Chapter 13
If rejection were something I was used to, I’d be lying.
It was never easy, whether I was the one doing it or the one on the receiving end. And if those words came from someone close to you, or someone you cherished, they didn’t just leave you uncomfortable; they sank in deep and stayed there, a wound that refused to close.
Just like now.
“Come on, just write our Seo-ah’s three little syllables here.”
“That’s an adoption consent form.”
“Eh, I don’t know about that stuff. Just sign your name.”
“No.”
Why on earth not!
I clutched my chest, which felt as if it might split open, and asked, “Seo-ah, do you hate me?”
“No.”
I faltered for a second at the immediate answer.
That was a direct no, which meant she didn’t hate me. And if she didn’t hate me, that had to mean she liked me, didn’t it?
The corners of my mouth started to rise on their own.
“But becoming family is a little...”
So this was that push-and-pull thing I’d heard about?
What a crafty little devil.
“I don’t really want my mom barging into the shower and shoving something like that in my face.”
“Ah.”
“Please leave.”
Lee Seo-ah, modestly covering her naked body, quietly requested my removal.
I had nothing to say, so I got chased out on the spot.
They say no tree can withstand ten axe blows forever. I wasn’t about to give up.
“Seo-ah, good morning! Would you sign this?”
“Good morning. And no.”
I tried the ordinary route while we walked to school together in the morning, and failed.
Crash!
“Seo-ah! I’ll make you happy! Be my daughter!”
“...Breaking a window and climbing in during class doesn’t seem like the right time for that. No.”
Someone had told me public confessions worked, so I staged a public adoption. It failed.
“Seo-ah!”
“Where did you get our school uniform?”
“I made it! What do you think? Looks good, right?”
“Yes. It suits you.”
“Then—!”
“But a grown adult wandering around school in a middle school uniform is a little questionable.”
If that was the problem, there were ways around it.
Whoosh—
“How about this?”
“Cute.”
“Huh?”
“...Nothing. And becoming smaller doesn’t make you any less of an adult, does it? Honestly, I don’t think this is something a mother should be doing in the first place.”
“Oh? Then?”
“No.”
The tiny hand clutching the Device went limp.
I really thought this one might work. It was a hard blow.
But there was no way I was giving up yet.
“Seo-ah, are you asleep?”
“Eek!”
“Should I sing you a lullaby?”
“Don’t come out from under the bed! You scared me!”
Oh. That much?
“Heh. Our Seo-ah. You’re more timid than you look.”
“...Please leave.”
Lee Seo-ah pointed at the door with a sulky expression.
If I teased her any more, she looked ready to get angry, so I obediently got kicked out.
After that, too.
I kept trying to persuade Lee Seo-ah day after day, Device in hand.
But I was turned down every single time.
And so a week passed.
“Sigh. Kids these days are hard to read.”
“Goreuk. To think you would summon this one out of nowhere and say such nonsense, Master.”
My familiar added that maybe I was up to some insane scheme again.
This goblin bastard had the nerve to pick a fight the moment he met his master again after so long.
Since it had been a while, and he was being irritating, I ought to step on him.
“Kuehk!”
“You idiot. If your master looks discouraged, shouldn’t you at least ask why, you punk?”
My familiar, flattened under the weight of my leather boot, raised his head.
“What is the reason?”
“Damn it. Don’t make me beg while face-down on the floor.”
Still, it was true that I needed help.
So I explained, in all kinds of roundabout fashion, what had happened after my familiar returned to the Abyss.
Listening with his arms folded, the bastard gave a big nod.
“Goreuk. Understood perfectly.”
“Don’t bullshit me. What do you know about human society on Earth?”
“On that point, Master’s words are correct. However, I have understood the position Master currently stands in.”
At his utterly certain tone, I blinked.
This goblin bastard. Did he actually understand it?
“Goreuk. In summary, is this not the situation? Master wants to take in and raise an orphan from another tribe, but the child is refusing. The child has suffered relentless exclusion within the tribe, and Master has dealt with the problems around the child by physical means. Master has hovered nearby and cared for the child with great devotion, and the child does not dislike Master. However, the child refuses to accept Master as a mother. Master does not know why. Is that correct?”
...What. Why was that accurate?
“Hey, who are you? There’s no way Gobra could be this smart.”
“Gobra has always been intelligent. And it is Gobra, not Gobra.”
That couldn’t be right.
Was this bastard actually fake? Had the Abyss swapped him out or something?
“You are making another strange assumption.”
“It’s a rational suspicion.”
“Goreuk. In any case, from Gobra’s perspective, there are three reasons.”
He was dodging the question.
No, more importantly, he knew the reasons? And there were three of them?
“First, Master pressed too hard. It was obvious to Gobra that you must have explained things only roughly, but no doubt you charged ahead and forced through whatever you thought was a problem and whatever you thought would benefit you. You would have acted without even asking that child’s opinion.”
I flinched.
“For example, Master said earlier that you healed that child’s wounds. But the Master Gobra knows does not carry around healing items like potions. So how did you treat them?”
My familiar looked at me with half-lidded eyes.
“Goreuk. Surely you didn’t lick the wound with that wicked tongue of yours?”
“Uh, well.”
“I knew it.”
My familiar shook his head.
“Hey. There were plenty of injuries all over that small, fragile body, so how was I supposed to just leave them alone?”
“There should be medical facilities here as well. It would have been better to entrust the child to one of those places and simply stay nearby.”
“My saliva is way more effective than some place like that!”
It’s a side effect of my Super Regeneration trait, so they really do heal fast.
“That is not the problem. Master, think about it logically. What would a normal human child, one who does not even know what mana is, think of someone who licks their own body to heal them?”
“Uh, then is that not okay?”
The people in the Eighth Legion and His Majesty the Demon King didn’t say anything about it. My master did hate it, though.
“Even goblins do not do that.”
“You bastard. Did you just say I’m worse than a goblin?”
“Goreuk. It is an act fit only for beasts that cannot speak.”
“What was that, punk?”
“Kuehek!”
He was kicked flying and slammed into a ruined building nearby with a loud crash.
“The second reason is that child knows nothing about Master.”
I tilted my head at the familiar, who walked back toward me with debris dusted off his body as if nothing had happened.
“What kind of bullshit is that?”
“What does the child know about Master?”
“How pretty I am?”
“Not that.”
“That I’m insanely strong?”
I’d shown her my Special Class certificate and told her I was a Hunter, so she should know I was strong at least.
“Other than that?”
“Uh, she’d know my name, I guess.”
“You brought her in and tried to raise her without even telling her your name?”
My familiar stared at me in disbelief.
He let out a sigh, then opened his mouth again.
“The child knows you were an old connection from when Master was human. But does the child know that for herself?”
“She d-don’t, right?”
How was I supposed to explain that to Lee Seo-ah?
That I was actually some black-hearted man who had once been a relative of her father?
She was young, but not so young that she didn’t know things. There was no way she’d nod along innocently and think, “Ah, I see.”
“Goreuk. Master. Think from the child’s point of view.”
“From Seo-ah’s point of view?”
“The child does not know the exact reason Master is trying to take her away. To her, you are not some adult from another tribe but a dragon who suddenly appeared, treated her well, and is trying to lure her into becoming your child. From what Master has said, the child does not seem all that naive either. Wouldn’t suspicion come before trust? And what if she followed you obediently, only for Master’s attitude to change?”
“That would never happen!”
“That is what Master thinks. From the child’s perspective, it is entirely possible. If she has already been isolated and bullied by those around her, suspicion would come first all the more. No matter how well you treat her, trust takes far too short a time to grow.”
“...”
Listening to my familiar, I could see how she might think that way.
“Lastly, Master has overlooked one thing.”
“...What?”
“That the child has already lost her parents once at such a young age.”
“...!”
“Hope that appears in the middle of despair is cruel. Rather than seizing it at once, one tends to think about what happens if it is lost again. Many turn away from a hope that has come to find them because they are afraid of that. To borrow a phrase Master once told me...”
That would definitely be something called trauma.
Lee Seo-ah felt herself floating somewhere far away.
It was dark around her, like she was sinking into the depths of the sea.
Fear crept in and tightened around her throat.
Lee Seo-ah did not struggle.
She knew where this was.
She knew, from years of experience, that struggling was pointless.
-Dad. Where are we going?
-Yeah. To see Mom.
-Mom?
Scenes rose up like bubbles, reflected in her dim, sunken eyes.
-Our Seo-ah. Don’t you want to see Mom?
-Nnno. I don’t like her. Seo-ah’s fine with just Dad. I like Dad more.
Right. That woman.
Some woman who only made Dad’s life harder.
No need for her.
-Ahaha. Dad likes Seo-ah more, too.
-Yeah!
-Still, Seo-ah, don’t you want to meet her at least once? You used to want to see Mom when you were even smaller than you are now.
She didn’t know that kind of person existed.
She had only reached for the existence of a mother she herself had never been able to have, out of habit.
So please, don’t go. Please.
Even as she pleaded in her heart, the scene moved on to the next.
-Kyaaah!
-Seo-ah! Run! Hurry!
-Dad! Dad!
Monsters had attacked a city shuttle bus.
As screams filled the air and corpses piled up, her father, pinned beneath the wreckage, stretched out a hand.
She reached back with her short little arm, but they never touched.
She was pulled farther and farther away by someone else’s hand.
Even with blood pouring from his head, her father smiled faintly, relieved that his daughter had survived.
Then a monster as huge as a giant seized him and lifted him up.
The sight of him dropping toward that monstrously gaping mouth was agonizingly slow, agonizingly clear.
She hadn’t known then, but she knew now.
That her father’s eyes had been fixed only on her.
That even until the moment before his lower body vanished, he had been trying to say something.
I love you.
In the end, Lee Seo-ah squeezed her eyes shut.
“Hah!”
Lee Seo-ah snapped awake and came out of the nightmare with a gasp.
She steadied her ragged breathing for a while, then slowly sat up.
Wiping away the dampness at the corners of her eyes, she turned her head without thinking.
On the small table.
A printed photograph, rare these days, sat inside a little frame.
Lee Seo-ah got out of bed and walked over, staring at it with somber eyes.
A handsome, gentle father.
Her own newborn face.
And a woman with her face painted black.
She picked up the photo and buried her face against it.
A single tear, caught in moonlight, fell onto the paper.
“Dad.”
I miss you.