16: Drake
One day, a few weeks later, Eliza had brought Lily out to the forest clearing she had prepared.
Lily was swinging the sword that Eliza had made for her… and constantly dropping it, flinging it everywhere.
Eliza was wearing training weights and doing pushups, pullups, and occasionally resting on tree branches and pulling herself up through them. Every now and then, she created a small fragment of ice with her hand, then shook her head as if thinking it wasn’t enough.
“It’s awfully warm today…” Eliza said casually, then continued her exercise, hanging from a tree branch with her legs and doing pullups. The only annoying part of exercising like this was her long white hair, which would occasionally end up in her mouth.
Lily, who was staring at her mom, felt annoyed.
Her mom seemed to pick up a sword for the first time and suddenly was able to wield all sorts of cool strange powers, so why was she having so much trouble with it?
Lily almost wanted to yell at her mom, but she was a child who wanted to be praised, so she didn’t think about it.
And then… When Lily flung her sword again, it almost bounced off the ground and hurt Lily, but the sword seemed to slow down in midair, and when Lily looked, the sword had a thin trail of ice connecting it to the ground.
Eliza felt she was probably being overprotective by using sword aura to freeze a sword in place, but she didn’t want to see her child get hurt if she could prevent it.
“Mom! Come here!” Lily shouted, surprisingly angry.
Eliza hopped down from the tree branch and landed right next to Lily, curious at what exactly her daughter was having trouble with.
For Eliza, who had been fighting monsters nearly every day for the past half year, this was nothing. She had just yesterday fought a mushroom lion, a large hairless lion that needed to be burned when slain, or else its parasitic mushrooms would infect nearby animals, draining their energy until a new mushroom lion would emerge from its corpse. She had Rin to thank for the fire, since her own magical capabilities were next to none at that point. Even now, she struggled with magic, even as she constantly focused on it.
“Yes, Lily?” Eliza asked.
Lily seemed really upset, for some reason, so Eliza was prepared to console her, but…
“I wanna be stronger than you are!” Lily said.
Eliza giggled.
“It takes time to get stronger, Lily.” She said, smiling. “Just like how you see me exercise every day, I only got stronger by working hard.”
“Grr!” Lily growled. “I wanna get strong right away! Like you did!”
And then… Eliza remembered how she became a sword expert. She… really wasn’t as strong as Lily had thought. Eliza, when she first came to this world, had been much weaker than the average person in all but her emotional control.
It wasn’t until someone she cared about, Lily, was in danger that she was able to grow stronger.
She did have an idea… but she can’t just put herself in danger just for a small chance for Lily to awaken to sword aura… right?
Eliza shook her head. That obviously wasn’t an option.
“Hm…” Eliza thought for a moment. “You know, Lily. Your mom isn’t as strong as you think she is. My boss, Grant, experienced a whole lot more than me before becoming a sword expert. Thanks to that, he was a lot stronger than I am now. I became one because I wanted to protect you. I had a lot less that I cared about than my boss did. If you became one right now… It’d be really hard for you to grow any stronger! You’d have to train a lot, just like I’m doing!”
Lily seemed almost determined for a moment.
“Then… What do I do? I want to be strong, too!”
Eliza smiled.
“Well… A kid’s first job is to stay healthy, no matter what! It may be boring, but if you can’t grow up healthily, you’ll not grow up to be as strong! And the second thing to do if you want to be strong is… Make sure to meet lots of people and experience new things!”
Lily still seemed angry, but… A little less so?
Eliza tried thinking about any way to placate her a little more…
“I’ll tell you what. How about we talk to my boss? He’s even stronger than I am, and maybe he’ll have an idea, okay?” Eliza suggested.
Eliza thought about it for a bit. If she wanted Lily to become a swordsmaster faster…
The best way would be for Lily to open up to new experiences. Ones that don’t involve her mother being there around her.
‘And… it would be helpful for me, too. If I was able to care about something other than Lily, I’d be able to expand my inner world and grow stronger, too.’
Eliza thought for a moment about trying to date, again. But then she got frustrated at remembering her history from a few months ago, and her dozens of failed dates.
‘Seriously… It feels like the forces of the world itself were trying to stop me from going on a date…’
Lily seemed a bit confused.
“Stronger than momma?” She asked.
Eliza nodded.
Lily seemed to be really confused for a moment.
Lily had never seen anyone stronger than Eliza, and she couldn’t even understand how strong Eliza was yet… So to try to understand, she just imagined a much, much larger version of Eliza in her head.
Somehow, that idea worked for Lily, and she was able to set that as her new goal.
“I… I wanna be stronger than them! Stronger than your boss!” Lily shouted.
Eliza was stunned.
Grant was practically superhuman… Defeating him wouldn’t be possible except by another swordsmaster… Lily may be guaranteed to become one in the future, but that won’t be happening anytime soon.
And then, she thought for a moment. Lily had stopped growing so incredibly well since they moved here… But mostly because she had stopped eating a certain elixir that was constantly forcing her to grow stronger.
Should Eliza make her eat more of them?
“Well… Lily, do you remember those blended herbs that you used to eat when we hadn’t yet moved here?” Eliza asked.
Lily flinched, then spoke very robotically for a moment.
“No. I do not remember those.” she said, clearly lying.
Eliza almost laughed at her daughter’s terrible acting, but she continued.
“Those herbs blended together are really good for children who want to grow up strong! If you started eating those again, you’d grow stronger than me in no time!”
Lily almost seemed to shake.
“I do not remember those, momma.” She said, still robotically.
Eliza laughed.
“Well… I could always remind you… Unless you don’t want to eat them, that is.”
Lily finally spoke up.
“I… don’t wanna eat those! They taste boring!” Lily finally responded.
Eliza smiled.
“Okay, I understand. Thank you for telling me the truth.” She said, patting Lily’s head.
Lily had expected her mom to be upset, like the time when she had brought an animal into the inn and asked to keep it. But strangely, she wasn’t, Lily thought.
Eliza chuckled.
“You have to tell people the truth sometimes. Otherwise, they won’t know how to do better themselves. If I really thought you didn’t remember them, I would have gone and gotten you some more herbs to eat right here and now!”
Lily nodded, acting quite wisely for a five year old.
And then, it hit her. Her mom just admitted that she thought she was lying!
She was, but to Lily, that was besides the point.
Lily turned away in a ‘Humph!’ and puffed her cheeks up like an upset chipmunk.
Eliza smiled. It was almost time for them to return back to The Shelf, anyways.
She did notice how weird it was that there were no monsters that were interested in their camp today, but she didn’t think about it. It wasn’t the first day that monsters ignored them, and hopefully wouldn’t be the last.
On her way back, she noticed that the temperature was quite a bit higher than usual today, which she mostly chalked up to it being in the middle of the year, nearly being the hot season.
At the city gates, she felt like they were empty. The guards looked concerned, but let her through without issue. And then… she noticed the streets were quite a bit more hectic than usual. Merchants seemed to be all moving towards the port in a hurry, as if they were worried about something going wrong. The townsfolk all seemed stressed, and she overheard many arguments on the street. Most were about money, but some seemed to be about… leaving?
“Momma, what’s going on?” Lily asked.
“I… Don’t know.” Eliza said, confused.
As they continued down the street, when they continued to see more people acting strangely, Eliza decided to just go see Grant. He had access to most of the information that came into the city, barring information only accessible to the government.
Therefore… Whatever was going on, he obviously knew about. Eliza was planning to introduce Lily anyways to Grant, so... Today might be the day to do so.
She quickly made her way to the adventurer’s guild, not even stopping to return Lily to the inn.
Lily, who had been here for the classes at least twice a week, wasn’t very excited. But then… Eliza was going in a different way, and she couldn’t help but get curious.
Eliza made her way to the back, ignoring the receptionist today. Whatever was going on was probably more important than her, today.
And then, at his desk, was Grant, who seemed stressed.
“Good. You’re here… I’ve already informed Rin of the situation.” Grant said as Eliza entered his office.
“What situation? I don’t know what’s happening! Why are there so many people getting on boats all of a sudden?” Eliza asked.
Grant sighed.
“That landwyrm you killed a few months ago… Wasn’t a mere landwyrm.”
Eliza was stunned.
“What exactly does that mean?” She asked.
Grant seemed troubled, so whatever it was… Was giving a swordsmaster trouble. Eliza felt she was unlikely to be able to help, in whatever this was.
“It… It wasn’t a landwyrm at all. It was a drake.”
Eliza’s heart skipped a beat, but Lily, sitting alongside her, was confused.
"I don't blame you for this, Eliza. You were given incorrect information. You never could have known that things could turn out this way, and if I need to, I will fight to protect you." Grant said, but his facial expression was tense.
“What’s a drake?” Lily asked.
Looking down, Eliza grimaced.
“It’s… a really strong creature. They’re like dragons, but on land… and if you kill one of their hatchlings…”
Grant nodded, and then spoke up.
“They come at you for revenge.” he said.
