"Dad, then see you tomorrow."
"Yeah. Reyna. You sleep well too."
That first night, we parted ways after just exchanging such simple greetings.
After she went to sleep, I found myself bursting into laughter several tis towards the empty space.
For soone like , who hadn't even experienced diocre dating, giving paternal advice to soone was bewildering.
Moreover, Reyna's appearance now was like soone in her mid to late twenties, just like in reality.
There wasn't much of an age gap to speak of between us, to the point where our relationship couldn't be considered father-daughter.
Considering her appearance seed more mature than her age, the age difference narrowed even further.
To pretend to be in a father-daughter relationship with her.
It was an embarrassingly awkward situation, but still, I had to accommodate her request.
I alternated between looking at the status screen showing 'Main Quest – I Don't Want to Ride on the Cart!' and 'Sub Quest – Substitute Dad Job'.
The forr quest had a stingy reward and a considerable penalty for failure.
Until now, most main quests hadn't imposed significant penalties for failure.
Main quests were a kind of wish-fulfillnt chanism, where the desire of the director turned into quest requirents.
Conversely, the contents of main quests inherently reflected how much the mbers paid attention to .
"Um, Director, could you please grant my request? Ah, if not, it's okay, I guess…"
If I had to put it into words, it was sothing like this.
Thanks to this, there were no or small penalties for failure.
However, as the mbers' favorability increased, the demands or penalties for failure beca more significant.
While you could raise favorability by simple acts like buying them a al with strangers, with close acquaintances, you had to fulfill more demanding requests to raise favorability.
Conversely, while you wouldn't expect anything from a stranger, disappointnt was inevitable if a close acquaintance didn't fulfill your expectations.
Favorability and main quests reflected the natural forms of human relationships.
So, the high efficiency of main quests so far stemd from the premise that 'the mbers fear Wonderstein'.
Gascon didn't fear and even treated like a subordinate, so main quests were more demanding, with higher penalties for failure.
Thinking about the future, it would be easier to just expel him.
However, he triggered a main quest to prevent that, thanks to overhearing my soliloquy.
It was entirely my fault.
Besides, Reyna's sub quest wasn't sothing to take lightly if it failed.
This had to be a success no matter what.
It's just two days, right?
I resolved myself.
I decided not to act in front of others, so there wouldn't be anything to be ashad of.
However, what she expected from was more than I had anticipated.
The next morning, I was surprised to wake up to a strange sensation next to .
Surprisingly, Reyna, dressed in pajamas, was clinging to my waist and sleeping.
"Reyna?"
She yawned loudly and rubbed her eyes.
She blinked groggily, then started giggling at .
"Hehe, Dad… did you sleep well?"
My mind was in disarray.
Why was she lying in my bed?
"Since when were you… here?"
"Since dawn. Ah, I just quietly lay down here so as not to wake you up…"
It wasn't surprising that she had snuck in beside without my noticing.
She had an absolute sense of balance.
Even on a rocking chair, she wouldn't spill a drop of coffee from the cup in her hand.
She could easily control even the slightest movent of the mattress.
I wasn't surprised by her talent.
It was the fact that she was here that shocked .
"Why is Reyna Maquire here…?"
"I was scared to sleep alone, so I slept next to you. And…"
As she hesitated, she suddenly snapped awake.
A chilling aura emanated from her eyes.
"Who calls their daughter 'Reyna Maguire'? I clearly asked you to pretend to be my dad, didn't I? Please, get it right."
Taken aback by her sharp tone, I instinctively nodded.
"Yeah. Reyna. You… must have been scared."
At that mont, we heard a knock on the door.
I startled and pulled her closer to , covering us both with the blanket.
"Who is it?"
"It's Maya."
Checking the ti, I realized that it was already past the early morning training ti.
I had stayed up all night listening to Reyna venting, lanting, and misbehaving, so I ended up oversleeping.
Before I could ask her to wait, the door opened.
Creak.
A girl with a tilted beret and a thin cardigan stood at the door.
Her hair shimred silver in the morning sunlight pouring in from the window across the corridor.
Maya had been going out for the past two weeks for so reason.
Yesterday, she said she was going to the factory, but it seed she was back to her routine today.
She always said goodbye to before leaving and reported back when she returned.
She walked towards as if she didn't care about the room owner's permission.
I was used to her indifferent attitude, but given the current situation, I felt tense inside.
However, I maintained a natural smile without revealing my tension.
"Are you leaving early today?"
I felt sothing subtly wrong with her face.
She seed more tired than yesterday, with slight shadows under her eyes.
"I have sothing urgent to take care of. Are you okay, Director? You slept longer than usual today."
She approached the bed.
I pulled Reyna, who kept trying to sit up, closer to my chest.
"Yes. No problem. Just a bit tired from yesterday's work. So, are you heading to the plaza again today?"
"Yes."
"Alright. Take care then."
She glanced briefly under the blanket before nodding.
"I will."
She closed the door and left.
Finally, I breathed a sigh of relief and tucked Reyna in.
She lay on my stomach, sprawling out.
"Reyna Maguire, I an… Reyna. Are you okay?"
"I-I couldn't… breathe…"
Her face was flushed as if she was about to explode.
I realized I had been holding her entire body with my arms and legs.
I quickly released her, and she slumped away from , gasping heavily without eting my gaze.
"Ha… Ha…"
"It must have been quite suffocating. But if we were caught, it would have been a big misunderstanding."
She turned her head sharply at my words.
"I-I know… I'll go back to my room."
"Sure…"
She left the room wearing damp pajamas.
I stayed close to her all Sunday.
The routine was no different from usual.
Education, als, training, hygiene, als, counseling.
When others were around, we conversed as usual, but as soon as they disappeared, she acted like a child, and I accepted it as a father would.
We spent yesterday like that, and today most of the day went by like that too.
After finishing the interview, we headed to the villa by carriage.
She, who had been fooling around all this ti, fell asleep by the ti the carriage arrived at the villa.
"We've arrived."
"Could you give us a mont? I don't want to disturb the child's sleep."
The coachman went to a nearby shelter to smoke a cigarette, saying he would be back in 30 minutes.
I could finally rest a bit now.
I sighed tiredly as I looked at Reyna sleeping with her head on my lap.
It felt like escaping from the midst of a cody.
Thanks to her, I had spent two hectic days.
I was exhausted, but I couldn't bla her.
She had suffered psychological abuse for 15 years under a villain like Simon Maguire.
Even with personality damage, it wasn't strange.
I rembered the orphanage days.
If I had to choose one criterion that had the greatest impact on the emotional developnt of abandoned children, it was whether they rembered the mont they were abandoned or not.
Naturally, those who rembered had deeper scars.
Children who were abandoned without mories grew up considering the orphanage as their ho, considering friends as family, and showed no significant difference in emotional developnt from children raised in normal households.
The problem was with those who rembered being abandoned.
They grew up acknowledging their state of being rejected by their family for a lifeti.
Reyna carried bigger scars than those friends.
The person she believed to be her real family was not her real family from the beginning, and she was a 'fake' brought in as a substitute.
"Dad… Umm…"
She murmured from her sleep.
She was chewing on a few strands of her hair.
I took them out of her mouth, wiped off the saliva, and tidied them up.
She was not guilty of ending up like this.
I was particularly troubled by her requests because I knew that fact.
"Dad…"
Of all things, she called that.
It was a cruel joke.
TT3's main enemies were the three organizations led by Wonderstein's friends or sisters, known as Witches.
In the third chapter, the heroes who defeated the Rabbit Witch and destroyed the Voodoo and the Dock Cult searched for Wonderstein's whereabouts.
He had fought with Saint Valentina and was injured without being completely resurrected.
It was clear that he was hiding sowhere recovering his strength.
However, he didn't reveal his tail easily.
A few weeks later, they heard news from their forr comrade Reyna, who had been with them before, that she had found traces of Wonderstein.
In TT2, she learned that she was not the real daughter of her father but was adopted as a substitute, which caused her to go through a ntal crisis.
Fortunately, she overca it by teaching students, but she did not give up tracing her roots.
In that process, she discovered the existence of a certain organization.
It was none other than the Comprachicos, the human trafficking organization that had bought her.
It wasn't just a place that sold young children.
They modified children according to custors' desires.
Reyna was a 'made' child there.
They even had catalogs.
They kidnapped children and molded them as they pleased, altering their appearance, height, muscle developnt, physical characteristics, and so on.
Simon's request was for a child who looked exactly like his deceased daughter.
He believed it could cure his wife's grief.
And he also wanted talent for the circus.
Reyna's rapid physical developnt and absolute sense of balance was added during the manufacturing process.
Reyna was shipped as a 'product' to Simon.
Upon hearing this much, the warriors could sufficiently surmise who was behind the organization.
It was the Witch's Association with the Crow witch as the vice-president.
She referred to them as Comprachicos, the child rchants, who kidnapped children and modified them to suit the tastes of their custors.
Reviews
All reviews (0)