If It’s for My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord: Volume 2

by CHIROLU

  Though Dale had divine protection, he wasn’t overly devout. But even so, he did occasionally feel like praying. For this girl to be happy. For her to grow up healthy. And if it was the gods who had let him meet her...

  Latina finally calmed back down after noon. That was right around when the men who had gone out hunting returned, driving the whole village into a boisterous uproar. Drawn by the excitement, Dale and company headed to the village plaza to see the fruits of the hunt. Latina stood there holding hands with Maya, her mouth wide-open in amazement.

  “Bowr!” Maya was pointing at the spoils of the day’s hunt.

  “Boars sure are big...”

  “Meet!”

  “Do you like meat, Maya?”

  “Yuh!”

  It was incredibly calming, seeing the two young girls happily converse. After watching for a bit, Dale calmed right down.

  “Latina.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Those are magical beasts. A normal boar would look like it was that thing’s baby in comparison.”

  “Really?” She seemed truly surprised.

  It was definitely better to correct the misunderstanding before Latina committed something false to memory. The beasts that were big enough to be compared to the surrounding houses were most certainly not regular boars. There were two of them lined up in the square, so it had definitely been a successful hunt.

  Though its scope was limited, the divine protection of the oracle of Banafsaj allowed her to predict things that were dangerous to the village, and it would seem that this time around, she had sensed the presence of those magical beasts.

  Boar-type magical beasts were frequently found nearby the village, so the people there often ate their meat. However, considering the beasts’ massive size, they were obviously dangerous. Because the oracle was able to help remove that danger before it struck, she was an incredibly important person.

  In a daze, Latina watched over the beastmen carrying out their duties. They were about to start butchering the beasts. The intestines needed to be dealt with because they spoiled easily, and there was also the issue of the space the creatures were taking up, so the villagers needed to hurriedly get the meat sliced down into more manageable bits.

  “You don’t find this grotesque?”

  “Latina thinks this is also part of her studies, too.”

  “I think you could just leave this sort of stuff to butchers... And these are just too big, so I’m not sure you’ll learn much from this anyway.”

  “Hmm... that’s true.”

  The carving knife one of the men was carrying honestly looked more like a two-handed great sword. Dale couldn’t imagine that Latina would ever be able to handle such a thing, even after she had grown up. It was just too big for her.

  “Watia, wet’s pway!” Maya was tugging on Latina’s hand.

  This sight was commonplace to the toddler, so she didn’t seem to have any interest in it at all. Latina looked down at her and then started walking, looking completely satisfied.

  “Dale?”

  “Right, take care. Just don’t leave the village.”

  “Okay!”

  Maya continued to pull Latina along the entire time she was getting permission from Dale, and after they got the okay, the two girls went for a walk around the village.

  The village may have been a small one, but even so, it was full of things that Latina had never seen before. And yet, she couldn’t pay careful attention to those things. After all, right now she was a “big sister,” so she couldn’t take her eyes off of little Maya. With that modest sense of duty in her heart, she chased after the young toddler, who was steadily pushing ahead.

  Their activity ended up being a little too intense to call a walk, and by the time Maya lost interest, the girls’ hair and clothes were full of leaves and branches. Maya had chosen their route with great creativity.

  “Sit still for a second, Maya, alright?”

  “Yuh!”

  Latina carefully removed the leaves embedded in the soft hair on Maya’s head. She needed to be careful not to pull too hard and hurt her.

  While Latina enthusiastically carried out her task, her hands came into contact with Maya’s fluffy fur. Being ticklish, the beastchild tilted her head as if trying to get away, but for some reason, Maya’s head remained touching Latina’s hands.

  “It’s so fluffy...”

  Latina went ahead and buried her face in Maya’s fur. It was soft and felt very nice to the touch.

  “Watia?”

  “You’re so fluffy, Maya!”

  “Heehee...”

  Latina tried gently stroking Maya’s head, her hand sinking into the soft fur. It felt even better than she’d imagined, so Latina got her fill of the fluff, running her hand through it to her heart’s content. Maya didn’t seem to dislike it at all, and she just kept giggling while twisting her body about like she was being tickled.

  “Watia, fwuffy?”

  “Fluffy!”

  There wasn’t any special meaning to this exchange, so they both broke out laughing.

  Realizing that the fur under Maya’s chin was especially soft, Latina started petting her there, and the girl giggled happily. Apparently, she was quite fond of having Latina pet her. Latina was also totally entranced by Maya’s fluffy fur. Because she was still a toddler, Maya was still covered in downy fuzz, which had been diligently and lovingly maintained, a testament to her father’s doting nature. She was at peak fluff capacity.

  After getting over her ticklishness, Maya looked almost intoxicated. She turned over sleepily, positioning herself to be pet even more. It was as if she was trying to say, “I leave it up to you.”

  “Watia, pet, pet!”

  “Here?”

  “More!”

  “Alright.”

  “Heehee...”

  Latina’s petting was enough to make a beastman her captive. It was at that instant that a glimpse of a new ability of Latina’s first showed itself.

  It was midevening when a satisfied Maya and a tired, yet somehow accomplished-looking Latina returned, holding hands.

  “Watia!” Even inside the house, Maya was on Latina’s heels. “Wet’s pway!”

  Dale had been checking over the map, and naturally, this charming scene brought a peaceful expression to his face. “You seem to be pretty well liked, Latina.”

  “Yeah. Latina is getting along well with Maya.”

  The sight of Latina smiling and hugging the tiny Maya tight hit Dale so hard enough that he had a revelation: he should buy her a big stuffed animal as soon as they got back to Kreuz. Why hadn’t he gotten her one yet?

  He hung his head in shame.

  Such a cute item would pair well with cute Latina, and if he got one big enough to hug tightly, it’d surely help soothe her loneliness when he was away. Where did they sell them...? No wait, even if they weren’t available off the shelf, he could always put in a special order.

  He looked up at the sky with a hopeful, beaming smile.

  “Strange?” Maya asked, pointing at Dale and his exaggerated actions.

  “Hmm? No, it’s nothing. Dale acts like that every now and again,” Latina responded.

  It was a surprisingly severe assessment, but fortunately those words didn’t reach Dale’s ears.

  When night fell, Maya also pulled Latina into her bed. Latina hesitated a bit, as she normally slept next to Dale. However, she didn’t want to have regrets when she had to say goodbye when they left tomorrow morning.

  Seeing Latina with her cherubic sleeping face and the fluffy Maya looking completely satisfied and sleeping cuddled together was almost too much for the two doting idiots.

  The two girls had grown quite close, but the time did indeed come for them to say goodbye.

  “Nooooooooooooo! Watia! Don’t wanna!”

  Maya’s cries resounded through the early-morning beastman village. Pulled away from Latina and now tightly held in Joseph’s arms, Maya was bawling her eyes out and thras
hing, trying to escape.

  “Nooooo! Maya hates Daddy! She wants Watia!”

  It was impossible to tell how just much damage his beloved daughter’s words inflicted on Joseph, but his triangular ears, normally pointed straight up, now drooped pathetically.

  Dale looked at Latina standing at his side and saw her eyes were starting to grow a little moist in response to Maya’s tears. She sniffled a bit.

  “Go say goodbye. And that it’s okay, we’ll come again on our way back.”

  “Yeah...”

  Looking downhearted, Latina approached Maya, and the toddler stretched her tiny arms out as hard as she could, struggling all the while.

  “Watia! Watia!”

  “Maya...” Latina looked like she was about to cry herself as she searched for words. “Take care, Maya... Latina will come to play again...”

  “Watia...”

  When Latina said that, Maya stopped crying and broke out in a smile and waved goodbye... or not.

  “Nooooo! Maya wants Watia!!”

  She just started crying even harder. There was no such thing as a toddler who could be persuaded so easily.

  “Agh, geez! Just get out of here already! She’ll give up eventually!” Joseph exclaimed, struggling to hold back his beloved daughter as she tried to escape.

  “Nooooooo! Watia! Watia!”

  “If you wait for Maya to stop crying, it’ll be night. Take care and get going,” Ute calmly urged them along with a strained smile at her daughter’s lamentations.

  “Well then... thanks for letting us stay with you. I’m thinking we’ll probably impose on you on the way back, too.”

  “Got it. Take care.”

  “Thank you so much... Maya, bye-bye,” Latina said with a quick bow of her head. Expecting her footsteps would grow heavy before too long, Dale had her ride on the horse.

  “Get out of here already! Have a safe trip!”

  With Joseph’s voice to their back, Dale took hold of the reins and started walking. Just as he’d expected, Latina kept turning back and looking at Maya. They could still hear the toddler’s cries even after they exited the village and could no longer see the Bündte family.

  We’re probably bothering the neighbors...

  Breaking out in a bit of a cold sweat, Dale walked along the narrow path through the forest. He decided not to look back at Latina, who was still sniffling a bit.

  “Hopefully you’ll be able to play on the way back, too.”

  “Yeah...”

  She was feeling sad at having to part ways, so that was a nice thought for Latina.

  While thinking such things, they walked through the forest with the light filtering through the trees and creating complex shadows on the ground.

  Interlude: The Residents of Kreuz, While the Young Girl is Away

  Dear Rita,

  How are you? How is the baby in your belly? Are Kenneth and the customers doing okay, too?

  Dale and I are doing very well. Dale says we’re making good progress, too.

  After we left Qualle, we visited a beastman village. We stayed at Dale’s relative’s house. I asked him what a relative was, and he taught me that it meant family of family. Dale has a lot of family.

  A lot happened on the way here, too.

  I saw a lot of trees with pink flowers blooming on them. It was very pretty, seeing the petals flutter down while Dale and I took a break and ate sandwiches. I wish you could see it, too. It’d be nice if they were in Kreuz as well. Also...

  “Thank you,” Rita said, checking the sender after receiving the letter from the deliveryman.

  She signed for it. The young man, who looked like any normal adventurer aside from the moss-green bag over his shoulder, pointed a business-like smile her way. “Think nothing of it. I hope you’ll keep using our services in the future!”

  That moss-green messenger bag and the emblem of a letter with wings on it were the trademarks of the largest delivery guild in the world.

  Being a deliveryman was the primary occupation for those who possessed Center affinity but didn’t have much power. They would use their magic to train and use birds to deliver letters. (The species varied based on the strength of the deliveryman’s mana, with the stronger deliverymen even employing magical beasts.)

  Towns the size of Kreuz and Qualle had branch offices from which you could have deliveries made over quite a wide area, though there were some restrictions. Small settlements like the beastman village, meanwhile, had to wait for a deliveryman to periodically visit.

  Rita carefully opened up the envelope she’d received. It was quite thick, and inside there was a second envelope. It obviously cost postage to have a letter delivered, so Latina had sent letters for both Rita and Chloe together in order to save on the fee. She really was a practical girl.

  “A letter came from Latina for Chloe, Kenneth. Could you take care of it when you head out for restocking?”

  “Yeah, got it.”

  And that’s how it was decided that Kenneth would take the letter to Chloe’s house when he went to the eastern district for restocking.

  “Looks like their trip is going smoothly... Well, they planned to take it slowly, right?”

  “Where are they now?”

  “It says they were at a beastman village, at least when this was written.”

  “Oh right, Dale had a relative there. There aren’t many houses past that point, so of course he’d stop there, since he has Latina with him...” Taking a quick glance over the letter, Kenneth gave a single nod. “They’re going slower compared to if he went alone, of course, but... they’re going a lot quicker than we calculated before they left. Latina must be working really hard to keep up a good walking pace.”

  Dale had worked with Kenneth to put together an itinerary before leaving on their trip. What they’d settled on would be no problem for someone with plenty of stamina and used to traveling, like Dale, but it was hard to guess how it would go with Latina accompanying him. That’s why Dale sought his “big bro’s” advice and used Kenneth’s experience from when he had taken jobs escorting people from town to town as a basis to schedule things out, and also why Dale had brought along plenty of rations and others supplies.

  “Seems like Latina’s enjoying herself,” Rita said with a light chuckle while carefully reading through the letter. Normally, when she was dealing with documents for work, she’d be done reading this much in no time at all, but now she treated each and every word as incredibly precious. Seeing Rita like that, Kenneth broke out in a smile. “I didn’t think it’d get this quiet without Latina around.”

  “You won’t be able to say that for too much longer,” Kenneth said, looking at his wife’s now visibly bulging stomach, and she responded with a smile.

  “Latina will be a good big sister, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s pretty quiet in the shop, too.”

  Kenneth let out a sigh. “Geez, those guys... That’s eating into our profits, right?”

  “It’s like we’ve gone back to before Latina started helping out.” As Rita was in charge of managing the books, she let out a strained laugh.

  When compared to the other shops in Kreuz that served as bases for adventurers, the Dancing Ocelot was peculiar in that the regulars were all veterans and those who marketed themselves based on how highly skilled they were. Newcomers tended to disappear pretty fast after coming face to face with them.

  The adorable Latina had become something of a buffer between rookies and those intimidating regulars. In addition to Kenneth’s cooking and the cheap price of food, the cute young girl had become known as one of the shop’s selling points.

  Ever since Latina left on her trip, though, the rookies had become more hesitant to visit, and the regulars stopped staying very long. Latina had contributed to the Dancing Ocelot’s sales through more than just her work.

  “Dale changed when Latina first came here, but she had an awful big effect on the shop, too.”

&
nbsp; “That’s true.”

  “Maybe we could start letting Latina handle some cooking...”

  “Then you could leave the midday rush to me.”

  Rita smiled when Kenneth said that. “That time may come sooner than we think.”

  As Latina continued to grow day by day, she was seeing and experiencing more and more and growing closer to adulthood. Kenneth and Rita were looking forward to seeing how she’d matured, as she was definitely becoming a splendid young lady.

  ...The journey has been really fun. But I’m really looking forward to talking you and Kenneth all about it. And I was really happy where you saw us off and said ‘Take care.’ I’m enjoying the trip so much because I know that when I say ‘I’m back,’ you’ll be there to say ‘Welcome home.’

  I’ll keep on listening to Dale, and won’t forget what you warned me about. I’ll make it back safely to Kreuz. Take care of yourself, Rita. And the baby, too. And please tell Kenneth and the customers to do the same.

  Sincerely,

  Latina

  Rita carefully placed the letter from Latina back in the envelope and put it away in a drawer.

  “You don’t have to say something so silly...”

  Of course she’d say, “Welcome home” when Latina returned.

  “This is your place to return to, right?”

  The young girl had come to think of this as the home she’d come back to.

  “Take care...” Rita muttered quietly, reciting a prayer to the god she felt closest to.

  †

  At the entrance to their classroom in the temple of Asfar, Chloe called this out to her friend, Sylvia.

  “Silvia, Latina sent a letter!”

  “Hmm... Is she doing well?”

  “Well, we’re talking about Latina, so it’s hard to tell, but I’d say she seems to be.”