A Secretly Capable Child Is Seeking For Her Dad (Novel) - Chapter 91
Chapter 91
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Translated by Sylph
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Tie was playing tag in the yard of the candy house rising high into the sky.
“Tomato! Now you’re it!”
When he shouted and ran to the front door, the talking tomato began to count.
Tie hurriedly hid in the bushes and held her breath.
When he looked outside, an enchanting scene was spread out all around him.
A talking locomotive, unicorns flying through the sky wearing cotton candy earrings.
“Three, four, five….”
The moment he was thinking he wished time would stop like this as he listened to Tomato’s voice.
“…Tie. Tie?”
A faint voice came from somewhere.
Tie narrowed the space between her brows.
“Tie, wake up.”
Uncle Basto?
At the same time he thought that, he felt himself being sucked in, and his eyelids grew heavy.
“Uuuung….”
Tie pouted her lips and opened her eyes.
Basto was gently shaking Tie, whom he had on his back, with a soft touch.
“We will arrive soon, so sleep at the lodging.”
“Where is this……?”
When he asked in a half-asleep state, Raul, who was standing beside him, answered.
“It is a place called Caldenvine Ridge.”
In the place Raul pointed, a huge banner really was fluttering that said, .
“This is the only village nearby that seemed like a place we could stay. Does your body feel a little better?”
Tie unsteadily raised one hand and touched her own forehead.
Until she was in the carriage, it had been extremely hot, but now Tie’s forehead was not particularly hot.
And the cough that had been bursting out unbearably had subsided too.
Tie nodded bravely.
“Yees. I think I’m all better.”
Raul smiled as if relieved.
Then Enzo, carefully draping a blanket over Tie’s back, said,
“We decided to rest for a few days in this village before leaving. Right now Sir Veil and old man Nordix are looking for an inn.”
He turned his gaze forward again.
Sure enough, he could see the two of them standing some distance away and looking around.
It seemed Veil had found something, because he opened his mouth first.
“Old man, isn’t that it? Meren’s House. At a glance that’s obviously the name of an inn, isn’t it?”
“Read the small letters too. It says general store.”
“…It does.”
Embarrassed, Veil turned his head indifferently.
A wide circular plaza.
Old buildings ringing around it.
However, among the worn signs, it was hard to find the words inn.
“The grocer looks like it’s over there. And what’s that, a restaurant? Why is the display shelf in the butcher shop next to it empty?”
Moreover, this village was strange the more they looked at it.
“The fruit shop as well.”
Looking at the fruit shop, whose display shelf was likewise completely empty, Nordix muttered.
The dress shop with its lights off. Even the grocery store with no goods.
Veil narrowed the space between his brows.
“…It doesn’t seem like there are no people inside.”
Inside some of the buildings, they could clearly sense human presence.
“Why do they have to be there and pretend not to be there so unpleasantly? The banner said they welcomed travelers.”
Wearing a sour expression, he brought his hand to the weapon at his waist in case of any possible situation.
“Old man, over there.”
Then Basto, who had been standing behind them, called to Nordix.
When they turned their heads, a small building came into view at the entrance to the plaza, which they had overlooked and passed by.
Exchanging glances with Nordix, Veil started walking there first.
It looked shabby, but they intended to at least go inside and see.
However, once they entered the inn before long.
Everyone had no choice but to frown.
“…What in the world is this?”
The counter half turned to sawdust, as if mice had gnawed at it.
Even the cobwebbed lamps and the walls reeking of mold.
The inn was small and shabby to the point that it was no more than an old shed left abandoned for a long time.
Veil, unable to continue speaking, muttered,
“…This won’t do. We even have a sick squirt with us.”
It was just as everyone was about to turn back out of the inn again.
“This is the only one.”
Someone quietly revealed herself from the kitchen area connected to the counter.
At the kitchen entrance stood a bent-backed, gaunt old woman wearing an ash-gray dress.
Flustered by the gloomy and dark atmosphere, Basto hesitated and asked,
“…What do you mean the only one.”
“We are the only inn in Caldenvine Ridge.”
The members looked at each other speechlessly.
After thinking for a moment, Basto opened his mouth again.
“Then what is the lodging fee?”
If there was only one inn in the village, then even if the facilities were somewhat poor, it was better to stay.
‘Because Astie is sick.’
Tie had already spent the last two days in the carriage.
If he were healthy, that would be one thing, but he did not want to make a child who still had cold symptoms sleep outside again.
And the members, who had been staying up virtually all night in the meantime, were also a problem.
Since leaving the weapons district, all they had done was take turns catching sleep in the luggage compartment.
“100 gold.”
However, at the amount he stated next, Basto rarely had no choice but to gape.
“100 gold?”
“That is right.”
“Expensiiive….”
Immediately, Tie whined from Basto’s back.
One hundred gold was one million won.
Even Tie, who did not know much about the going prices here, knew that it was an enormously expensive amount.
“Why is it so expensive when it isn’t even hospitalization?”
Basto first exchanged looks with the members.
Then Nordix stepped forward.
“What sort of absurd amount is that?”
He had a slightly angry expression, which was rare for him.
“Are you looking down on us because we are travelers? There is a limit to how much one can overcharge.”
At Nordix’s protest, the inn old woman’s faded eyes moved slowly.
She silently swept over the members with meaningful eyes, then spoke again.
“50 gold.”
Raul, having swallowed wrong, coughed.
The amount had been cut in half as soon as bargaining began.
That was as good as openly proving that the old woman had tried to fleece Agabert.
‘No. Perhaps she has no intention of hiding it.’
Angry, Basto lowered his voice.
“You. You chose the wrong people to try that with.”
Without hesitation, he looked at the members behind him.
“Let’s go. I have no intention of sleeping in a place like this for that amount of money.”
“30 gold.”
But then, as if she had been waiting, the inn old woman lowered the price again.
She was still staring at the members with a face that showed not the slightest agitation.
Unable to hold back, Basto let out a speechless sigh, and a cold silence flowed through the inn.
“Make it 20 gold.”
Quiet until then, Veil said it as if tossing it out.
The old woman’s cloudy eyes turned to Veil.
Veil smiled calmly.
“What, is 20 gold absolutely impossible?”
A slight wavering appeared on the old woman’s unmoving expression.
Smiling leisurely, Veil took one more coin out of his pocket.
“Then how about two rooms for 30 gold? If not, we’ll just go.”
This time the old woman’s face openly crumpled.
But Veil only leisurely added his next words.
“A hundred gold for an inn that’s practically collapsing like this, give me a break. I know the market price.”
“….”
“If you don’t like it, forget it. We’ve slept on bare dirt just fine, so one night is nothing.”
Deep silence fell over the inn once more.
At the sight of the old woman giving no answer, Veil shrugged.
However, just before he turned around.
The inn old woman, after letting out a short groan, at last said in a voice barely audible,
“…The rooms are on the second floor.”
* * *
“Waaah!”
The moment the door opened, Tie ran toward the bed.
When one lives in a carriage for a long time, one always ends up missing beds like this.
“A pretty flower-pattern blaaanket-”
Of course, just before he landed on the bed, Basto swept him up in one motion.
Basto let out a sigh, sat Tie down in a chair, and then opened the window.
And he began shaking out the blanket on the bed with all his might.
Watching that with a curious face, Tie’s lips parted.
“Waa, why are clouds coming out of the blanket……?”