The little one warily watched the Martial Alliance Leader as he naturally took a seat.
Looking at her, she did have a distrust of humans.
By the way,“Alliance Leader, what brings you all the way to the restaurant floor?”
The Alliance Leader usually took care of his meals with side dishes at the tavern.
He enjoyed various kinds of alcohol, but he was also the sort of person who had relatively little interest in gastronomy.
It was rare for him to come all the way here for a meal.
The Alliance Leader naturally picked up his chopsticks and smiled gently.
“Did my two friends not leave their seats empty? Drinking alone felt lonely, so I was looking for the Proprietor.”
Well, that made sense.
The two who drank with him had been expelled for now.
If they were quick, they might return within today or tomorrow, but.
‘There’s no chance for the Blood Demon.’
The Heavenly Demon might return a little sooner,but that man, the Blood Demon, seemed like he would soon need to start worrying about the future of his dimension.
“Are you all right? If it makes you uncomfortable......”
“Uncomfortable? Not at all. I was only thinking about something else for a moment. And it is you, Alliance Leader. Sharing a meal with you is always welcome.”
“Heh heh, thank you for your consideration. But this child is one I have not seen before.”
The little one was glancing sideways at the Alliance Leader while continuously pushing grilled meat into her mouth.
Her attitude was exactly like that of a wild cat.
“You’ll get indigestion. Eat slowly. She is a newly arrived guest this time. For various reasons, I’m acting as her teacher.”
“A child like this is a guest.”
The Alliance Leader, who knew the hotel’s rules for guests in broad strokes, looked at the little one in surprise.
The way she hissed back at his gaze was probably an instinct born from the environment in which she had lived.
It must have been a world where the only warmth was the fire that burned corpses.
Understanding that wariness, the Alliance Leader gently offered his hand.
“My greeting is late. I am Namgung Ju-yu, head of the Namgung Clan and the Alliance Leader who leads the Martial Alliance.”
“......”
The little one silently looked at the hand the Alliance Leader had offered her and raised her guard even higher.
Well, I understood.
“It seems kidnapping children is common in that world.”
“Children, you say? Tsk. To think there are such scoundrels.”
“Dimensions are everything one can imagine and more.”
To think she had nearly been kidnapped after thoughtlessly taking an offered hand.
At any rate, it was an endlessly dangerous dimension for children.
“The Alliance Leader is fine. I’ll guarantee it.”
“You will, mister?”
“And if he does something inappropriate, I can give him a proper scolding.”
“The Proprietor’s scolding is rather frightening.”
I smiled faintly.
What an exaggeration.
“......I do mean it, though?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Didn’t you wear an expression that said you did not believe me?”
While the Alliance Leader and I exchanged a few words, the little one lightly grasped the tip of his hand.
“......I’m Yun Si-a.”
Perhaps she was not entirely reassured, because she showed impressive thoroughness by using a false name.
She was a little one with no basic education, but she had been educated in the wild.
Still, why did she have to use that false name of all names?
“H-heh heh. Si-a...... is it? What a lovely name.”
The Alliance Leader’s pupils shook for a brief moment.
The two awkwardly held hands, then let go.
The atmosphere had become somewhat strained, and what melted such an atmosphere was, by nature, meat and alcohol.
“Would you like a glass of soju?”
“......Proprietor. I have drunk many kinds of alcohol, but that one simply does not suit my taste. Is there no other liquor?”
To dislike soju.
This, now this.
“Alliance Leader, have I ever said anything useless or unhelpful?”
“It is not as though you never have.”
“......Most of it was all right, was it not? Trust me this time. Here. Drink it with the pork belly.”
I opened the soju I had summoned from the storage and poured a glass for the Alliance Leader.
He did not seem at all eager, but that lasted only for an instant.
The moment he ate a piece of pork belly and threw back the soju,“......Haaaah!”
light burst from the Alliance Leader’s eyes.
“M-mister?”
“It’s fine. He’s just a little moved.”
A reaction intense enough for the qi inside his body to burst forth.
I quite liked that.
The Alliance Leader belatedly gathered his qi and quietly looked down at the food before him.
“Truly, this is the taste of a world united under heaven! That alcohol, which was nothing but bitter, blends so well with this.”
“Is it not good?”
“Of course it is good! It washes away the juices filling the meat, so there is no such thing as a more wondrous pairing. What is the name of this grilled meat?”
“It is called pork belly. It is a dish many people enjoyed in my homeland.”
“Heh heh, I understand why. With food like this, a day’s fatigue would be washed clean away.”
The Alliance Leader ate another piece of pork belly, took a sip of soju, and smiled in satisfaction.
“I knew you would be satisfied. Here, have more.”
There was plenty of meat and plenty of soju.
The Alliance Leader nodded and began eating in earnest.
Upon seeing that, the little one also shoved meat into her mouth even more urgently, as if afraid her own meat would be taken.
“No one is going to take it from you. You can eat slowly.”
“Dhey’ll dake id!”
“There’s more. More than enough left even after you eat until your stomach bursts.”
“......Why, whyyy!”
Was she even listening to me?
Watching her constantly push food in, I could feel how poorly she must have eaten until now.
I considered taking her chopsticks away, but instead took out a few more slabs of meat and placed them on the grill.
Dining etiquette could be taught calmly later.
‘For now, it should be enough to let her eat to her heart’s content.’
Around the time I placed the third slab on the grill, a piece of pork belly suddenly appeared in front of my mouth.
The one offering it with clumsy chopstick use was the little one.
“What is it?”
“You haven’t eaten, mister. Eat. Ah!”
So even while shoving food into her own mouth like a barbarian, she had been worrying about me?
“I don’t need to eat.”
It had been a long time since I had become free from various desires.
I ate to enjoy gastronomy, but I had no reason to eat for the sake of filling my stomach.
“Eat it, hurry!”
“......Good grief.”
I quietly watched the little one rushing me while waving the meat in front of me, then opened my mouth.
I was startled because the meat pushed in so far it nearly jabbed my uvula, but the little one’s eyes sparkled after she accomplished her goal.
“It’s good, right? It’s good, right?”
Of course it was good.
Who did she think had grilled it?
“Yes, it’s good.”
“Hehe, this too......”
“Just eat. I’ll eat on my own.”
I pushed away the little one’s forehead as she tried to feed me meat again.
If I ate like that twice, my uvula might tear.
Instead, I placed a few more well-cooked pieces of pork belly on her plate.
The little one glanced at me as if disappointed, but kept drinking down the meat.
Yes, drinking was the right word for that.
“I did not know the Proprietor liked children.”
“Pardon?”
“You should have seen the expression on your own face just now.”
What was wrong with my face?
As I touched my face, the little one looked at me and smiled broadly.
Mm, well.
“I do not dislike them.”
It also reminded me of the old days.
I did not dislike it.
***
“All that fits into that tiny stomach?”
The amount of meat the little one had devoured was nearly one kilogram.
No, how did all of that fit inside that body?
I wondered how she had lived while being hungry until now.
“Hehe, full of meat, full of meeeat.”
The little one, lying down after eating her fill, continued talking in her sleep.
Judging by the look of it, she seemed to be stuffing herself with meat even in her dreams.
“If you’re going to sleep, sleep comfortably.”
I laid the uncomfortable-looking little one down properly and placed a pillow by her head.
Seeing that she did not wake even though I was rather rough, she must have been quite tired.
“Mmnya, hehe, Dad, you eat too. Heh.”
I smiled faintly.
Well, if she was happy even in her dreams, that was enough.
“Dad, is it......”
After hearing the Alliance Leader’s murmur, I wondered what to say before opening my mouth.
“The child’s parents are dead. It seems they became bait for monsters in order to save her.”
“That tiny thing went through such a thing?”
“The situation in the little one’s dimension is not good.”
“I gathered as much, vaguely.”
He was a man with sharp eyes in his own way, so he must have roughly guessed the circumstances from the little one’s behavior.
And also,“Si-a is likely a false name as well.”
He quickly realized the little one’s shallow lie.
Well, one needed at least that much insight to become the Martial Alliance Leader.
“The child likely did not know that the name would be an uncomfortable one for you, Alliance Leader.”
“Heh heh, if she knew that, she would be a remarkable child indeed.”
Namgung Si-a.
It was the name of the daughter the Martial Alliance Leader had lost long ago.
She had been born with the Nine Yin Severed Meridians and suffered all her life,until, in the end, she stayed by the Alliance Leader’s side through a short life and departed.
“You think of your daughter often, don’t you?”
“......Whenever I see children around Si-a’s age, I always remember her. That child was bright like this as well.”
“I understand.”
“That is already a distant past.”
The Alliance Leader turned his head wistfully.
His eyes seemed to travel to some far place he could not see, longing for someone he could no longer behold.
“I intended to bring Si-a out like this once she became a little healthier, but in the end, she never came.”
“Your daughter would not have been saddened. She must have known your heart, Alliance Leader.”
“If I had been able to come to this place a little sooner, would things have been different?”
Probably.
But that was a fixed past that had not happened, and could not happen.
“You need not look at me like that. Si-a would not wish for me to be soaked in sorrow either.”
“You are right.”
“The same goes for your daughter.”
We looked at each other for a moment and smiled faintly.
We had lived through far too many years to sink endlessly into sorrow.
The Alliance Leader raised his cup.
Matching him, I also lifted a cup filled with soju.
Clink—
A bitter taste followed the brief ringing sound.
“Let us end the gloomy talk here. There is one thing I would like to ask of you.”
“What would that be?”
“It is nothing much. May I sometimes eat together with that child?”
The Alliance Leader’s gaze reached the child sleeping peacefully.
It seemed he had grown rather attached to her, even if only briefly.
“If she is all right with it, what would I have to say about it?”
“You should have seen your expression. It looked as if you were saying, ‘How dare you?’”
“......”
“I am joking.”
It was not an amusing joke.
“It simply felt as if I were eating with my daughter. Of course, I know well that this child is not Si-a.”
“Well, food tastes better when eaten together.”
Though I spoke indirectly, I gave him a positive response, and the Alliance Leader expressed his thanks with a clasped hands greeting.
Then he tossed back the remaining soju in one mouthful and rose from his seat.
“Where are you going?”
“I intend to return for a while. After talking, I found myself wanting to see my family.”
“That is a good reason.”
The Dimensional Hotel provided a great many things, but it could not provide everything.
The Alliance Leader gently stroked the ends of the sleeping little one’s hair and smiled softly.
“I will return soon.”
“Ah, Alliance Leader.”
“What is it?”
I stopped the Alliance Leader as he was about to leave.
There was one thing I had to tell him.
“You must pay two additional days’ lodging fees. Whether you pay them before you leave or when you come next, it would be troublesome if you forgot.”
“......You are thorough.”
“Of course.”
Business had to be conducted thoroughly.
Did it not?
The Alliance Leader smacked his lips in disappointment and nodded.
“Do not worry. I will not run off without paying.”
“If you do, I will come catch you.”
“What a truly frightening thing to say.”
Even if he called it frightening, the Alliance Leader had almost never failed to pay his lodging fees.
When he returned, he would likely bring the overdue fees as well.
If he did not, well.
I would simply make it so that he had no choice but to bring them.
“Mnya. Hehehe.”
I stroked the sleeping little one’s hair and looked up at the ceiling.
A cool breeze blew through the space where an artificial sun had risen.
“It’s perfect weather for a nap.”
It had been a long time since I had become free from the desire for sleep, but I lay down with my head beside the little one’s and quietly closed my eyes.
“Sometimes, this isn’t bad either.”
Leisurely and quiet.
More rewarding than I had expected.
That was the kind of time it was.
***
Click. Click.
“Hm?”
At the sound that came from somewhere, No. 100 abruptly raised his head.
“What was that?”
He looked around, but he could not find the source of the sound.
“Oops, this is not the time. There is still a mountain of work Master assigned me.”
Thinking it was nothing important, No. 100 began focusing on his work again.