*Thud.* I take a step on the damp earthen ground. The grains of soil gather and exert strength to support my weight. After I lift my foot, they should sigh in relief retaining that shape, but some kind of power lightly lifts them up. The footprints engraved on the ground vanished like ghosts the moment I lifted my foot.
"The benevolent Earth Mother Goddess turns a blind eye and erases even the traces left by stepping on Her."
*Snap.* The branch I brushed past breaks and droops. But only for a moment; a new shoot sprouts from the broken part, and soon extends a new branch. Lush branches and leaves filled the gaps even more densely.
"Nature fills the forest ruined by beasts with its overflowing vitality."
Earth Arts and Druidism. I erase my traces using the remnants of two Demon Gods. Hilde watched me using the power of the Demon Gods and pointed her finger as if feeling unjustly treated.
"That's cheating! I'm striding along saying 'I'm here!', but you erase it all with the power of a Demon God! It's to the point where even 'I', who walks doing my best with every step, feel unjustly treated!"
What? Erasing footprints with Earth Arts and sprouting grass with Druidism, why is that? If you feel unjustly treated, so do I. I also pointed at Hilde and answered.
"I at least use the power of a Demon God, but isn't Hilde, who does all that with Qigong, more of a cheat? A Demon God is a greater power, so why is it inferior to Qigong?"
"Father's power is something you got for free, but 'my' Qigong is the result of over ten years of training and real combat! It makes me feel deprived!"
"Give me a break. A Demon God is a single flower bloomed by an exceptionally prominent genius in the accumulated human history of thousands of years? Trying to compare that to just a few years of training makes no sense."
"You weren't the one who bloomed it, Father!"
"I am the King of Humanity. What humans have done is no different from my own achievements. The King wants to use it a bit, is there a problem?"
"You've been absent all this time, Father!"
When a thicket suitable for hiding our bodies appeared, we got off our horses. I had set up a mechanism so the horse could run on its own, but even so, an uncontrolled horse wouldn't keep running along the road.
But it doesn't matter. Since we can hide our traces anyway, just leaving the possibility open to the opponent is an advantage.
"Leaving traces, or more precisely, erasing the traces Father would make was my biggest concern, but I'm glad! 'I' even thought about having to carry Father and run!"
"Oh!"
"Why 'Oh'?! I won't carry you as long as Father's stamina isn't completely exhausted!"
YW9peUx5cktZYXhyU2hzY1VsMkQ0ZWtIdk8wU2RqbWlDdFZ0clVPRFo0enRsVGg5Y05CMkpHZUZ6cHVNelE4cg
"You're thinking of carrying me if my stamina runs out? Wow. Even if I had a real daughter, she wouldn't be more filial than Hilde."
"'My' filial piety is also slowly running out, you know?"
"Filial piety is a depletable resource? If our ancestors heard that, they'd be rolling in their graves."
"Did Father even have ancestors?"
No, I don't. I don't even have a daughter. Depleted or whatever, Hilde's filial piety mine is impossible to develop in the first place. Because she's not my daughter. Nod.
That self-proclaimed daughter (older) grumbled and stuck to her concept.
"A well must be a little wet to produce water. Please fill up my filial piety in time before it completely runs out."
"Sure. Good work."
"Wow. So rewarding~."
It was while Hilde was grumbling. A faint thought was read from beyond the ridge in the back. Baron Zenryu's direct Yeirling, a member of the Dark Knights. Before he could bring us into his sight, I hurriedly approached Hilde and covered her mouth.
"Mmph? Mmph mmph?"
"Shh. Duck!"
Hilde, who was tilting her head, also noticed the presence approaching like a ghost before long. Feeling no need to explain, I held onto Hilde and lay on the ground. Smoothly, wooden vines rose according to my will and covered Hilde and me with lush leaves.
And not long after, the ghost-like presence brushed past near us. Hilde and I held our breaths as if we had promised to.
It's not like vampires have keen senses. They see through the dark much better and have an incredible sense of smell for blood, but excluding that, they can't sensitively feel other smells, faint body odors, or the warmth contained in exhaled breaths.
Well, it's a bit much to call this vampire incompetence; Hilde and I feel it clearly because we are close together, but even if we were normal humans, they wouldn't have found us hiding in the bushes. It's just a bit disappointing. If it were a human who had learned Qigong, they would have noticed... Of course, I would have hidden in the ground then.
The presence of the vampire faded. Confirming that enough distance had been opened, I slowly retracted the wooden vines and raised my body. Hilde was crouching on top of me like a cat, tracing the vampire's presence.
"Now, now. Do you realize my greatness? Please get up now."
"As expected of Father! My filial piety seems to have risen a little!"
Hilde pushed off my shoulder and slowly raised her upper body. Poking only her head out and looking left and right, she spoke with a puzzled expression.
"One pursuer? Hmm, this kind of search doesn't seem very meaningful, does it?"
"It's not meaningless. You almost got caught if it weren't for me."
"That's not the important part. The important thing is that they passed by without seeing 'us'."
Hilde stood up slowly from her spot and said.
"The virtue of pursuit is headcount. You must maintain a certain density so that they can't escape through the gaps in the encirclement. The moment the suspicion that 'they might have passed by' sprouts, the pursuit is no different from a failure. But... no matter how I look at it, they don't seem to have that kind of numbers."
That makes sense. This place is the Principality of Mist, a land where sunlight doesn't shine except at the northern and southern edges. They enjoy an abundant life through shepherding and pearl diving, but the population carrying capacity is inevitably low.
Still, since it's a nation, it would be quite a lot if they gathered them.
"The Principality wouldn't want to use humans for something that might get them hurt. Because they are precious resources."
"In the first place, the idea of not using humans because they might get hurt is wrong! Where is there an investment without loss? You have to brace yourself and push forward to get results!"
"That's a Military Nation way of thinking. Retarded country. I really don't want to live there."
"You say that, but~. The countries that actually got properly smashed are the Nations and the Principality, right? The Military Nation and the Signal Corps are intact, right? Your mouth says no, but your body is honest!"
Hilde grinned. If anyone heard, they'd think I go around wreaking havoc in every country. I just took off clothes that didn't fit, that's all.
"Since they passed by here once, the encirclement will gradually widen. We haven't gone further than them, but since the encirclement has become sparse, it'll be easier to slip out. It seems okay to rest for a bit before going, is your stamina fine, Father?"
"I'm full of vigor. It's better to move more during the night."
"You've become quite vigorous, haven't you? There's a bit of a discrepancy from how you've looked so far."
...Certainly.
It takes less effort. Usually, if I move for a long time, only the muscles I use get overworked and hurt, making it hard. Now, it feels like something invisible is wrapping around my body and moving me. Not only that, but how my blood flows, how my body moves is directly drawn in my head. Is this the power of the Demon God?
It might not correspond exactly, but in terms of Qigong, it's at the level of Great Perfection in Qi Sensing. However, unlike real Qigong, I don't have the stamina to release it, so it would be overwhelmingly weak compared to a true Qigong practitioner.
"Is it Qigong? It's a bit different from what I've seen so far. Did you perhaps hide your strength until now, or did you learn something in the Principality?"
"Secret. No comment."
It was roughly correct, but it was annoying to explain, so I glossed over it. Then Hilde shoved her face in and protested.
"Why? What secrets are there between 'us'!"
"Asking about someone else's Qigong is rude in the first place... And Hilde is more secretive than me, who has already revealed everything."
"'Me'? Where about 'me'?"
"Of course. You use Qigong, transformation arts, and even divine power, and while you were in the Holy Sword Squad, you went through an oracle and operated secretly as one of the Military Nation's Six Star Generals, right? If you wrote it as an autobiography, there's such an extreme transformation that one would mistake it for being written by a schizophrenic patient; isn't that more amazing?"
Comparing it to an autobiography was purely my sentiment. Even if she lived acting, still, if the narrator's tone and actions change every time, I feel like I'd go crazy reading it too.
"Ah~. I didn't know Father was so interested in 'me'! I thought you were just leaving me alone, so I'm a bit happy?"
"Leaving alone or whatever, I never raised you in the first place. Why on earth do you call me Father instead of your own father?"
When I asked the part I was most curious about, Hilde made a sly expression and walked ahead. Showing me her back, Hilde said.
"If 'I' had a father, would I have called you Father?"
Oho. Is she trying to plant a sense of awkwardness in me by appealing that she had no parents? Haha, no chance. I am the King of Humanity. A congenital orphan who just popped into existence without any parents or anything. Just like the human species.
Guilt-tripping about not having parents doesn't work on me. I nonchalantly pried into Hilde's family environment.
"Do I look like Hilde's father?"
"No. You don't look like any of them."
"Them?"
Why is it plural when referring to a father, I wondered, and then the memory I read last time came to mind.
Hilde's mother was a courtesan. If she had a child without even knowing it herself, it made sense that she wouldn't know who the father was... But why does she call me Father? There's no explanation for that!
No matter how much I think about it, I can't find a clear explanation. Even Hilde herself can't come up with an appropriate reason to call me Father.
Because I saw through her true form at once? Then she should have called Yuel Mom too! She just called me that without any particular reason then too!
Anyway, this is a fact I learned through telepathy, so I can't mention it first. How should I respond to Hilde's strange remark...
"Why do you refer to your father as 'them'?"
"Well~. Do you want to guess?"
The reason for calling a father in plural. Anyone who isn't a telepath would definitely be curious about this. This is it. I put the answer that came to my mind into my mouth.
"Excuse me for saying this, but did your mother... um, have a cocktail..."
When I thought this might not be it, it was already too late. Hilde suddenly turned around and approached abruptly. As her body clung tightly to me, pain was felt on the top of my foot soon after. Hilde had stepped hard on the top of my foot.
While I swallowed the pain without even screaming for fear of being caught by the pursuit team, Hilde whispered in my ear.
"Even if it's the correct answer, there are things you can say and things you can't say~."
You were the one who asked me to guess first.