บท 29: Young Child – Gambit
"I swear to god, Dad. If you mess this up after all the work I did, I'm going do some training from hell just so I can beat your ass with a sword."
I muttered under my breath as I used wind magic to dash across the grassy plains and head towards the forest.
It was a big gamble. And the lynchpin to its success was on my dad's sincerity and love for my mom.
To sum things up...
I told my mom about Miss Lilia's situation.
Well, about what I could infer from Miss Lilia's situation.
Basically, I came up with a story about how Dad told me that he stole Miss Lilia's first time and ran off. Also that he regretted it to this day and that the guilt was eating him up on the inside.
After that, I spun a tale about Miss Lilia's life after that encounter from what she had told me throughout the years.
How Dad's actions resulted in her being kicked out of the dojo.
How since she was disgraced there was no guy who would take her.
How she had nowhere left to go and turned in desperation to work at the Asura Kingdom's inner palace as one of those maids.
How she was forced to do unsavory things and how her eyes always turned blank when she brought it up before quickly changing the subject.
And finally how even now her family didn't accept her, but she still sent money back as a way to apologize for their daughter ending up that way.
Then I turned on the waterworks and said how Miss Lilia had nowhere to go and no family. But I thought of her as family... and I thought of all of us as family. And I told her how I wanted us to be a real family. All four of us... and then how I'd be the luckiest kid ever to have two moms.
Finally, to top it all off, I played the guilt trip about how Miss Lilia loved Mom a lot too and was doing her best to not let it bother her. But that it wasn't fair. Mom looked so happy with Dad, and I wanted Miss Lilia to be happy too... so wouldn't it be okay? They already were like sisters, so wasn't it fine?
...Logically, it made zero sense. Well, the reasoning behind Mom accepting Miss Lilia. After all, while I didn't know the customs about marriage in this world, I knew that Mom had every right to just send Miss Lilia packing if it put the marriage between Mom and Dad at risk.
But emotionally...
Well, I didn't have to pretend very hard to turn on the water works.
I really didn't want Miss Lilia to leave. And I really did think of her like another mom.
...If I was being honest, I always did want to call her Mom too. But I couldn't do that to my real Mom.
Ah, Zenith, I mean.
But anyway... I dropped a tactical nuke on my mom's emotional barrier to the whole monogamy thing. She was still resisting it a bit, but I was about 90% sure that she would fold unless my dad did something astronomically stupid.
Which wasn't that unlikely...
But I believed in him.
And if things went super bad... I could always throw a giant temper tantrum and lock them together in a room until they made up/made out.
Considering how horny Dad was, how thick the sexual tension was between him and Miss Lilia, and how into it Mom got after just one kiss, it'd work out somehow. Plus, this was all taking place before the worst case scenario where Dad already snuck in with Miss Lilia and got her pregnant.
If *that* had happened, I didn't even know what the hell I'd do.
Maybe make up some BS about Dad attacking Miss Lilia in the middle of the night and pin the blame on him? But Mom would definitely be completely heartbroken, so I didn't even know where to begin fixing that. Especially since Mom still didn't have any signs of being pregnant despite all her... ahem. Hard work.
Anyway, it should work out. Even if there was a heated argument and someone decided to leave, they'd never do it until I got back. I was sure of that. All of them loved and cared for me too much.
...Which was a strange thing to think about considering that I was probably just making their lives complicated and didn't really do anything that they could be proud of yet. But they did, and I loved them back.
...What was I doing again?
Oh, right.
Dad mentioned this morning that some kids had gone missing in the forest.
I didn't think too much of it at the time, but I noticed that the stupid white mist was hovering around Miss Lilia earlier and shot off after I put my plan into action.
Maybe since that holy tree I made repelled spirits. It was a work in progress since I didn't know how to properly imbue mana traits into objects, let alone living things... but it worked. Kind of.
That tree's make up was similar to a blue rose in that it had changed because I pumped a particular type of mana into it. Like how a white rose changed blue after feeding it dyed water. Because I fed the acorn mana, that mana being the 'Divine Attack' or 'Holy' mana and healing mana, it grew up with a changed nature.
...To be honest, I didn't really know how it worked. Kind of like with Master Roxy's gift, I just cobbled together a bunch of things and prayed it would work. And somehow it did.
Though that was making me think real hard about the nature of magic again considering that it was the second time something like this worked...
Anyway, the forest!
There were kids missing, and that sinister white mist... entity... thing.
You know what? Let's just call it Whitey. No, the voice had been male, so let's call 'him' Whitey.
Anyway, Whitey had flown off towards the forest after I dispelled him from Lilia. Because of that, and because it seemed to be targeting me and my family for some reason, I chased after it.
I didn't know what it was doing or what it planned, but it couldn't be good. And while it didn't seem able to influence anything directly, that whole mind reading/possession thing was spooky-
Huh. Actually, maybe Caspar was a better name?
...Nah. That guy definitely wasn't friendly like the good boy ghost.
Ah, sidetracking again.
Right. So after the whole emotional appeal to my mom and leaving her to sort things out with Miss Lilia while waiting for Dad, I chased after Whitey with my wand in hand.
Wind at my heels, the blue sky above... and a dense white mist slowly shrouding the forest.
Damn.
Whitey was plotting something. I could feel it.
Seeing that, I sped up my pace... making sure to keep a bunch of barrier spells up just in case I missed and smacked into something.
And after a few minutes, I arrived at the forest.
...I think I saw my dad run past me, but he seemed to be lost in thought, so he didn't notice me.
Good luck, Dad! I'm kicking your ass with magic if you mess this up!
...Anyway, I landed on the ground at the edge of the forest.
There were a bunch of people around. All guys and all armed.
"Who's there!?"
A male archer immediately turned towards me, notching an arrow on his bow. Said archer was also an elf.
Realizing that and definitely not willing to risk finding out if that elf was as good as most elves were said to be at shooting, I held up my hand and said, "Rudeus Greyrat! I'm Paul's kid!"
"Rudeus... Rudy?" The man... elf... Elf man? Anyway, the guy lowered his bow and sighed. "Sorry. I'm just... I'm just a bit stressed." He let out a tired smile and held out his hand. "I'm Laws. Your dad and I do patrols in the forest every now and then."
I shook his hand. "Nice to meet you, Mister Laws!" I took a look around and tilted my head. "What's happening though? My dad said that there was something this morning, but he didn't say much else."
"Hm?" Laws tilted his head and said, "Didn't you run into Paul on his way back?"
"I think we missed each other. But..." I drew my wand and looked into the forest. "Do you need my help? I'm not Master Roxy, but I'm pretty good at magic now."
Laws hesitated. "That's..."
"Laws!" A village guard walked over and said, "We think we've found it, but we can't get in! There's a strange mist that keeps sending our guys out. But a few people said they've seen a small figure running through the mist, so..."
"Luffy?!" Laws ran up to the guy and grabbed the man's shirt. "You've seen her? Where?!"
I blinked. "...Luffy?"
And a her? That was a weird name for a girl...
Laws looked back at me and hesitated again. He seemed like he wanted to ask me something.
And then a shrill scream cut through the air. A young girl's.
Laws' eyes widened and he started running into the forest.
"Wait! Laws!" The village guard tried to grab him, but Laws brushed the man's hand off.
"I don't care! It's because of your kids that she's in there!"
The village guard flinched. "That's..."
Because of their kids...?
Wait.
Whitey, elf girl, kids...
"Argh, think later, dummy!" I scolded myself and waved my wand, gathering wind at my feet.
There was someone's life at stake here! I could think about how and why later!
After that, I kicked off the ground and flew into the air, landing on the tree branches.
Laws noticed me. This time he didn't hesitate. "Rudy! Please! Please save my daughter!"
"Don't worry, Mister Laws!" I waved at him and said, "I'll find her!"
Now... that village guard said that there was a strange mist.
Whitey was usually invisible, so that meant that it had to be an area where his mana was particularly thick. And so...
"There."
I saw it.
A small patch deep in the middle of the forest, completely blanked out by white fog.
Every second counted, so...
"I sure as hell hope these barrier spells work... and that if they don't, that <Healing X> works on broken bones..." I gulped and then waved my wand with my right hand.
Six magic circles flashed. All of them wind magic.
At the same time, I held out my left hand and formed five barrier magic circles on each finger, before activating each. And then...
"Here goes noth- AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!"
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