Ch#203
In the room dimly lit by the streetlamp's glow.
Tie's back rose and fell evenly in sleep.
Leaning against the wall, Tese tan gazed silently down at the child's face.
'Daddy! Daddy—!!'
He recalled the moment he first saw Astie.
The deep blue sea rippling wildly.
Astie standing precariously on the pier, calling out to him.
The child's words from just before falling asleep lingered in his mind.
'I wanna keep living with Grandma and Auntie......'
'......Of course that's natural.'
Astie's life had been less than five years.
And she had spent four of those years entirely here, with the people of this place.
'Including me, but since I have no memory of it, that's an exception.'
Her white cheeks.
Her eyelashes trembling faintly at the corners of her eyelids, as if dreaming.
"Why......"
Tese tan murmured.
"......Why does my chest feel so twisted up?"
'Talochioum is great, but for Tie, Jongno-gu is great too.'
Why had those words made his heart sink?
Tese tan closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall.
His head throbbed as if it might split open.
'I wanna eat kimchi......'
He recalled the child's complaints whenever they ate at the base.
'Kimchi! Rinse it in water! Slice it! On top of the rice with oden!'
'What's this oden anyway!'
'Fish cakes!'
'What, what?'
'Kimchi and kimchi and oden! Hiiing......'
At first, he hadn't paid much attention.
It was natural for a four-year-old to be picky about food.
But the foods Astie wanted were nowhere to be found, not even if he scoured the entire continent, let alone the empire.
'Tie. Then at least tell me how to make it.'
'How to make it?'
'Yeah. Give me the exact recipe, and I'll try. What ingredients go in?'
'Ingredients, um, cabbage......?'
'Cabbage? That's a vegetable not cultivated on the continent.'
'Nooo, just cabbage. Long and big like this. You bathe it.'
'Bathe the cabbage?'
'Yes! Then sprinkle red pepper powder, scary hot-tasting powder! Then mix, and sprinkle fishy-smelling soy sauce!'
'......'
'Put veggies and stuff in a jar and give one to the neighbor.'
He hadn't realized it then.
But looking back now, he understood.
In Talochioum, Astie had been missing this place.
Precisely, all the daily life of eating and drinking here.
'......No forsythia?'
'Forsythia?'
'Not even one yellow flower. No mugunghwa either. This garden's stupid!'
'You little brat! I spent all day hauling stuff to make this flower bed, and that's your attitude?!'
'......Hweeng.'
'Wh-what. Why cry all of a sudden?'
She'd sob even seeing a perfectly fine garden.
'I'm gonna erase all the Tani Pang on Tie's room ceiling.'
'Leader! Didn't she love those? Why erase them? They're on our uniforms too.'
'......Gonna erase those on the uniforms too.'
'But why......'
'They don't move!'
'Pardon?'
'They don't move at all! Tani Pang that doesn't move isn't cute at all. Not pretty!'
She'd sulk seeing her favorite fairy drawings.
The reason became clear naturally upon coming here.
[Twinkle, twinkle! Gather shining hearts! Sparkle~ Beam!]
[I won't forgive making friends cry! Vanish, shadows of darkness! Bloom Attack!]
Inside the television, they moved alive.
Laughing and crying with exaggerated expressions.
Sometimes collapsing exhausted after battling villains.
'Tani Pang best! Transform puwler, Strike!'
Then Tie would laugh and cry with them.
Speaking, moving.
As if the fairies beyond the screen were welcoming her.
'Having two hometowns is sad.'
The child's voice, babbling with sleep crusted in her eyes, echoed in his mind.
'And Daddy forgetting Tie is sad too.'
'......'
'Bad things keep happening to Tie every day.'
His chest tightened, and Tese tan clenched his fist.
It was then.
"......?"
Something faintly glimmered from the child's chest as she lay sideways.
Tese tan quietly approached Astie.
And slightly lifted the blanket covering her neck.
"What is it?"
He hadn't seen wrong.
Beneath the pajamas the child wore.
A dull yellowish light was shining through.
"Marbas."
Tese tan immediately called Marbas.
Marbas, waiting in the corner, bounced over.
"Check it."
Marbas tilted his head.
[Check it? I'm not sure either?]
Tese tan narrowed his brow.
After pondering, he reached out and gently pulled down the child's collar.
Beneath the exposed collarbone.
Something was pulsing inside her skin.
[Something's under the skin!]
Marbas jumped in surprise.
Tese tan silently watched the throbbing thing.
A while later, recalling something, he furrowed his brow.
'Come to think of it.'
He remembered the moment they were sucked into this world.
The Clock Tower battle.
The plant-type Mana Stone's heart hidden in the Old Palace underground passage.
When their group reunited with Ardiana's, she had already stabbed her sword into the Mana Stone's heart.
'Her injury was severe.'
Ardiana had been completely consumed by demonic energy.
His feelings then were complex.
Worry for Ardiana.
Relief that with the Mana Stone's power exhausted, the battle would soon end, and at least Astie would be safe.
But the next moment, something unexpected happened.
'Light.'
Something unidentified shot out from the Mana Stone's heart, which had seemed depleted.
It was light shining like the sun.
The light soared high as if to reach the tunnel ceiling, then
"......No way."
flew straight into Tie's chest.
Tese tan swallowed dryly.
'Why did I forget?'
He should have checked the thing that entered Astie's body right away upon arriving in this world.
But they had fallen into a place he'd never been before.
And Astie had seemed perfectly healthy, so he'd forgotten.
After the light embedded in Tie's chest, the space they were in distorted entirely.
A passage suddenly appeared, pulling Astie and Tese tan here.
"I need to check."
Tese tan gathered Holy Power in his right hand.
"Can't control mana due to the seal. But with this......"
Cold sweat beaded on his forehead.
Since the seal on his heart in childhood, using Holy Power in ways other than the sword always brought pain.
But now wasn't the time to fear pain.
Tese tan placed his palm on Astie's chest.
And carefully pushed his Holy Power toward the pulsing light beneath her skin.
However.
"......Ha?"
The thing embedded in the child's chest repelled him fiercely.
Its force was so strong that a heavy pressure numbed from his palm up his arm to his head.
[Do you sense something?! Please say it's not a new monster! Not some parasite in the host or something......!]
Marbas bounced frantically, his wood grain pale.
Tese tan endured the powerful repulsion and knelt on the floor.
Two energies clashed fiercely between Astie's body and his palm.
Amazingly, the child remained deeply asleep through it all.
"......Damn it."
Tese tan bit the inside of his cheek.
Realizing he could retreat no further, he gathered his strength and unleashed even greater pressure.
It was that instant.
'Do not push.'
His nape stiffened as someone's voice thundered in his ear.
'Do not invade.'
Tese tan froze in place.
And slowly raised his head.
The dim room brightened dazzlingly.
'From the moment it sprouted, this has been my place.'
The floor rapidly covered in green moss.
Vines grew up the walls, sprouting hundreds of large and small leaves.
Golden eyes floating in the air stared at Tese tan.
'This life is my next root.'