A Secretly Capable Child Is Seeking For Her Dad (Novel) - Chapter 112
Chapter 112
The reason the carriage was so busy was simple.
“Waaait? Squirt! Are you not going to hold the reins properly?”
“Tie! Be careful! Uh, Raul! Tie’s bag is falling!”
“Waaaah, the horse is super fast!”
Because the one holding the reins right now was none other than Tie.
Though he was getting Raul’s help, Astie was, in the literal sense of the words, being shaken atop the horse like a piece of straw.
Nordix, watching from inside the carriage, clicked his tongue.
“This feels awfully precarious.”
Apparently thinking the same thing, Veil glared at Basto.
“I told you, didn’t I. What can’t be done can’t be done. Why are you putting the squirt on a horse, huh?!”
Basto shut his mouth as if troubled.
Then, hesitating, he answered.
“Then what do you expect me to do when he’s been begging for three days straight. He says his wish is to sit on the coachman’s seat, so I couldn’t pretend not to know all the way through.”
“Why can’t you pretend not to know? Are you going to give a kid everything just because he begs? Isn’t he only getting worse because you keep spoiling him!”
Basto firmly closed his mouth.
That was because, with this kind of thing, there was nothing to gain by arguing with Veil.
Basto, who was poor with words, always got pushed back by Veil.
Was this what people called natural enemies.
‘But I gave permission after thinking it all through too.’
It was just as Basto, feeling oddly aggrieved, lowered his gaze.
“That squirt definitely is going to say next time that he wants to ride without Raul. He’s got a useless amount of adventurous spirit.”
Strangely enough, almost at the same time as Veil muttered that, an excited voice was heard from outside.
“Waa-! Wahahahaah!”
“C, Commander! Please stop petting the horse and hold the reins! To stop, you pull both sides slowly like this….!”
Unlike Tie, who was laughing brightly in excitement.
Raul’s voice, helping Tie from behind, was urgent.
Even without seeing it, it was obvious that he was using all his strength to keep the carriage from flipping over.
At that moment Tie turned toward the members inside the carriage.
“Everyone, look at Tie! Tie is driving the horse!”
Veil sighed.
He roughly stuck his head out the window and answered without any soul in it.
“Yeah yeah, doing great.”
“Really? Right? Tie is cool, right?! Tie drives better than big brother Raul and big brother Enzo, right?”
“Yeah, so would you please look ahead?”
“Uhehe, Kkamang! Grandpa Nordix! Look at Tie!”
But excited Tie showed no sign of stopping.
At the voice calling them out, Lucarion and Nordix eventually also stuck their heads out the window.
“…The ride quality is truly amazing.”
“Hahaha, Astie. I would believe it if someone told me you were a professional.”
Tie laughed “Uhehe,” and only after a long while looked forward again.
“Big brother Raul. Everyone says Tie is doing well! So until we get to the new house, Tie can do the driving….”
“Squirt, you didn’t forget the promise from earlier, did you? Exactly ten minutes. There are seven left now.”
But at that moment.
Veil’s merciless notice shattered the good atmosphere.
Without realizing it, Tie’s eyebrows drooped low.
From behind, Raul comforted him softly.
“I’ll let you ride again later, Commander.”
Tie looked at Raul sorrowfully.
“Really….?”
“Yes. But it’s a secret from Sir Veil, all right?”
Tie nodded vigorously.
It was while she smiled brightly again and looked ahead.
“Waa, a river!”
Before their eyes appeared the view of a river.
Raul smiled.
“It really is. I think we’re almost there. Since I can see the Isera River.”
“The Isera River?”
“Yes. It’s the river that circles around the imperial castle and the center of the imperial capital, and it’s also called the Boundary of the Old and New.”
Raul pulled up the cloak that had slipped off Tie.
“Don’t you remember the story old man Nordix told you yesterday?”
Soon Tie’s eyes grew huge.
“I remember. The Boundary of the Old and New!”
After leaving Caldenvine Ridge.
Agabert had continued making a forced march the entire time.
That was because there was no more time to delay, and because of their appointment with the High Commander, they absolutely had to reach the imperial capital today.
But yesterday afternoon.
The giant side effect of the forced march that everyone had been worried about finally hit.
‘Bo, boooored….’
An unprecedentedly massive slump of boredom had come over Tie.
Naturally so. For four-year-old Tie, a journey lasting several days was far too long.
Nordix, trying to comfort Tie, who could not stand the boredom, thought of one clever trick.
‘Tie, are you very bored?’
‘Yeees, at this rate Tie is going to turn into a stone….’
‘Then this old man will tell you a few stories from long ago.’
Nordix told Tie several historical stories related to the Empire and the imperial capital.
And among them was the one about the ‘Boundary of the Old and New.’
‘You know that the current imperial capital is an expanded imperial capital, right?’
‘Yees!’
According to Nordix, the imperial capital of Talochium had originally been a single independent city.
Like Seoul being the capital of the Republic of Korea.
But when magic stones began to arise, the Emperor expanded the range of the imperial capital.
If one put it into Korean terms, it was as though Gangwon-do and Chungcheong-do had been merged into Seoul.
‘But does Seoul even include Gangwon-do and Chungcheong-do….?’
She didn’t think it did.
While Tie strained and recalled the map puzzle she had learned in kindergarten.
Nordix continued speaking.
‘But you see, when the imperial capital expanded. It may be easy to say, but it caused a great deal of confusion.’
‘Why?’
‘One day, places that had not been the imperial capital suddenly became the imperial capital. How could there not have been confusion?’
Tie nodded with her mouth hanging open.
Well, that made sense.
Even Caldenvine Ridge, which had been a mountain village, was officially part of the imperial capital.
And that wasn’t all.
The weapons district too, and Pearl City too.
In effect, every place they had passed through since crossing the gate belonged to the imperial capital.
‘Think about it. Did those places truly feel like the imperial capital to you?’
Tie shook her head.
No matter how much she looked back on the road they had traveled, those places did not feel like some enormous city like Jongno District or Seoul.
‘But you see, if you cross the Isera River and enter the old imperial capital, that is, the imperial capital before expansion.’
‘….’
‘That place is completely different from the places outside the Isera River. It’s overflowing with vitality, and magnificent buildings line up….’
The Isera River.
The great river encircling the imperial capital as it had been before expansion.
Another name for that river was the ‘Boundary of the Old and New.’
It had now come to serve as the boundary dividing the old imperial capital and the new imperial capital.
‘You’ll see. What it means when people say that once you cross that river, it’s a completely different world.’
Sure enough, Raul smiled from behind.
“Soon. Once we cross that bridge.”
Tie swallowed hard.
Indeed, the closer they got to the Isera River, the more clearly they could see the giant city that looked like a jewel box.
Tie looked around, calming her pounding heart.
Before she knew it, all kinds of other carriages had increased around them.
Once they entered the bridge over the river, there were even more carriages than before.
Perhaps because so many people had gathered, the shouts of several coachmen could be heard nearby.
Noticing that the traffic had become congested, Basto stuck his face out from inside the carriage.
“Tie. Are you all right?”
Tie nodded eagerly.
Then, with dazed eyes, she looked around.
‘It should’ve already been ten minutes by now.’
It didn’t seem like they would be able to stop the carriage here and move into the rear compartment.
“I’ll look for a place where we can stop for a moment.”
At last, at Raul’s suggestion, Tie let go of the reins.
Instead, he tightly held Raul’s arm while they searched for a stopping place.
“Neigh-!”
A strange carriage suddenly pressed its body toward Agabert’s.
At the dangerous moment when they nearly crashed at once, Veil stuck his head out the window and pointed.
“What the hell is wrong with you, are you insane?!”
But the other coachman only snorted.
“Ah, then what do you expect me to do if you lot are the ones pressing over? You people should yield a little.”
Tie’s mouth fell open quietly.
‘This is….!’
Threatening driving?
Her heart pounded.
Actually, she had seen things like this in Jongno District too.
‘Okay~ we’ve got a four-lane road here. Oh? The Morning on the side suddenly cuts in? The submitter jerks the wheel in a hurry, and then, ooh~ bang~!’
To be exact, in the YouTube videos the hardware store uncle at the end of the alley watched every day.
‘The insurance company claims the submitter is sixty percent at fault. All right! Let’s go to viewer voting!’
If she sat beside the uncle, before she knew it Tie would also end up staring blankly at the videos.
That was because the uncle breathed fire with anger every single time he watched them.
‘Aren’t these people completely insane! Tie, hurry up and press this. This.’
‘What is thiis?’
‘It’s called viewer voting.’
Tie had also voted many times on the uncle’s phone that threatening driving was bad.
‘But to do something like this!’
The child’s eyes flared up.
Soon, wearing a grave expression, Tie shouted.
“Mister! What are you doing right now without even turning on your blinker?”