15-4 Mother And Daughter Reunion

After lunch, everyone, including the prince, had naptime.

Ars, who had known the prince for some time because of work, was with him.

The knights and our people were there, and the spirits were also watching beside the children.

It seemed the children had already completely become friends with the spirits.

Things like this really were a privilege only children had.

And Fal did not get sleepy.

Right now, she was charging up on mana.

Now then, it was about time.

“Sylvie, Alpha wants to meet Fal and me, right? And what about the spirit elder?”

“Yes. Please come with me.”

I followed after her while holding Fal.

And Mari came with us too.

The other party was someone Takeshi had known.

There were no such things as houses here.

Spirits were not normally materialized, so they had no particular shape.

If a human could sense the presence of spirits, perhaps they would look like some softly glowing mass of light.

The materialized forms from earlier were also merely shapes the spirits took by imagining the forms they wanted to become.

And our eyes were captivated by the fantastical scenery that spread endlessly across the elven village.

After a while, I noticed that presence.

This was not enemy territory, so I had not deployed my radar, but I could clearly tell.

It was obviously of the same nature as Fal.

I waited quietly.

To the one who eventually appeared, I greeted her like this.

“Hello.”

I deliberately tried using Japanese.

“Hello.”

Fal’s mother replied in Japanese as well.

I knew it.

Takeshi must have spoken to her in Japanese.

That was probably why she could speak Japanese.

Takeshi… poor guy.

Unlike me, he had not had the power of the internet, so he must have been starved for Japanese.

“Are you the Explosive-Flame one?”

That beautiful creature asked.

Strange skin that shone white, as if endlessly transparent.

Graceful, mysterious, alluring, perfectly balanced.

As expected, she was probably a creature with a body structure completely different from ordinary living beings with flesh and blood.

A four-legged beast with a tail.

And yet, I felt she was more beautiful than any creature.

Perhaps factors other than sight were involved in that.

No wonder even humans worshipped them.

Her appearance was indescribable, more beautiful than any spirit.

As expected, Fal was still a juvenile Fals.

Well, I suppose she did at least have some traces of her mother.

Would Fal, who had completely gotten used to a human body, be all right?

I thought of the wild animals on Earth that had interacted too much with humans and could no longer return to the wild.

Had they truly been happy?

Or…

“Yes. Nice to meet you. I’m Ryusuke Inoue.”

I thought it was rude, but I let myself observe her closely.

“Thank you for hatching my daughter. Being in this state, I could not do anything by myself. If I could, I would like to take human form for you as well, but that uses an enormous amount of mana.”

Fal casually changed between human form and Fals form, though.

Was she the type of child who was skillful at that among Fals?

She did seem to have some unusual traits.

There was also the massive mana supply from me.

“Would you like me to share mana with you?”

When I held out my hand, she said,

“No, the act of using mana intensely itself causes damage. It has been nearly a year since I was injured, but my wounds have still not healed.”

Hmm, nearly a year ago?

“Fal. Come here.”

Alpha called out to her daughter.

But Fal quietly hid behind me.

The two of us gave wry smiles, and I spoke to her gently.

“Fal, that’s your mother. Come on out.”

I called gently, but she hid again.

“It cannot be helped. I suddenly entrusted her to you while she was still an egg, after all. But if I had not done that, the egg would have eventually lost its vitality. It was still fine then, but there was no guarantee that someone like you would appear again. There was no guarantee I could lay another egg. If that happened, when I died in my weakened state, that age of judgment without a Fals would come again.”

Fal stared fixedly at Alpha while hiding behind me.

She was not a viviparous creature, after all.

Was imprinting everything for her?

She was not running away, so I did not think she was having a rejection reaction.

Her mother seemed happy just to see Fal’s face.

So I said to Fal,

“Fal. Try taking your Rainbow Fals form.”

“Ehh, why?”

“I want to see it for the first time in a while. How much bigger you’ve gotten. That form is your true form, after all.”

“Hmm.”

Fal popped into her Fals form.

Oh, she had grown.

Until now, she had looked like something where I could not clearly tell what she was.

Now that I could actually compare her with her parent like this, I could somehow see that she was trying to grow in that direction.

So when Fal got bigger, she would become like this.

But I probably would not be alive until then.

I did not really know the lifespan of my current body.

Originally, my lifespan had already been nearly exhausted, so there was no point worrying about that now.

My family had been short-lived.

For some reason, even the people who married into the family ended up that way, as though a curse had been placed on them. It was a strange family.

I could not help gazing at Fal with deep emotion.

Right now, she was merely a cute creature, though.

When Alpha smoothly brought her face closer, Fal quietly hid behind me.

Even so, she must have understood that Alpha was the same kind of creature as herself.

She stared at Alpha with round eyes.

Alpha waited without rushing her.

Fal approached and stared at her again.

Then, when Fal rubbed against her a little, Alpha let out an indescribably charming smile.

The spirit elder had not materialized, but was beside Alpha.

When I looked with radar, there were two especially large points in front of me.

Apparently, the spirit elder was in a state where he was using all his power to restore Alpha’s strength.

Sylvie interpreted for him, saying he was sorry that I had come all this way, yet he could not speak with me directly.

“It’s all right, elder. Don’t worry about it.”

“Mr. Inoue, thank you for bringing Fal here.”

“No, you’re welcome.”

Speaking in fluent Japanese like this with the mysterious creature Rainbow Fals gave me a strange feeling.

When she, whom Takeshi had probably cherished like a real child, had to return to the forest, how had Takeshi felt?

Perhaps because Fal had somehow taken a liking to her, she climbed up onto Alpha’s head.

And she stayed like that for a while.

Normally, she would receive mana from her parent like that.

Poor thing.

“If only that dimensional rift had not come toward this forest, by now we would be like this…”

Wait a moment.

Did she say dimensional rift?

Could that possibly be…?