Arc-7 Ch-42
160
Chapter
Word is mightier than Sword
2026
Of course, if someone were to ask whether I wasn’t worried about the other children as well, I’d immediately deny it and say, “There’s no way that’s true.”
But there was simply no way I could place Roxanne, Melanie, and Dylan, who stood beside their escorts, on the same level as Leah, who had gone alone to challenge the soldiers who had come to the village.
To begin with, it’s impossible to distribute intangible things like affection and time equally among children. Having given birth to and raised six children by my mid-thirties, I had long felt this truth deeply.
Among the nobles of the world, many poured their love only onto the heir, onto the older children destined for political marriages, or onto the ones they favored as playthings.
But there was no way I could lavish affection on my eldest son Lionel, or on Roxanne and Melanie who followed beside me, while coldly treating Ariel, who deviated from the standards expected of noble sons and daughters and often caused disturbances, or Leah.
No matter how much trouble a child might cause, they were still my child. I had carried them in my womb for ten months, endured the pain, and given birth to them. There was no question that I treasured them.
That was precisely why I assumed the worst possible situation and headed toward the scene together with the escort who had come to report.
The site itself wasn’t particularly far from Yumelia’s house. Unfortunately, too much time had been spent preparing for the absolute worst case, that our entire family might be captured.
After discussing the matter with the platoon leader, we concluded that fleeing with the children was impossible. Trying to escape while taking along women and children with frail legs, especially while outnumbered by the soldiers, would be extremely difficult.
On the contrary, when the suggestion came that it would be more rational to barricade ourselves in Yumelia’s house and buy time until Leon returned, I decided to change our policy.
After entrusting the preparations to the platoon leader, I urged the escort who had come to report to guide me. It was my mistake that I had forgotten how greatly the stride of an adult man differed from my own shrunken steps.
Being carried on the back of anyone other than my husband Leon would normally be shameless conduct for a noble wife, but this was an emergency. Right now, the only thing on my mind was Leah.
How much time had passed while I was being carried? Perhaps because of my anxiety, my sense of time stretched out, as though I were moving through a thick, viscous liquid.
Even so, a crowd of people finally came into view ahead, and cheers vibrated against my eardrums.
Because elves were mixed among them, I couldn’t determine the exact number, but there were clearly more than twenty people gathered. Seeing far more people than I had expected, I breathed a sigh of relief that I hadn’t tried to flee the village by force.
If I had panicked and attempted to escape the settlement, we would have been easily surrounded and captured in the forest where movement was difficult.
At this stage, there were still ways to improve the situation. But the first priority was Leah’s safety.
The moment I saw people collapsed in the center of the crowd, I nearly fainted and had to be hurriedly supported by the panicked escort.
Perhaps it was because my body had shrunk, or perhaps my senses had become overly sharp, but I had become terribly weak to stimulation.
Even without that, the escort had only witnessed the moment when Leah charged into the place where the visitors to the village and the elves were arguing.
We had no idea what had happened between the time Leah arrived here and our own arrival. The only certainty was that a bloody disturbance had definitely occurred.
As I hurriedly approached the crowd, the voice of someone arguing with the man who appeared to be the leader of the group that had come to the village inevitably reached my ears. It was a voice I knew very well.
For a brief moment I felt relieved when I heard that voice, but immediately afterward an anger I couldn’t control surged up from deep within my stomach again and again.
I understood Leah’s feelings, his admiration for his father Leon and his desire to accompany him on ruin explorations. It was only natural for a boy in his early teens to become angry when refused.
But there were actions that could be forgiven and actions that could not. Clearly, Leah’s behavior had crossed far beyond the acceptable range.
Perhaps because my body had shrunk, my mind had also been affected. I was clearly unable to restrain my runaway emotions with reason.
Leah’s flustered and panicked expression when he saw me irritated me even more. Why was it that only in moments like this did he resemble Leon so perfectly when his secrets were exposed?
I had been truly worried. The feelings a mother held toward the child she carried in her own womb were far stronger than the child could ever imagine.
The more worried I had been, the more that worry swelled and transformed into anger.
Anger toward those who had harmed my son.
Anger toward my son, who was just, kind-hearted, and adorable.
Anger toward my own foolishness for failing to foresee this situation.
No one else entered my field of vision. I simply ran straight toward Leah.
“Ah, um… Mother…”
“You foolish son!!!!”
I swung my clenched fist down onto Liar’s head.
But with my shrunken body, there was no way I could injure Leah, who was larger than me. A cute smacking sound rang out, and at the same time my own fist began to hurt.
Even so, I didn’t care. I continued pounding my fist again and again in anger, but it had almost no effect. This too was surely because my shrunken body made it impossible for me to properly suppress my emotions.
Perhaps overwhelmed by the sight of a girl furiously beating a boy larger than herself, both the soldiers and the elves simply watched from a distance.
The situation was so bizarre, a small girl fiercely striking a much larger teenage boy, that everyone was stunned. A heavy and sticky silence filled the air. No one but me could move, and time simply passed.
“My lady, perhaps it would be best to stop around there…”
“Haa… haa…”
“It certainly seems that Leah-sama has reflected as well. For now, let us withdraw quietly.”
“…I see. You’re right.”
“Thank goodness…”
“Don’t relax yet! I’m ending the punishment here, but once we return I will give you a proper lecture, so prepare yourself!”
“!”
After sharply scolding Leah, whose body had stiffened, I forcibly grabbed his hand and casually attempted to retreat toward Yumelia’s house.
The people around us were still dumbfounded by the sudden disturbance caused by the intruder, and their thoughts hadn’t yet caught up with what had happened. Taking advantage of this opportunity to leave with Leah would be the best course of action.
“…Please wait.”
“…”
“Please wait!!”
The man who appeared to be the leader of the soldiers shouted loudly to stop us. As expected, my hastily conceived plan wasn’t going to work against him.
At the sound of the voice that halted me, everyone present finally began to regain their senses. Both the roughly dressed soldiers and the elegantly dressed elves reacted in the same way.
All their eyes turned toward me.
Their gazes shot at me like arrows, but receiving attention of this degree was something I had grown accustomed to since my body and apparent age had become what they were now.
When I fearlessly glared around at the surroundings, it seemed that among the soldiers who didn’t know the circumstances, the sharper ones realized that I wasn’t an ordinary person. The rest clearly looked down on me, seeing only a little girl.
It would actually be more convenient if they underestimated me, because that would create openings I could exploit. But if they instead became wary and treated me as someone unusual, it would become harder to extract concessions from them.
“What is your relationship with that boy?”
“What benefit would I gain by telling the likes of you?”
“This isn’t a matter of benefit or loss. He attacked my subordinates. Everyone lying here collapsed because of his assault. As the one responsible for the security of this village, it’s only natural that I have the right to know who you people are.”
“I see. However, my son may certainly be foolish and rough, but he isn’t the kind of boy who uses unjustified violence. At the very least, his father and I raised him with that kind of education. If my son attacked you people, there must have been a corresponding reason.”
Leon had been tormented in his childhood by his father’s legal wife and her children, and I myself had been exposed to groundless slander and abuse around the time of our broken engagement.
For that very reason, we had taken great care with emotional education so that our children wouldn’t grow into the kind of noble sons and daughters infected with the parasitic sense of privilege and blame-shifting mentality that once plagued the Holfort Kingdom.
They might sometimes behave arrogantly without realizing it because they were children, but we hadn’t raised them to be the sort of despicable people who covered up their own incompetence by blaming others.
Therefore, there had to be some reason why Leah began attacking the soldiers. You might call it a parent’s blind affection, but I believed in my own son.
“Son? Not a fiancé, but a parent? Excuse me, but is he perhaps a stepchild from a political marriage?”
“Watch your tongue. He is my own flesh and blood, the child I carried in my womb and gave birth to myself.”
“…………”
Well, it was certainly a bizarre sight. A girl who looked far younger insisting that a clearly older boy was her own biological son would make anyone avert their eyes in disbelief.
However, in noble engagements and political marriages, it was far from uncommon for husbands and wives to have age differences as large as those between parent and child, or for betrothals to be decided before the parties even reached the age of reason.
There were even noble daughters who married men who already had children around their own age. Considering my current shrunken appearance, it was only natural that people would assume something similar about me.
Yet what I was saying was the plain and unvarnished truth. This world contained countless events so unbelievable that they far exceeded ordinary human imagination.
Perhaps because I had been born into the Redgrave ducal house, one of the central pillars of the Holfort Kingdom, my life seemed destined to become entangled again and again with buried chapters of history shrouded in darkness or with the lost legacies of ancient civilizations.
“Excuse me, but may we have your name?”
“I am Angelica Fou Bartfort, wife of the present Earl Leon Fou Bartfort, who is the only son in law of the former Duke Vince Rapha Redgrave.”
“…………”
I turned my gaze directly toward the men and thrust out my chest with resolve. Even though my shrunken body robbed me of any real dignity, I moved slowly and deliberately, carrying myself with the full pride of a noblewoman.
The soldiers’ reactions to the sight split into two clear groups. Some trembled in fear at the sudden appearance of a noble, while others remained openly suspicious and hostile, refusing to soften their attitude.
From what I could see as I looked around, more soldiers belonged to the latter group. That was hardly surprising. In this diminutive form, projecting any meaningful sense of authority was simply impossible.
Given that reality, I had no choice but to deal with these soldiers using wit and eloquence rather than force. Fortunately, that was precisely my area of strength.
More importantly, this was the perfect opportunity to teach Leah, who always tried to solve everything with brute strength, that there were ways to win without ever drawing a blade.
“I find it difficult to believe such a claim on such short notice. There is absolutely no evidence here to prove that you are indeed a countess.”
“At the moment I have no proof of identity on me. If you were to lift the blockade on the airport, I could produce any number of documents from the airship owned by our house.”
“That is precisely why it is impossible. The moment you board an airship, there is no guarantee whatsoever that you wouldn’t simply flee.”
“The guarantee is right in front of your eyes.”
“What exactly are you claiming serves as a guarantee?”
“This body of mine. Because of this body, I cannot leave this sky island.”
I grandly displayed my body before the dubious soldiers. Their confusion was plain to see. They had no idea what a girl’s body could possibly guarantee.
If someone had made the same claim to me, I would have doubted their sanity as well.
After all, the notion that a person’s body could shrink because of some ruin located deep beneath the dungeon on this sky island would normally be dismissed as the fanciful tale of a dreamer or the delusion of a madman.
First, I had to make them listen long enough to prove that I wasn’t insane.
“I do not understand what you mean by that.”
“Really? You must have heard that strange phenomena have been occurring frequently on this sky island lately. If you dare claim ignorance, then I would say that failing to know such things is nothing short of dereliction of duty for someone entrusted with public security.”
“…If you are referring to the incidents of adventurers being attacked by monsters inside the dungeon, those were cases caused by adventurers who ignored the warning signs and entered dangerous zones.”
“However, once rumors spread about multiple missing persons, the story changes. We are not talking about injured adventurers but about people who visited this sky island and then vanished without a trace.”
“Those are nothing more than baseless rumors deliberately spread by people who dislike the fact that this village is governed by elves, in order to tarnish our reputation.”
“I see. So you are asserting that all the information obtained and currently under investigation by the Holfort Kingdom’s intelligence agency is mistaken?”
“Wh-why would the intelligence agency suddenly come up in this conversation? I don’t understand!”
“Oh? So you really don’t know. In that case, your current response is hardly surprising.”
“…What exactly are you trying to say?”
“The upper echelons of the royal capital and the temple have already begun an investigation into this sky island.”
Several uneasy voices rose from the crowd around me. In contrast, the elves who had been sheltering my family remained as calm and composed as ever.
Paradoxically, their unflappable reaction only lent greater credibility to what I had just said and subtly turned the situation to our advantage.
Unlike the elves who lived in the city, the elders of this settlement carried an air of dignity born from accumulated wisdom and a composure far deeper than their youthful appearance suggested.
The attitude they projected almost resembled quiet pity toward the soldiers, as if saying, “You didn’t even know something so basic?” That silent reaction sometimes proved more devastating than the sharpest verbal attack.
The soldiers who had until moments ago looked down on us now found themselves abruptly pushed into the weaker position. In political maneuvering, the truly strong were not those superior in physical power but those superior in knowledge.
“Cease your fabrications!”
“You are free to disbelieve me, but everything I have said is the unquestionable truth. If you genuinely wish to verify it, then feel free to contact either the royal castle or the temple, whichever you prefer. There is absolutely nothing for me to gain by deceiving mere foot soldiers like yourselves.”
“…Even if what you say is true, we cannot possibly allow you to do whatever you please on this sky island.”
“Do as you like. To begin with, the only reason my family came to the elves’ village was because we had received a secret commission from the intelligence agency and Her Holiness the Saintess to discreetly investigate this settlement. At this point, there is no longer any particular need to conceal that fact.”
“W-wait. Did she just say Saintess…?”
“She mentioned the intelligence agency earlier too. What exactly were they planning to investigate?”
Good. Unease was spreading nicely among the soldiers.
In negotiations like this, presenting information the other side doesn’t know at precisely the right moment causes them to unravel on their own.
These soldiers had deliberately brought armed men into a settlement that was politically off-limits, a place where the village elder, the living symbol of the elf race, resided, and they had attempted to force their will upon it.
Their impatience was already obvious. If I could fan that impatience further and use it against them, it would be entirely possible to create a situation favorable to our side.
“Recently, inexplicable phenomena have begun spreading throughout the elves’ village. Both the upper levels of the kingdom and the temple have come to suspect that the insular elves may be plotting something. After receiving numerous reports, they reached the conclusion that some form of action must be taken.”
“We have received no such reports!”
“If that is your claim, then present your case before the intelligence agency. In any event, given that even the investigators sent here have failed to return, both the intelligence agency and Her Holiness the Saintess, who is on close terms with us, entrusted the investigation to my family.”
“Why would Her Holiness the Saintess be involved in an investigation? That makes no sense.”
“You are the ones forgetting how this elven village came to exist. After the last war ended, it was none other than Saintess Olivia herself who worked tirelessly to promote reconciliation with demi-humans. It is only natural that she would feel concerned.”
“Kh…”
The faces of several of the sharper soldiers began to pale. Meanwhile, those who were politically ignorant or simply foolish started listening to my words with growing attention.
Even if they tried to silence me here and now, the surrounding soldiers and elves would never allow it.
The more I spoke, the more the ignorant ones learned about the situation, and the more panic would spread among them. If they mishandled this matter, they would be the ones cornered.
Let them taste the consequences of harming my second son.
“Her Holiness the Saintess, ever kind-hearted, said she ‘cannot bring herself to believe that some scheme to harm people could be unfolding in the elven village.’ Her boundless compassion refuses to accept that an entire race should be persecuted because of the crimes of a tiny minority. Truly, that is a disposition worthy of being called a saint.”
“Y-yes! There is no way such a plot could be happening!”
“Be silent and listen. Rather than dispatch more investigators who might disappear, Her Holiness requested that my husband, Earl Bartfort, personally examine the true state of the elven village with trustworthy eyes. And this is the result we now have before us.”
“We… we are simply fulfilling our duties as those entrusted with the security of this village!”
“Is that so? Then where exactly were you people, and what were you doing when multiple adventurers were attacked inside the dungeon? I was in that dungeon myself at the time, and I didn’t catch sight of a single official or law enforcer.”
“That is a misunderstanding! After the incident occurred, in order to prevent the damage from spreading further, we took measures such as prohibiting entry into the dungeon and strengthening patrols in the surrounding area!”
“That sounds like nothing more than a cover-up. When I was attacked by monsters inside the dungeon and later rescued, my body had been rejuvenated into the form of a young girl like this. Despite falling into such an abnormal situation, not once have the leaders of this village offered us any explanation or apology! If you truly are the one in charge of security for the elven village, then right here and now give me a detailed explanation!!”
The soldiers began to falter under the force of my tirade and hurriedly started discussing something among themselves. Of course, they couldn’t come up with any effective countermeasure.
The more people who know a piece of information, the exponentially greater the chance that it will leak. That is precisely why, in armies, low-ranking soldiers are often told nothing at all and simply carry out orders exactly as instructed by their superiors.
That was precisely why they were so shaken by my words. They had thought they were cornering someone far weaker than themselves, but in reality they had kicked the rear end of an opponent vastly more powerful.
The backlash from acting so arrogantly toward their opponent now turned inward as self-inflicted damage. That was exactly why soldiers required unshakable discipline and strict self-restraint.
The troops stationed on this sky island were of low quality. Having seen the training conducted under Leon in the Bartfort territory, I could tell at a glance that these were mercenaries hired for money, with no attachment whatsoever to the place they lived.
The fact that they couldn’t muster any decent rebuttal to my words and were left visibly rattled was proof enough.
“To begin with, what exactly was your purpose in coming to this settlement?”
“…It was only the other day. More than ten elves were attacked and injured by a dangerous individual, a violent thug. The perpetrator was a noble of the kingdom, and in order to prevent any further victims we had no choice but to mobilize soldiers…”
“Hmm, I see. So on this sky island, a noble staying at an inn is attacked in the middle of the night by more than ten ruffians, fights back out of necessity, and is then labeled the violent thug. Is that it?”
“Wha!?”
“Hey! What the hell is this!? This isn’t what we were told!”
“Why the hell would it turn out like that!?”
“We were told we were arresting a suspicious person!!”
The moment the soldiers’ commander spoke those words in an attempt to organize the situation, and I immediately refuted them, this was the result.
As expected, most of the soldiers had no idea why they had actually been mobilized. They had probably believed they were genuinely there to capture violent criminals.
Well, by that point we had already been given shelter in this settlement, and it seemed Leon, working together with that lost item, had already turned the tables on the elves who attacked him.
Leon abhorred the death of people regardless of whether they were friend or foe, but he showed absolutely no mercy to anyone who tried to harm those dear to him.
It appeared that he had beaten them thoroughly and then extracted information through torture. I deliberately avoided touching on that point. If I mentioned it carelessly, I might give them an opening to argue that we had gone too far.
“In other words, you people targeted the lives of investigators sent by the Holfort Kingdom to probe the dungeon. Moreover, among the radical faction of elves there are many who seek to expel humans entirely. Fearing that the results of our investigation would reach the high officials who hold political power or the Saintess of the temple, you attempted to silence us. Is that not correct?”
“That’s wrong! We never plotted anything of the sort!!”
“No matter how much you protest, the facts remain unchanged. We have already dispatched a messenger to the royal capital. The justice system of the Holfort Kingdom shows not a shred of mercy toward those who plot rebellion and high treason. Your parents, your siblings, even your own children. Three generations of your family will all be judged as traitors. If you are merely stripped of status, consider yourselves fortunate. In most cases, it will be life imprisonment or execution.”
“W-wait! We only did what we were ordered to do by those above us!”
“It’s the ones who gave the orders who are at fault! I had nothing to do with it!”
“Please! Listen to us!!”
“You can make your excuses in a court of law. Oh, and clinging to the mercy of Her Holiness the Saintess will do you no good. She is indeed compassionate, but there are limits. For all her efforts toward reconciliation with demi-humans until now, the result has been a breeding ground for rebellion. Anyone who lived through the war with the former Fanoss Duchy would understand just how fierce Her Holiness can become in battle.”
“Hiiiieee!!?”
Overcome with terror, the soldiers descended into madness and began hurling abuse at one another, desperately trying to shift the blame.
The fiercest accusations were directed toward the commander who had been speaking with me until now. They accused him of knowing a certain amount of the truth yet concealing it, and of maneuvering them into capturing a noble.
If they had been renowned mercenaries, they might have had some awareness of their employer’s circumstances. However, the mercenaries here cared only about their own lives and their pay.
That was why they were thrown into disarray so easily by my mixture of truth and falsehood, causing their chain of command to collapse.
Instead of directing their anger toward me, the soldiers turned on their own superiors, shouting things like “We were deceived!” and “I had nothing to do with it!” Once matters had reached this stage, they were bound to hesitate about capturing us.
“If you wish to capture us, go ahead and try. But the instant you do, you will be branded as traitors. The Bartfort Earl house, the Redgrave ducal house, the Holfort Kingdom army, and the forces dispatched by the temple under the Saintess will descend upon this sky island. Within days it will be erased from the map, and not even a fragment will remain. You had better act with the full understanding that you and your descendants, down through the generations, will be punished as rebels.”
“Please wait! Please wait!!”
Before I could finish delivering my threat, a voice like a scream cut me off. When I turned, I saw several elves approaching on horseback.
Elves normally build their settlements deep within forests and live there, so the very concept of riding horses does not exist in their culture. If elves are riding horses, it is proof that they maintain deep ties with humans.
Looking closely, their attire was not the traditional ethnic clothing worn by the elves of this settlement, but rather the formal dress worn by high officials of the kingdom.
Given that the commander bowed respectfully to them, these mounted elves must have been the rulers of the city elves.
The elves galloped through the parted ranks of soldiers and dismounted in front of me. To be precise, they practically threw themselves from their saddles with astonishing agility and prostrated themselves flat on the ground. For a moment, I was stunned by the swiftness of their movement.
“I am the village chief entrusted with governing this settlement!! Please! I beg you!! Please forgive us for our countless discourtesies!!”
“…Is he the real one?”
“There is no mistake. He is the new village chief appointed to manage the affairs of the settlement. Because he frequently has to negotiate with people from the kingdom, his attire is not what one would normally expect of an elf.”
“I’m quite accustomed to seeing such individuals from my time in the former royal capital, so it’s no issue.”
I see. If he once served as a personal attendant to elves, then he would naturally be well versed in how to interact with humans.
However, the personal elf attendants I had observed until now usually carried a distinctive air of looking down on humans, or they borrowed authority from their masters. Yet this new village chief displayed none of that haughtiness.
Rather, seeing him drenched in sweat and prostrating himself so thoroughly made pity outweigh any sense of satisfaction.
Even if this were an act performed to draw out my sympathy, it would still be quite impressive. In any case, he is the only one here capable of stopping these soldiers.
“All of the failures this time are entirely due to my own inadequacy as the one responsible for governance. The elves of this settlement bear no blame whatsoever.”
“…Are you intending to claim that the elves who attacked us are likewise blameless?”
“Those individuals were incited by radical elements who harbor hatred toward humans, and as a result they committed crimes. They have already been imprisoned and are awaiting judgment. Though they are fellow elves, I have no intention of shielding criminals. I humbly request that they receive strict and impartial punishment.”
“And the soldiers surrounding the settlement had no intention of harming us?”
“I ordered their deployment with the utmost priority on everyone’s safety in light of the unsettling elements within the settlement. However, in their haste they must have chosen excessively forceful methods. All of this is the result of my own shortcomings, and I will humbly accept whatever punishment is deemed appropriate. But please, I implore you. Please show mercy at least to the lives of my fellow elves!!”
There was no falsehood in the new village chief’s attitude. At least, that was how it appeared to me.
It would certainly be possible to reproach him here for everything that had occurred in the elven village. However, while we are indeed nobles of the Holfort Kingdom, we do not possess the authority to judge criminals outside our own territory.
A lord may judge criminals only within lands where governance has been officially granted. Outside those borders, the most that is recognized is the right to legitimate self-defense.
At present, while the elven village is an autonomous zone, it simultaneously falls strongly under direct royal administration. If I were to press my will too forcefully here, it could very well be we who end up reprimanded.
Above all, if I continue cornering and excessively berating someone who is already prostrating himself and showing complete submission, the situation could deteriorate further.
Should the new village chief, driven to desperation, issue an order to capture or harm us, there would be no way to resist.
In other words, this is both an apology directed toward us and, at the same time, a veiled threat. If we misjudge how far to press, we too will be the ones left shaken.
In practical terms, the realistic point of compromise at this stage was probably right around here.
After all, on our side as well, Leon had extracted information from the attacking elves using methods bordering on torture, and now Liar had gotten into a confrontation with the soldiers.
Since we also carried circumstances we would rather not have exposed, it was wiser to prioritize securing our immediate safety for the time being.
“We repelled those who attacked us in order to protect ourselves. The quarrel between my son and your soldiers was an unfortunate incident caused by a failure in communication. Is that not correct?”
“Yes. We had no intention of harming you. It was merely an unfortunate coincidence that arose from our attempt to ensure safety while trying to clear up the misunderstanding.”
“Very well. I accept your apology. Oh, and we will have our privately owned airship stand by in preparation for any emergency.”
“Understood. I will order the soldiers blockading the airport to withdraw. However, for the sake of providing an explanation to those dispatched from the kingdom, I would appreciate it if you could remain here for the time being.”
“There is also the matter of my body. Rest assured, I will not attempt to flee.”
At last, the tense and ominous atmosphere that had hung over the surroundings began to dissipate as the new village chief and I reached a point of compromise.
The elves of the settlement relaxed their shoulders now that the troublesome affair was over and began to disperse. The soldiers, meanwhile, argued loudly with the new village chief, but that was no longer any concern of mine.
I had the escort who had carried me earlier now carry the injured Leah on his back instead, and we headed toward Yumelia’s house. We also needed to see to the treatment of Yumelia, who had sheltered us.
“What the heck is this? Doesn’t it make me look like the only idiot here?”
“You don’t look like an idiot. You are a genuine, bona fide idiot.”
“But come on, I was desperate too, you know. One of the elves who protected us was about to get dragged into it.”
“Your kindness as a person is certainly admirable. However, deliberately stirring up conflict is nothing but thoughtlessness.”
“Please do not be too harsh on him. He was simply desperate to protect us.”
“It is a mother’s duty to stop her child from throwing himself into danger. Still, I will at least acknowledge the motive and the courage behind his desire to protect others.”
Leah sulkily turned his face away from me.
If only Leon were here at a time like this. He would mediate things perfectly. But right now he was off at the ruins.
Watching my husband and son risk their lives in battle while I could do nothing but stand by was unbearably frustrating.
Even so, if I didn’t say something, Liar would surely throw himself into danger again.
“Use that injury as a lesson. No matter how far personal martial prowess advances, it will always remain within the realm of the individual. But if you possess wisdom, it is possible to end a battle without ever fighting.”
“Like how you did earlier, Mother?”
“The wonderful thing about knowledge is that even those who lack physical strength, women and children, can accumulate it, and sometimes it can surpass the brute strength of men.”
“So it’s just ‘study more’ again, huh? I’m bad at using my head.”
“When I first met Leon, he was certainly rough around the edges, but he also possessed a strong desire to improve himself. If you truly admire and wish to emulate your father, then start by following that example of his.”
Even I recognized how harsh my words sounded toward my own child, but there was no helping it.
The only advice I could give a boy who sought strength was this: martial power would always be overcome by greater martial power, yet at times wisdom could triumph over strength.
I felt terribly small and insignificant, and my body trembled. Right now, while Leon was still fighting, I wanted nothing more than to be held tightly in his arms.
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Authors Note
┻━━━━━━━━━━┻
This was the chapter where Angie-mama drove off the enemy using nothing but the power of her tongue.
Leah-kun has a bright future ahead of him, but because he idolizes the hero, his father, he tends to chase after strength that is easy to see.
He is still a boy lacking life experience, so let us have him train both body and mind.
Also, Angie unconsciously treats Livia as a terrifying woman, but her image of her is especially frightening due to past experiences and the feats she has heard about.
By the way, at this point in the royal capital, a meeting concerning the elven village is underway, and Her Holiness the Saintess is present at that meeting.
The next chapter will focus on Leon and his party inside the dungeon, and it will be a combat-heavy installment.
P.S.: At the commissioner’s request, illustrations were drawn by Deleter-sama, TTT-sama, Yokoyama Kochi-sama, and Das-sama.
Thank you very much.
Deleter-sama Pixiv
TTT-sama Pixiv（Contains adult content—warning）
Yokoyama Koji-sama Pixiv（Contains adult content—warning）
Das-sama Pixiv（Contains adult content—warning）
I would greatly appreciate any opinions or impressions you may have, as they will serve as encouragement for future work.
~~~End~~~