Raising the Daughters to Overcome My Failure

Chapter 6. Noemi (2)

As dawn was about to break.

Adel, having failed to get a wink of sleep, eventually headed to her father's room.

As the eldest daughter, she had a duty to check how the commotion in the middle of the night had concluded.

Elliot, who was standing in front of the door, greeted Adel with surprised eyes.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t slept at all?”

“I couldn’t fall asleep. By the way, are Father and Noemi still in the room?”

Elliot shook his head and answered.

“The Master is still asleep, and the Youngest Lady returned to her room a little while ago.”

Something felt out of order.

When Adel showed a puzzled expression, Elliot added with a smile.

“The Eldest Young Lady may not know this, but the Master has been sleeping in late these days.”

“Pardon? Father, sleeping in late?”

Wasn’t he the one who always woke up sharp at 5 a.m. to enjoy his morning walk?

His sense of time was nothing short of legendary.

There were even servants who set their time accurately by observing her father’s appearance time.

‘It’s already past six in the morning…….’

Come to think of it, her father had frequently appeared in the hall late with a tired face recently.

In the past, he would have been sitting in the hall before anyone else, but could it be that he had only just woken up?

A father who wakes up late.

It was a picture she just could not imagine.

Adel gave a bitter smile, returned to her room, and threw herself onto the bed.

A storm of fatigue washed over her, and her eyelids grew heavy.

‘Haa… I really need to get some sleep now.’

She soon fell into a deep sleep.

***

After getting a short nap, Adel came downstairs for breakfast.

Looking at the clock, it was already 6:55 a.m.

However, aside from the servants, not a single person was in sight.

‘What, where did everyone go?’

She knew it was impolite, but she was stomping her feet, waiting for her family to arrive. Just then.

Her father entered the hall leisurely.

“Ugh, I’m dead tired. Did you sleep well.”

The sight of him stretching and slowly sitting down was just awkward for Adel.

In the past, the entire house would have been in an uproar if anyone showed even the slightest breach of etiquette.

‘My goodness! He’s stretching and even yawning in front of the servants?’

The bigger problem was that Noemi had not come down yet.

The youngest being the latest.

This was something that could never happen in the Pendragon family.

‘I warned her so much.’

Adel suppressed her anger with effort and asked a nearby maid.

“Why hasn’t Noemi come down?”

The maid, looking flustered, answered while breaking into a cold sweat.

“The Youngest Lady said she would eat alone in her room.”

“Pardon? What does that mean? That goes against the Pendragon family’s etiquette!”

Was it because of fatigue?

Adel, who was much more sensitive than usual, shot up from her seat, spoke briefly to her father, and headed to the 2nd floor.

“Please excuse me for a moment. I’ll go get the youngest. I’ll talk to Noemi, so please don’t be too angry.”

This was a kind of performance.

To seize the initiative by stepping up as the eldest daughter. An attempt to control the situation before her father got angry.

But as this behavior was repeated,

‘At some point, I also became unable to tolerate even the slightest breach of etiquette. It’s truly ironic.’

Adel, striding up the stairs, threw open Noemi’s door without knocking.

However, Noemi was not in the room.

The food the maid had brought was placed on the table, and the window was wide open.

‘Did she run away again?’

Adel touched her forehead and looked out the window.

She could see the back of Noemi, who was hastily running away in the distance.

“…You were always like this. As if you could see the future. You always ran away a step ahead whenever I came looking for you.”

This couldn’t be explained by just saying she had good intuition.

She had even tried secretly opening Noemi’s door once, but even then, her movements had been faster.

‘I’m quite confident in my ability to conceal my presence. Does Noemi have some kind of special ability I don’t know about?’

Adel let out a sigh as if the ground would collapse, then went downstairs and sat down.

Her father, who had been watching her intently, slowly opened his mouth.

“Noemi?”

“She was already gone.”

“Hmm? Gone. What does that mean?”

Adel briefly explained the situation from a moment ago and Noemi’s past habits.

At that, her father clutched his stomach and started laughing.

“Haha. Of course. So that’s what it was.”

What was this reaction?

It felt as if her father knew a secret about Noemi that she herself did not.

However, Adel did not bother to ask further.

Having a deep conversation with her father was still uncomfortable.

She barely touched her breakfast and hurriedly left the house.

These days, her workplace was much more comfortable than her home.

***

After confirming that Adel had left the house, Noemi stealthily returned to her room.

‘Phew. Why is my big sister so obsessed with me? What’s the big deal with that damned etiquette anyway.’

The people in this house had given up on her a long time ago.

But Adel, and only Adel, persistently nagged her.

Why are you dressed like that, don’t shake your leg when you eat, cut your hair. Isn’t it uncomfortable?

‘She’s not even my mom…….’

At that moment.

Her head suddenly throbbed, and an unfamiliar scene came to mind.

‘It’s starting again.’

It was something she had been used to since she was young.

Fragments of the future that abruptly appeared with a sudden headache.

Some might call it a great ability, but Noemi shook her head.

‘It’s not like I can see the future of a moment I want to see.’

Sometimes she saw what would happen a minute later, and other times, a scene from 10 years later would pop up.

But one thing was certain.

‘This is something that will definitely happen.’

Not once had her foresight been wrong.

‘I wonder what moment this is this time.’

Noemi focused her mind.

In an unclear time frame, she must not miss even a single trivial piece of information.

Only then could she guess when this event would occur.

But this time, it wasn't an event from the distant future.

‘It’s today, isn’t it?’

Thanks to the know-how she had accumulated from repeating such foresight for a long time, Noemi could quickly deduce the time point through the other person’s clothes, face, and the surrounding scenery.

Adel’s disheveled hair and Dad’s tired face.

And above all, the East Camellia held in Dad's hand was the proof.

This flower looked like a rose, but it was a completely different species from a rose.

It was a flower seed that a sage from the East had brought from his hometown long ago, and it was a rare flower that now only grew here.

‘The East Camellia only blooms for a short time during this period and then disappears. So today is right.’

Noemi watched her dad and sister as if she were spying on them.

Soon, a faint smile appeared on her face.

When her dad handed over the flower, Adel accepted it without a word.

As if she had received a shy confession.

‘What a relief. Are the two of them finally getting a little closer?’

Noemi smiled brightly and resumed her breakfast.

Since she hadn't had a proper meal recently, it couldn't have been more delicious.

She put the leftover food back into her mouth and thought deeply.

‘From tomorrow, I think it’d be better for me to eat with my family too.’

For her, who found communicating with people difficult, it was a big decision in its own way.

‘Dad and sister are trying this hard, it wouldn't be right for me, the youngest, to just stand by.’

What should she say during the meal?

Noemi’s worry that wasn’t quite a worry began.

***

“This is like finding a needle in a haystack. Why is this so difficult?”

After telling Elliot I was going out for a while, a half-day had already passed since I started searching for the flower in every corner of the town.

But no matter how much I searched, I couldn't find anything similar to an East Camellia, let alone the flower itself.

East Camellia.

A peculiar flower that grew wild only here.

In PP, each character had a favorite gift, and the one Adel liked the most was this very flower.

They said it was more meaningful because it seemed easy to find, but when you actually tried to look for it, it was nowhere to be seen.

In the game, I used to buy them in bulk from a peddler who came by once a year and give them as gifts, but, ‘A game is a game, and this is reality. There’s no way a flower that can be stored all year without wilting exists.’

Besides, the setting of this world was a medieval European-style fantasy.

Naturally, there were no modern items like refrigerators.

Even if there were a refrigerator, it wouldn't be easy to preserve a flower for a long time.

‘Damn it. I know it grows wild in this town, but there’s no specific information about where.’

It was now April, when all sorts of flowers were in full bloom.

If I couldn't get it now, I would have to wait a year.

‘The whole place is a flower garden, how am I supposed to distinguish which one is the East Camellia.’

Annoyance surged.

The moment I thought about giving up, I shook my head.

Adel was a key character for my strategy.

Without her, even survival would be difficult.

Besides, I couldn't just leave Adel, who was avoiding me, as she was.

In the game, she always greeted me with a smiling face…….

‘This is all my fault for skipping the nurturing process. So I have no choice but to tie up the loose ends myself.’

At this point, I was getting stubborn.

The reason I was able to become a veteran player in PP was thanks to sticking with it until the end when others gave up.

‘Right. What can’t I do? If I don’t have teeth, I’ll have to use my gums.’

I resumed the search for the flower once more.

Just how much time had I spent wandering around?

As the sun was gradually setting, a single red flower beyond the hill came into view.

It had a distinctly different feel from the other flowers around it.

Its extraordinary appearance caught my eye at once.

As I approached it as if possessed by something,

“Awesome!”

I finally found it.

I had discovered a cluster of East Camellias.

The scenery was truly a spectacle.

My jaw dropped at the beautiful scenery that I had never seen in reality, let alone in the game.

A fantastical sight, as if small flames were huddled together, burning.

After spacing out for a moment, I came to my senses.

“This is no time for this. The sun is already setting.”

I hurriedly picked one flower and removed the thorns and leaves.

Because flowers wither quickly as rot begins from the leaves and thorns.

Holding the rose-like flower bud in my hand, I made my way to Adel's workplace.

‘I really hope she accepts this flower.’

All sorts of thoughts tangled in my head.

Even in my past life, I had no memory of giving flowers to a woman.

The only time was giving my mom an artificial carnation on Parents' Day.

‘To think I’m gifting this not to a lover, but to my daughter who was a game character…….’

It wasn’t depressing, nor was it exciting; I didn't know how to describe it.

Carrying that strange feeling, I silently hastened my steps.

In the distance, I could see Adel's workplace.

***

“Ah, Father?”

Adel couldn't believe the sight before her eyes.

Her father, who was always neat, was covered in dust and grime, looking exhausted,

and in one hand, he was holding an East Camellia, her favorite flower.

‘Why does Father have this?’

The East Camellia grew wild in this region, but it was a flower she had always felt disappointed about because it was nowhere to be found when she tried to look for it.

Adel hesitated, looking back and forth between the flower and her father's face.

Her cold and strict father was now offering her a flower with a gentle smile.

Flustered by her father's sudden action, her fingertips trembled slightly.

As she was hesitating whether to accept it or not, her father's soft voice tickled her ear.

“My hand feels awkward. Hurry and take it.”

At that moment.

In the depths of Adel's heart, in a place that was like a barren field, a small spark ignited.

Could she have known?

The fact that the flower language of the East Camellia is 'a small spark'.