A Secretly Capable Child Is Seeking For Her Dad (Novel) - Chapter 80
Chapter 80
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Translated by Sylph
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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“How is it that Your Excellency is out this late at night….”
Nordix quickly pushed past Basto and Veil and stepped forward.
After bowing to the Grand Commander, she took Tie’s hand and drew her toward herself, arranging her face into a calm expression.
“Why are you out here? Have you been unable to sleep again?”
From Nordix’s point of view, it was something he said to reduce the situation.
Because the Grand Commander might feel displeased with Agabert for coming out of the lodging late at night in defiance of his instructions.
Perhaps reading her intent, Tie’s eyes rolled round.
The child opened his mouth, closed it again, and only then answered reluctantly.
“Yeeah, I wasn’t sleeping, sleep wasn’t coming very well….”
As though he had expected that, Nordix smiled.
Then she hurriedly tried to guide Tie back toward the lodging.
“You may leave fetching water to me or to the other members. Your energy must have been greatly depleted from yesterday’s events, so please go back in quickly.”
“Your members’ loyalty is impressive, Necromancer King.”
But at that moment, Valentis’s voice stopped the two of them.
Nordix hesitated and turned back around.
The Grand Commander was looking down at Astie without even giving Nordix a glance.
With the faintest trace of a smile hanging on the corner of his lips.
But even a smile as thin as paper was enough to throw Nordix into confusion.
‘He’s smiling? Grand Commander Luminen?’
As far as Nordix knew, Grand Commander Luminen smiled perhaps once every three months.
He had always been rather emotionless and taciturn to begin with, but after losing his wife he had grown colder still.
As a result, nowadays even this sort of saying had sprung up around his rare smiles.
‘One smile from the Grand Commander means a thousand magic cores are released.’
Meaning, roughly, that he might smile once only when the Holy Knight Order had cut down a thousand monsters.
While Nordix stood there frozen, Valentis walked over toward Tie.
And then, in a peaceful voice, he said,
“If you wish, you may accept my invitation together with your members.”
Silence descended over the hallway.
Basto and Veil exchanged quiet glances, and Nordix stood stiffly in place with an awkward smile.
An invitation?
What invitation was he talking about?
But in the meantime, Tie answered.
“…Yeees.”
When Nordix lowered his gaze, the child was for some reason speaking with a dispirited face and dragging out the end of his words.
Then the child’s dejected eyes lowered, and slowly turned toward Valentis.
“Then can I go together with the members too? When the full moon rises twice?”
Once again, the corner of Valentis’s lips drew a slight curve.
“Yes. Then rest well.”
In the next instant, the Grand Commander turned his back without hesitation.
And then he passed by Basto and Veil, who were standing there awkwardly, and descended the stairs.
A few seconds later, the sound of a door closing echoed quietly through the empty hallway below.
Nordix stiffly turned his head to stare at Tie, then quickly scooped the child up into his arms.
* * *
The moment they returned to the room and the door had scarcely finished closing, Nordix asked,
“Astie. What in the world happened? What in the world happened between you and Valentis Luminen? And what is this about an invitation?”
His voice was urgent.
And with reason, because he had no idea how he was supposed to take what had just happened.
Tie, who had gone and squatted down on her own bedding, said in a tiny voice,
“Tie did something bad to Mister Luminen in a one-sided way.”
Something bad?
The members’ eyes widened.
Going over to Tie’s side, Basto asked soothingly,
“Something bad, Tie?”
Tears welled up in the child’s eyes.
But as though trying to hold them back, Tie scrubbed furiously at the corners of her eyes and answered.
“Tie made mister into a fool.”
“What does it mean to make him into a fool?”
When even Veil sat down in front of her to ask, Tie weakly lifted her wrist to show them.
“With this I made mister into a swindle victim… I mean, I scammed him.”
The Sanctum of Oblivion sat neatly fastened on the child’s wrist.
Breathing in, Nordix pushed Veil aside and sat down before Tie himself.
“A scam? What kind of scam and how did you do it?”
Keeping his lips tightly pressed together, Tie looked at Nordix with uneasy eyes.
Then he hesitantly began to continue speaking.
“There is a roster in the imperial capital, of the holy knight organization.”
“A roster?”
“Yeees. So if I see it, it feels like I can find Dad. His name is fake but not his face….”
While the members were left speechless, Tie continued.
“But Mister Luminen said he wouldn’t show it to me just like that.”
Nordix let out a groan without meaning to.
Well, of course. What kind of person was Valentis Luminen.
There was no way he would agree so easily to show them the roster.
“He said if Tie tells everything truthfully, why Tie is looking for Dad and who Dad is, then he’ll think about it. But if I say that, then it’ll come out that Tie isn’t just pretending to be secretly strong, I’m really just a child….”
Tie’s voice grew smaller and smaller.
Then at last, with eyes brimming with tears, he began sniffling.
“But I absolutely absolutely have to see the roster. So after Tie told everything, really, really, because there was no other way….”
Beside them, Basto let out a groan of anguish.
Veil, Raul, and Enzo were sitting there with their eyes wide, holding their breath.
“I got only the promise that he’d show me the roster, and then I erased everything from his head. Everything Tie said.”
Silence fell over the room.
After finishing all he had to say, the child’s face looked somehow sad and empty.
“Tie is a scammer… a bad person who gets the item and then cancels the transfer.”
For a moment Nordix only blinked, unable to find any words.
Meanwhile, Tie was genuinely in despair.
‘If this were the Republic of Korea, Tie would really be in prison….’
To Tie, who had been raised for four years as a Confucian child in the eastern land of etiquette, there was one thing Grandma from Unit 107 had repeatedly and earnestly told her she absolutely had to keep.
That was his conscience.
‘Bad lies! Stealing! Things like that are absolutely not allowed, Tie. Got it?’
But in the end, Tie had both lied to Grand Commander Luminen and, in a way, effectively stolen too.
It was while he pursed his lips again as another wave of guilt came over him.
“Commander.”
For some reason, Raul carefully came over to Tie’s side.
“It’s all right. You didn’t lie out of bad intentions, you lied to protect yourself, right?”
Tie, who had grown even more sorrowful, rolled her lips inward more tightly.
This time Enzo came over and gently patted Tie’s hunched back.
“That’s right. In the same situation, even I would have done so.”
Tie paused and raised her eyes.
But the child still muttered as though not entirely convinced.
“But….”
“Think about it. If you couldn’t see that roster, Commander, it would have been something truly terrible for you, wouldn’t it?”
“Terrible…?”
“Of course it would be terrible. Your identity might be revealed. In the worst case, you might not be able to find your father. Wouldn’t that be far too sad?”
After hesitating, Tie nodded.
With a smile that seemed to say see, Raul replied,
“Then think of Grand Commander Luminen in reverse. Do you think it would be a truly terrible thing for the Grand Commander not to know your identity?”
His lips parted slightly.
He thought about it carefully, but as Raul said, it didn’t seem as though some terrible thing would happen because of that.
When Tie shook her head, Raul answered.
“See? So it’s fine. Even legally, there’s no problem at all.”
At the words that there was no legal problem, Tie’s eyebrows loosened a little.
“Really…?”
“Of course. And suppose I lied to you, Commander. If I said it was because there was no choice in an urgent situation, you’d forgive me, right?”
“Mm. Tie is nice and very considerate, so I’d forgive you.”
“Grand Commander Luminen will be the same. His field is different from ours, but he’s still someone who climbed to the very top in his own way. In the end, it’s always good people who succeed.”
At last, the child’s face completely relaxed.
When Enzo spread both arms wide, Tie quickly went into them and melted into his embrace.
Patting the child’s back, Enzo asked casually,
“By the way, are you certain you truly erased the Grand Commander’s memory?”