“……She hasn’t come home yet.”
Belgriff would stand at the entrance to the village, thinking to himself “Today is the day she’ll come home” every day. He kicks the ground with his artificial right leg.
According to the letter that came last week Angeline should have come home by now but since then there has been no sign of, nor word from her. You can barely even call this the end of the month, it’s now the last day of the month. Tomorrow will be the first of the next month!
Though Belgriff had been calm when the letter had first arrived as it still didn’t feel real to him, as the end of the month approached he grew more and more restless. What should he say to her when she arrives? What should he make her for dinner? What should he do for her? Constantly thinking about such things, with each passing day he would slowly lose his composure.
And on the day Angeline was supposed to arrive Kerry had in goodwill prepared a grand welcoming party, however she never ended up appearing. At that time she was on the way to Carda Town to hunt the Wyvern.
It would be difficult to put into words just how dispirited Belgriff felt, but the villagers happily satisfied themselves with the feast prepared.
Ever since then, whenever Belgriff was not working he would stand at the entrance of the village waiting for Angeline. Since you could feel his sorrow just by looking at him stand there, the villagers were left unable to even try to talk to him.
“…I wonder if she’s okay. Did she fall ill…? She isn’t dead, is she…?”
As his thoughts start to grow more and more negative, Belgriff covers his face with his hands and crouches down, despondent.
“Ooh… Ange…”
While Belgriff falls into a vicious cycle of pessimism, the sound of a carriage enters his ears.
Belgriff suddenly raises his head. A merchant, it seems. Belgriff squints his eyes, trying to see if Angeline might be riding together with him, but there is no such silhouette visible.
“…I miss her.”
Crestfallen, Belgriff once again droops his head. He could slightly feel the old phantom pain from his right leg returning.
As the merchant approaches the entrance to the village, he speaks up to Belgriff, smiling.
“Good day, am I right in assuming that this is Tornela Village?”
“Yes… It is…”
“That’s good. Oh, right, may I ask where a Mister Belgriff lives? I was asked to deliver a letter to him.”
Shocked, Belgriff raises his head once more.
“That would be me…”
“Oh, how fortunate,” the merchant exclaims as he descends from the carriage. He pulls a letter out from inside his bag and hands it to Belgriff. “So this is definitely intended for you, correct?”
It certainly does say that it was addressed to Belgriff. Seeing the sender’s name Belgriff rejoices. The name ‘Angeline’ was clearly written there.
The merchant leaves for the the village centre while Belgriff hastily opens the sealed letter.
“Hrm… I see, so it was a sudden request…!”
Reading the letter, Belgriff feels relieved. So it wasn’t that she fell ill, or even died.
The letter explains that she was unable to come home as a sudden Wyvern subjugation request came and she had to go to Carda Town for it. She also wrote that she would take another vacation sometime soon and would come home then.
As Angeline always had a lot she wanted to write about, she would apparently often end up stuck for a long time not knowing what she should write and end up just writing an extremely short and simple letter.
“I’m so glad… So she’s okay…”
Now completely relieved, Belgriff walks back to his house with a spring in his step.
In front of his house stand around ten children of varying ages, all repeatedly swinging wooden swords. Seeing Belgriff heading over, the children exclaim together in joy.
“Hey, it’s Uncle Bell!”
“Will we get to practice today?”
“Yeah, I got a letter. Now I’m as energetic as ever! Sorry for worrying you.”
Since Angeline left, Belgriff had gathered any willing children and taught them things like swordsmanship for self-defence, herbalism, and how to move around in the mountains.
It wasn’t as if there weren’t any that aspired to become adventurers among the children, but most of them just held admiration for swordplay and going to the mountains.
But since for the past few days Belgriff had been nothing but spaced out, waiting for Angeline, practice had to be put off. It seems that the children had been practicing swinging their swords by themselves during that time.
Belgriff once more lines them up and makes them swing their swords, slowly correcting their posture and reducing any unnecessary movements
The children are now at the level where even a six-year-old boy among them can swing in proper form.
Belgriff nods, satisfied.
“Yes, you’ve all improved a lot.”
“Really?”
“Hey, Uncle Bell, when are we going to the mountains next?”
“Well, let’s see… Since I’d need to ask your parents first it’ll take a bit.”
As Belgriff says that the children start complaining. To them, adventuring in the mountains is a wonderful, exciting, and fun event. Belgriff smiles wryly.
“I get that you want to go, but the mountains are dangerous, you know? Remember, when we go to the mountains it isn’t to play, is it?”
The children fall into silence, feeling awkward in response to Belgriff’s question. They all wanted to play, after all.
But in the mountains not only do wild beasts appear, it isn’t uncommon for magic beasts to suddenly spawn either. Magic beasts are a threat to humanity, and a far greater danger than wild beasts are. It would be dangerous to go to the mountains without a serious mindset.
Seeing the quietened children, Belgriff rubs his beard and laughs.
“As long as you know we aren’t going there to play, that’s fine. I’ll try to let you go to the mountains as soon as I can.”
“Really!?”
“When!? Today!?”
“I won’t be able to do it today or tomorrow… Well, I’m only going to take children that properly listen to me without fussing.”
Hearing that, the children act as if they’re the most well-behaved children in the world.
○
Going through the souvenirs she bought once more, Angeline packed her luggage as she hummed to herself.
“I wonder if Daddy will like this… Oh, maybe I’ll give this one to Mr. Kerry…”
After subjugating the Wyvern Angeline continued to complete various requests one after another until they were all taken care of once more, and was finally able to take another vacation.
Later in the afternoon she has plans to ride on a stagecoach, and after following her itinerary for a planned nine days she would arrive at Tornela Village.
What should I do when I get home?
First, I’ll get Daddy to hug me and pet me lots. I’ll tell him again but in person that I’ve become S Rank, and he’ll praise me, telling me that I did well. We’ll eat together, sleep together, and, yeah, I’ll get a hit in on him this time!
As more and more of those kinds of thoughts appear in Angeline’s mind her expression becomes slovenly and relaxed as she quickly packs things such as spare clothes, food, and souvenirs into her bag.
Since the party leader will be taking a vacation Milliam and Anessa have had less and less to do. The two of them are astounded as they stand there and watch this scene created by Angeline. They could never have imagined that the normally taciturn, refined Angeline could act like this.
Swaying side-to-side slightly Milliam quietly whispers to Anessa.
“Just how much does she love her father?”
“Yeah… It’s kind of surprising…”
“Right? So even Ange has this kind of a side to her.”
It hasn’t even been a year since they had first partied up with Angeline. Before then, Angeline would always act independently. That too, is another sign of how outstanding her ability is. After all, normally it’s common sense for adventurers to create parties together before trying to rank up.
Milliam and Anessa were initially from the same party, but due to a difference in opinions the two of them left.
Just when they were stuck, not sure what to do from then on, they were asked by the guild to party with Angeline.
It seems that in order to ensure a greater success chance in the completion of difficult requests, the guild decided that it would be a bad idea to continue to let Angeline act solo.
At first the two took Angeline’s silent nature as her preferring isolation and as such they would often act awkwardly around her. But in truth it wasn’t that she disliked other people or was completely single-minded in her goals and instead simply just didn’t talk much. Eventually she opened her heart to them and ever since then they have gotten along well as a party. However it wasn’t until very recently that they had discovered her abnormal love of her father. Of course, the two of them have been unable to interact with her as they normally do like this.
Without caring a bit about that, Angeline continues to show more and more sides of her that they had never known before.
“Going home soon~♪ Going home soon~♪ I’m going to see Daddy soon~♪”
As if dancing, she walks around the room. Then as if only just remembering about them she looks towards her two party members.
“You two really aren’t going to come?”
“We can’t, the condition for your vacation was that the two of us stay and temporarily help out other parties after all…”
“That’s right. Well, I do want to see what kind of person your father is though.”
“Mnng… I wanted to introduce you to Daddy, but I guess there’s no helping that. Good luck with your work.”
As Angeline confidently gives them a thumbs-up, the two sigh.
It seems that whenever her father is brought up in some way Angeline becomes a bit of an airhead. While she does act more friendly like that, her two party members are left with mixed feelings about it.
And as the day passes Angeline heads off to the stagecoach station and looks for a carriage headed north. Milliam and Anessa have come as well, to see her off. They have no work for today.
“It’s amazing how there’s always so many people here.”
“cough cough, the amount of dust is more amazing. You still can’t find it, Ange?”
“Mnn… This place is too big, I don’t know where it is…”
A single person, panicking, appears in front of the aimlessly-wandering party after making their way through the crowd. A staff member from the guild.
“Ah! Found you! Miss Angeline, there’s been an incident!”
“Huh…? What is it…?”
The guild employee had arrived gasping for air. Bent over ninety-degrees they manage to recover their breath, and suddenly start rambling.
“A calamity-class magic beast has spawned in Astrinos Town! Apparently the local adventurers are holding it off right now, but would you please go as their reinforcements?”
Angeline raises her eyebrows.
“Don’t screw with me…! I’m on my vacation right now…! I’m just about to leave for Tornela Village to see Daddy…!”
The guild employee gets down on their knees in front of Angeline as if begging.
“Please! Somehow, please! People have died already! Please, do something!”
“Gnnnrrr…”
Alessa pats Angeline, biting her lip, on the shoulder.
“I get how you feel Ange, but if we don’t go then Astrinos will be destroyed.”
“That’s right, Ange. It’s unfortunate but just this once, okay?”
Angeline stands silently for a while before eventually pushing the bag stuffed with souvenirs towards the guild employee.
“Huh…? Uh, uhm, what is…”
“Hold onto it…… What magic beast is it?”
“A, a swarm of Giga Ants, with a queen, but… wait, that means-!?”
“Fu…fufu, fu…… Those damn bugs… I’ll kill them all…!”
Angeline violently roars out like a God of War.
○
She mowed down all that stood in her way.
No matter how many puny humans there were, it mattered not.
All for the sake of the swarm, she would march on looking for an even better place to create a nest.
The human town that blocked her path should not have even been an obstacle.
Yet, just what is happening?
The Queen of the Giga Ants, the Queen Ant, trembles in fear of the monster before her.
There had been plenty of humans that had challenged her until now.
However they had all been impertinent fools, opposing her despite their weakness. To her, they were nothing but nutrients serving themselves up on a silver platter for her colony.
However the human that now stands in front of her, butchering her brethren is different from all of those other ones.
That is no human. That is fear incarnate. Fear, taken on a distinct form, coming to kill her.
The raven-haired reaper casually cuts up the Queen’s elite guards, ants that she had hand-picked as the most powerful of them all. And then, the Queen is caught by those black eyes.
The sound of magic bursting can be heard in the distance. The reaper’s comrades must be killing those of her brethren left in the outer areas.
The black reaper approaches, one step after another.
The Queen falls into a half-crazed state from the fear. Shaking her gigantic body she scatters acid all over.
But not a single drop affects the reaper. Its swaying movements like that of some spectral being from the afterworld, it cleanly dodges every falling drop of acid, every leg swung at it.
“It’s you… It’s your fault… All because you came crawling out not thinking about what trouble you would cause me… Damn ant…!”
The reaper mutters something. The Queen is now nothing but a ball of madness. Raising a cry of war she flails her arms and legs around, desperate to shake off the fear that stand in front of her.
Suddenly she feels something. Like something had passed through her body.
She had already been cut in half.
As her vision falls, without her knowing what had just occurred, without being able to regain consciousness, the Queen Ant perishes.
“That’s for getting in my way… You only have yourself to blame…”
The reaper mutters something and walks away, as if it had lost all interest.
Like that, the Giga Ant swarm that would normally require several A Rank parties working together to subjugate faced the bitter feeling of annihilation by a single infuriated black-haired girl and her comrades.
“……She hasn’t come home yet.”
Belgriff would stand at the entrance to the village, thinking to himself “Today is the day she’ll come home” every day. He kicks the ground with his artificial right leg.
According to the letter that came last week Angeline should have come home by now but since then there has been no sign of, nor word from her. You can barely even call this the end of the month, it’s now the last day of the month. Tomorrow will be the first of the next month!
Though Belgriff had been calm when the letter had first arrived as it still didn’t feel real to him, as the end of the month approached he grew more and more restless. What should he say to her when she arrives? What should he make her for dinner? What should he do for her? Constantly thinking about such things, with each passing day he would slowly lose his composure.
And on the day Angeline was supposed to arrive Kerry had in goodwill prepared a grand welcoming party, however she never ended up appearing. At that time she was on the way to Carda Town to hunt the Wyvern.
It would be difficult to put into words just how dispirited Belgriff felt, but the villagers happily satisfied themselves with the feast prepared.
Ever since then, whenever Belgriff was not working he would stand at the entrance of the village waiting for Angeline. Since you could feel his sorrow just by looking at him stand there, the villagers were left unable to even try to talk to him.
“…I wonder if she’s okay. Did she fall ill…? She isn’t dead, is she…?”
As his thoughts start to grow more and more negative, Belgriff covers his face with his hands and crouches down, despondent.
“Ooh… Ange…”
While Belgriff falls into a vicious cycle of pessimism, the sound of a carriage enters his ears.
Belgriff suddenly raises his head. A merchant, it seems. Belgriff squints his eyes, trying to see if Angeline might be riding together with him, but there is no such silhouette visible.
“…I miss her.”
Crestfallen, Belgriff once again droops his head. He could slightly feel the old phantom pain from his right leg returning.
As the merchant approaches the entrance to the village, he speaks up to Belgriff, smiling.
“Good day, am I right in assuming that this is Tornela Village?”
“Yes… It is…”
“That’s good. Oh, right, may I ask where a Mister Belgriff lives? I was asked to deliver a letter to him.”
Shocked, Belgriff raises his head once more.
“That would be me…”
“Oh, how fortunate,” the merchant exclaims as he descends from the carriage. He pulls a letter out from inside his bag and hands it to Belgriff. “So this is definitely intended for you, correct?”
It certainly does say that it was addressed to Belgriff. Seeing the sender’s name Belgriff rejoices. The name ‘Angeline’ was clearly written there.
The merchant leaves for the the village centre while Belgriff hastily opens the sealed letter.
“Hrm… I see, so it was a sudden request…!”
Reading the letter, Belgriff feels relieved. So it wasn’t that she fell ill, or even died.
The letter explains that she was unable to come home as a sudden Wyvern subjugation request came and she had to go to Carda Town for it. She also wrote that she would take another vacation sometime soon and would come home then.
As Angeline always had a lot she wanted to write about, she would apparently often end up stuck for a long time not knowing what she should write and end up just writing an extremely short and simple letter.
“I’m so glad… So she’s okay…”
Now completely relieved, Belgriff walks back to his house with a spring in his step.
In front of his house stand around ten children of varying ages, all repeatedly swinging wooden swords. Seeing Belgriff heading over, the children exclaim together in joy.
“Hey, it’s Uncle Bell!”
“Will we get to practice today?”
“Yeah, I got a letter. Now I’m as energetic as ever! Sorry for worrying you.”
Since Angeline left, Belgriff had gathered any willing children and taught them things like swordsmanship for self-defence, herbalism, and how to move around in the mountains.
It wasn’t as if there weren’t any that aspired to become adventurers among the children, but most of them just held admiration for swordplay and going to the mountains.
But since for the past few days Belgriff had been nothing but spaced out, waiting for Angeline, practice had to be put off. It seems that the children had been practicing swinging their swords by themselves during that time.
Belgriff once more lines them up and makes them swing their swords, slowly correcting their posture and reducing any unnecessary movements
The children are now at the level where even a six-year-old boy among them can swing in proper form.
Belgriff nods, satisfied.
“Yes, you’ve all improved a lot.”
“Really?”
“Hey, Uncle Bell, when are we going to the mountains next?”
“Well, let’s see… Since I’d need to ask your parents first it’ll take a bit.”
As Belgriff says that the children start complaining. To them, adventuring in the mountains is a wonderful, exciting, and fun event. Belgriff smiles wryly.
“I get that you want to go, but the mountains are dangerous, you know? Remember, when we go to the mountains it isn’t to play, is it?”
The children fall into silence, feeling awkward in response to Belgriff’s question. They all wanted to play, after all.
But in the mountains not only do wild beasts appear, it isn’t uncommon for magic beasts to suddenly spawn either. Magic beasts are a threat to humanity, and a far greater danger than wild beasts are. It would be dangerous to go to the mountains without a serious mindset.
Seeing the quietened children, Belgriff rubs his beard and laughs.
“As long as you know we aren’t going there to play, that’s fine. I’ll try to let you go to the mountains as soon as I can.”
“Really!?”
“When!? Today!?”
“I won’t be able to do it today or tomorrow… Well, I’m only going to take children that properly listen to me without fussing.”
Hearing that, the children act as if they’re the most well-behaved children in the world.
○
Going through the souvenirs she bought once more, Angeline packed her luggage as she hummed to herself.
“I wonder if Daddy will like this… Oh, maybe I’ll give this one to Mr. Kerry…”
After subjugating the Wyvern Angeline continued to complete various requests one after another until they were all taken care of once more, and was finally able to take another vacation.
Later in the afternoon she has plans to ride on a stagecoach, and after following her itinerary for a planned nine days she would arrive at Tornela Village.
What should I do when I get home?
First, I’ll get Daddy to hug me and pet me lots. I’ll tell him again but in person that I’ve become S Rank, and he’ll praise me, telling me that I did well. We’ll eat together, sleep together, and, yeah, I’ll get a hit in on him this time!
As more and more of those kinds of thoughts appear in Angeline’s mind her expression becomes slovenly and relaxed as she quickly packs things such as spare clothes, food, and souvenirs into her bag.
Since the party leader will be taking a vacation Milliam and Anessa have had less and less to do. The two of them are astounded as they stand there and watch this scene created by Angeline. They could never have imagined that the normally taciturn, refined Angeline could act like this.
Swaying side-to-side slightly Milliam quietly whispers to Anessa.
“Just how much does she love her father?”
“Yeah… It’s kind of surprising…”
“Right? So even Ange has this kind of a side to her.”
It hasn’t even been a year since they had first partied up with Angeline. Before then, Angeline would always act independently. That too, is another sign of how outstanding her ability is. After all, normally it’s common sense for adventurers to create parties together before trying to rank up.
Milliam and Anessa were initially from the same party, but due to a difference in opinions the two of them left.
Just when they were stuck, not sure what to do from then on, they were asked by the guild to party with Angeline.
It seems that in order to ensure a greater success chance in the completion of difficult requests, the guild decided that it would be a bad idea to continue to let Angeline act solo.
At first the two took Angeline’s silent nature as her preferring isolation and as such they would often act awkwardly around her. But in truth it wasn’t that she disliked other people or was completely single-minded in her goals and instead simply just didn’t talk much. Eventually she opened her heart to them and ever since then they have gotten along well as a party. However it wasn’t until very recently that they had discovered her abnormal love of her father. Of course, the two of them have been unable to interact with her as they normally do like this.
Without caring a bit about that, Angeline continues to show more and more sides of her that they had never known before.
“Going home soon~♪ Going home soon~♪ I’m going to see Daddy soon~♪”
As if dancing, she walks around the room. Then as if only just remembering about them she looks towards her two party members.
“You two really aren’t going to come?”
“We can’t, the condition for your vacation was that the two of us stay and temporarily help out other parties after all…”
“That’s right. Well, I do want to see what kind of person your father is though.”
“Mnng… I wanted to introduce you to Daddy, but I guess there’s no helping that. Good luck with your work.”
As Angeline confidently gives them a thumbs-up, the two sigh.
It seems that whenever her father is brought up in some way Angeline becomes a bit of an airhead. While she does act more friendly like that, her two party members are left with mixed feelings about it.
And as the day passes Angeline heads off to the stagecoach station and looks for a carriage headed north. Milliam and Anessa have come as well, to see her off. They have no work for today.
“It’s amazing how there’s always so many people here.”
“cough cough, the amount of dust is more amazing. You still can’t find it, Ange?”
“Mnn… This place is too big, I don’t know where it is…”
A single person, panicking, appears in front of the aimlessly-wandering party after making their way through the crowd. A staff member from the guild.
“Ah! Found you! Miss Angeline, there’s been an incident!”
“Huh…? What is it…?”
The guild employee had arrived gasping for air. Bent over ninety-degrees they manage to recover their breath, and suddenly start rambling.
“A calamity-class magic beast has spawned in Astrinos Town! Apparently the local adventurers are holding it off right now, but would you please go as their reinforcements?”
Angeline raises her eyebrows.
“Don’t screw with me…! I’m on my vacation right now…! I’m just about to leave for Tornela Village to see Daddy…!”
The guild employee gets down on their knees in front of Angeline as if begging.
“Please! Somehow, please! People have died already! Please, do something!”
“Gnnnrrr…”
Alessa pats Angeline, biting her lip, on the shoulder.
“I get how you feel Ange, but if we don’t go then Astrinos will be destroyed.”
“That’s right, Ange. It’s unfortunate but just this once, okay?”
Angeline stands silently for a while before eventually pushing the bag stuffed with souvenirs towards the guild employee.
“Huh…? Uh, uhm, what is…”
“Hold onto it…… What magic beast is it?”
“A, a swarm of Giga Ants, with a queen, but… wait, that means-!?”
“Fu…fufu, fu…… Those damn bugs… I’ll kill them all…!”
Angeline violently roars out like a God of War.
○
She mowed down all that stood in her way.
No matter how many puny humans there were, it mattered not.
All for the sake of the swarm, she would march on looking for an even better place to create a nest.
The human town that blocked her path should not have even been an obstacle.
Yet, just what is happening?
The Queen of the Giga Ants, the Queen Ant, trembles in fear of the monster before her.
There had been plenty of humans that had challenged her until now.
However they had all been impertinent fools, opposing her despite their weakness. To her, they were nothing but nutrients serving themselves up on a silver platter for her colony.
However the human that now stands in front of her, butchering her brethren is different from all of those other ones.
That is no human. That is fear incarnate. Fear, taken on a distinct form, coming to kill her.
The raven-haired reaper casually cuts up the Queen’s elite guards, ants that she had hand-picked as the most powerful of them all. And then, the Queen is caught by those black eyes.
The sound of magic bursting can be heard in the distance. The reaper’s comrades must be killing those of her brethren left in the outer areas.
The black reaper approaches, one step after another.
The Queen falls into a half-crazed state from the fear. Shaking her gigantic body she scatters acid all over.
But not a single drop affects the reaper. Its swaying movements like that of some spectral being from the afterworld, it cleanly dodges every falling drop of acid, every leg swung at it.
“It’s you… It’s your fault… All because you came crawling out not thinking about what trouble you would cause me… Damn ant…!”
The reaper mutters something. The Queen is now nothing but a ball of madness. Raising a cry of war she flails her arms and legs around, desperate to shake off the fear that stand in front of her.
Suddenly she feels something. Like something had passed through her body.
She had already been cut in half.
As her vision falls, without her knowing what had just occurred, without being able to regain consciousness, the Queen Ant perishes.
“That’s for getting in my way… You only have yourself to blame…”
The reaper mutters something and walks away, as if it had lost all interest.
Like that, the Giga Ant swarm that would normally require several A Rank parties working together to subjugate faced the bitter feeling of annihilation by a single infuriated black-haired girl and her comrades.
