A Secretly Capable Child Is Seeking For Her Dad (Novel) - Chapter 131
Chapter 131
The next day.
“Wow! I slept well!”
At the lively sound reaching his ears, Basto opened his eyes with a start.
And beyond the bright morning sunlight streaming in through the crack in the window, he discovered it.
“Raul hyung, Enzo hyung. Why are you sleeping here?”
Tie, waking Raul and Enzo with a bright face.
Basto held his throbbing head and looked to the side.
At his side, Veil too was holding his forehead with a similar expression.
‘It feels like I slept a little strangely somehow……’
“Mister Basto!”
At that moment Tie, having gotten down from the bed, came running over.
The child hugged Basto tightly and rubbed his cheek against his hand.
“Mister, now let’s greet Grand Commander-nim and go home.”
“Home……?”
“Yes! Auntie Marshall is waiting, right. Tie wants to go home now too……”
At the sight of him acting as though nothing had happened, Basto and Nordix exchanged glances.
“Veil hyung, huh? Let’s go home, hmm?”
In the meantime, Tie began shaking Veil’s knee.
Veil hesitated, then picked Tie up and asked,
“……Kid. Are you really okay?”
Tie opened her eyes round.
Then he made a slightly sullen expression, then smiled pitifully.
“I’m okay. Now I know Daddy isn’t a Holy Knight……”
Startled, Veil opened and closed his lips, then hurriedly chimed in.
“Yeah, kid! That’s how you should think. Now that it’s certain your dad isn’t a Holy Knight, let’s look somewhere else slowly. I’ll help you.”
“Yes! Thank youuu!”
The child grinned and hugged Veil around the neck.
At the stinging feeling at the tip of his nose, Veil patted Tie’s back.
“F-first Tie is going to bring my bag from the great conference hall!”
Having jumped down from Veil’s arms, Tie scampered out of the room.
It was just when the members, looking at the open door, were frozen blankly.
“Astie says he wants to advance into the North Continent too.”
From the left side of the bed, where there had been no sign at all the whole time, came a voice that had lately been hard to hear.
When they turned their heads, Lucarion was standing there with Ppuppu on his crown, wearing a serious face.
“What?”
Veil’s brow furrowed.
But Lucarion only continued speaking calmly.
“He says that seeing the rank 1 mercenary company stirred up his desire for power, and that he wants to raise Agabert into a rival and worthy adversary that can match it.”
Now even Basto made a surprised expression.
But Lucarion’s words did not end there.
“I think Astie has only now realized the true nature of humans. For a mercenary, wanting to pursue one’s own power is only natural, isn’t it. Because human beings are life forms that, as deficient beings, cannot help but long for self-completion.”
“Wh-what are you talking about, the kid said difficult things like that?”
“Yes. He said that the act of expanding one’s own potential and leaving traces in the world is itself the manifestation of a noble will.”
Silence fell over the room.
Veil, with his brow furrowed, was about to open his mouth when Tie came back into the room carrying his kindergarten bag.
“Tie is back!”
“Kid. You really said things like that to Kkamang?”
Tie, who had frozen in place, blinked for a few seconds, then answered.
“Mm-hm, I did!”
“You’re saying you talked about advancing into the North Continent and becoming some power holder or whatever?”
“Mm-hmm, because Tie is the Necromancer King!”
Veil closed his mouth as if dumbfounded.
With a doubtful face, Basto stepped forward.
“Tie, are you really all right? No matter what, the North Continent……”
“Tie doesn’t want to be sad every single day just because I don’t have Daddy.”
At that moment Tie cut off Basto’s words with a sullen face.
Then he looked around at the members with a dispirited expression.
“If Tie does mercenary company work bravely and well, maybe later I might get to meet Daddy by myself……”
“In my opinion, Commander’s words have some logic to them.”
Enzo, who had been listening, stepped forward too.
Coming up to Basto, he whispered quietly so that Tie could not hear.
“When things are hard, it’s good if there is something to cling to. It’s also good for forgetting reality for a while……”
In a desperate situation, not moving only brings an even greater sense of despair.
Even so, Basto could not easily shake off his worry.
“I know that too. But the fact that those thoughts came out of a child……”
But in that moment, last night’s image of Tie came to Basto’s mind.
The image of Tie, with beads of tears hanging at the corners of her eyes, weeping sorrowfully.
“I……”
Basto, who had trailed off, finally let out a sigh.
As though she had lost, she walked over to Tie.
“……All right, let’s do that. Tie.”
Tie stared at Basto.
“Really?”
“Really. But do not completely stop looking for your daddy, and from now on, little by little……”
“The North Continent is not allowed, Astie.”
But then, from one corner of the room, a stiff voice was heard.
When they turned their gazes, Nordix was standing there with an unusually rigid expression.
Tie’s eyes grew round.
Nordix strode over and knelt on one knee in front of Astie.
“You must absolutely not go to the North Continent.”
It was Nordix’s frightening voice, one they had never once heard before all this time.
Before long, Tie, who had been frozen stiff, understood.
Why Nordix had said such a thing.
* * *
“Yes. But how did you know?”
In the great conference hall, where everyone had gathered, Valentis assented.
The members each stared at Nordix with surprised expressions.
Nordix answered.
“……Rather than knowing, I only guessed.”
It had been five minutes since the members and the Luminen family gathered in the great conference hall.
As soon as the door closed, Nordix had thrown Valentis a respectful yet bold question.
‘I know this may be rude, but I ask Your Excellency one thing. Was there perhaps an order to watch Astie from the central continent?’
The central continent.
The place where the Holy Kingdom, the Pope, and the cardinals who served him were.
To say there had been an order from such a place to watch Tie.
All the members, including Veil, thought it was absurd.
But Valentis answered.
That it was so.
“What the hell. It was really true?”
Veil held Tie, whom he had seated on his knee for no reason, tightly in his arms.
Then, with a serious face, he looked at Nordix.
“You’re saying that cardinal or whatever really told him to watch the kid?”
Nordix nodded.
“Yes. Perhaps unexpectedly, the religious order is precisely a group that takes a great interest in mages.”
Leonardo too assented.
“That is correct. To be exact, their interest is even greater in mages who have manifested unprecedented power.”
Veil swallowed hard.
All of Agabert already knew that the power Astie possessed was not ordinary.
That was why they had been lying to the world about Astie’s real age up to now.
But even so.
To say that not long after becoming a mercenary, the religious order was already stepping in and becoming curious about Tie.
And doing it in such a creepy way, even having the Grand Commander investigate him from behind.
“The North Continent that Tie wants to go to is a place priests visit several times a year for training. It is a place crowded with priests all year round. But if by chance he went to such a place and got entangled badly with priests.”
“……”
“I mean they might say something about needing to verify his private power, or something of the sort, and summon Tie to the central continent.”
“That cannot happen.”
At once Basto answered.
“Tie’s true identity would be exposed. And the religious order……”
Basto reflexively looked at the Luminen family seated before him.
That was because he hesitated, feeling as though he was speaking ill of the religious order before the core of the Holy Knights.
But,
“You may continue. Did I not tell you. From the moment we handed over the master organization chart, Luminen is no different from having boarded the same boat as all of you.”
As Edmund said, the intentions of Luminen had already been roughly grasped.
Basto continued, hesitantly.
“As far as I know, I have heard that the religious order does anything in the name of serving God’s will.”
“……”
“Literally, anything.”