by CHIROLU
She was too radiant to look straight at her.
But as always, she had no self-awareness of that fact.
“Wow!” Latina exclaimed as she stared up at the final firework blooming beautifully as it lit up the night sky. It was only natural that Rudolph grew stiff from nervousness as he stared at her expression from the side.
The magical fireworks came to a close, signaling the end of this special night’s festivities.
The townsfolk all headed back towards their own homes, still all abuzz, while the travelers headed to their lodgings for the night. There were also some folks who headed to the bars, which were open later than usual to accommodate the festival-goers.
The girls exchanged their farewells, too.
“Well then, see you later.”
“Right! Come visit the shop, okay?”
While Sylvia wore an indifferent smile, the new guards who heard she was the daughter of their vice-captain had terribly stiff expressions on their faces. With them accompanying her, Sylvia headed for the western district. Apparently, she wanted to head straight home today.
“You too, Chloe.”
“Yeah. Keep it together, Latina!” her friend said with a smile.
Latina headed to the southern district together with Rudolph. She’d left her clothing and other belongings at Chloe’s house, so she’d tell her everything that happened when she went to pick it up later.
Having been left behind, Chloe turned to the young man by her side with an awkward smile and said, “Sorry. Looks like you just happened to get stuck escorting the leftovers.”
“...Not at all. A mission is a mission, after all.”
As Chloe wore a bright, cheerful expression, she may not have been as stunningly beautiful as Latina was, but she was still plenty charming. While Latina may have been a peerless beauty, she didn’t have an inferiority complex regarding her appearance, and instead pushed her ample chest out with pride, having a different sort of “charm” than her friend.
As to what that young man thought of Chloe’s smile as he walked a step behind her, only he himself knew.
Latina stared at Rudolph as she walked by his side, unable to hide her curiosity.
“Was the reserve corps training rough?”
“Yeah.”
“I see. You’re really strongly built, Rudy. You look much burlier than the novice adventurers who come to the shop.”
Latina’s smile was innocent and unguarded. And because she was so dense in regards to what the people around her thought of her, that was all the more dangerous.
Ever since she was young, she had only ever chased after a single person. As a result, she was dense when it came to noticing the interest of the people around her, and thanks to the person she had feelings for treating her like a child, her self-esteem was low. That she’d been exiled from her home village didn’t help with that matter, either. And on top of that, she was sensitive to the good will of others. Thanks to her ability to tell when people wanted to do her harm, she was well attuned to picking up on hostility. As a result, she was also good at picking up on its polar opposite, good will. However, when it came to the details of that good will, she was incredibly dense.
Rudolph was vaguely aware of that aspect of Latina. He figured that wouldn’t have changed, even if a few years had passed.
“What is it? You’re not saying anything.”
“It’s nothing...”
“You’re being weird.”
Though she was letting off a dazzling charm, no crude men were brave enough to approach when someone wearing a guard uniform was by her side. Even so, feeling a great number of gazes on Latina, including some improper ones, Rudolph kept watch around them with a threatening glare.
While a bit of light caused her long hair to sparkle, Latina stopped just a bit short of their destination.
Just a bit ahead, Dale was pacing about restlessly in the Dancing Ocelot, unable to calm down.
To be honest, he was getting in the way.
“I-Isn’t Latina a bit late?!”
“The fireworks just ended, right? The central plaza will be packed, so it’ll take some time for her to make it back. Plus, Latina said she was going to escort her friends back home,” Rita said with a sigh.
By opening up the windows, it was possible to see some of the fireworks in the night sky even from inside the Ocelot. This was done to offer up a bit of the festive atmosphere to the customers, even if they didn’t go to the actual event itself.
“I get that, but—”
“If you get it, then behave yourself already.”
No matter how sound Rita’s arguments were, Dale had no intention of mending his ways. He’d been like this ever since he returned to Kreuz after seeing off Gregor and Rose. Rita’s patience was reaching its limits.
“If you’re so worried, then you should just wait outside,” Kenneth said, looking frustrated. He could no longer stand the gloomy atmosphere.
Having been effectively kicked out of the Ocelot, Dale found the nighttime street to be far more crowded than usual. He took a few steps to go looking for Latina, only to realize it would be pointless if they accidentally just missed each other, so he turned back around. Feeling the ghastly atmosphere surrounding Dale as he stared while watching for the girl, the passersby were startled and kept their distance.
When he at last saw her figure approaching, a look of relief passed over Dale’s face, only for his expression to once more grow grim when he realized she wasn’t alone. He wasn’t familiar with the dress she was wearing, but there was no way Dale would ever mistake her. She was pointing a friendly smile to the boy her age beside her. To Dale, whether he was a guard or an adventurer made no big difference. Any young man ogling Latina was essentially vermin to him.
“Dale!” Latina shouted enthusiastically the second she saw him standing in front of the Dancing Ocelot. Rudolph felt a painful ache in his heart when he heard the palpable joy in Latina’s voice.
He knew all about Latina’s feelings for Dale, so this much wouldn’t cause him to lose heart.
He was getting glared at with more suspicion than when he’d visited the shop in the past as “one of her friends,” and he felt a chill, but it wasn’t enough that he couldn’t stand it. Not realizing that he was only able to stand up to the aura like bloodlust coming off of Dale thanks to the hellish training he’d lived through, Rudolph pretended not to notice the sweat forming on his brow.
Latina hadn’t realized that Dale was in a bad mood. To her, the person by her side was just her childhood friend, Rudy. There was nothing to feel guilty about in happily chatting away and walking alongside her friend, who she was seeing for the first time in a while.
Dale also knew that Latina wasn’t the sort of girl who’d wander off with just anybody. Even so, he couldn’t remain calm seeing her look so unguarded. His bad mood was the natural result of that concern.
“Latina.” As a result, Dale’s voice was harsh and firm. “You’re back late.”
Latina tilted her head, confused by Dale’s words.
He wasn’t actually upset with her actions. Thanks to her not having to escort her friends home, she’d made it back sooner than initially planned. However, despite those concerns being relieved, she’d returned with some man he didn’t recognize, setting Dale off and causing the blood to rise to his head, making him unreasonable.
“Come on, hurry inside!”
In response to Dale practically treating her like a small child, Latina’s expression grew murky. She was losing sight of reason as well.
It was her first time out at night alone, which had only enhanced the festival atmosphere. On top of that, being with her friends only fanned that further, making her far more excited than usual. But in response to Dale’s bad mood, that swung around completely. Now, she was just plain angry.
“Dale, I’m not a little kid anymore.”
“You know, kids are the only ones who say stuff like that.”
“No, that�
�s not it...!” She clenched her fists tight.
She still wasn’t mentally prepared. But if she couldn’t do it now, with the added push her friends had given her through the new mature dress and makeup, she felt like she never could.
She felt ready to take the first step forward towards changing their relationship—to convey her feelings. To let him know that she was no longer his “little Latina.” That the love she wanted from him wasn’t the same as the parental affection he had for “little Latina.”
“I’m not a child anymore... and also...!”
Even so, she wasn’t able to look Dale straight in the face. She shut her eyes tight and did her best to proclaim the feelings in her heart as loudly as she could.
“I don’t want you to talk to me like that, Dale...! You’re not my father... I’ve never thought of you as a replacement for my father...!”
Hearing Latina say that as she turned pure red all the way to the tips of her ears was quite a shock for Rudy. Even if he was aware of how she felt, it was still painful to hear her voice it in front of his very eyes. However, as he was a step removed from the proceedings, he was the first one to realize what was going on.
“...Latina,” he called out, tapping her on the shoulder. However, Latina was so overwhelmed that she didn’t even realize the disaster unfolding before their eyes that Rudolph had tried to point out.
After a bit, Latina was unable to take the lack of reaction from Dale and finally slowly opened her eyes to look.
It was then that she finally realized.
Dale’s face had gone ghastly pale.
As an adult who was older than her, Latina had always seen Dale as far more calm and composed than she was. This was the first time she’d ever seen the color drain from his face like this.
“Huh?”
She wanted to cry when she took a step towards Dale in surprise, only for him to take a step back as if trying to flee. Had her words been that hard for him to accept?
However, Dale was the one who wanted to break down in tears.
“Latina...”
The words that he squeezed out in a quivering voice told the whole story.
“Latina... is finally... in her rebellious phase...!”
In a way, that awful comment was perfectly fitting for him.
“Huh?”
A moment later, Latina realized the meaning of what Dale had muttered, and she let out a massive shriek of Huuuuuuuuuuh?!! in her heart. It was so much of a shock that she couldn’t even voice it.
Not realizing that Latina was internally screaming or that she had frozen up, Dale held his head in his hands and looked on the verge of tears. Latina felt like she was the one who should be doing that.
It was an absolute disaster.
“Awful...” Rudolph unthinkingly muttered. The other two had both fallen into a panic of their own and didn’t hear him.
“Latina’s finally hit that rebellious phase I’ve heard so much about...! From what I’ve heard, it happens when a girl hits puberty...! What should I do...? What should I do?!”
After saying that, Dale once more looked at Latina while wearing a terribly pathetic expression, then suddenly turned about-face. On top of everything else, he ended up fleeing the scene. He didn’t stop running; his swiftness could bring no shame to his reputation as being a first-class adventurer.
Huuuuuuh?!
As Latina once more gave a flustered cry in her heart, Rudolph placed his hand on her shoulder. As he was just hanging on by a thread himself, he had no idea what to think of all this, but he ended up speaking without thinking. “Well... Good luck, I guess?”
“Waaaah!”
Rudolph thought that even for a parent and child, these two were strangely alike. Still, it wasn’t like this wasn’t his problem, and he didn’t really have any room to talk.
Latina looked up at Rudolph, about to cry, and then an even more pathetic sound than the one Dale made earlier echoed through the town.
†
Dale thought that the moment he had dreaded for so long, wondering when it would arrive, had come at last. He hadn’t thought so at first, but now he couldn’t see the way Latina had been distancing herself from him as anything but an omen.
“My Latina... My adorable Latina has finally hit her rebellious phase...!” Dale yelled, his voice full of pain, as he bound into the Dancing Ocelot. Then, the power drained from him, and he collapsed. A moment later, several regulars slid over and surrounded him. They wore sympathy on their faces, but it was hard to see it as sincere, as there was something dark floating behind that.
“Well, girls her age are tricky.”
“I’ve got it rough with mine, too.”
As they called out to him, it felt more like they were stirring up Dale’s anxieties than trying to comfort him.
“I got told not to do my laundry together with hers because my clothes stink.”
“Even when I say I just bathed, she said my very existence stinks, so what can I do?!”
“It’s no different for me! No matter how much my wife and kids may be pleasantly chatting away in the living room, the second I come in, they all hurriedly leave without saying a thing! The only one who will talk to me is our pet parrot!”
“I’ve got a complaint, too! After my long-term job ended and I finally made it home, my kids said, ‘Welcome, sir’ to me!”
“Drink up! Everything’s on me today! I’ll pay for it all! Drink as much as you want!” Dale yelled while crying in sympathy, riled up by the plight of fathers the world over.
Even if I’m a true hero, I’m still definitely a father dealing with being treated coldly by his daughter now that she’s hit puberty!
That inner thought of Dale’s was so deplorable that if anybody else were to hear it, they’d surely butt in with a “That isn’t the kind of thing you should say about yourself.”
“Rita!”
In the kitchen, Latina was clinging to Rita and sobbing.
“What’s wrong, Latina? You had your makeup done up beautifully, but it’ll be ruined like this.”
“Rita...! I... I confessed, to Dale...!”
“Confessed?”
The terrible spectacle that could be heard from the front of the shop was far removed from a joyous celebration of love. There wasn’t even a hint of such elegance to it.
“It was no good! I didn’t get through! He didn’t even realize I was confessing my love!”
“Ugh...”
“That idiot has really done it now” was clearly written on Rita’s face.
“It was so embarrassing, and now I can’t even look Dale in the face!”
Rita made a disgusted look as she stroked Latina’s head to comfort her, but that expression obviously wasn’t aimed at the girl in front of her now. Rita had known that this girl had seen her guardian as a member of the other sex ever since she was little. From Rita’s point of view, Dale was the strange one for not realizing that. Her husband Kenneth could be pretty dense as well, so she couldn’t help but wonder why men were all so stupid.
Well, after dealing with them for so long, Rita had come to realize that she shouldn’t expect much from adventurers in terms of tact and picking up on subtleties.
“Right, it is embarrassing. It’s real tough for a girl to confess her feelings.”
Rita gazed at Latina with a pained smile. Compared to how she treated the customers who visited the shop, Rita wore a much gentler face when dealing with this girl, who was like a little sister to her.
As a single child, Rita had no siblings. Despite being in a different role than Dale, it was only natural that she doted on the girl who had practically fallen into her lap all those years ago. Latina was like a personification of her thinking that she’d love to have a cute little sister from back when she was young. What was wrong with her seeking comfort from a young woman like Rita that the sort of guys she’d grown so used to dealing with couldn’t provide?
“It’s no surprise that you’d want to run aw
ay. And it’s perfectly natural to not want to see his face.”
Latina hadn’t said that she didn’t want to see his face, but from Rita’s point of view, it was only natural to treat such an idiot so harshly.
“You don’t have to push yourself. I know how hard you’re always trying.”
“Rita...!”
While still holding the now full-on bawling Latina, Rita gestured toward the back.
“You need to make sure to take off your makeup properly. It’s bad for your skin if you don’t.”
“Right...”
After seeing Latina off to wash her face in the rear of the shop, Rita returned to the kitchen. Seeing her expression, Kenneth decided it was best that he didn’t say anything unnecessary.
The shop itself had descended into some sort of mad banquet. It was hard to tell just what had happened from Dale’s chaotic actions. In order to figure out what was going on, Kenneth went into the kitchen where Latina supposedly was, but when he saw his wife’s face, it became clear that it was Dale who had done something stupid.
“Rita...”
“Kenneth, I think Latina’s probably going to take some time off starting tomorrow. She’s always working so hard, so something like that should be fine every once in a while, right?”
Wasn’t today already a day off for Latina? Not letting that stupid thought appear on his face felt every bit as much of a dangerous task as anything he’d faced while he was still an active adventurer.
“Latina, head on up to your room, alright?”
His wife’s gentle expression as she turned around and faced the young girl with her drooped shoulders and tearstained face was practically that of a different person.
After seeing off Rita as she accompanied Latina up the stairs, Kenneth looked back into the shop, which was getting out of hand under the influence of the flow of alcohol, and let out a sigh. Adding in the new customers who were coming in after the close of the night festival, things were getting more and more chaotic.
In an entirely different meaning than when Rita looked at Latina, Kenneth’s expression looked like that of a different person as he gave a pity-filled sigh while he looked at his “little brother.”
