Chapter 13

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Translated by Sylph

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“Hic.”

Astie could not easily stop crying.

But even in the middle of that, she brushed away the tears streaming down with a swipe, then picked up the jawbone that had fallen to the ground and fitted it back onto the skull.

Veil and Basto stared at that sight, frozen stiff.

The child continued.

“Grandpa fortune teller too, hic! Don’t worry, hic! He ran far away, but he says he’s coming back here! He says Grandpa has medicine for treatment and bandages in his bag toooo……”

“Tie.”

Basto cut off the child’s words.

“……You. In your hand.”

Astie lowered her head.

Clatter-

The skull’s jawbone fell off once again.

After fitting the bone back in, Astie looked at Veil and Basto.

“This? It’s bone friend?”

Veil blinked blankly, forgetting even to breathe.

Only Astie kept chattering as though nothing were wrong.

“So, this one’s name is Bone Friend, and he’s friends with Bone Friend 2 and Bone Friend 3. They go all the way up to Bone Friend 23.”

The skull’s jawbone fell off again.

Apparently irritated, Astie made a little Eeing sound and set the jawbone back in once more.

Then she said Hm? as if asking back to the air, and frowned.

“What do you mean! That Oppa Veil and mister could have become Bone Friends 24 and 25. You’re not allowed to say mean things like that!”

“……”

“It’s a joke? But for something to be a joke, the other person has to feel good too. If the other person feels bad, then it’s just mean, that’s what they said.”

“……”

“O-of course I know that, you’re really nice! Thank you for saving oppa and mister. Later I’ll pay you back even if I have to sell my thatched three-room house!”

Veil and Basto’s eyes met.

“You don’t know what a thatched three-room house is? It’s a house, a little house! You know proverbs, right?”

“……”

“Gasp, you don’t know proverbs either? No, actually it’s okay if you don’t know. Tie has a mountain of things she doesn’t know too.”

“……”

“Then, of course! Later I’ll teach you one by one. But friend, can you ask one more time when Grandpa fortune teller is getting here?”

Veil’s heart was pounding harder and harder.

That was why.

When an arm bone suddenly shot up through the dirt right in front of him, he nearly fell over in shock.

And when that bone clearly pointed toward somewhere in the forest behind them, he felt like his heart really was going to stop.

Clatter.

The bone holding up its index finger wobbled and creaked.

Between the two men, Tie smiled brightly.

“Waaah! It really is Grandpa fortune teller!”

Far off in the direction the finger bone was pointing.

Fortune teller Nordix, blood all over his forehead, really was walking toward them.

* * *

“Chew chew chew~ you mustn’t be picky~”

Inside the cave, the bright laughter of a child echoed.

Basto and Veil, with bandages wrapped around their wounds, said nothing the whole time.

Nordix, following behind them, was the same.

“Spinach, carrots, black beans! Strong bones!”

Tie was still holding the skull in her hand.

Still talking to it to herself.

“Gasp, Bone Friend 18 got hurt?”

“……”

“Waaah, so if you’re underground you just get treated? Then maybe you don’t even get shots?”

Basto and Veil exchanged glances.

Then they stopped walking at Tie’s next words.

“Huh? Mister, it’s here!”

Tie was pointing exactly at the place where the magic stone had been.

“Lookie. The rift really is gone!”

Basto froze in place and blankly stared at the ground.

What Tie said was true.

The magic stones that had been standing side by side in the darkness were gone before they knew it.

And the rifts that had formed nearby had vanished too.

“Bone Friends said they know everything because they’re underground, and it was true! Bone Friends must’ve taken care of all the rest that were left! Wow! We conquered the magic stone! And even two of them!”

He swallowed dryly.

Basto and Veil had not managed to deal with all the monsters pouring out of the rift.

You could tell right away just from the fact that one Rikelops had escaped the cave during the battle.

So they had thought it was impossible, or at least…… they had hoped against hope that the magic stones had been completely conquered.

Basto turned around, leaving Tie delighted behind him.

Then he stared at Veil and Nordix with a grave face.

“Listen. If my judgment isn’t wrong, Tie is……”

Veil and Nordix nodded.

At some point, Tie had sat down where the magic stone had been.

She had laid the skull neatly in front of her, apparently because the jaw kept falling off, and was talking about something called chik-ka or dentistry or whatever.

“You know, when I was in Jongno District, Grandma in 107 got implants! If you get implants, brand-new teeth just grow. You can probably go to the dentist and get implants too?”

“……”

“Eeh? There’s no dentist underground? Then what do we do…… But friend, do you have insurance? If you don’t have insurance, medical costs are a bomb. Implants are expensive.”

“……”

“Then I guess it can’t be helped. Actually, I don’t have insurance either? One time I got a cold and went to the hospital, and Daddy had to pay a lot of money so I felt bad. Auntie in 203 said it would’ve been cheap if I had health insurance, but I didn’t, so that’s why……”

What in the world implants were.

What a dentist was.

What health insurance was, and who Auntie in 203 was.

At times like this, Tie really was an ordinary four-year-old.

Chattering about things she imagined alone, talking with things that could not converse.

At a glance, it was the typical behavior of a child, so there would have been nothing strange about it, but

“The problem is that it really looks like she’s talking with that skull.”

Nordix and Veil nodded.

Certainly, Tie was not talking with an imaginary friend right now.

Something only she could hear and see.

Probably she was talking with a “real skeleton.”

“Eheheh! Really? Bone Friend 15 stole the bad monster’s teeth? That’s so funny! The tyranno must’ve gotten mad.”

“What do we do?”

Veil muttered, pale-faced.

“What are we supposed to do at a time like this?”

But the other two did not know the answer either.

Someone who wielded necromancy, something that had appeared only in legends, had appeared.

But that person was four years old, and right now had no guardian.

“……Mm? Ah, really? You can only pass the mercenary exam if you have monster cores? Wha? You’re really gonna bring me the cores?”

On top of that, it did not even seem like she understood what she herself had done.

Basto bit the end of his lip, then turned toward Tie.

Then he walked over in front of the child, who was talking harmoniously with the skull.

“Tie.”

Only then did Astie raise her head.

Looking at that face, which was only bright and innocent, made him swallow from tension for no reason.

“Your skel, I mean, your bone friends.”

The child’s eyes went round.

“Can you tell me how you called them out?”

Tie tilted her head as if the question was hard, and only after a long while did she open her mouth.

“I didn’t call them though……?”

“Then what was it, huh? What on earth was it!”

Impatient Veil cut in.

Tie tilted her head, then scratched the back of it while watching their expressions.

“I just met them……”

“You just met them? Skeletons? Where?”

“But Oppa Veil, they’re not skeletons. They’re bone friends.”

Veil closed his mouth.

But soon he put on a very pretty smile, gritted his teeth, and asked,

“Right. Bone friends. Where did you meet your bone friends?”

“So, I met them when I was praying in the forest that no one would die. They said my prayer was so loud that it woke them up while they were sleeping. Bone Friends 1 through 23!”

At the sight of her smiling cheerfully, Veil was left speechless.

At that moment, Nordix’s voice came from behind.

“……A child born with magical power. And very powerful magical power at that.”

Basto, Veil, and Tie all turned their gaze to Nordix.

With calm eyes on Tie, Nordix continued.

“Her ability awakened before she even recognized it herself. Since she is still young, it is only natural she does not know what she has done.”

“Tie has an ability?”

The child asked back.

Leaving the stiff Basto and Veil behind, Nordix stepped forward.

“Yes. It seems you have a very great ability. Usually awakening happens only after entering one’s teens, but you……”

Tie’s green eyes grew huge.

The child, who had been thinking deeply about something, suddenly let out an Ah!

“C-could it be!”

The three men held their breath and focused on the words that would come from Tie’s lips.

But what Tie said as she slapped her knee was something completely out of nowhere.

“So blood really is thicker than water!”

In the silence that fell.

The skull’s jaw fell off again.