A Secretly Capable Child Is Seeking For Her Dad (Novel) - Chapter 96
Chapter 96
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Translated by Sylph
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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A little while later.
Standing in front of the inn, Basto pressed a hand to his forehead and parted his lips.
“…I will say this exactly one last time. No matter what happens in the plaza, we are not to step in rashly.”
“Yeeees!”
Tie answered first,
“How many times have I said I got it? Anyway, I’m tired.”
and then Veil replied irritably.
However, Basto let out a sigh and recalled what had happened just before.
Just before.
Tie, caught red-handed while trying to leave the inn with Kkamang, had been incredibly brazen in the end.
“Tie, where are you going right now.”
“To the plaza with Kkamang!”
“Why the plaza?”
“Uum…… because if bad villains bully people, Tie has to save them?”
Basto closed his mouth, left speechless.
But soon he spoke seriously.
“Listen carefully, Astie. You are not going. In any situation, becoming hostile to nobles is dangerous.”
“Eeh? But Tie is a mercenary though?”
“The fact that we are mercenaries and the business of this village are separate matters. We have no duty to save those people.”
At those words, the child looked shocked.
Then he fiddled for a long time with the mercenary badge pinned to his chest and asked as if he could not believe it.
“Then are we playing the bystander role here? Not the good role…?”
That was because, all this time, Tie had been firmly misunderstanding one thing about mercenaries.
‘I thought mercenaries and heroes were the same thing!’
Inside young Tie’s head, ‘mercenaries’ were a kind of Avengers.
They help when people are in danger.
And stylishly defeat monsters too.
And when people shout, ‘Thank you, Necromancer King!’ they grin like it’s nothing much and give a thumbs-up.
In fact, in Pearl City and the weapons district, the situation had always flowed that way.
So Tie had been steadily building up her pride as a mercenary day by day.
And now to think all of that had been an illusion.
“Sh, shock….”
When Tie staggered on the spot, Basto had no words.
Then Veil, not missing the chance, began persuading him.
“Do you know that right now, you’re not just breaking the squirt’s innocence, you’re grinding it up too.”
“What do you mean, I’m breaking Astie’s innocence….”
“Do you want to take away even his professional sense of duty from a squirt who already lives such a harsh life? What are you going to do if the squirt submits a resignation letter at this rate? You know Agabert is just over then too, right?”
Before long, Basto had no choice but to accept Veil’s words.
Or more exactly, because Tie looking so downcast was weighing rather heavily on her heart.
“Haaah.”
Before he knew it, Basto was looking at the plaza where many people had gathered and sighing.
‘It doesn’t seem like anything will happen.’
As Nordix had mentioned at the pub, each of the chests in the plaza was filled to the brim with coal.
In other words, they had met the tribute amount, so it meant that no particular problem should arise.
Of course, there was just one thing.
There was one chest that looked a little worrisome.
With complicated eyes, Basto stared at the chest located at the twelve o’clock direction.
The amount of coal in it was a little less than in the other chests.
But since it was only a very slight difference, Basto deliberately looked away.
‘It’ll be fine.’
Basto also knew what Veil’s intention was.
Veil seemed to be wary of the knights using violence against the villagers.
All the more so after the villagers had used the word ‘suffer it.’
He had shown an indifferent attitude toward other people’s affairs the whole time they traveled together, so it was enough to make one wonder why only this time was an exception.
At that moment, Tie’s prattling voice came from the side.
“Big brother Veil. If bad knights bully people, Tie will deploy first!”
“What are you going to do?”
“What do you mean what. I’ll ask Ppuppu to make mist and then we’ll all run away together!”
Hearing that, Basto shook his head as if Tie were impossible.
It was then.
“Now, now! Everyone get out of the way!”
Suddenly, the opposite side of the plaza grew noisy.
When they turned their gazes, they saw a group of knights gathered there.
Then, cutting through the knights, a man dressed in fine clothes swaggered into the plaza.
It was Reginald, the current lord of Caldenvine.
“These are this week’s tribute goods, my lord.”
At the knight’s report, Reginald slowly looked around the plaza.
His eyes rounded, and soon he burst into a satisfied laugh.
“Hahaha! Just as I thought! Didn’t I tell you, sir? It can be done if they try?!”
With excited steps, he walked around the plaza and looked into the full chests one by one.
“What? The mining yield is down? The shaft is about to collapse? Ridiculous. I already figured out long ago that it was all excuses and evasions.”
Reginald looked at the villagers with leisurely eyes.
“Doesn’t it all get done like this if you make the effort? Hmm?”
At once, the air in the plaza turned cold.
But he shamelessly went on speaking.
“I was a little displeased when you made this excuse and that excuse and tried to be sly, but since you made the effort this time, I will esteem it and freeze the tribute amount for the time being.”
Giggling, he raised his chin.
“So from now on as well, with hearts full of respect toward me, mine with sincerity one by one. Then….”
But at that moment.
Reginald, who had been about to leave the plaza, froze in place as if he had found something.
The smile on his face vanished into blankness in an instant.
Soon he quietly moved somewhere.
Toward the chest Basto had been watching a little while ago, the one with slightly less coal than the others.
“…Quill.”
Reading the surname branded onto the chest with a heated iron, Reginald lifted his head.
“Who is the Quill family?”
The moment those words ended, someone was dragged out of the crowd by the knights’ hands.
It was an old woman with gray hair loosely tied back, leaning on a crutch.
When Reginald held out his palm to the knight beside him, the knight placed into his hand what looked like a paper ledger.
After scanning the paper, Reginald narrowed his eyes.
“Why did your family fail to meet the tribute amount?”
The old woman, visibly trembling, parted her lips.
“R, revered lord. Three days ago I f, fell in the shaft and broke my leg, so I c, could not mine….”
However, Reginald immediately cut her off.
“It says here that the Quill family also failed to meet the mining amount six weeks ago.”
The old woman opened her eyes wide.
“No! The following week I certainly offered the lacking amount in addition….!”
But Reginald once again raised one hand as if he were noisy and blocked the old woman’s words.
When he jerked his head at the knight, the knight roughly struck away the crutch the old woman was leaning on and knocked her down.
“Ugh!”
The old woman lost her balance and collapsed onto the plaza ground.
“Grandma!”
At the same moment, a child about Tie’s age darted out from the crowd.
The child ran over with a deathly pale face, hugged the old woman, and looked her over pitifully.
“Gr, grandma…. are you okay? Huh?”
“Lea. Go back, hurry and go back….”
The old woman spoke urgently, but the child did not loosen the hand clutching her.
At that moment, Reginald, who had been quietly watching the sight, muttered,
“…Now that I look at it, even with your leg broken, there was a way to provide tribute after all.”
The old woman lifted her head with a blank face.
Reginald continued calmly.
“You should have sent your family members to the coal mine in your place. The narrower and lower the shafts are, the easier they are for children to work in. If children crawl or lie flat, is there any shaft they cannot enter? At the next levy day, your family is to offer an additional three-tenths of your usual amount.”
He grinned at the child.
“And little one, step aside. Your grandmother must receive punishment for failing to meet the tribute amount….”
It was at that moment.
That Veil, charging from somewhere, drove his fist into Reginald’s right jaw.
“K, keugh-!”
A long streak of red blood splashed across the ground.
And then, two teeth torn out raw rolled across the ground beneath Reginald’s feet.