A Secretly Capable Child Is Seeking For Her Dad (Novel) - Chapter 109
Chapter 109
“Here, this is the address.”
Tie received the paper Adeline held out while opening her eyes wide.
Written on the paper were the words, ‘Rosewobel Street, No. 89.’
“Right now it’s under my name, but as soon as I hire a new finance officer, I plan to transfer it to Miss Tie. So before you leave, please just leave Miss Tie’s mercenary identification number.”
Everyone froze blankly at the sudden turn of events.
But before long Nordix stepped forward with his brows furrowed.
“If it’s Rosewobel Street, isn’t that the noble district?”
Adeline nodded.
“That’s right. Actually, I wanted to find something in a quieter place, but at the time it was a property Her Highness the Princess recommended….”
She recalled the appearance of the imperial capital.
The spires rising as though to pierce the sky, and the domes ringed with gold.
The imperial palace, which everyone looked up to, stood at the very center of the city where dozens of roads met.
The noble district spread out beyond the vast central plaza surrounding the imperial palace.
It was a place where only the wealthiest and most influential of the imperial capital nobles lived.
The broad roads, the street trees planted along them.
And even the townhouses built with wide gaps between them, with their family crests fluttering.
The property Adeline had bought for a low price was, ironically, an old grand mansion in the center of that street.
“It was originally a mansion owned by Her Highness the Princess. She was just about to dispose of it when she heard that I was looking for a townhouse, and sold it to me for half the market price.”
Of course, even at half price, the amount was enormous.
But Adeline had been able to pay the entire price without difficulty.
That was thanks to the rather high salary she had received while working under the princess, and the fact that she had not spent it elsewhere.
“When you see it, you’ll understand. That it is a building well suited to be used as a base.”
However, Nordix still looked as if he were hesitating about something.
At that moment Veil asked back, as if he could not believe it.
“So… you’re saying you’ll just hand that mansion over to our squirt?”
Adeline smiled as if asking why he would even ask something so obvious.
“Do you think I was about to ask all of you for money?”
“No, but even so.”
“You all… gave me my hometown back.”
Adeline’s eyes grew a little red.
She sat down on the bed where Tie was sitting.
And tucking the strand of Astie’s hair that had fallen down behind his ear, she said,
“…And thanks to Miss Tie, I was even able to say the final goodbye I couldn’t say to my mother.”
Tears welled once more in Adeline’s eyes.
With a faint smile, she added,
“Before coming up here, I looked into Agabert a little.”
Agabert was a newly formed mercenary company.
One that did not even have ten members yet.
As Adeline read about the Necromancer King who was said to lead them, she was speechless for a while.
A great magician said to summon the dead and wield necromancy freely.
His identity was unknown, and there were even rumors that he traveled around in the form of a young child.
The moment Adeline read that far, she was able to roughly guess Astie’s circumstances.
She said,
“…I owe you a great debt, Tie.”
The sight of the child collapsing pale after letting her and her mother meet came to mind.
“I thought I would never be able to see my mother again.”
The last image of Stasia that Adeline remembered had remained on the day she left her hometown.
So Adeline had thought that perhaps Stasia might resent her.
“I felt… so unbearably pathetic.”
She had acted as if she were fine, but in truth she wasn’t fine.
The guilt of having let her mother go like that and survived alone tormented her every night.
“I couldn’t completely let go of this village, and at the same time I couldn’t reclaim what Reginald had taken….”
Lately, Adeline had slowly been giving up on everything.
Because the lives of the territory’s residents were sheer suffering, and Caldenvine Ridge was rotting away.
Then Agabert appeared.
And they showed Adeline, who had been wandering on the vast open sea, land where she could anchor.
Adeline clasped Tie’s hand tightly.
“I’m sorry this is all I can do for you.”
Hot tears ran down the cheeks of the smiling woman.
But they were no longer tears of despair or sorrow.
They were tears of relief and hope, of stepping past the past and moving forward.
A faint smile spread across Tie’s lips.
The child got up from his place and quickly wrapped his arms warmly around Adeline’s neck.
“Big sister, you should come to Tie’s housewarming too.”
Adeline faltered.
As though comforting Adeline, Tie patted her back.
“Come and make orange juice for Tie again!”
Why was that, he wondered.
Suddenly, the moment when mana depletion had struck flashed through Tie’s mind.
‘Back then it really….’
The image of Adeline and Stasia finally meeting looked, to Tie, like herself and Daddy.
So he could not bring himself to hold back the strength pouring out of his body.
Because he had wanted the two of them to be together, even if only a little longer.
Even if only for one more second.
‘I did the right thing.’
And at this moment, Tie felt the inside of her chest swelling.
The child hugged Adeline more tightly.
Adeline had reclaimed her hometown.
She had gotten back her own home, the place she could stay in for her entire life.
Now the people of Caldenvine Ridge would no longer suffer either.
“Anytime, anytime you think of this place, come visit, okay?”
Adeline drew her body back from Tie.
Her face was flushed red from crying so much.
But the smile at the corners of her mouth was clearer than at any other time.
“If you come again, you’ll be surprised. The village will have changed beyond recognition.”
“Gasp. Then Tie will go play at the puuub again!”
“Next time, don’t come to the pub, come to the castle. By then I’ll have strawberries prepared in advance too, the ones Tie likes.”
“Waa, strawberries….!”
Seeing Tie get excited, the members burst into laughter.
Adeline’s chest too swelled strangely as she looked at them.
‘There is so much I have to do from now on.’
She could not remember how long it had been since she had laughed like this.
Because she had always lived while deceiving her own emotions.
The life ahead would be busy.
He would have to interrogate Reginald and decide what to do with the soldiers who had worked under him.
She would also have to open the castle, heal the sick villagers, and establish new plans to help those ruined by the excessive levies get back on their feet.
But her heart felt light.
Adeline quietly looked at Astie before her eyes.
Before he knew it, the child had gotten down from the bed and was pestering Raul to give him a piggyback ride.
Suddenly, one person came to mind.
‘She liked children very much too.’
On days when the princess saw even a child while taking a walk through the plaza, she would always stop in her tracks.
Then, with a faint smile on her lips, she would watch until the child disappeared, and then ask,
‘Adeline. Do you think I too will be able to build a family one day?’
The eyes of the princess asking that question were always moist with a strange kind of sorrow.
‘Will a day like that come for me too?’
Adeline closed her mouth.
And for a while longer, she kept watching Astie.
More precisely, the pretty dimples that formed in the child’s cheeks whenever she smiled.
* * *
Three days later.
Under the banner that read,
“Oh, you really didn’t have to give us all this.”
“Pipe down and just take it! Didn’t you say that child had been sick? When someone catches a cold, this herb works really….”
“Veil! Is all the luggage loaded?”
The members of Agabert moved busily.
And in an open space a little apart from there.
“…Ahem! Y, you, take this.”
At the thing suddenly held out before her, Tie widened her eyes.
Standing in front of him was the pickpocket brat he had seen on the first day they came to the village, Zen, scratching the back of his head.