Chapter 26

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Translated by Sylph

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Basto rubbed at his brow as if it were a headache.

“It’s not that I hadn’t thought of it. But……”

“What if we just end up hurting the brat for no reason?”

At that moment, Veil cut in.

Veil was scowling fiercely.

Basto closed his mouth.

Because in truth there was nothing wrong with what Veil had said.

In fact, Basto himself had been thinking along similar lines until now.

Everyone had at least one thing they’d rather other people not ask about.

For Basto, that was the story of his family, which was why he hadn’t asked Tie about her family history either.

“Besides, we’ve just been leaving it alone all this time because we were more or less convinced it had to be one of the Luminen sons. We should at least confirm it first and then……”

“But what are you going to do if the child’s father isn’t in Luminen?”

At Nordix’s words, this time Veil went silent.

“Tie is a child. As I said before, we do not know how much of the child’s testimony is true and how much is false.”

“……”

“It is true that Tie is clever. However, we cannot set our target while blindly believing only the child’s indirect statements. If we are to find the child’s father, we must first know exactly what happened.”

Veil, unable to answer, lowered his gaze.

Because every single word Nordix had said was right.

“The child’s father’s name. Where the two of them lived. Even just that much would make it much easier to find clues.”

“……And what if the brat doesn’t want to talk?”

“We can’t press her. But we can ask. When Tie wakes up.”

In the end Veil nodded.

It seemed Basto also agreed with Nordix’s opinion.

The three of them looked at the closed door, then squatted down in a row in front of it.

“But…… I’m only asking this just in case, really.”

Before long, Veil spoke again.

“What happens if the brat finds her dad?”

Basto and Nordix looked at Veil silently.

“No, because, right? If the brat finds her dad, does that mean Agabert falls apart?”

Veil had a strangely uneasy expression.

As if the thought of the mercenary company breaking up did not sit well with him.

After thinking it over, Basto answered.

“That is probably what would happen.”

“Then what are you going to do after that?”

Basto’s gaze sank.

He remembered the time when he had wandered alone like a madman, working as an itinerant mercenary.

It could only have been a few weeks ago, but somehow it felt far away.

It seemed the memories she had made with Tie were stronger than she’d expected.

If all of that ended…… then……

“……I’d probably go back to being an itinerant mercenary.”

“What about you, Nordix?”

“Who knows. I never expected to become a mercenary. I merely ended up going along with you somehow.”

As he said, Nordix had not put his name down in Agabert because he wanted to become a mercenary.

It was more that she had ended up putting her name down in Agabert while trying to help find Tie’s father.

Whatever the case, he was now the oldest mercenary in Agabert.

“Though I am with you now, if the mercenary company falls apart, I suppose I would go back to the gate.”

“……I won’t allow it.”

Veil muttered.

“Finding her dad and the brat being little commander are separate things, aren’t they? Once she decided to take Agabert on, she should be responsible for it to the end. If the little commander runs off, what are the members supposed to do?”

He glared at the closed door.

“Even if the brat says she’s quitting, I’ll stop her. I still need to keep working as a mercenary. We need the brat’s power if we’re going to make money conquering magic stones too.”

“……”

“And if she says she’d rather die than be separated from her dad, then whatever, we can just tell the brat’s dad to join Agabert too. Appoint him as something like little commander’s guardian or whatever.”

“As if it were that easy……”

“I don’t know, anyway, I’m not just letting the brat go. Do you know how much of a pain in the ass I went through to turn her into the Necromancer King?”

To say nothing of how many times he’d had to hold back laughter in front of people.

After clearing his throat, Veil added,

“And for the record, it’s absolutely not because I like the brat. She’s tiny and stupid, sure, but her ability’s good, right? It’s not like dark-attribute mages are common.”

“……”

“If we advertise with the brat well, Agabert will swell in size in no time. We might even be able to aim for rank one. Then it’ll only be a matter of time before all of us are sitting on piles of money.”

Basto said nothing and kept his eyes fixed on the door.

Nordix let out a sigh too.

When even Veil, lost in his own thoughts, fell silent, the hallway sank back into quiet.

The three of them waited in silence.

Until Tie, who had cried herself to sleep, woke up.

* * *

Meanwhile, Tie was wandering inside a dream.

As the blurry, swaying view brightened, she saw something.

A dark space.

Smoke thick in place after place.

Through it she could see the lower half of some woman’s face, pale with shock.

The woman was holding Tie tightly and carefully in her arms.

“Livia! Protect Tie!”

At that moment, someone said that to the woman from far off.

A familiar voice.

It was Daddy’s voice.

Reflexively, Tie tried to look that way, but she couldn’t move at all.

Because her whole body was tightly wrapped in soft cloth.

“Oooh, baaa-”

She opened her mouth just in case, but a sound she hadn’t expected at all came out of her throat.

“Baa, oooh……”

It didn’t take long to realize that it was a baby’s sound.

‘Tie became a baby?’

Tie knew baby crying sounds well enough from the times she had secretly peeked into the room where the little ones from the Tadpole Class were.

Tie rolled her large eyes this way and that, trying hard to understand the situation.

“Aaah! Aleric! No-!”

At that moment the woman holding Tie let out a scream.

As the woman adjusted Tie in her arms, the view naturally shifted a little.

A gruesome sight spread before her eyes.

Monster corpses collapsed here and there.

And, just as many…… casualties as well.

“Livia! Don’t come, take the young lady and run!”

From far away, some man shouted as he fought a gigantic monster.

He was holding two huge spheres in each hand and firing wild blue light at the monster.

“B-but you!”

“Do you intend to let the young lady get hurt!”

The woman faltered.

In the end, hesitantly, she twisted her body and started running in the opposite direction.

Something hot went plop, plop onto Tie’s cheek.

The woman called Livia was crying as she held Tie in her arms.

“Huh, young lady. Don’t worry. Don’t worry at all……”

The woman muttered as she held Tie, who was whining, tightly against her chest.

How much time passed like that?

“Ugh-”

Suddenly the running woman dropped hard to the ground.

When Tie looked up at the woman’s face, she saw a complexion slowly turning purple.

“Damn it, the poison……”

The woman set Tie on her lap with trembling hands and pulled a small bottle of medicine from inside her clothes.

She tried to take it,

“Hah, ugh.”

but maybe because strength had left her grip, she dropped it to the ground still in the bottle.

The woman frantically groped across the floor sticky with monster blood and filth.

Then little by little, she collapsed forward.

“Y-young lady, huff. This can’t happen.”

Several strands of red hair soaked with sweat stuck to Tie’s face.

“A-ah, oooh- byaaa……!”

Tie wriggled and somehow managed to pull one arm out from the cloth.

Then she touched the woman’s cheek and started in shock.

Because the woman’s cheek was very cold.

“The rift, we have to get outside, get outside……”

The woman’s voice only kept growing fainter.

It was while Tie could do nothing but helplessly watch the strength drain from those brown eyes.

“Livia!”

Someone grabbed the shoulders of the crouched-over woman and straightened her up.

Tie opened her eyes wide at the face filling her vision.

“When did you get poisoned!”

The one who quickly took Tie into her arms from the woman’s knees was Daddy.