A Secretly Capable Child Is Seeking For Her Dad (Novel) - Chapter 85
Chapter 85
===================
Translated by Sylph
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
===================
“Gasp!”
Tie froze stiff on the spot.
Then, belatedly, he looked at Ppuppu,
“Kkyu, kkyu……?”
but Ppuppu was already only standing frozen in place like a robber caught while robbing a bank.
“That thing I mentioned is exactly that.”
At that moment, Nordix closed the door and spoke.
Cold sweat trickled down Tie’s back.
‘Grandpa Nordix knew about Ppuppu’s existence?’
He had warned Ppuppu so very many times in the meantime.
That he had to stay quietly only in the bag!
As the child’s eyes wavered without direction, Veil walked over in front of Ppuppu.
He crouched down on the spot, then looked steadily at Ppuppu and said,
“Astie.”
Even though only his name had been called, a gulp of dry saliva slid down his throat.
That was because Veil had hardly ever called Tie by name until now.
He had always called him squirt….
‘I got caught, I really got caught.’
It seemed that the members had somehow noticed Ppuppu’s identity.
Sensing that something terrible had happened, Tie squeezed her eyes shut tightly.
Then, after drawing in a breath, he shouted as if making a confession.
“Big brother Veil. Tie really, truly likes Ppuppu!”
“…What?”
“No matter who says what, Tie can’t part with Ppuppu. Even if they gave me ten thousand won, no, forty thousand won, it would not matter!”
When he raised his head with a mournful gaze, Veil was looking at him with his mouth slightly open.
Conscious of Basto and Nordix standing behind, Tie asked,
“Please let Tie live with Ppuppu, okay?”
He knew that he might get scolded.
Even if it had been an accident, the matter of Ppuppu was something Tie had done alone without discussing it with the members.
And in truth, there was another reason Tie was wary of this situation.
Suddenly, something that had happened in the Republic of Korea came to mind.
‘Baby, you absolutely must not just pick things like this up carelessly. Okay?’
He had only brought back one kitty that had been playing alone under the wall in the alley.
Yet the grandmother from Unit 107 had scolded Tie with a serious face.
‘Do they not say that cat mothers throw away kittens that have gotten human touch on them. Because they have a human smell on them. Understand?’
‘Uum…… but, if mommy kitty throws it away, then Tie can raise it, right?’
He had only said what seemed like an easy and simple solution, but the grandmother’s expression darkened even more.
‘Raise it? You?’
‘Yees, Tie will give it milk and clean its poop and raise it!’
‘What if it gets sick? Do you have money to take it to the hospital? While you are at kindergarten, who will look after the baby?’
At first, it had been a sad feeling.
It was also true that the small animal in his hands was so cute that he had not wanted to let it go.
But when the lady from Unit 203, who had come down after hearing the commotion, joined in too, Tie had even less to say.
‘Tie. If nothing else, when it comes to a life, you must absolutely have a sense of responsibility, okay?’
‘Sense of…… responsibility?’
‘Do you have the confidence to stay by this kitty’s side until it lives happily and goes to heaven?’
At first, he had been about to answer yes out of sheer stubbornness.
But thinking it over carefully, Tie, as the lady had said, was not in a position where she could always stay beside the kitty.
‘……No.’
‘See? That is why you must not take in a life carelessly. Even beasts know it all. Loneliness, sadness, what it is like to be left alone, and to miss their owner.’
Now that he thought back on it, the lady from Unit 203 had been right.
Tie had had to leave everything behind when she departed the Republic of Korea.
So if he had begun living with the kitty back then, he would have had to abandon that kitty when he left.
Fortunately, the kitty met its mother and left.
After that, it was sometimes seen enjoying the sunlight by the wall with its mother.
‘So, Tie knows too that you must not just pick things up.’
He also knew that deciding to raise something required enough responsibility and thought!
But Ppuppu was someone with nowhere to go right away.
And from the beginning, she had been following Tie while thinking of her as her mother.
As he fidgeted with his hands wondering how to explain this, he heard Veil sigh.
“Haa.”
His shoulders curled in on their own.
‘Everyone is angry….’
Looking now, Basto too, and Nordix, and Raul and Enzo as well.
Every last one of them had somewhat sunken expressions.
‘Because Tie didn’t discuss it!’
Just as he was agonizing over what to do if the members told him to put Ppuppu back where he had been, or if they treated Ppuppu as a monster.
“This kid’s name is Ppuppu?”
Veil asked casually.
So startled that she hesitated, Tie nodded.
“U, uung, Ppuppu.”
“Do you want to keep going around together with Ppuppu from now on, squirt?”
At the more positive response than expected, he gulped.
“Uung, that is…… Tie already promised to become Ppuppu’s mommy.”
“Then do as you want to do, Tie.”
Basto, who had been in the back, approached.
He smoothed Tie’s disheveled hair back with her hand and said,
“Acting in front of people must be very hard, right?”
Tie tilted her head.
Why was he suddenly asking something like that?
Of course, there were times when he was scared that he might get found out….
He shook his head to mean that he was okay, but Basto’s expression did not ease.
“You do not have to say you are okay every single time.”
“Yeah, squirt. If something is hard, you can say it is hard.”
When even Veil stepped in, Tie’s eyes widened.
How strange, Veil’s role was to tease Tie every day or only make jokes, though?
“Thinking about it, ever since we started running the mercenary company together, there has not been a single thing we did the way you wanted to do it.”
“Uung?”
“It is true that we moved around saying we would help you find your father, but there has not been anything we truly did together because it was what you wanted, has there?”
Tie’s mouth fell open.
Well, that was true. Going to Pearl City, and coming to the weapons district as well.
He had been moving in accordance with the plans the other members had made.
But was that not unavoidable?
Even if she was the commander, Tie did not know much about this world.
“You kept saying you wanted to go to an academy or an orphanage, but we could not do even that for you.”
“Thaaat….”
There had been days when he missed kindergarten and said such things from time to time.
That he wanted to go to kindergarten again.
Once they learned what that was, the members had looked troubled.
Because of the nature of a mercenary company that had to keep moving around, they had seemed embarrassed.
Veil, who had been lost in thought, asked casually,
“Ppuppu, he is safe, right?”
Tie nodded quickly.
“Yes! Very, very safe! But, big brother Veil, aren’t you going to ask where Ppuppu came from?”
Tie’s eyes widened.
“I already know. You do not have to say it on purpose.”
Veil glanced over at Nordix, then smiled faintly.
“Because if it were something dangerous, you would not have insisted this much.”
“Gasp. Big brother Veil….”
“Still, if anything seems strange, you have to tell us right away, okay? Because you cannot be in danger, squirt.”
…Kind.
Today, he was kind to a strange degree!
It was when Tie was nodding with a dazed expression.
“When we arrive at the imperial capital, we plan to exchange all the monster cores we have gathered so far for reward money, Tie.”
Nordix, who had been watching, stepped forward.
“After that, I am thinking we might buy a mansion with that money. What do you think? It seems good for us to have one base as well.”
His eyes grew round.
“A baaase?”
“I mean a house. If there is a house in the imperial capital, you can attend the academy you want as well, and there will be much less attention from those around you, so would it not be more comfortable?”
Tie’s lips parted.
A house. With the money they had earned until now, they would buy Tie’s house in the imperial capital.
It was a good idea. It certainly was a good idea, but….
The child soon looked around with worried eyes.
“But can all six of us sleep in Tie’s house? Now Kkamang and Ppuppu are here too….”
To Tie, whose only home she had ever had since birth was Unit 106 of Gold Villa.
This was a very serious and important problem.