, she started writing on the corner of the paper, a worried look on her face.
“Latina, what’s that?”
“Latina thinks that what was written on her bracelet was like this. Maybe it’s Rag’s name...”
“Could I see?”
After staring at the paper Latina handed her and thinking for a bit, Glaros wrote down something next to Latina’s writing.
“Was it like this, perhaps? This is ‘Smaragdi,’ which is a word meaning a ‘green stone.’”
“Smaragdi... is that Rag’s name?” Latina asked, tilting her head at the word she hadn’t heard before.
“Probably,” replied Glaros with a nod.
“Devils sometimes have their kids refer to them by shortened versions of their names. That may have been the case with your father, too.”
“So Latina was born in Vassilios, the country of the First Demon Lord, then?”
“That may be so. I’ve heard of big communities under the Third and Sixth Demon Lords, but they shouldn’t have any such customs. I only know what I heard from my mother, though.”
“The Third and Sixth Demon Lords?”
Latina was confused, so Dale provided a supplementary explanation.
“The Third Demon Lord is also known the ‘Demon Lord of the Sea.’ That’s apparently because he’s built up a symbiotic relationship with the merfolk out on the eastern frontier. The Sixth Demon Lord, meanwhile, is the ‘Demon Lord of the Giants.’ I hear he was part of a clan of especially large devils, and he has members of that same clan serving under him; he never settles down and always wanders all over instead.”
“Hmm...”
“That’s right. And outside of that, there are just small villages dotted all about. Even as a devil, I don’t know much about those,” Glaros said.
“So... there’s a First Demon Lord around, then?” Latina asked suddenly, jumping into the conversation.
“Huh? Well, if it’s the ‘country of the First Demon Lord,’ then... there must be, right?”
“Really? But the Second Demon Lord killed the First Demon Lord, didn’t he?” Latina said, tilting her head and looking confused. Dale looked over at Glaros, who gave a nod with a shocked look on her face.
“I’m amazed you knew that, when you’re so young,” she said, sighing in admiration before continuing. “It happened before I left my village. The First Demon Lord was murdered by the Second Demon Lord, causing Vassilios to fall more or less into ruin, which gave me a good excuse to leave. That happened quite some time ago, though. Ever since, up through the present day, the First Demon Lord’s remaining demons and the temples have been maintaining government rule in his absence.”