♣My Daughter and Her Little Sister

 

 

 

♣My Daughter and Her Little Sister

 

THAT day, I climbed Mount Rofola with Nakona. Some boars had been laying waste to our fields, so we decided it was time to thin them out a bit. I preferred to live peacefully with the woodland creatures whenever possible, but we had our own livelihood to consider.

Boars have a keen sense of smell, so even if you lay a trap, they know to avoid it if it reeks of humans. To allay that, we used a powder Tina made from dried fish entrails to blot out our smell from the traps. It stank, but the boars around these parts were drawn to the odor of Lake Rhiode’s fish. (Maybe it won’t work on boars in other regions, though. Who can say?)

We went to check on a trap we set in the boars’ territory, when we found…

“There’s one there!”

“It’s huge. It gouged out the nearby trees.”

The trap we set involved connecting iron wires to the trees, which formed a circle that enclosed its target when they stepped into it. The boar we’d caught was one massive critter, standing ten feet tall.

“Say, Daddy, can I use it to practice my new technique?”

“Uhh, ah, erm, sure?”

She says some pretty brutal things without a second thought… Hmm.

I turned around and found Nakona already pouncing on the boar. It may have been tied up, but it was still a large male. Charging it like that…just who did Nakona take after? Even in my knight days, I’d think twice before being this reckless.

“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Two-stage Axe Kick!”

A two-stage Axe Kick with mana filling her limbs. Whoa. Gruesome.

The male boar faced Nakona, intending to meet her challenge, but the intense kick knocked it down, where it frothed at the mouth.

She just defeated it in one blow, single-handedly…

“Hm, I missed a little, but…yeah, there’s an opening when I land! After an ax kick, I can just use the momentum to somersault and link it to another ax kick!”

I looked at her silently.

Gods of De Marl, how horrifying my daughter has become.

“L-Let’s drain out the blood and cut it open.”

“Okay!”

Anyway, it having fainted gave us a safe chance to kill it. I don’t know if this boar was behind ruining our poor fields, but with a body this large, it probably had an appetite to match. Not having it around would increase the amount of food left for other animals.

And we had the side benefit of getting some extra meat, too. The problem was…this big guy was, well, a guy. And during mating periods, males fought each other over females, so the muscles around their shoulders and forelegs hardened, making those parts rather inedible. Plus, they let off pheromones to attract females, so they reeked.

“Phew… With this much meat, we’ll need to make a few trips. Let’s rest.”

“Yeah, let’s! We can have the lunch Tina made us.”

“Sure.”

Nakona opened the basket she’d brought. It had sandwiches made with fresh vegetables and roast chicken. Eating next to a corpse would be a bit gross, so we sat down a short distance away. Still, Tina sure was getting better with making all sorts of dishes.

“…By the way,” Nakona suddenly spoke up.

“Hm?”

“You adopted Tina, right, Daddy? Are Tina’s real parents really dead?”

“What…?! D-Did Tina tell you that?”

“Huh? Yeah. She said that’s the impression she gets…”

Oh…is that right? I guess Tina has things she won’t share with me but would talk to Nakona about.

“…Daddy?”

“Oh, er… Come to think of it, I never did tell you how I met Tina. I was on my way back from the battlefield, after I lost my arm, and they decided to dismiss me…,” I began, telling Nakona all about that time.

I was devastated after my ex-wife left me and took Nakona with her, and in my despair, I suffered a painful defeat in battle. Looking back on it now, I feel pathetic. While I was sitting in that carriage, wallowing in self-pity, a Mythical Beast—an unusual sight on the human continent—showed up in front of us.

Yes, that was a Mythical Beast. It reacted to my words. It was the first time I saw one… Mythicals are by far the strongest race in the world. Greater than any human. They have high intellect, mana, and vitality, and their strength would allow them to ruin a country in a single night.

That’s why, in terms of threat, they were more dangerous than even monsters. And that kind of creature entrusted me with a baby—Tinaris.

“A Mythical Beast led you to her…? So Tina is half-human, half-Mythical Beast?”

“Mm…I don’t know about that. It does look like she has inhuman blood in her…but I think she’s trying to hide that.”

“But her long ears are conspicuous. I think she’s growing out her hair to hide them… I mean, we don’t mind. But not everyone will feel that way.”

“Long ears, good with using mana, blond hair with red tips… I guess an elf comes to mind before anything…”

“An elf, huh? So, if she’s half-human, that means she’s like that Sirius guy.”

“Assuming she is an elf, yeah. But half-elves have their own cities on the demi-human continent. Plus, elves are called the people of the forest, and they don’t have red eyes. Same for half-elves.”

“Mmmm,” Nakona murmured pensively. “Then…just what is Tina supposed to be?”

“I don’t know…”

I’d tried looking into what race Tina might be. My investigations came up short, though. And I can’t help but think that, even if I do find out who her real parents were, that might not make her any happier. Most parents don’t abandon their children for no reason, and the fact that she was left with a Mythical Beast only makes everything stranger.

Maybe she isn’t a demi-human? But if she isn’t, why would a Mythical Beast leave the Mythical Continent to discard their child?

Or maybe…the Mythical just ran into this baby and decided to find parents that would take care of it…?

“Well, we won’t find out the truth just by thinking about it.”

“I guess. It doesn’t matter what race she is or what her story might’ve been, Tina’s the youngest Ril child just the same.”

“Yeah. That’s right.”

In the end, this doesn’t change anything, and my tasks remain the same. I’ll raise Nakona and Tina until they’re adults and keep them safe until they find a partner I can entrust them to.

“All right, let’s get back to work, then.”

“Yeah!”

Until then, it’s my duty to protect them as a father.