Published at 18th of January 2020 7:30 pm

Volume 3, Chapter 3: The Young Girl and the Woman Who Was Her Natural Enemy

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

For a while now, Kenneth had been Latina’s primary conversation partner. It wasn’t Dale, who she always said she loved so much, or Rita, who was the same gender as her, but Kenneth.

She most certainly didn’t think of Dale as unreliable. She was well aware that he was her guardian and that he was responsible for her actions.

Dale was someone special and very precious to Latina, and that was precisely why she was so afraid of him coming to dislike her. She was worried she’d upset him by causing him trouble. And as a result, she saw being selfish or burdening him with her problems as weighing him down, which she didn’t want to do.

Lately, Dale been giving her far more attention and affection than was fitting for someone her age, so she wasn’t as eager to deal with him as she used to be. She no longer took care to make sure she wasn’t seen as a child. As proof that she now let her guard down around others, she held each mistake and bit of mischief as precious and used them to make the adults around her smile. Old habits did die hard, though.

Rita was always dealing with customers and paperwork at the counter in the Dancing Ocelot. Latina was a very serious girl by nature, so she thought it wouldn’t do to bother Rita while she was working.

Ever since Latina first came to the Ocelot, she spent a lot of time with Kenneth in the kitchen. A big reason for that was because she had an interest in cooking and she could learn while helping him out. As Kenneth was a reliable “master” who was tolerant and good at looking after others by nature, it was also only natural that Latina ended up depending on him.

Right now, though, Kenneth was terribly bewildered. Latina was in front of him, looking downhearted and staring at the ground.

He’d known that this tiny girl had a great number of secrets hidden away in the depths of her heart. But even so, he had never imagined that one of those secrets would cause him to feel so uncomfortable.

It started with her talking about her mother.

As Kenneth listened to Latina talk about the woman, whom she’d never

mentioned before, he let out a sigh, playing with the half-peeled potato in his hands all the while.

The whole problem had started with Helmine staying here in the Dancing Ocelot.

Dale sent word of his return to Duke Eldstedt soon after making it back to Kreuz, and just as Helmine had said, he received notice of an upcoming operation to subjugate demons. The reply also noted that his visiting the capital to give an official report of his return could wait until when the time came for the job.

The scent of a coming blaze apparently drifted about the small neighboring countries, so as prime minister of Laband, the duke was terribly busy.

Such matters fell outside the jurisdiction of someone like Dale, who specialized in dealing with demons and demon lords.

A private message from his friend Gregor, stating that he was busy on a mission guarding his father and brothers, was included along with the letter from the duke.

Apparently, it was true that Helmine had business in Kreuz, as she headed all over town meeting up with old friends. Because she was a flashy woman, a rarity in the Ocelot, she was an obvious target for gossip.

She had no intention of probing into Helmine’s movements, but Latina naturally ended up hearing about them regardless. And as always, that put her in a bad mood.

This time around, everyone was well aware of what was going on, but Latina wasn’t any good at hiding her feelings. She had always been friendly towards others up until this point and would greet them with a smile, so they never figured she would act like this. But perhaps these frequent mood swings were a characteristic of hers, too.

Latina wore her usual smile, but the displeasure written on her face was, to put it simply, because she wasn’t good at dealing with Helmine. Her overly obvious reaction made this a widely known fact not just to Helmine herself, but to the customers in the shop as well.

If we may digress, the day that Dale and Latina returned, the number of customers was a little low for the Dancing Ocelot, but the day after that, the shop was far more bustling than the norm. The news of the return of the shop’s signature cute little waitress spread from one of the regulars, a gatekeeper from the southern district, to the rest of them through some sort of information network. Those regulars made a plan. They decided to let the Platinum Fairy

Princess, everyone’s idol, rest up on the day she made it back from her trip. For that reason, they suppressed their desire to see her and held themselves back from visiting on that day. After all, if the serious young girl saw that the shop was busy, she’d start helping out rather than worrying about taking care of herself. And in that case, it was better to avoid such a situation to start with.

But as a result of that buildup, the shop was absolutely packed the next day. There weren’t even enough seats for the customers, so wine barrels were brought out into the storefront to serve as temporary tables, around which customers stood and drank. Seeing the old folks’ intimidating faces all turn to smiles as they lovingly watched the young girl happily run about the shop working, Dale and Kenneth let out a sigh, realizing that it may have been no mere rumor that the regulars of the Dancing Ocelot had started a non-profit organization of Kreuz adventurers, a Latina fan club.

Helmine was there as well, and Latina looked displeased, but the woman simply found that amusing. Nobody else was able to get between the two of them, and Dale in particular was left clutching his stomach.

Being treated like a little kid by Helmine upset Latina greatly. She’d never been fond of her small build, so she was especially sensitive to words like “little.” When Dale or Kenneth said she was small, she didn’t look overly displeased because she sensed it came out of affection towards her. But it seemed not just anyone had permission to say such things.

Helmine was a bad opponent for her.

While watching Latina wipe the counter, Helmine rested her chin on her hands and, only smiling with her eyes, said, “You really are an adorable little lady.”

“Latina’s busy working right now,” she firmly responded, self-conscious of how she looked and sensing that Helmine was calling her “young.”

Since Latina was short, she needed to stretch her arms and stand on tip-toes in order to clean the corners of the counter. Seeing her work so hard was enough to make even someone who wasn’t a doting idiot like Dale break out in a goofy smile.

“There’s a lot of things you can only do when you’re a kid, so you don’t need to be in such a hurry to grow up,” Helmine responded calmly, already a mature adult herself. She knew that Latina saw her as an enemy, but she just laughed it off as the actions of a child.

Latina puffed her cheeks up in response to Helmine’s laughter. That habit itself was a childish one, but such things usually weren’t conscious actions to begin with.

Latina had an inferiority complex about being a child. She couldn’t help but find Helmine’s words disagreeable when the woman stood in the superior position of being an adult.

“Latina will grow up soon,” Latina replied, then turned around and rushed into the kitchen. Helmine was a customer, so she couldn’t follow the young girl there, making it a safe zone.

When Latina entered the kitchen, her shoulders were squared up and she was fuming, but the moment she reached her usual spot and sat down, she deflated like a balloon.

Latina seemed to be thinking hard over something as she stared down at the floor.

Kenneth put down a bucket full of vegetables with a thud and sat next to her. He started silently working without asking her anything; he was just waiting by her side until she was ready to talk.

“Kenneth...” she whispered quietly after a while.

“What is it?” he replied, still not stopping his hands. Kenneth had come to understand her quite well over the past few years, so he knew that it was easier for her to talk if he acted nonchalant.

“Will Latina get bigger when she’s an adult...?”

“You may be smaller than your friends, but you’ve gotten taller than when you first got here, right? You really are growing.”

“Right...”

Even so, Latina’s expression didn’t lighten up. She brought her hands to her chest and let out a deep sigh.

“Latina may not get big, even when she becomes an adult... Rag said Latina was a lot like Mov.”

“Mov?”

“Yeah... Mov was small, so Latina may stay small, too...”

Having never heard the word before, Kenneth repeated his question, taking a guess at the meaning.

“Who’s Mov, Latina?”

“Latina’s female parent... her mother.”

Just as he’d thought, it really was a person’s name: that of her mother. Kenneth realized how unusual it was for Latina to be bringing up her mother.

But despite the surprising and sudden topic, he kept on skillfully handling his knife, not letting how shaken he was show.

“What sort of person was your mother?” Kenneth asked, seizing this chance. “Mov was small. Latina’s hair and horn color came from Rag, but her horn shape and face apparently resemble Mov’s,” Latina replied, then let out another sigh. “Mov was an adult, but she was small. The customers say that bigger is better, too. Does Dale like big ones as well...?” she muttered.

“Hmm...?”

Kenneth noticed something was off. He felt a discrepancy between what she was saying and what he’d been thinking. He stopped midway through peeling a potato and looked over at Latina. She was looking down and seemed depressed... and both her hands were on her chest. “Latina...?”

“What?”

“What did you mean when you said your mother was small...?” “Her chest...”

The first thing he learned about Latina’s mother... was that she had small breasts.

That was just too ridiculous, and even Kenneth couldn’t help but be thrown off. Couldn’t she at least talk to Rita when it came to things like this?

“How about talking to Rita....?”

Kenneth said it reflexively the second it came to mind, but for some reason Latina turned pale.

“Rita isn’t big.”

Well, it was true that his wife was more of a slender beauty. But it wasn’t like she didn’t have them at all. That certainly wasn’t the case.

“You can’t ask someone who isn’t big about that. Latina asked Mov why she was small a long time ago, and she almost got her cheeks pinched off.”

Apparently Latina had asked her mother about it straight and gotten scolded harshly as a result. It must have been quite terrifying, as she was now holding both hands to her trembling cheeks.

“I see...”

Now that she mentioned it, Helmine had a rather womanly figure in that regard. This may have been a matter beyond his realm of understanding, though.

“How about... drinking some milk?” “Will Latina get bigger?”

“Well, that’s a myth...” he said in consolation.

Sure enough, Kenneth didn’t have extensive knowledge about large breasts. He couldn’t offer any help beyond such folk tales. And should he share this information with Dale? Just what sort of face would the other man make when Kenneth broached the topic? And just who was the idiot who taught Latina that “bigger is better”?

While continuing to peel potatoes, Kenneth sought answers for such unanswerable questions.

†

The school that Latina and the other children of Kreuz attended in the temple of Asfar was a facility meant to teach them only what was necessary. As a result, their studies weren’t difficult, and their education only lasted for a short period of time. The standard was to just teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. Add in a rough overview of the history and geography of Laband and its neighboring countries, and you had the full curriculum.

Depending on the household, children were also sometimes an important source of labor. There were some families that weren’t happy having them wrapped up in going to school for so long. Because of that, after graduating from primary schooling, it wasn’t required to continue on to advanced schooling, which was an option meant for households with the means or for those who wanted to keep learning.

Primary school students left home in the morning and returned just past noon, so it didn’t take up too much time each day. Many children would wait until they got home to eat lunch, but Latina would always eat and chat together with her friends at school.

Since Latina was studying cooking, she made her own lunches. She polished her skills day by day under Kenneth at the Dancing Ocelot, but it was difficult to find time to let her cook from start to finish in the busy kitchen. And so, once she finished helping with the food preparation for the morning, Latina borrowed a corner of the kitchen to make her own lunch as independent practice. Since she made it herself, she was interested in what others thought, and thanks to the natural flow of things, Latina ended up showing off her lunches to her friends, Chloe and Sylvia. When Rudy realized this, he dragged along his childhood friends, Anthony and Marcel, and heavily insisted that they should eat lunch together with the girls. As everyone but Latina found it hard to say anything, simply exchanging gazes with a mix of teasing and pity, Rudy gained an opportunity to occasionally sample Latina’s home cooking.

This occurred on one such usual day.

“By the way, why does Rudy have Latina’s horn?”

Latina’s sudden question made Rudolph Schmidt spit food from his mouth. “Rudy, that’s gross...”

Not even taking time to worry about Latina’s frown, he looked over at his other friends. The one he was most suspicious of was Chloe, who currently looked surprised. The runner-up was Sylvia, who seemed to find this amusing. Anthony also looked shocked, but he never betrayed Rudy at times like this, and besides, he trusted his old friend. Marcel had a wide grin on his face, but, well, that was the norm for him.

“Wuh, wuh, wuh...” Rudy uttered incomprehensibly, his face turning a shade of red that wouldn’t lose out to the hair on his head.

“Hmm? Why?” Latina innocently stared straight at Rudy. She didn’t seem especially concerned by how shaken he was.

“Why...? You’re just imagining things, Latina...” Rudy said, reflexively grasping his necklace.

“Hmm? But that’s Latina’s. She can tell just by looking,” Latina stated, tilting her head.

Rudy figured that the black shard on a leather strap dangling from his neck would just look like a well-polished stone to the others. That had been the case for everyone else, so he underestimated his friends, who knew the circumstances behind it, and figured they wouldn’t know what it was either. But Latina had seen right through it. Of all people, it was the one he wanted to know least who had figured it out, and that really shook him up.

“You figured that out just by looking at it, Latina?” Sylvia asked, finding this curious.

“Yeah.”

Looking at Latina’s expression, it was clear that she didn’t know why everyone found this so odd.

“Everyone else can’t tell?”

“It looks like a stone. It’s a deeper black and glossier than an animal’s horn.” “Hmm... Um, Latina can see a sort of mana presence. Can you all not see that?”

“I don’t get what you mean.”

Latina tilted her head and thought on what Sylvia and Chloe had said, and after a while, she looked up and said, “Now that you mention it... Um, Dale told Latina that what she sees may be a bit different than what everyone else does.”

That was the conclusion Dale had come to when Latina was able to easily tell individuals apart in the beastman village. Devils had greater abilities than the other races, so it was possible that she was able to see something that humans couldn’t.

“That’s amazing.”

“Really? Anyway, why do you have it?”

Rudy was praying that the discussion would keep on flowing and leave the matter unsettled, but he was left lamenting how that prayer went unfulfilled, his gaze darting to the right and left as he searched for a way out.

“That’s... you see...” “‘You see’?”

As Latina cutely tilted her head, Rudy gulped. “Because it was unusual...” he responded.

His friends were all shooting disapproving stares at him.

Right. He knew that response was no good, too. He was well aware, so he just wanted them to leave him be.

However, the cute little girl before them far exceeded their expectations. With a brimming smile and a joyous expression, she said, “I see. It’s unusual, huh?”

She accepted that...?

Each and every one of them whispered that in their minds.

The young girl was clever, but she was off in some strange ways. “Chloe, you have one too, right?”

“Yeah. Your horn’s beautiful, Latina.”

“That makes Latina happy for some reason. Thank you, Chloe.”

With a bashful smile, Latina accepted far too easily that that was the only reason Rudy had her horn.

Anthony and Marcel both slapped a hand on one of Rudy’s shoulders at the same time as if to say, “Please, just leave it at that.”

The lunchtime discussion then shifted to Latina’s “natural enemy” of late. She wasn’t able to complain about her to her guardians, but she could easily do so around her friends.

“She’s always telling Latina ‘You’re so small’ and ‘It’s because you’re tiny’! She’s awful!” Latina grumbled with puffed-up cheeks, a sight that Chloe and Sylvia had grown accustomed to seeing. “Latina’s still in training, but she is working. Kenneth even praised her skill. You can’t say that about a little kid!”

Latina was a far more reliable worker than some unskilled adult. In addition to working at the Ocelot, she also managed Dale’s share of the housework on top of her own. And from looking at how her homemade lunch had turned out, it seemed clear that her cooking skills were also progressing smoothly.

Latina was far more self-reliant than her age would imply. She was also much more prideful than you’d think from looking at her cute exterior. She couldn’t stand being judged as being just a “little kid.”

“Latina wants to hurry up and become an adult...” she said, looking depressed as she stared at the ground. She’d done that a lot since Helmine showed up. “If Latina were an adult, she wouldn’t have to stay behind... She’d definitely be able to help Dale out a lot more, too... And Dale would understand Latina a lot better...”

Latina was in a bad mood and depressed because of her guardian. And she was also so rashly competing with the adult woman because she was frustrated that she was a child.

Not realizing that the gloomy feelings swirling about his own heart were the same sort that Latina had, Rudy ended up opening his mouth without thinking and shouting, “Well, you are small, Latina!”

“Latina’s growing properly!”

“See, you still refer to yourself in the third person, like a baby!” He actually found that habit of hers cute, but he ended up unthinkingly spouting out words that were the opposite of what he felt.

That single line from Rudy inflicted great damage. “Huh...? What...? Like a baby...?”

Staggering a bit, Latina became lost in her own thoughts.

Rita, and Miss Clarissa... Granny’s a bit different, though...

Still dizzy, she recalled the adult women that she knew. Then she looked around at her friends’ faces.

“Wah...”

What a shock! Even though it was Rudy saying it, he may have been right! Finally, the adorable little girl she had befriended came to mind.

“Latina’s the same as Maya?!” Maya was still just a toddler.

Even though it had come from Rudy, he was right!

With the shock from this realization clearly written on her face, Latina sunk down, heartbroken, as the strength drained from her body.

†

This occurred at night on the day of that shocking discovery.

Dale was alone at the counter of the Dancing Ocelot, sipping away at a glass of alcohol. Latina was still a child, so her work ended before the nightshift. When it was this late, she was already dreaming away. The number of customers in the shop had also shrunk considerably. As there weren’t streetlights throughout the town, nobody really moved around late at night.

As the hustle and bustle of the shop had quieted down, the sound of ice rattling about in his glass could be heard clearly.

Dale looked up briefly as the woman with slender shoulders entered the Dancing Ocelot, only to return his gaze to the glass in his hand.

“Were you meeting an old boyfriend again?” “Oh my, are you jealous?”

“Of course not. I’m just feeling pity for the guy,” Dale sighed, and Helmine laughed and sat next to him at the counter.

She really hadn’t changed at all since when he first met her. She may deny it herself, but whenever he ran into her like this, he wasn’t able to find even a single difference. Apparently, that was also true for people who had known her longer, like Kenneth.

“You should just scoop up someone passable and settle down already...” “So you can say things like that now. You’ve gotten older.”

“I’m plenty old enough, as far as us humans go.”

“That may be so,” Helmine said with a giggle and a smile as Dale took another sip from his glass, looking a bit appalled. He had no intention of drinking himself into a stupor, but he also couldn’t face this she-fox sober.

Helmine called over Rita to bring her some liquor as well. He saw her slender fingers fluttering in the corner of his vision.

“Don’t be so quick to apply your common sense to us.” “Is that a lecture?”

“It’s advice.” Helmine kept talking as she swirled the glass in her hand, making the ice clink all the while. “It’s just not possible. It might sound virtuous to talk about spending your whole life with feelings for just one person like you humans do, but it’s not realistic.”

Looking at her from the side, as her long eyelashes cast shadows on her face, was like staring into an abyss, which you wouldn’t expect from her youthful appearance.

“Just think about it. Even when two people are the same race, it isn’t rare for there to be a gap of several hundred years. If your partner were to die first, could you go on living thinking of them for the rest of your years? That’s just too cruel... That’s why those of us from races with long lifespans don’t choose special partners. The deeper you care for someone, the harder it is to part with them.”

Dale silently listened to Helmine’s words while staring into his glass. He thought of his precious child’s smile. Someday, he’d pass away, leaving her behind. What could he do for her until that time came?

“Still, you really don’t have any integrity, do you...? Just how many men’s weaknesses have you preyed on?”

“Oh my, don’t put it like that. You all just age too quickly, always leaving me behind.”

“I’m telling you, that’s no excuse for always aiming for guys who are practically still just little brats.”

“It just kind of happens to turn out that way. And I like to think that I have a good eye for men.”

Helmine’s words weren’t entirely off the mark, as many of the men she had wrapped around her finger in the past were famed for being second to none. They all held bittersweet memories, from back when they were young and inexperienced, of the woman named Helmine.

“And I’m pretty faithful, I’d say. I’ve never two-timed anyone.”

“It’d be simpler if you were that type of woman... Then I could just hate you.”

“Really?” said Helmine, giggling once more.

Dale may not have been good at dealing with her, but he couldn’t bring himself to hate or despise her. Those other men surely felt the same way about her, too.

“Unlike men, women live bearing risks, you know? If the chance came around, I’d like to meet a man I wouldn’t mind having children with.”

“How blunt...”

“It’s because you’ve become an adult... and a father.”

As she said that, she spoke with the tone of someone talking to their kid brother and her face held the composure of someone older.

“Why do you think people like me are called half-elves?”

It was normal for those born with the characteristics of two races to be called mixes, but only those born to a human and an elf were called “halves.” Not knowing the reason for that, Dale shook his head.

“In addition to humans, elves can also have mixed children with angels. But the two races’ values are just too different, so they never associate with one another to start with.”

Angels were even shorter-lived than humans. They stuck to their own villages and lived according to their own cycle. There were also very few of them. The area they lived in also didn’t overlap with the elves’ territory, so elf- angel mixes were virtually nonexistent.

“That ‘half’ is key. Half-elves only live half as long as pureblooded elves. But that’s still an excessively long life compared to humans... And so we’re left alienated. Do you get it?”

Dale silently shook his head, so Helmine continued on, like a teacher admonishing her student.

“Elves are different than devils. It takes time for them to reach maturity. Far too long, compared to humans. A human parent can’t raise a half-elf child. And...”

A dark shadow fell over Helmine’s face. There was a bitterness mixed into her voice.

“An elf parent’s half-elf child will grow old and die before them.”

“Does this have something to do with your list of lovers...?”

“It does. I don’t have a need for anything but a human or half-elf child. If I get together with anyone but a human man, then there’s a chance of birthing a child of some other race, right?”

She glossed over her bitter expression with her impish actions as she easily uttered that vivid line.

“If I’m with a man from another race, there’s a chance I could become pregnant with an elf. In that case, I wouldn’t be able to raise the child. I just wouldn’t be around long enough... Well, at any rate, the odds are low to begin with.” The races with long lifespans had low birthrates.

Dale reflected internally how he had thought of her as just “playing around.” He washed away his youthful memories with the contents of his glass.

“Why are we suddenly talking about this...?”

“Who knows? I wonder...” Helmine said, giggling once more and hiding away the bitter expression she’d just shown. She may have still been off in some place that he still couldn’t reach. “We long-lived races have our own troubles, and our own reasons too. Don’t forget that even your human reasoning can hurt us. You’re a parent, right?”

He obviously knew who she meant. He figured with her powers of observation, Helmine had already realized.

“Someday, after I die, will you help Latina out...?”

“I don’t want to,” Helmine bluntly responded. She looked at Dale, a gentle smile showing in her eyes as they narrowed. “If she’s precious to you, then you’ve got to live for as long as you can, alright?”

The ice in the now-empty glass let out a high-pitched clink.

Share