Chapter 71
Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Butterfly Soup
Tsukiyo followed them all the way home.
Rione made no secret of her discomfort, but perhaps because Enoch didn't seem to mind much, she didn't protest too strongly.
And surprisingly, Enoch didn't have a bad impression of Tsukiyo at all. She wasn't human, which was a plus; there was no malice in her actions, another plus; and her strength was impressive, yet another plus.
She had lost some points for her harsh words toward Rione a few times, but even that didn't really bother him.
His instincts were spot on, after all. For Enoch, who trusted his gut for most judgments, anyone who gave him a good feeling was a good person.
"...So you're coming inside the house?"
"Yeah. Can't I?"
"It's not that you can't..., but she's not planning to spend the night, right...?"
Rione shot her a glare, and Tsukiyo snorted.
"Hmph, I have no intention of sticking around forever. I'll just stay for a bit."
Tsukiyo wagged her tail as she approached and plopped down on Enoch's lap, making herself comfortable...
"What are you doing...!!!"
Rione exploded in fury. Undine barely managed to stop her from drawing her sword and cried out in horror.
[This crazy cat...! Get down now!? You're gonna get fucked!]
"What's the problem with me getting along with my butler a little?"
Tsukiyo sprawled out fully on Enoch's lap and purred.
Following his instincts, Enoch scratched under Tsukiyo's chin. She stretched her chin out and purred like a regular cat.
"Hmm."
Maybe keeping a cat around wouldn't be so bad? Enoch pondered seriously.
Undine, meanwhile, was on the verge of losing her mind and jumping around.
[And why are you going along with it...!]
Couldn't he feel this silent pressure? At this rate, that cat could end up as butterfly soup.
"Hoo...! Hoo...!"
Rione stifled her ragged breaths of anger and finally unleashed a power she rarely used, at full force. She didn't draw her sword; it was the Eye of Truth, a faint ability most elves possessed.
Light gathered in her emerald eyes as she scanned Tsukiyo. An elf's eyes could discern truth from lies, and high elves were said to pierce even into the heart.
It wasn't true mind-reading, but they could gauge emotions to some extent, which was why Rione slightly quelled her killing intent at what she sensed from Tsukiyo.
'At least she's not targeting him rationally.'
She was tempted to peek into Enoch's emotions too..., but no, that would be cowardly and pathetic.
Tsukiyo? That one's just a cat, not a person, so it's fine.
Anyway, what a relief. She'd been wondering if butterfly soup was on the menu tonight, but it didn't seem like it would come to that.
"Eek...!"
Still, she couldn't help being pissed. That spot was hers. No random cat she'd just met today could claim it.
"Huh...?"
Rione grabbed Tsukiyo by the scruff and hurled her away, reclaiming Enoch's lap. She planted her butt firmly on it with a triumphant smile.
"...Rione."
"Yeah?"
"...Never mind."
The soft, squishy sensation flustered Enoch a bit, but it wasn't a big deal.
*
Offended, Tsukiyo stood in the courtyard on one foot and one hand. No one knew why. Enoch just shrugged it off and sat down casually in front of her.
"So, what's my problem?"
He'd followed her to the courtyard because she'd said she had one piece of advice for him.
"Hmm, it's not exactly a 'problem,' per se."
Tsukiyo flicked her tail, flipping onto the top of the fence like a rag drying in the wind.
"So?"
"Butler, you know too much."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. From what I saw in our spar, you've got magic, martial arts, spirit arts, divine powers, and even some unclassifiable grappling techniques. Don't you forget about some of them sometimes?"
"I do, but they all come back when I need them."
Rolling over on the fence, Tsukiyo said,
"Even I could tell. It feels like they're all tied together from the start. Am I right?"
"Thousand Kills Thunder God Divine Art?"
"What a grandiose name."
Mm-hmm, Tsukiyo nodded along, then hopped down to land right in front of Enoch.
"But it was still overkill. You have to let go of what you can let go."
"Rione didn't say anything."
Twitch, Rione's ears perked up as she peeked out from behind the door. Tsukiyo gave her a pitiful look and clicked her tongue.
"Even I, who just met her today, could tell that elf is a total pushover. She'd make a huge fuss praising you just for emptying a bowl of rice."
"Oh."
How'd she know? Tsukiyo looked startled at Enoch's gaze.
"R-Really, meow?"
"Yeah."
Enoch, the genius of eating. Even he had felt a bit weird about it back then. Later, it seemed like he'd get praised just for breathing.
"How does a disciple like you come out from under a master like that...?"
"Rione's a great teacher."
"No. I can say for sure. You're just a genius."
Truth be told, the Sword Queen wasn't wrong. With the butler's talent, he might one day weave all these together into something new.
But that would take too much time. Better to discard what he could, climb higher with a lighter body, and merge them later.
The Sword Queen had probably just let him do whatever he wanted, or didn't want to nitpick unnecessarily.
Or maybe some pushover thought like, 'If it's Enoch, he can handle it.'
Haa... Tsukiyo sighed and waved dismissively at Rione, who was still peeking out with just her eyes.
"Anyway, Sword Queen, off you go. You're sparring with the butler again in a few days, right? Get ready to be shocked then."
*
Pouting, Rione went back inside and sealed off her senses.
"Hmph, stupid cat. Discard what? Enoch will handle everything just fine on his own."
Grumbling, she straddled a chair at the dining table. Since things had turned out this way, she'd use the spare time to search for the fragments of emotion her father had mentioned.
"Since we share the same root, it shouldn't be hard to find... It must be related to the meditation art, right?"
[Probably. Otherwise, we'd have to scour the entire continent, and that'd take forever.]
Nodding at Undine's words, Rione slowly closed her eyes.
She sank into her inner world like diving into still water. There stood a colossal tree piercing the heavens, the foundation of Estor and the culmination of nearly nine centuries of accumulated time.
The Tree Essence Art, founded by Kyle Estor, was based on the foundational meditation art passed down through the Estor family.
It was the same basic one Enoch had learned. She'd planned to teach him the Tree Essence Art once he grew a bit, but he'd gone and created his own, so there'd been no need.
In any case, Rione and Kyle shared the meditation art. Their inner worlds might differ, but they shared the same soil.
This bond held greater meaning than mere blood ties, and as Kyle had said, she could likely sense the location of his lost emotional fragments through a kind of resonance.
Rione extended the branches of the great tree in her inner world. They stretched out like vines climbing the sky-piercing trunk, eventually blanketing the entire continent—not just in her mind, but overlapping into reality.
Even for Rione, it was grueling work; sweat poured down her face. That's when she detected a faint presence.
'This place...'
She couldn't pinpoint the exact spot. But it wasn't too vast an area, so she narrowed it down somewhat.
'The Kingdom of Tetica.'
Coincidentally, the nation connected to the elven alliance via the dungeon.
Rione opened her eyes and narrowed them.
"Coincidence?"
Her spirit, linked to her mind, replied.
[Who knows. We don't even know how many fragments there are. Could be.]
"Somehow, I doubt it."
[Then that's probably it, huh.]
Rione sighed at Undine's nonchalant response.
"For now, then when Enoch leaves, I'll head to Tetica..."
Thud thud thud-!
Urgent knocking was followed by the door bursting open.
"Lady Rione! Big trouble!"
"Yonia?"
"Monsters seem to have crossed into Tetica!"
Rione shot up from her seat. Tetica was quite a distance away. So what Yonia meant was obvious.
"Through the dungeon?"
"Yes!"
Damn... Rione furrowed her brow.
When she'd gone in with Enoch, the entrance had been hidden inside the spatial pocket, but time must have caused it to emerge outside.
'Should've pushed myself and destroyed it back then.'
Clicking her tongue, Rione hurried her steps. Enoch was already staring at her intently, as if he'd heard the news from Yonia.
"Rione, heading to Tetica?"
"Yeah. Gotta hurry."
"Do you really have to go?"
It was a perfectly reasonable question. Especially from Enoch. He paid astonishingly little attention to his surroundings.
All his focus was solely on Rione herself.
"Hehe..."
Tsukiyo stared at her sudden goofy grin with a shit-eating expression. But Rione, having thoroughly learned obliviousness from Enoch, didn't care.
"For one, they're monsters that came through the elven alliance. Beyond responsibility, it's the right thing to help."
"Is it?"
"Yeah. If it were the capital, maybe not, but it's a small territory connected to the dungeon. If we leave it, lots of people will die."
"Mm."
Rione smiled wryly. She knew it, but he really didn't care about others at all.
That wasn't wrong. No one could blame Enoch for not caring about them.
Some angsty kids read novels and spout off about how protecting the weak is a strong man's duty, but Rione didn't buy it.
There was no such duty. Whether out of goodwill or soft-heartedness, a strong person helping the weak was purely their own choice.
Shirking rights while claiming duties might be unethical, but bluntly put, no one had contributed anything to Enoch's strength.
If anything, all the young Enoch had received from humans were wounds. It had soured even Rione's feelings toward them.
But,
"Enoch. What if you got hurt?"
"You? No way."
Enoch snorted, his face full of trust. Rione couldn't possibly get hurt. Maybe because he'd glimpsed her newfound strength; there wasn't a hint of doubt in him.
"The emperor could show up out of nowhere and attack you."
"The emperor, really?"
Enoch tilted his head. Eri, who had popped out, sighed.
[Daddy, come on. It's just a hypothetical.]
"Oh, right..."
Enoch closed his eyes and thought deeply. Then he flinched, a thick vein bulging at the corner of his eye.
"...Hard to imagine, but if it happened, I'd kill him."
If even a single scratch was left on Rione. No, even if she emerged unscathed, anyone who attacked her had to die, no matter what.
"It's like that. If people die to monsters, their families will grieve as much as you would. They might even hold grudges against the elves, not just the monsters."
"Hm... Yeah."
This time, Enoch got it right away. Logically, it was dumb, but if someone indirectly caused Rione even the slightest harm, Enoch would rip them limb from limb.
"You have the power to stop it. You can't prevent every disaster, but you can handle something right in front of you."
Rione smiled faintly. It was a mature expression he hadn't seen in a while.
"Leaving it be would just make me uncomfortable. In the end, it's all for my peace of mind."
"Yeah."
It wasn't particularly relatable, but if Rione said so, that settled it. If it eased her mind, great.
"Perfect timing, then."
Tsukiyo, who had been listening quietly, jumped up and climbed onto Enoch's shoulders. Caught off guard into giving her a piggyback, Enoch looked up.
"For what?"
"No matter what, adding some real-world practice accelerates growth."
True enough. Enoch nodded, and Tsukiyo thrust her arm out dramatically.
"Then let's go! The gold mine awaits there!"
"Not that way."
"...Anyway, time to head out, nyang!"