Chapter 174

The day after Tesetan pulled out the fence.

Tie briskly headed next door.

Now that there was no fence anymore, all he had to do was hop once and he could cross over to Dad’s house.

However, Tie, who had been scampering toward the front entrance, soon stopped in place.

“Gasp……! Can’t you go a little easier.”

“Have you already gotten heavy arms after only taking conquest off for a few days, Victor. You’re not in your right mind.”

That was because familiar voices were coming not from inside the house but from the back.

Tie changed her route and headed toward the back garden.

And there he discovered Dad and Dad’s subordinate Victor training with bare bodies.

“Commander?”

Livia, who had been sitting on the back-door steps, found Tie first and came running.

“What? Did you come to watch?”

After nodding, Tie looked at Dad and Victor with a face full of curiosity.

He had seen the other members training, but it was his first time seeing Dad train.

“Come on, let’s watch together. Ah! More than that, I tried doing some cooking.”

Livia pulled Tie’s hand along.

Tie followed Livia to the back-door steps.

And there he discovered a bizarre lump of meat with blood dripping from it.

“Gasp, wh-what is thaaat……?”

Livia grinned.

“I tried grilling some meat!”

Tie checked Livia’s expression once, then stared at the meat again.

“I don’t think it’s cooked……”

“Huh?! Really?!”

Livia sprang to her feet and turned the plate with the meat on it this way and that.

Then bright red blood streamed down both sides of the plate.

“You’re right, it’s a little undercooked! Wait just a second?”

Before Tie could answer, Livia carried the meat inside the house.

At the same time, Victor collapsed to the floor with a thump.

“I can’t do any more.”

Tesetan planted the wooden sword in the ground and clicked his tongue.

Victor, breathing hard, spoke to Aleric, who was leaning against the outer wall of the building.

“Aren’t you training, Aleric?”

Tesetan’s and Aleric’s gazes turned to Victor.

Victor gestured toward Tie with his eyes.

“It seems a very good sparring partner happened to arrive just in time.”

Aleric’s lips parted.

Sure enough, he nodded as if interested.

“Now that I think of it, that’s true. Commander, perhaps with me……”

“Are you crazy?”

At that moment Tesetan abruptly cut in before Tie.

With an angry face, Tesetan glared at Victor and Aleric.

“What training. Is the little commander your practice scarecrow?”

Victor’s eyes grew round.

He sank into thought with a furrowed brow.

Then what was it when Tesetan had helped with his swordsmanship training in the Trevaga days?

That could only be interpreted to mean he had volunteered himself as a scarecrow.

Apparently thinking the same thing, Aleric too put on a puzzled expression.

Regardless, Tesetan continued speaking in a fully sharpened voice.

“Stop talking nonsense and go inside, Aleric. Rather than spend time watching other people’s training, practice your word command more.”

Next he glared at Victor.

“Victor Redwood. Today, practice thrusts one thousand more times.”

“……Commander, no, Vice-Captain! Where in the world is there something like that!”

Meanwhile, behind Tesetan, Tie’s lips fell open.

The little corners of his mouth twitched, and then a bright smile spread across the child’s face.

‘As expected, Dad got nicer!’

Dad had stopped the spar between Tie and Aleric.

It was certain she had done it to preserve Commander Tie’s dignity!

Tie, so proud she could hardly stand it, looked at Dad with sparkling eyes.

Then he discovered something off in the distance and his gaze lit up.

“Waaah. There’s a tree here too?”

At Tie’s voice, Tesetan, Victor, and Aleric all turned their heads.

Tie hurried over beside the tree, stared hard at Dad, then,

“Hyap!”

tried banging his back against the tree trunk.

“……What are you doing?”

Aleric narrowed his brow,

and Victor burst into laughter.

Tie banged her back against the tree trunk thump, thump and looked at Dad with desperate eyes.

‘Remember! Dad, let all your memories come back to your head, please……!’

Back in the Republic of Korea.

Tie and Dad had climbed Inwangsan once every few weeks.

At that time, there was a game they often played, and it was exactly this:

“Uah, it’s refreeshing!”

During the hike, at the mountain exercise area, they would bet how many grandpas were doing back-thumping against the trees.

‘Mmm, Tie says three today! I think the grandpa in green clothes will be with his friends today too!’

‘Really? Then Dad says two. I bet one of them is driving a car.’

Driving a car was the exercise equipment where you held a big steering wheel with both hands and spun it around and around.

While thumping her back against the tree, Tie even tried pretending with her hands that she was spinning a steering wheel around.

Then, glancing at Dad’s expression, he swallowed hard.

‘……Could it be?’

Could this method really be working?

For some reason, Dad was looking at Tie with strange eyes.

Tie was so nervous that she began thumping her back even harder.

He was sweating, and his back was starting to sting, but he could not stop.

Because Dad’s expression really did seem as though he was remembering something!

However.

‘……So even at four years old, he’s still a necromancer, is that it.’

In truth, Tesetan swallowed a sigh inside.

That behavior of banging his back against a perfectly fine tree.

‘That’s it. The one that came out in my dream.’

The dream he had after the duel had already mostly blurred.

But he remembered clearly at least the bizarre people who had been banging their backs against trees.

‘It’s such a strange thing to do that I remember it.’

But the Necromancer King was doing the same thing right before her eyes?

Shaking her head, Tesetan strode over and stood in front of Tie.

He spoke seriously to the child looking up at her with sparkling eyes.

“No matter how much of a necromancer you are.”

“……”

“It’s not right to steal other people’s dreams and then do something like that.”

Then, as if trying to say something more, he turned his body around.

Tie, leaning against the tree trunk, stared blankly with her mouth open.

Tesetan went inside the house, and Victor approached with an interested face.

“Commander. What in the world is that?”

Tie barely tore her gaze away from the closed door.

And, having become sullen, answered.

“J-just exercise……”

“Exercise?”

“Yeees…… If you do this, your back feels refreeshing.”

Looking back and forth between the tree and Tie, Victor too banged his back against the tree with a thump.

Leaves came showering down and stuck to Tie’s hair, nose, and lips.

“Oh dear. Commander, are you all right?”

Tie spat the leaves out, going ehtweh ehtweh.

And with his lips stuck out, trudged back toward Agabert’s base again.

One leaf whose tip had turned yellow was still stuck to the crown of his head.

* * *

“Ueo! That’s refreshing!”

A few days later.

Under the giant willow tree in Agabert’s back garden, the members were lined up in a single row.

“Now, now, I’ve done twenty times, so now it’s my turn!”

“Move over, move over!”

Tie, watching the members who had become desperate to do back-thumping, propped her chin sullenly.

He had done it to stimulate Dad into recovering his memories.

But the ones showing interest in back-thumping were the members instead.

Tie tried recalling the many efforts she had made over the past few days.

‘Th-this is strange~? Suddenly I reeeally want twisted donuts and old-style whole fried chicken!’

He had even deliberately talked in front of Dad about snacks he had eaten in the Republic of Korea,

‘A, B, C, D! E! F! G!’

He had even sung the alphabet song he had learned at kindergarten and sung for Dad.

And was that all?

He had sung “Cool Tomato,” and “Cheer Up, Dad,” and even hummed “Baby Shark,” but……!

‘Brat, what’s old-style whole fried chicken? What is that thing that keeps making you want to eat it. But then is there modern whole fried chicken these days? You don’t want to eat that one, huh? Ha, hahahak!’

‘Eek…… Brother Veil is stupid!’

The only one showing any interest in Tie’s behavior was Veil.

Worn out even from Veil’s teasing, Tie lay on the mat with his arms and legs stretched wide.

The sky was pretty, and the smell of grass was fragrant.

The fallen leaves that had started dropping one by one from a few days ago were soft like colorful snowflakes.

But.

‘Lucarion doesn’t come home all the time anymore……’

Tie let out another deep sigh, saying “Ehuuu.”

It was then.

“Huh?”

Against the backdrop of the sky, a familiar face came right into his field of vision.

Now that he looked, it was quiet around him.

Tie blinked, then smiled brightly.

The one looking down at him with the corners of her eyes gently folded was,

“Association President?!”

The Association President of the Frost Association and the princess of this country.

Ardiana, the same secretly-hiding-power type as Tie.