A Secretly Capable Child Is Seeking For Her Dad (Novel) - Chapter 125

Chapter 125

“He said the hair color was black, so this one isn’t it.”

Inside the great conference hall, filled only with the sound of paper turning.

Veil, bending his waist toward the desk, muttered.

“Not this one, and not this one either…… honestly, humans really do look varied.”

The members were searching through the organization chart, dividing up the volume in their own fairly systematic way.

“What should we do with the ones where it’s ambiguous whether the color is brown or black?”

“Stick this in.”

Veil handed Raul a thin thread.

Whenever she found a figure she suspected might be Tie’s father, she was marking the page by putting in a thread.

When the review of one volume ended, Veil pushed it to Tie.

“Kid. Check it.”

Tie pushed aside the materials she had originally been looking at.

Then, carefully checking one by one the marked portions in the materials Veil had handed over.

“He’s not there……”

he let his eyebrows droop limply.

Veil answered in a fluster.

“I-it’s because that’s West Continent material! You said your dad is in the Empire.”

Tie nodded her head.

“We checked it just in case, so you hurry and keep looking in the Empire ones.”

“Mmm……”

Tie pulled back in front of her the materials she had been looking at.

According to what the butler had said, all the Holy Knights of the Talochium Empire were in this first, second, and third volume.

As he listlessly turned the paper, the child muttered weakly.

“Tie really will be able to find Daddy, right……?”

The members, who had been flipping through the materials, hesitantly looked at Tie.

Tie had by now stared so hard that her eyes nearly popped, checking about half of the first volume.

But information about Daddy had not appeared in the slightest.

“If, after looking through all three volumes, Daddy still isn’t there, then what do we do……?”

“There is no way he won’t be. We will absolutely be able to find him.”

“That is right, Commander! The portraits of the knights are extremely lifelike too. You will recognize your father right away.”

Enzo pointed at the pictures in the materials.

As he said, the portraits in the materials really were extremely lifelike.

If Daddy was truly in here, to the point that there was no way Tie would fail to recognize her.

“……Okay! Fighting!”

Tie, steadying her mind once more, cried out.

Only then did the expressions of the members brighten, if only faintly.

* * *

When they finished reviewing the first volume, it was late at night.

“Excuse me.”

Someone who had knocked briefly opened the door of the great conference hall and came in.

Tie unsteadily lifted her body.

“Carriage mister?”

“Commander, no, Miss Tie.”

Looking at Tie, Alexander asked kindly,

“How is it going? Have you found your father?”

When Tie’s eyebrows drooped limply to either side, Basto answered carefully instead.

“Not yet.”

Alexander made an “Ah……” sound and looked at Tie.

Before Tie was the first volume of the master organization chart, which she had just closed.

Alexander comforted the child.

“Please do not be too disheartened. He will surely appear in the remaining materials.”

Tie nodded weakly.

At that moment Alexander, turning to the other members, said,

“More importantly, is it not too late today?”

As if worried, she was looking at Tie, whose exhaustion was plain to see.

“Father has prepared rooms for you to stay in separately. Since it is late, what do you think of resting today and reviewing the rest tomorrow.”

Veil exchanged looks with Basto.

That was because the words the Grand Commander had spoken at the meal table suddenly came to mind.

‘Even if it takes several days, that is fine.’

Those words, meaning that since the amount of the organization chart was vast, they could take their time and check it over several days without worry.

But who would have thought it meant they would let them sleep at the mansion.

“Of course, I know that your own home would be the most comfortable place for sleeping. But as I told you, this act itself is also a fairly dangerous burden for us.”

In other words, if Agabert went in and out of the Luminen mansion every morning and evening, someone might see it.

The problem was that if in doing so the fact spread outside that outsiders were inspecting confidential documents of the religious order for no reason……

“As fellow passengers on the same boat, would that not make things difficult for both of us?”

Nordix nodded his head.

“That is correct. We will stay here today.”

She gestured with her eyes toward Tie, who was slumped in the chair like jelly.

“Astie too seems very tired.”

Alexander smiled politely.

“Very well. Then I will guide you to your bedrooms.”

It was when he, having sent a look telling the members to follow him, was about to turn around.

“Carriage mister……”

A voice that seemed to crawl in from behind was heard.

When he turned his head, Tie was looking at Alexander with a sullen face.

“Mister, please carry Tie.”

Startled, Alexander froze on the spot.

The members too, their eyes wide, looked back and forth between Tie and Alexander.

Tie was not exactly the type to be shy around people.

He often approached even adults he saw for the first time, and if he had the chance to speak, he chattered away well enough.

But this was the first time the child had said to someone she had met not long ago that she wanted to be carried.

Coming to his senses, Alexander hesitantly nodded.

Then she carefully approached Tie.

“The amount of materials certainly was great. It certainly is not an easy task to look through them all one by one.”

When he awkwardly picked Tie up, the child immediately rested her cheek against Alexander’s shoulder.

Alexander looked at the members.

“Then now what should……”

“Ah, w-would you please guide us to the bedrooms.”

At Basto’s words Alexander nodded.

As he left the great conference hall, Veil whispered to Nordix.

“What is this, old man? Why is the kid acting like that?”

Nordix, with a curious expression, was watching Alexander’s back.

“There is a thought I have often had for some time.”

“What?”

“Tie tends to look a bit at a person’s outward appearance.”

Veil furrowed his brow as if dumbfounded.

But Nordix only added it as if it were no great matter.

“Perhaps because of that, even when he first saw me, he readily followed me around calling me Grandpa, Grandpa.”

Veil opened his mouth with a flabbergasted look.

And only after a long while did he shake his head from side to side.

A little later.

“This is the place.”

The place where Alexander stopped was the very end of a wide, long hallway on the second floor of the mansion.

The members each looked up at the splendid arched ceiling with astonished faces.

Even the floor decorated with marble tiles, and the walls carved with splendid wooden ornaments.

“You may use one room each. Since that permanent familiar too has a human appearance, we prepared a separate room.”

Alexander’s gaze moved to Lucarion, who was standing at the very back of the members.

Veil looked at Alexander.

“……What. How did you know Kkamangi is a permanent familiar?”

Alexander smiled.

“Father read it through Awakening of Sacred Sight. She said the texture of the mana is the same as Miss Tie’s.”

As if it made sense, Basto nodded his head.

Then he said,

“Thank you, then now……”

He held out both arms toward Alexander.

It meant for her to hand Tie over now that they had reached the room.

But.

“Iiiing……”

For some reason Tie, clinging tightly to Alexander, let out a sorrowful crying sound.

“Carriage mister stays! Until Tie falls asleep……!”

Immense shock spread over Basto’s face.

Alexander was just as flustered.

“Me, you mean?”

Instead of answering, Tie only wrapped her arms even tighter around Alexander’s neck.

In the end, it was once again Nordix, who had been watching, who stepped forward.

“Then could we trouble you just for today? The child, His Excellency the commander, seems to have taken quite a liking to you.”

At the end of the silence, Alexander nodded.

“Very well. I will do so.”

“Old man! Are you crazy?!”

Veil’s eyes widened immediately.

Basto was just the same in objecting.

“Th-that is right, old man. No matter what……”

But Nordix was calm.

“Does Tie not say she likes that side.”

In the end Veil pressed his mouth shut.

Then, with a dissatisfied expression, he looked at Alexander.

“……Sleep with the door open. Wide open, all the way!”

Alexander smiled as if it were nothing much, then nodded.

“Understood. Then, excuse me.”

Then, without the slightest hesitation, she went into the room carrying Tie in her arms.

The members watched the sight with expressions like people who had lost their country.

Meanwhile, Tie thought while putting firm strength into the arms with which he was holding Alexander.

‘It feels like Daddy……’

Ever since the moment when he closed the first volume without any result at all.

Black rainclouds had already come rolling into Tie’s heart and were pouring rain.

Tears that slipped out without him realizing it soaked into Alexander’s shoulder.

‘……How nice it would be if carriage mister were Daddy.’

That was because Alexander, who resembled Daddy in face and even in the way he spoke, really felt like Daddy to Tie.