Free Web NovelI squeezed my eyes shut.
What do I do? I’m at my limit.
Screeech, clang! Claaang!
Under the unbroken barrage of attacks, the blue shield kept cracking and repairing itself again and again.
I gauged the magic I had left.
Should I call Khalid?
No.
I tightened my grip on Dad’s hand, which I held in one of mine.
Dad is right beside me!
I poured even more force into the magic flowing into Dad.
It was meant to drive away the illusion, but even I had no idea what effect it was actually having inside it.
I stared at the black, seething mass of magical beasts and clenched my teeth.
“Dad, why aren’t you coming...?”
After such a long, difficult time, we had finally met again.
“If things go on like this....”
I forced back the heat gathering in my eyes. My vision kept trying to blur white, but I could not lose consciousness here. I could not cry.
Kreeeeek!
The monsters, sensing in real time that my magic was draining away, lunged even more fiercely. The blue barrier began repairing itself more and more slowly.
This was the limit.
The instant a magical beast’s sharp claw tore through the shield and rushed in to pierce me—
The hand clasped in mine seemed to twitch.
The reason I thought “seemed” was—
“Ah....”
Because the hand I had been clinging to like salvation had vanished before I knew it.
Kraaaagh!
Along with a hideous shriek, fountains of dark-red blood erupted on every side. Sword energy split the air, cutting down without hesitation the monsters that had tried to harm me.
“Haa....”
I felt the hand gripping my shoulder hard tremble and tremble. In the edge of my vision, I saw a black figure standing as if to shield me.
I could not even bring myself to lift my head and check his face. The tension that had climbed all the way to the crown of my head released all at once.
“How dare they try to harm you.”
A firm hand moved me behind him, protecting me. Far back, where even the shadows of the magical beasts could not reach.
“Dad....”
I wiped the tears threatening to spill with my forearm.
Before I knew it, all I could see was Dad’s back, huge as a mountain. My shield, the biggest and strongest in the world.
Blue-flame-like fury pressed heavily down on the air.
Dad, who was not gathering in his energy at all, looked like something no longer human. I had never seen him like this before. My skin stung and prickled. A chill climbed the back of my neck.
“...You waited, didn’t you, Ruby?”
Dad called my name in a slightly cracked voice. In that pressure so suffocating I could barely breathe, it was the only gentle thing.
“Close your eyes and count to ten.”
My throat closed up, and I could only nod. Dad smiled faintly with reddened eyes.
“Good girl.”
I sat on the floor and withdrew the barrier. At that moment, dozens of magical beasts that had lost all reason rushed in at once.
A terrible sound rang out.
The sound of something being split, bursting, breaking.
I obediently covered both ears, closed my eyes, and counted.
I’m not a child anymore.... I can help Dad now, like before.
But I just did as he said.
Because I thought that was what Dad wanted.
When I had wandered battlefields, I had always longed for moments like this. A broad back belonging to an adult who protected exhausted, weary me. Strong arms. A dependable voice.
So perhaps Dad, too....
Might have wanted to protect me like this.
Eight, nine....
Before I knew it, everything around me was quiet.
I tried to shape the final “ten” in my mouth.
But at the same time, someone pulled me violently into his arms, and I could not.
My eyes flew open without hesitation.
“Dad...!”
I felt his ragged breathing and the trembling vibration of his body. My shoulder grew hot and wet.
“Ruby.... Rubian.”
Dad called my name over and over in a tightly suppressed voice.
“Are you hurt? Are you all right? Dad.... I....”
It was the first time I had ever seen him so incoherent, so completely at a loss.
Holding back the sob trying to surge up my throat, I asked as bravely as I could.
“Dad, did you... find out?”
Instead of answering, Dad clenched his teeth.
That silence was the answer.
I deliberately stretched my lips into a smile. I did not know whether it worked, but I did not want Dad to be too sad.
Somehow, I wanted to show him I was all right.
“You know. It’s a little hard to believe, but I’m actually Dad’s real... daughter....”
That was what I tried to do.
I tried to act composed. freēwēbnovel.com
But the moment my eyes met Dad’s, the sorrow I had pressed down so tightly burst out with my tears.
“Why...?”
My face, reflected in those purple eyes, was horribly twisted.
“Why did you lose me...?”
Dad let out an agonized groan and pulled me into his arms again.
“You shouldn’t have lost me.... It was really hard all alone. I was lonely. Why did you lose me.... Why...?”
The truth was, that was how I felt.
From the moment I learned the truth.
I had simply wanted to cry like this.
Dad’s heart, when he found out the child he had buried in a grave had in fact been alive, wandering the battlefield. And Mom’s heart.
The hearts of the family watching all of it.
I had been so busy understanding and grieving for all of them that I had to hold my own heart tightly inside.
I was sad, too.
I felt a little sorry for myself, too.
I resented the world that had driven me here, and I thought it was cruel.
“I hate it. I hate all of it.... Waaah....”
All those emotions burst out as if exploding. Like a child, I blurted out anything that came to mind and sobbed at the top of my lungs.
Dad soothed me in a wet voice and kept stroking my hair and back with his large hand.
“I’m sorry, Ruby.”
“Daaad....”
“I’m sorry Dad was late.”
We had come here after circling a very long way around.
Hurt, broken, knocked down.
Even so, perhaps what mattered was that we had, somehow, reached this place.
Like streams of water swirling along many paths and finally joining as one at the end.
Like roots tangled messily together, only to prove they had always formed one lush tree.
A family that had survived each other’s time roughly, then met again.
That was the conclusion.
Ch. 23
“Ow, ow.”
At my pained groan, Dad startled and pulled his hand away. Red blood spread across the handkerchief.
“Haa, damn it....”
A magical beast’s claw had grazed my calf, exposing raw red flesh.
It was an injury I had received when the barrier was pierced for an instant as the magical beasts appeared all at once.
The wound was deep, but it was not fatal. Though apparently, not to Dad....
“Does it hurt? Still, hold it out. If there’s poison, I need to draw it out. Why won’t the bleeding stop?”
“I used magic to pull out the poison right away, before it could seep in....”
I answered with eyes swollen like a goldfish’s.
“And I made hemostatic salve from the herbs over there and put it on, so the bleeding will stop slowly. But do my eyes look funny?”
“Do your eyes looking funny matter right now?”
Dad frowned, his face soaked in self-reproach. Looking closely, Dad’s eyes were a little goldfish-like, too.
The handsome face examining my wound was terribly serious, darkly sunk.
His thick hand reached out again.
“Owww.”
“...?”
“Ow... ow...?”
“I haven’t touched you yet.”
Thunk. Dad lightly pushed my forehead.
“Ouch! That one was real.” freewebnovёl.ƈom
“Yes, it looked real.”
Haaaaa. With a long sigh, Dad plopped down onto the floor.
Only then did he seem to realize he had fallen into far too much of a panic.
Seeing his brow smooth out, I ended up smiling softly.
“You little faker. Cowardly daughter.”
“That’s right. I’m actually really scared of things. And I hate pain a lot.”
I added it playfully, but Dad grew serious again.
“...I’m sorry, Ruby.”
“Gasp, that’s not what I meant! Crying time is over! Why are you making that gloomy face again? I said it so you’d tease me!”
At that, Dad smiled faintly.
“What do you know about Dad’s heart? Even if I cried and wailed that I was sorry thousands of times, this feeling wouldn’t go away.”
“Mean.... Ah, but it does sting a little.”
“Come here. I’ll blow on it.”
A thin breath settled over my wound.
Feeling that breath, I told Dad everything that had happened.
How I had tested the potion in the lake, returned to Zelox, confirmed the empty grave, and realized that I had been Dad’s dead daughter.
Dad silently listened to everything I said.
“I see. So the grave was empty. And Rosetta... confirmed that, too.”
“Yes.... We were originally going to talk about it together with Mom, but things ended up like this. And we have to find out from here how this body came back to life....”
Another deep sigh followed. Dad fanned my wound with his hand and seemed to sink into his own thoughts.
Watching him, a thought suddenly occurred to me.
...Is this place really inside a novel?
Startled by the thought that had come to me without warning, I shook my head hard.
Then what about my memories from the modern world?
Growing up in the orphanage, being abandoned twice. The memories of those days when I endured and endured, comforted by the novel I had read while carrying a sorrowful heart.
But....
Just like I never knew until now that I was Zebbert’s real daughter.
There might be another hidden {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} truth.
From now on, I decided not to be certain of anything.
“In the end, going to the Magic Kingdom is the answer.”
Dad spoke through grinding teeth, and I nodded. Our next destination had been decided.
