Geuru, saying she would show that she was the master, made the SSS-rank hamster do “roll over” and “paw!”
The little creature was horrified, but obediently complied.
In truth, she didn’t need to show him.
He already knew what the sinister hamster his daughter had brought home was, because he had read it with “Internal Interference.” According to the information he had learned then, that thing was in a state of subordination to Geuru.
When he asked Geuru what on earth she had done, her eyes sparkled.
“Geuru opened the Cwadle!”
“Like an anime protagonist!”
“Like dis! Open up, Cwadle!”
That was her answer.
Then she went on about how “inside the Cwadle, my hands weren’t cold at all, so I made a snowman and held hands—” and so on.
“Really? Daddy wants to go there too.”
“Um!”
“Want to try opening it again?”
“Not now. It’s all wilty.”
“Geuru is?”
“The sprout.”
“……It does look wilty.”
“Yeees…….”
While talking with Geuru, Jurim kept feeling as though he were communicating with an alien.
Still, for now, he understood that Geuru had done something, somehow.
Even for him, the only creation-types he had ever met at this level were his older brother and Amakusa.
Even among Awakened, the spectrum of abilities was broad, so even within the same category there were countless differences, and the categories themselves were merely arbitrary classifications made for convenience. There was far too much that remained unknown.
In any case, as a father, all he could do was suffer a headache because his daughter was far too exceptional.
Jurim frowned and crossed his arms.
‘Still, this is a bit much.’
He had said he would support her no matter what she did, but he couldn’t just stand by while she picked up something this sinister.
It would be troublesome if she kept bringing home things like this.
“On Geuru. Is it okay to keep picking up living creatures, or not?”
“But dis one didn’t have an owner.”
“Even so, Geuru becoming its owner is a different matter. Raising a living creature requires responsibility.”
“Responsibility…….”
“It might get sick, and annoying things might happen. Even then, you have to take care of it. Something like that becomes Geuru’s ‘forever family.’ Are you still okay with that?”
At his stern tone, Geuru drooped and fidgeted with her fingers.
Forever family…….
“O-of course!”
Geuru glanced once at Beilak, then lifted her head.
“Geuru will hug him every day. Like dis.”
Geuru hugged Jurim tightly.
Then she rubbed her cheek against his chest.
At the soft cheek and warm baby scent, the heart that had been firm for a moment softened completely.
‘Trying to win me over like this again.’
When Jurim tickled the child with a displeased look, she burst into peals of laughter.
“……Then if you promise me just a few things—”
It was just as his heart had weakened from a single hug and he was about to reluctantly allow it.
“Myut!”
The hamster’s form distorted.
“……?”
Jurim hugged Geuru and took one step back.
“Hah!”
“……?”
Jurim stared in bewilderment at the place where the hamster had been. Sitting there was a boy about Geuru’s age.
Jurim looked down at the child.
The boy, whose pupils were studded with stars, also stared straight up at Jurim.
Pointing at Geuru, the child explained naturally.
“The Monarch’s skill level appears to be low. It is unstable when containing all of my power, so maintaining my form is difficult.”
After joining Geuru, he had faithfully become an explanation bot for the two utter fools who knew absolutely nothing—the Monarch and the Usurper.
Jurim turned his gaze to Geuru.
He pointed at Beilak with his index finger.
“Go turn him back.”
“Hiiiiiing!”
*
“Phew.”
Geuru shut herself in her room and locked the door tight.
By begging, pleading, hugging, kissing, and deploying tantrums and charm, she had succeeded in buying time from Jurim.
In truth, it was only that Jurim had to go out for work, so the discussion had been postponed.
Geuru promised Jurim several times as he left that she could turn Beilak back into a hamster, but—
‘I don’t know how!’
She had activated the skill “Knead-Knead” again and again, but perhaps because she wasn’t in the Cradle, it wouldn’t work at all.
‘W-what do I do?’
Whether she did or not, the boy with stars in his pupils tilted his head.
“Is it a hobby of humans to put their own blood kin into vessels?”
“Hm? What does dat mean?”
“I say that because earlier, from Father’s left hand, I sensed the aura of the Monarch—no, of Sheier.”
Sheier was an existence on a completely different level from himself, and yet he could be contained in a hand. Was that man truly human?
“As expected of the father raising such an outrageous daughter.”
When Beilak muttered with half admiration and half exasperation, Geuru brought her face close to his and asked as if urging him on.
“What? Monarch? Shee-ee?”
“Not Shee-ee. Sheier. He is no longer the Monarch now. Should I call him the former Monarch?”
If it was Daddy’s left hand, then he must be talking about the master of the 99th floor.
Then did that mean the master of the 99th floor was Beilak’s former master, “Sheier”?
“Um! Wait. Geuru has a question.”
“Of course you do. You know nothing.”
When Beilak spoke cynically, Geuru pouted her lips.
She was dissatisfied, but it was true, so she had nothing to say back.
“Den I can know from now on……. What’s dat blood kin thing?”
The snow rabbit sleeping as a sprout was Geuru’s first blood kin. And Beilak had introduced himself as Sheier’s blood kin.
“In Earth’s myths, they say the Creator molded humans into being. To us, a Monarch is such an existence. Those personally created by the Monarch in the Cradle are called ‘blood kin,’ and all other lives that flourish in their civilization become the Monarch’s ‘vassals.’”
“Huum. I see.”
Geuru nodded with a solemn face.
‘What is he talking about?’
“So Shee-ee is Bei-ee’s daddy?”
Like Geuru and the snow rabbit?
At this, Beilak shook his head.
“No, his master. The one who could call Sheier Father is over there.”
The child pointed at the plump baby bird sitting on Geuru’s head.
“The last blood kin Sheier created, and an avatar made by dividing off his own power.”
“Mephi is?”
“In the way it is described on Earth, the only descendant who could truly be said to have inherited Sheier’s genetic information is Mephisto. That is why he is the unfilial wretch who sealed his father.”
“Aha—Mephi is unfiwial…….”
“Yeah, yeah. Unfiwial.”
Beilak answered half-heartedly now, as if he no longer had any will to correct Geuru’s words.
“What’s unfiwial?”
Beilak thought for a moment before answering simply and clearly.
“It means a father and son don’t get along.”
She should be able to understand that much.
“Don’t get along…….”
As Geuru repeated those words, Beilak glanced toward Mephisto.
“So it would be best to make sure those two don’t run into each other.”
“Hm? Why?”
If they didn’t meet just because they didn’t get along, wouldn’t they only grow apart forever?
“He may be an idiot bird like that now, but there’s no knowing when he might come to his senses…… Ugh!”
Suddenly, Beilak frowned and moved his head from side to side.
“Hah?”
And it happened in the blink of an eye.
In the spot where the child had been sitting, a pure white hamster was once again in place.
“Bei-ee!”
The round hamster gave a tiny cry, his eyes like dead fish.
“Myut.”
“But Geuru didn’t do anything?!”
The hamster, sitting flat on the floor, slowly nodded. It meant that he knew that too.
It seemed that because a low-level skill had been applied incompletely, his form was changing at random.
‘A-anyway, is this a relief?’
If he hadn’t returned to being a hamster, he would have undoubtedly been sent straight to the Bureau.
If he were caught by the terrifying Mr. Hungsam, then Geuru’s subordinate would……
‘Shudder, shudder.’
Geuru quickly shook off the terrifying scene that had invaded her mind.
Meanwhile, Beilak was wriggling back toward the bag and going inside.
‘Is it comfortable in there?’
It was better than him climbing onto her head and getting into a fight with Mephi, at least.
‘I should buy him a house and a wheel.’
After watching the fist-sized hamster go into the bag and firmly zip it shut, Geuru plopped down on the floor and tilted her head.
“Huum.”
She had heard so much today that her head felt like it would burst.
First, Geuru thought of Jurim’s left glove.
‘So his name is Shee-ee…… Hm?’
Something strangely nagged at her mind. With her brow pinched as tightly as possible, Geuru gathered and organized the information she had obtained so far.
The master of the 99th floor = Sheier
Sheier = Mephisto’s father
‘Then inside Geuru’s daddy is Mephi’s daddy?!’
Geuru grabbed Mephi, who was sitting on her head, placed him on her palm, and met his eyes.
Mephisto looked utterly unmoved, as though he had heard someone else’s story.
“Mephi, do you not get along with your daddy?”
“Ppit?”
Mephisto merely tilted his head.
“You don’t remember?”
“Ppii.”
“I see.”
Suddenly, Geuru thought of her dad and grandfather, who had not gotten along.
She didn’t know what had happened between the two of them, but……
Geuru sprang to her feet, brought the glass jar of marshmallows from her desk, and opened the lid.
“Mephi, family is precious. Soft and warm. Like dis.”
Mephi went hap! and accepted the marshmallow. The baby bird puffed out his cheeks, chewed, and nodded.
“Ppit!”
[♡]
A heart came flying over for the first time in a while.
Did he like the marshmallow?
When she tapped his head, Mephi rubbed his cheek against her fingertip.