86 - Volume 10 - Chapter 9.2

Fido, Extra: The Parents’ Tale

Noticing the younger brother’s voice had gone quiet, I looked up from the drawing paper. I saw the younger brother had fallen asleep, his body still fixed in the posture in which he’d scribbled and drawn.

He’d spread out the paper and crayons on the living-room carpet, sketching some creature called a leviathan, which he had seen that day in a museum.

“It’s a shame you weren’t there, Fido. I’ll draw you a picture instead!”

Saying this, he began working at it while describing the size of the creature’s bones. But since it was his first trip to the museum, he’d run around so much that he’d tired himself out. And so he nodded off right there on his doodle, falling asleep as the line he’d been making with the crayon veered over to the carpet.

He would have to resume his leviathan drawing another time.

I could look up a picture of a leviathan on the public network, but I respected the younger brother’s desire to show me what it looked like through his art. And so I tempered my curiosity with regards to this strange creature’s appearance.

I got up and turned the head of my vessel, which was fashioned after a dog, as I looked around.

The master and the missus were there. Possessing no audio-output function, I got up, drawing their attention as they were seated on the sofa. Their estate in the Republic capital, Liberté et Égalité, was on the outskirts of an affluent neighborhood. Despite this, it was small in a cozy sort of way.

Back in their homeland, the Empire, both the master and the missus were waited upon by many servants. And so they’d asked for a house small enough for them to look after its upkeep on their own. Thus, the living room was large, but alive with the warmth of a family of four. An ideal size.

“What’s wrong? Oh, Shin fell asleep. Thank you for letting us know.”

The missus smiled, narrowing her beautiful crimson eyes, and made to rise to her feet. But right before she got up, she froze and stared into empty space for a moment.

“…My, are you sure? I see… Then please do.”

She wasn’t speaking to the master, but rather replying to someone who wasn’t in front of her. It was not unlike how one might answer the phone, but she wasn’t holding a portable phone or a receiver in her hands. This was the ability she inherited from her bloodline, the ability to communicate thoughts among her family.

“Were you talking to Rei?” the master asked, no longer surprised by this.

“Yes. He finished his homework, so he said he would carry Shin to bed.”

Before long, the elder brother walked down the stairs and picked up the younger brother.

“Mm…” The movement made the younger brother wake up and squirm restlessly.

“Shin, you shouldn’t sleep here. Let’s go to bed in our room, all right?”

“Are you going to bed, too…?” the younger brother asked sleepily.

“That’s right… Good night, Mom, Dad.”

Comforting his younger brother, the elder brother left the living room after bidding the master and missus good night.

“Yes, good night.”

“Sweet dreams, Rei. You too, Shin.”

After watching her two children leave with a gentle expression on her face, the missus closed her eyes.

“I’m so happy those two got to grow up in the Republic… I would have never even thought of doing that when I was their age. Sleeping defenselessly in front of someone else… Even if that someone was my own parents.”

“Right. It was…the same for me. They never would have let me do that.”

The two nodded deeply. It was hard to imagine this after seeing them lovingly watch over their two children, but the master was the son of House Nouzen, the chief warrior clan of the neighboring Giadian Empire. Meanwhile, the missus was the daughter of House Maika, another warrior clan of repute in the Empire. The two first met in the Imperial army, and on the battlefield at that.

“Especially given how gentle Rei and Shin are. They don’t belong on the battlefield,” the master said.

“Yes, I won’t hand my sweet boys over to the vile goddess of the battlefield,” the missus said firmly, shaking her head. “She’s not worthy of them.”

The master flashed a dazzling smile and turned to look at me.

“Now, then. I see you and Shin have become the best of friends, Fido.”

Feeling his profound, ebony gaze on me, I corrected my posture. Best of friends? With the younger brother…? Such an honor is wasted on me, Master.

“We just need to complete the Para-RAID next. It isn’t going so well, so Josef and I will need to put more work into it.”

“Rei and Shin can hear your voice, though.” The missus gave a forced smile and cocked her head.

“Apparently, they can, but it’s one-sided. That’s not what I want. I want to be able to talk to them just like you talked to Rei earlier. I want to be part of your conversations. And you can’t hear my voice,” the master added with a sulk.

The missus smiled, like she was watching over a child throwing a tantrum. It was a slightly bothered and yet deeply affectionate gentle smile.

“Yes. I’d love it if I could talk to you no matter where we are.”

“Right?”

“But…”

The master directed a slightly quizzical gaze at her, and the sorrow in the missus’s face deepened a bit.

“…I am a bit worried. What if reproducing my ability…the Maika’s ability…causes the same thing to happen again?”

The master’s smile faded, too, and he answered with a thoughtful glint in his eyes.

“Reproducing the true function of the Maika ability shouldn’t be possible. That is, placing an entire military unit in perfect synchronization with the queen bee, then granting them the efficiency of a singular entity… This was the Crimson Witch’s army.”

The missus still looked concerned, but the master continued his explanation.

“And a situation that would require that power didn’t happen and isn’t going to happen… There isn’t going to be a war here in the Republic. At least not anytime soon.”

“So the Empire’s going to…” The missus knitted her beautiful brows.

“Yes. There’ll probably be a civil war before long… The Imperial house will collapse, and the country will become a democracy. That’s what Father—Marquis Nouzen, or rather, what House Nouzen intends to do.”

“…”

“So there won’t be a war between them and the Republic. If all goes well, it might become a country that never knows war again. And for our family, that’s a wonderful thing.”

But even as he said that, his expression was morose. The fires of the Empire’s war wouldn’t reach the elder and younger brothers here in the Republic. And since the two wanted nothing less than to see their children sent to the battlefield, that statement should have been something they’d rejoice in.

But the fact that he had to pretend like this was a good thing from the safety of his home in the peaceful Republic left him terribly conflicted.

The master hung his head, and the missus embraced him.

“It isn’t your fault, Reisha.”

“I know. It’s what the citizens want, too. And they want to extend their rights to the citizenry, even if it means spilling their own blood in the process. Looking at that from afar and pitying them would be haughty of me. I…I know that.”

“Yes. And if you still feel guilty, I’ll shoulder that blame, too… No, if anything, I’m far guiltier than you are when it comes to this,” the missus said heavily.

“Yuuna.” The master looked up at her.

The missus gazed back at him and parted her lips, her eyes as red as flame.

“I understand that it’s a terrible way of saying it. I know how cowardly it is. But I’ll still say it. I’m glad they get to grow up in the Republic. I’m glad I raised them in this peaceful country, away from the Empire’s wars. Not these two… I won’t let my children…”

Those crimson eyes burned brilliantly, like a tyrannical goddess from myth. The missus spoke, as if offering up a prayer to that despotic goddess. Her eyes firm and severe, the color of flame. Of bloodshed. Eyes that symbolized life and death in equal measure—the same color as the younger brother’s…innocent and pure.

“I will never hand them over to that vile goddess of the battlefield.”