v2 Chapter 10: A Tea Party with a Crybaby
Shou, still chewing, turned to Haru, who seemed to have relaxed a little.
"Let’s focus on something else. Like catching slimes."
"Does it hurt?"
Haru asked hesitantly, making the adults all grimace as if in pain. Shou shook her finger.
"You catch them without getting hurt. Then, after catching one, you sell it and buy sweets."
"You can earn pocket money?!"
"Yep! You can make a good amount too."
Shou grinned mischievously, then turned to Dred.
"Does the Magician’s Guild buy slimes?"
"They do, but not many young apprentices try to make pocket money from it."
"Really? Magicians don’t even need a stick to defeat them."
"It’s about control. Just blasting them with fire magic results in poor-quality magic stones."
"But I think Miharu could do it just fine."
Shou turned to Haru.
"You can cast small, high-temperature fire magic, right?"
"Y-Yeah."
Haru frowned, wondering what that had to do with anything.
Dred explained gently, as if speaking to a child.
"Haru, you were trained to cast large, powerful spells, weren’t you? Precision magic is difficult, even for adults."
"That’s right. But if you keep casting large spells all the time, you run out of magic and get attacked by monsters—then you get scolded. So I worked hard on efficiency."
The adults winced again at Haru’s words.
But Shou nodded enthusiastically.
"I get it! Efficiency is important! In my first year, I even figured out how to cool water with magic."
Haru blinked.
"Wait, you can do that?"
"Of course! I’ll teach you on the way back to Deep Forest. Everyone there can do it, so if you can’t, people will wonder if you’re really a magician."
"On the way back to Deep Forest?"
"Yep. We came to pick you up."
Shou said it like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Haru hesitated for a moment, then trembled slightly.
"Am I… going too?"
"Yeah. I told you, if things got too hard, I’d come for you. Wasn’t it hard?"
Haru’s response was barely audible.
"…It was."
"Then let’s go. We have an extra room."
"But… what about your family?"
"Ah, that’s fine. Falco?"
Falco lifted his teacup.
"They put me to work, though."
"Well, that’s because you never clean properly. Leon?"
"If you want, you can share a room with me instead."
A voice spoke from behind.
"Hyai?"
"Did you just say hyai?"
Leon chuckled behind her.
"I wouldn’t mind becoming your guardian."
"Guardian?"
Haru felt like she was hearing the word for the first time.
"Some kids don’t have parents. In those cases, the town assigns them a guardian until they become adults."
"Falco is my guardian."
Shou turned toward him. Haru glanced up at Leon.
This warm person… as family?
Then, the master healer interjected.
"Well, with a child as adorable as Haru, there would be plenty of people who’d want to be her guardian. Leon might not even get the chance."
"Why not? Falco became Shou’s guardian, didn’t he?"
The master healer glanced at Falco.
"That’s because Falco was so utterly unreliable that we figured Shou would be the one taking care of him."
"Me too!"
Haru raised her voice.
"I can cook. And clean. And do laundry."
Shou nodded along.
Well, we were in our late twenties, after all.
"Oh? But you trip over nothing."
Leon teased.
"T-There was—"
"There was?"
"There was a rock!"
"I don’t see one."
"It must have rolled away when I tripped!"
Haru pouted and turned away.
She was surprisingly stubborn.
The others hid their laughter behind their hands.
"I see, I see."
Leon gently placed his hand on her head.
"Miharu, live with me and take care of me. I’m terrible at housework."
Haru looked at Shou, who gave her a big thumbs-up.
"Please take care of me."
Haru had become part of their group.
Linus, who had been watching everything unfold, pressed a hand to his chest and choked up.
"O Goddess of Creation, I give thanks for sending us this young and gifted healer. And for the generosity of Deep Forest."
The girl who once had lifeless eyes now shone with hope.
"Well, I mean, gratitude is fine and all," Shou interrupted, dampening the dramatic moment.
"But the goddess is the one who promised to send us guardians. Miharu, I was thrown into a freezing, empty forest in the dead of winter. If Falco hadn’t happened to pass by, I’d have been doomed."
"That’s what happened? But I was sent to a place full of people, and I still couldn’t be useful."
Haru looked down again.
"You don’t have to be useful."
"But—"
"Look, we were thrown here because we were neither poison nor medicine—completely neutral. We were never meant to be useful. We just have to live however we want."
"I don’t have to be useful?"
"Nope."
"I can just take it easy?"
"Yep."
"I don’t have to fight monsters?"
"Nope. There’s a trade guild in town—you can find something you’re good at. But..."
Shou smirked mischievously.
"The easiest way to make pocket money is slime hunting. And!"
She grinned playfully.
"It keeps little kids from accidentally stepping on them. So it is useful, in a way. And!"
Haru held her breath.
"If you manage to take down a lizard, you get dinner too. They’re delicious—mild and tender."
"Delicious?"
That was important.
"You really are part of Shou’s crew," Falco said fondly.
"She gets serious about food."
"Yeah, she was crying a second ago, but one mention of snacks and she perked right up."
Leon nodded along.
Just because they sounded gentle didn’t mean they weren’t rude.
Shou shrugged.
"They’re a bunch of weirdos, but Deep Forest is a nice place. Dred comes by sometimes too, so you can learn magic from him. Let’s figure out how to live in this world together."
Tears welled up in Haru’s eyes.
Leon pulled her close, warm and steady.
"Oh well. There’s still plenty of sweets left."
She wasn’t crying because of the sweets.
But at this moment, she didn’t mind if that’s what everyone thought.
Because she knew Shou, and all these warm people, would stay with her until she stopped.
"While Haru’s crying, can I have some more sweets?"
"Lyla, you really need to learn when to not say things."
Shou handed her a piece of butter cake anyway.
The tea party with their little crybaby lasted until the sun began to set.
