A Secretly Capable Child Is Seeking For Her Dad (Novel) - Chapter 76

Chapter 76

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Translated by Sylph

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“Veil hyuung. How many blankets did you lay down?”

“Not that many. Four.”

“And how many blankets are we covering up with?”

“Two.”

Nodding, Tie stroked the pleasantly textured blanket with her palm.

The moment everyone lay down, Basto turned off the brightly glowing magic lamp on the wall.

Listening to the rustling sounds of the members settling into place, Tie stared fixedly at the ceiling.

As his eyes slowly finished adjusting to the darkness, he began to see the structure of the ceiling made of planks and nails.

In the seeping moonlight, the wood grain was glistening.

Beside him, Veil muttered,

“Kid. I thought you were going to die.”

“Veil.”

Basto, from the opposite side, chided him, but Veil only let out a small sigh.

When Tie turned her head, Veil was staring at the ceiling with a gloomy expression.

“I guess maybe I put the wrong kind of wind in your sails.”

His next voice was so quiet it was nearly impossible to hear.

But Tie knew.

That every member in the room was focused on his voice.

“Honestly, at first I felt a bit sorry for you too… and because the ability you awakened was so exceptional for your age.”

“….”

“I thought it’d be fun if we formed a mercenary company together. And I only thought that if I joined it, at least it wouldn’t be bad for me.”

Veil’s eyes began wandering all over the ceiling.

Like someone who had lost where to go and was looking for a destination.

“Becoming a mercenary isn’t safe work. For a kid like you, even more so.”

Veil’s voice gradually began to crack.

“If something had happened to you, then I….”

Silence fell over the room.

Tie heard Basto let out a small sigh.

For some reason, Tie felt as though she understood everything that had happened while she had been gone.

‘Everyone worried about Tie a lot.’

Veil, obviously, must have alternated between getting angry, then feeling dejected, then getting angry again.

Basto must have told that Veil not to show it in front of Tie.

Nordix, Enzo, and Raul must have agreed and restrained their feelings as much as they could.

That was why they had not asked Tie anything when she returned after the meeting.

They had only quietly given up the snacks or bedding each had prepared.

Having lowered her eyes quietly, Tie finally opened her lips.

“You know, Veil hyung. Tie… almost got into big trouble a little.”

At those words, Veil’s head turned slightly toward him.

For some reason, the gaze they met in the darkness still seemed unable to completely shake off its worry.

Tie slipped one arm out from under the blanket and patted Veil’s stomach, pat pat.

“But at important moments I thought really hard and lived. Aren’t you super curious how Tie thought hard?”

In the end, a faint smile slipped from Veil’s mouth.

Then, pushing Tie’s stray hair behind her ear, she said,

“Yeah. I’m curious.”

“…Tie, I kept thinking over and over all by myself that I had to keep the promises I made with the members.”

‘Tie will definitely take really good care of Raul hyung and Enzo hyung!’

Tie had promised Marianne,

‘If Tie buys poison dart bombs, I’ll protect Veil hyung from now on!’

‘As the Necromancer King, I have to become an even more dependable commander!’

and he had promised Veil and Nordix,

[Please take care of Basto.]

and he had promised even the soul of Eve, Basto’s wife.

That he would stay by everyone’s side.

“So mercenary work isn’t scaaary. No, Tie can’t afford to be scared.”

To Tie, a promise was a responsibility.

And responsibility was something important that absolutely had to be fulfilled even at the cost of everything.

“…Tie threw away everything in Jongno District and came here.”

“….”

“Since I can never ever see everyone there again….”

Because he had vowed that he had to become happy here.

Before they knew it, Veil had fully turned his body and was looking at Tie.

Raul and Enzo, who had been lying down, also sat up, and Nordix clicked his tongue so softly it could barely be heard.

Tie opened her lips again.

“Tie really wishes all the magic stones in Talochium, no, in this whole world, would disappear.”

All the sadness in this world came from magic stones.

“Factory Manager said he was sad because of magic stones too. Because of the civil war that happened because of magic stones, bad people were created.”

The members who knew of the Hederdel Massacre fell silent.

Tie blinked her eyes, still looking at the ceiling.

“After Tie finds Dad, after that Tie is going to get rid of all the magic stones.”

“Tie.”

Basto called out in a surprised voice, but Tie continued speaking.

“If you do them one by one, then later they can all disappear. Like matching a puzzle.”

“A puzzle?”

“In Jongno District, Dad and Tie did a thousand-piece one. Every day we did one, then two, then three pieces, and it became a flower garden.”

Suddenly, the image of the puzzle they had completed came to mind.

A green forest with sunlight seeping in.

Leaves wet with dew and daisies holding all that fresh moisture.

And in that puzzle, there were a thousand, ten thousand such daisies blooming.

“If you do them one by one, someday you can complete a flower garden that pretty.”

“….”

“So today Tie almost got into big trouble… but later it’ll all become a flower garden.”

“….”

“Our whole family together.”

After ending his words in a whisper, the child tightly shut her eyes.

Veil and Basto looked at each other, then rustled back down into place.

The surroundings fell quiet for a long while.

No sound echoed except for Tie’s even breathing.

Everyone in the room was each turning over the words Tie had said.

This was already the second time the child had called them ‘family.’

* * *

After confirming that even Basto had begun snoring, Tie carefully sat up from under the blanket.

Then he quietly walked on tiptoe and took hold of the doorknob.

When he opened the door and stepped out, a hallway bathed brightly in moonlight spread before him.

Passing through the hallway, Tie headed toward the stairs where a huge full-length window was located.

When he stood holding the railing, the view of the weapons district spread out at a glance.

The endless smelting districts.

The great armory hall, the light seeping out from the Primordial Furnace, and lastly even the stars dazzlingly strewn above it.

‘The stars….’

When he lived in Jongno District, he had not known the sky had so many stars.

The reason Tie could sometimes see stars at all had been thanks to the old baduk grandpa who lived at the end of the alley.

Baduk grandpa would sometimes call Tie out and lend her her old telescope.

If the two of them sat in front of the house on convenience store chairs, now and then they could even find a big real star.

‘That one is a star!’

‘Aiiish, that’s a satellite, I’m telling you.’

‘Then what about that one?’

‘That one is a star, right. Here, look through this.’

To Tie, that telescope, which smelled mixed of cigarette smoke and some kind of strange musty scent, was a treasure.

‘I didn’t even lend this to my own son. This is this old grandpa’s family treasure.’

‘What’s a family treasure?’

‘A family’s treasure.’

‘…Then why do you lend it to Tie? Tie isn’t grandpa’s family.’

Whenever she asked because she was curious, grandpa would roughly rub Tie’s forehead with her coarse hand.

‘You little rascal, I’ve watched you since you had hardly any hair, watched you crawl and walk too. If that doesn’t make you family, then what does?’

Once again, his heart grew tight.

Whenever he thought of the Jongno District he had left behind, it was always like that.

For a four-year-old, a sudden farewell was far too cruel.

Before she knew it, Tie had squatted down in front of the railing.

Perhaps because too many things had happened throughout the whole day, sleep simply would not come.

It was when he closed his lips and clenched his fists tightly.

Thunk-

Along with a small contact sound, he felt a very faint vibration through the railing he was holding.

Opening her eyes wide, Tie quietly stuck her head out past the railing.

The lower floor.

He saw the silhouette of someone standing in front of the railing, just like him, looking out the window.

At the familiar hair color and the build she could glimpse at a glance, Tie’s eyes grew round.

‘It’s Grand Commander Luminen.’

Valentis Luminen, whom Tie had not been able to properly speak to because he looked so much like Dad.

She, unable to sleep just like Tie, was standing on the lower floor looking out the window.