by CHIROLU
Maya was extremely angry at Joseph, who was blocking the house’s front door.
When it came down to it, Maya was more of a daddy’s girl, so she definitely didn’t hate Joseph. But she wasn’t feeling that way right now because she was looking forward to her daily walk. She had no interest in playing with her father.
“Ma—”
Joseph still wasn’t giving up, so Maya resorted to force. She ducked down, made herself compact, and ran as fast as she could. Thanks to her father’s figure, he had a large blind spot directly beneath him. To be blunt, his belly obviously got in the way. Joseph could move quicker than you may guess from looking at him, but his maneuverability was no match for that of a pure beastman giving her all. The beastmen’s maneuverability was high to begin with, and that was even truer of their agility. Even though she was still just a toddler, Maya was well aware of that.
The child slipped between Joseph’s legs and started rolling. A moment later, she stood up and pitter-pattered off on her walk.
“M-Maya...”
She didn’t even turn back to look at her lonely father. This was an everyday occurrence, though, so that was understandable.
The extent of Maya’s habitat, her “world,” was limited to the beastman village. The outside of the village was also outside of her territory, so she didn’t think of trying to leave. Despite what they may say, Joseph and Ute allowed their young daughter to walk around on her own precisely because they knew that. To them, this small village was like their own back yard.
Maya had her own unique way of going on a walk. She wasn’t limited to just the beaten paths. What was nothing more than a gap in a wall of wood to an adult made for a fine tunnel for little Maya. After passing under some shrubbery, she used the spots hardened by the adults’ footprints as a path.
It was then that she saw a lizard darting along, its tail waggling back and forth as it went. Her eyes sparkled.
“Wizzar!”
She reached out without hesitation. But the lizard dodged smoothly, having no intention of being so easily caught. It also still had the option of detaching its own tail as a last resort.
“Wizzar!”
Maya’s route shifted as she chased after the fleeing reptile.
†
Beastmen had nearly the same lifespan as humans, and the two races had a similar sense of values, so they made for good neighbors. Their birth rate wasn’t low, either, so they had many children. This village may have been small, but you could still see a number of children playing throughout it. Their ages varied, but considering the size of the village, they were lucky to have someone to play with.
But he didn’t feel that way at all. A small boy, his white fur coated in mud, looked up at the other children surrounding him and bit his lower lip in frustration. This clan living on the outskirts of Laband tended to value individuals based on their abilities even more so than other beastmen. The favoritism wasn’t based on pedigree or social status, just personal opinion. And so this boy, who was the smallest and weakest of the children, was considered the lowest-ranked by the other kids.
By the way, though Joseph’s physical abilities fell short of the other villagers’, his rank in the village hierarchy wasn’t low. Having inherited the Tislow bloodline, he was an expert at healing and support magic, despite how he looked. Magic users were uncommon in general, so it was rare for such a small village to have one, and since he was so capable, that made him all the more highly valued. A village like Tislow where nearly half the villagers were magic users was outside of the norm.
The boy was frustrated at the older boys surrounding him, shoving him around, and then finally laughing at him when he fell in the mud, but he didn’t have the size or strength to do anything about it. His vision grew blurry, but thanks to his pride, he held himself back from crying in front of the others.
That was when she appeared.
The face of a girl with fluffy black fur popped out of a nearby bush.
“Hmm?” Maya tilted her head at the number of boys now standing in front of her. She saw a white-furred boy a little older than her on the ground and covered in mud, surrounded by three even older boys. “Hurt? Hurt?”
“What do you want, squirt? Get out of here.”
“Yeah, you’re in the way!” the older boys spat at Maya and waved her off.
That made her mad. She seemed quite unhappy about how they were treating her.
“No!” she said clearly, her fluffy fur now standing on end.
The boys were a bit surprised. They’d clearly never even considered the possibility of the younger child fighting back. Not caring about what the boys were thinking, Maya started moving... which is to say, she charged right at them.
“Gah!”
Boy One-of-Three fell to a well-aimed headbutt using the whole of Maya’s weight and force.
“Agh!”
“What’s with this squirt?!”
Boys Two-of-Three and Three-of-Three cried out, but Maya simply shook her baby bloomers-covered bottom from side to side, her short tail wagging all the while. There was no meaning behind what she was doing, but it seemed clear that she was making light of the boys, as if saying, “Bring it on, underlings.” She was just a toddler, though, so she may not have been thinking anything at all.
Angered by this provocation, the two boys forgot the difference in age and size and tried to grab for her, but Maya easily and agilely dodged their grasps.
Her father Joseph was acknowledged by those around him as a first-rate warrior, and Maya had been getting the better of him day in and day out. She’d inherited much from the abnormal Tislow clan.
May flew into the air with a leap that surprised even the boys, beastmen themselves, and added in a twist when launching her attack. It wasn’t a splendid roundhouse kick, but Boy Two-of-Three was knocked to the ground by a blow from her bloomers: a Killer Hip Attack.
Boy Three-of-Three, the last one standing, took a step back, preparing to flee. He had at last realized the being before him was not the mere toddler she appeared to be.
“Aaaaaaaaaaah!”
Even though her opponent had lost his fighting spirit, that was none of Maya’s concern. She was simply passing her divine judgment on the fools who dared to see her as beneath them.
“Amazing...” Seeing the three boys who had bullied him all sprawled on the ground, the white-furred boy sat in wide-eyed astonishment.
“She’s such a cute and tiny little girl...” he whispered, and the girl stared straight at him, their eyes meeting. The boy felt his cheeks flushing red.
Then his view was filled with her bloomers.
This brief love was crushed by a hip attack before it could even begin.
Maya returned home in a good mood, having satisfied her hunting instincts and gotten in some nice exercise. She’d found all four boys she left behind, their tails pathetically curled between their legs, to be beneath her and not even worthy of consideration. It was an inadvertently cruel judgment.
After this, the relationship between the four boys more or less improved. There was a strange solidarity between them from all having been wiped out by a single toddler girl.
†
“Oh, you’re back, Maya?” Ute called out to her daughter, who had popped up at some point and was now using a stick to draw a bunch of circles on the ground in front of the house.
“Yup!”
“Maya?!” Joseph’s drooped ears shot straight up and now pointed towards the sky. “Welcome home, Maya. Did anything happen?”
Maya replied immediately with a smile. “Nope!”
To her, it had been an incredibly ordinary outing, with nothing that was worth mentioning. As they talked, the number of circles scratched into the ground had been growing.
“What are you drawing, Maya?”
“Watia. Maya.”
Apparently, the circles all added up to make faces. Hearing his beloved daughter give the name of the “big sister” she was so fond of as she po
inted to the bigger cluster of circles, Joseph gave a strained smile.
“What about Papa, Maya?”
“Nope, nope!”
“Where’s Papa?”
“No Papa!” Maya gave a single glance to her father, who was on the verge of tears, then soon returned her attention to her task.
She still frequently thought back on the “big sister” she loved so much. She smelled good, and was warm, and helped calm Maya down. Her big sister was very, very kind. She was a precious addition to Maya’s world.
Maya didn’t have even the slightest doubt that her precious big sister would come to see her again. She didn’t have a reason for that trust, but Maya had no need for such trivial things.
“Watia, Maya, togetter!”
Having drawn two big circles for their smiles, Maya broke out in a grin of a complete satisfaction.
Afterword
“The cherry blossoms have bloomed, so please take some time off.” Every year, I hear such foolish statements and respond with things like, “Ah, where should I go this year?”
For most of you, this is probably our first time meeting. I’m CHIROLU, and I’d like to sincerely thank you for picking up this work, the second volume of If It’s for My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord.
Sometimes, I want to go somewhere far away. I want to see both places I’ve been to over and over again and also sights I’ve never seen before. My objectives have become polarized like that, but still, it’s become something of my life’s work to visit all the places famous for cherry-blossom viewing.
I was born and raised in the Kanto region, so each year I’ve been able to enjoy a variety of spots famous for cherry blossoms from the time they bloom until they’re all blown away. Perhaps that was what started it all.
Selfishly, I’ve idly wandered to Tohoku to see its famous cherry blossoms. That didn’t really surprise the people around me, though. They just cared enough to say things like, “It’d be tough to make a day trip of it,” or “I wouldn’t want to ride a bus through the night several days in a row.”
My parents are the sort who hate crowds, so for family vacations when I was young, we stuck to walks through picturesque scenery rather than going to places like amusement parks. To avoid the crowds, we’d leave at three in the morning, so we’d arrive just after the sun rose, making for a rigorous schedule. But the sight of the sunlight filtering through the morning mist in a forest, and the feel of stepping on frost in the wetlands, and the force of a waterfall overflowing from the downpour the day before... that remains with me even now. I sit in front of my computer and smartphone, wondering if I managed to capture even a fragment of that scenery from my memories.
Thank you so much to everyone who helped make this book a reality. Though it was a flurry of events that led here, you truly drew an adorable “daughter,” Kei. And more than anything else, to those of you who chose this book out of so many options, you have my deepest gratitude.
As long as this book brought you at least a little joy, then I’ll feel truly blessed.
And let me end this by saying, I pray that you’re able to start drawing again even a day sooner, Truffle.
September 2015,
CHIROLU
Copyright
If It’s for My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord: Volume 2
by CHIROLU
Translated by Matthew Warner
Edited by Sasha McGlynn
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 CHIROLU
Illustrations Copyright © 2015 Kei
Cover illustration by Kei
All rights reserved.
Original Japanese edition published in 2015 by Hobby Japan
This English edition is published by arrangement with Hobby Japan, Tokyo
English translation © 2017 J-Novel Club LLC
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.
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Ebook edition 1.0: August 2017