Becoming Independent

 

For the first time, I learned that there are losses brimming with joy in this world.

 

"Gooood morning, everyooone! Time to wake uuup!"

Clang, clang, clang. The instrument was a scarlite frying pan, well-used for several hundred years now.

"Daddy, Miss Nina, it's another beautiful day!"

"Mm… good morning, Chryse…"

The curtain was pulled back with a sharp swish, and I squinted against the dazzling light that poured in.

"Good morning, Daddy."

Bathed in the overflowing morning sun, Chryse beamed.

"Mm… hm? Chryse."

Nina rose sluggishly beside me, stifling a yawn, but then her voice turned puzzled.

"Have you grown?"

"Huh, really?!"

Chryse sprang to her feet, dashed to the living room to grab a measuring tape, and came racing back.

"Daddy, Daddy, measure me!"

"Alright, alright. And no standing on your tiptoes. I can't get an accurate reading."

I calmed her down and scratched a mark on the pillar level with the top of Chryse's head.

"Well, would you look at that. You've grown about two centimeters since the last time. Let's see… one hundred and thirty-three centimeters."

"Yaaay! I've grown for the first time in ten years, Daddy!"

Chryse bounced up and down in delight.

"Around that height, she'd be about average for a ten-year-old nowadays, I suppose," Nina said, stretching.

Chryse's actual age was exactly sixty this year. Her growth was as erratic as ever, but the overall trend seemed to be slowing down with each passing year.

"I was starting to think I'd never grow again!"

"Maybe the next spurt will be in a hundred years."

Chryse clutched her head and groaned at Nina's soft giggle.

"Your hair's gotten quite pink, too," I murmured, letting a long strand run through my fingers.

When she was born, Chryse's hair had been straight gold. With each growth spurt, the pink deepened and a soft, wavy curl set in. Before, you could only tell it was pinkish when the light shone through it, but now it was unmistakably pink-blonde, obvious even in a dim room.

"Well then, let's have breakfast! I made your favorite grilled fish today, Miss Nina!"

"Sure, sure."

Chryse hopped over and took Nina by the hand. Nina let herself be led along, languid but compliant.

"I suppose I'll go wake the sleepyheads, then."

Unable to keep the smile off my face, I headed toward the rooms of the household's remaining residents, who showed no signs of getting up.

"Oh, Daddy."

Chryse's voice caught me from behind.

"What is it?"

"They're both probably already up and—"

Her warning came a few seconds too late. By the time her words reached me, I had already turned the doorknob and opened the door to the recently added room.

Yuuka, Rin, and I all froze as though time itself had stopped.

"… in the middle of getting changed, I think."

Chryse's words were punctuated by a resounding crash.

 

＊　＊　＊

 

"Sorry, Mentor… does it still hurt?"

"No, I'm fine. It was my fault for not knocking."

I answered Rin with my best reassuring smile as she gazed at me with concern.

A water bullet fired without incantation or motion was impossible to dodge. Honestly, the spot on my stomach where it had struck dead-on still ached with a dull throb, but I acted like nothing was wrong.

"I think Daddy could stand to be a little more tactful, you know," Chryse said.

"Yeah, I have absolutely no excuse."

Chryse scooped rice into bowls and handed them out with an exasperated look.

"Now, now, Chrys. I really don't mind at all," Yuuka said.

"I think Big Sis Yuu should mind a little more, though…"

In stark contrast to Rin, who had shrieked and reflexively launched a water bullet, Yuuka had made no move to cover herself and simply went on changing.

"We see each other naked all the time at the baths, don't we?" Nina remarked.

"The last time Daddy bathed with us was thirty years ago!" Chryse protested to Nina, who was nibbling on pickles without a care in the world.

Just then, a bell rang out: clang, clang, clang.

"Huh? Is it that time already?" Rin tilted her head.

"… No, that's not it," I said, rising from my seat with a clatter.

"That's the disaster bell."

I glanced beside me. Yuuka already had her sword at her hip, fully prepared. What's more, she'd even finished her meal. When had she managed that?

"Let's go."

My own breakfast was only half-finished, but this was no time for that. Setting aside the meal my beloved daughter had made, we dashed out of the house.

"… A fire!"

The moment we stepped outside and saw the rising column of black smoke, Yuuka and I both shouted, neither of us knowing who spoke first.

"Wait, I'm coming too!"

Rin appeared behind us, her hands transforming into wings with a sweeping whoosh.

"Flight!"

Yuuka and I grabbed onto her shoulders and invoked our magic. The combined thrust carried us through the air faster than any one of us could have flown alone.

Fire is the most terrifying of all disasters that can strike a town. Scarlet's buildings are fundamentally brick and resistant to flame, but there's always furniture, and wood is never entirely absent. A blaze can spread in the blink of an eye and produce mass casualties.

And when the fire is caused by a spirit, the danger increases by an order of magnitude. Flames with a will of their own revel in destruction and chaos, burning through brick and stone alike.

"— This is bad."

And this appeared to be exactly that worst case. Flames danced along the buildings as though licking them, leaping and bounding playfully. It was clearly the manifestation of a sentient spirit.

"Yuuka, Rin. I'll handle that spirit. Can you two handle the evacuation and support?"

There was one surefire way to stop a fire spirit. Transform into my dragon form and swallow it whole. The fire-weakened buildings would never support a body spanning dozens of meters; they would collapse spectacularly, causing massive secondary damage. But that was still far better than letting a fire spirit run loose.

"Wait, Mentor!"

Rin stopped me just as I was about to transform without waiting for an answer.

"Look!"

At the end of her gaze, countless dark shadows were racing toward the fire.

"What are those…?!"

The shadows charged fearlessly into the burning buildings and burst out carrying children in their arms. The fire spirit noticed and leapt down from a rooftop, blasting fire at them from its mouth.

But a massive lump of metal stepped in to block the blast. Arms extended from its dully gleaming mass as the blaze lit it up. It rose on two legs, assumed a humanoid shape, and seized the fire spirit in one enormous palm.

Then a wind of glittering light cascaded down. When that white, luminous gale swept through, the flames vanished in an instant, as if someone had swept fallen leaves away with a broom.

"Jack Froooost!"

The radiance gathered together, forming into one enormous snowman that opened its crescent-shaped mouth wide.

"Eat iiiit!"

It gulped down the fire spirit that the iron puppet had flung its way.

By the time we arrived, the area had gone completely still. Not a single spark remained. The buildings were sooty, but none looked in danger of collapse.

"My, what an early arrival," Innis said in a teasing tone as her sofa drifted over.

"Mentooor, wasn't Jack amazing?" Mel beamed, cradling a now-miniaturized Jack Frost in her arms.

"Rescue operation complete! From what I can see, there don't appear to be any serious injuries, but we're transporting everyone to the hospital as a precaution."

Flanked by his countless shadows, Ara reported crisply.

"… Yeah. Good work, all of you. We rushed over as fast as we could, but it seems there was nothing left for us to do."

"Not at all! This is entirely thanks to your guidance, Mentor!"

With a brief "We'll go check for anything we might have missed," Ara and his team returned to their work.

"… Well, color me surprised."

Shadow magic that produces duplicates.

Enchanted iron puppets that move on their own.

And the ice spirit, Jack Frost.

Each was a technique I knew well, and I knew they'd been training for disasters. But to handle it all this efficiently — with their strength alone, without us.

"No wonder Chryse's growing up," Yuuka murmured quietly. Her face wore a complicated expression.

"We probably couldn't have handled it this cleanly ourselves."

"Yeah…"

Happy, sad, and lonely, all at once—

"Perhaps the time has come for this village… no. For this country to leave my hands."

I was sure Yuuka wore the same expression I did.