NOVEL WEB Chapter 4 - Other Talents (4)
Translator: Elisia
Editor/Proofreader: TempWane
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“Elsie…?”
I heard a voice from above my head, so I looked up. My father was staring down at me with an astonished expression.
Huh, does he know what kind of power this is? It was something I’d never heard of before.
No, seriously.
I had never heard anyone say our family had some kind of innate power, or that we possessed abilities other than swordsmanship. And judging by the way my father was staring at me in shock, it seemed this power of mine was something… special.
Oh… ah, right.
Wasn’t it said that no one in our family was ever born with the talent for magic?
Since we inherited the blood of giants, we also received their enormous strength and sturdy bodies, but I had also heard that, as a result, any natural talent for magic had completely disappeared.
It wasn’t all bad, though. Since we lacked magical abilities, we had a high resistance to magic itself, making us immune to attacks formed purely from magical energy. It forced opponents to use only physical means of attack, which could even be considered an advantage.
…But then, what was this?
A green light emanating from a person’s hand didn’t seem like a natural occurrence.
Could it be that I had some other blood mixed in? Am I… not really a child of the Baron?
“Grrrr…”
But my situation was too urgent to be worrying about that right now. It seemed that the wolves had decided to pay attention to me after seeing my glowing hand. Even the wolves who had been busy tearing into the deer family had now turned their heads to look at me.
Meanwhile, my father’s bow seemed to have lost a bit of tension. The taut string he’d drawn back loosened somewhat, and the arrow that had almost been almost ready to fire slipped forward a bit.
“…”
I looked at my hand.
My heart was still pounding, and a green light was still flowing from my hand. Honestly, it was a bit of a mismatch with my usual coloring; green didn’t really go well with either white or red.
But—
Well, whatever.
This must be some kind of useful power if it awakened at such a critical moment. I had no idea what might come from my fingertips just by looking at the color of the light, but it was better than doing nothing.
There had to be a reason why my father looked so alarmed.
I stepped out from behind him, just one step to the side.
Then I extended both hands forward, aiming at the young wolf that was approaching me.
And my action—
Was completely useless.
The moment I stretched my hands forward, the wolf leaped straight at me.
“Aah!”
I screamed in shock as I watched the wolf charge.
Isn’t this when some sort of power should activate at a moment like this?Shouldn’t some kind of fireball or something come out of my hand? What’s the point of having a power if nothing comes out in a life-or-death situation?
“Daaaad!”
I stumbled backward and fell, screaming at the top of my lungs as I saw the wolf about to pounce on me. What had I been thinking, stepping out from behind my father? My father, who had inherited the Baron’s blood far more strongly than I, could have skewered a wolf of this size with his arrow in an instant!
The arms of a 140-centimeter child were hardly strong enough to block a wolf’s bite. Even if I reached forward, there was a high chance it would be “Here one moment, poof! It’s gone!” when the wolf’s jaws closed. But instinctively, I stretched my arms out in front of me. At least it was better than letting my head disappear.
The wolf’s mouth came closer to my hand—
And then—
Sniff.
“Huh?”
I felt a damp sensation on my hand.
But it didn’t seem to be the inside of a wolf’s mouth. Otherwise, it wouldn’t just be my hand that was damp—my entire arm would be soaked. There was no sharp pain in my shoulder either, and that sensation of dampness soon disappeared.
The only thing that felt wet was my outstretched palm.
Sniff, sniff.
And at the end of my hand, I felt something that was damp and soft.
I slightly opened my tightly shut eyes and saw the face of a wolf. Although it looked younger and smaller than the other wolves, it was still much larger than I was. Its shoulder height probably came up to my chin.
This intimidating monster of a wolf was now sniffing my hand, its nose pressed against my palm.
I blinked a few times, but the wolf didn’t look like it intended to eat me. It just continued to sniff at my hand.
My wildly beating heart gradually calmed down. And, in sync, the green light that had been flowing from my hand slowly faded until it was gone completely.
“…”
“…”
We stared at each other in silence for a moment. Well, wolves couldn’t talk, and I was too terrified to make a sound.
The one to move first was the wolf.
The wolf stretched out its large tongue and licked my face. It was so big that it could almost cover my entire face.
“Ugh.”
And it smelled.
Like a dog.
—
*
“You did it! My daughter!”
When people from the Barony arrived, my father was spinning me around with his hands under my armpits.
Even though I was only seven years old, wasn’t it a little odd to lift a 140-centimeter-tall child like that and spin her around? But I was so dumbfounded that I couldn’t say anything at the time.
Meanwhile, the wolf pack ignored us entirely, going back to devouring the deer family. The large white wolf that looked like the alpha and its mate had already finished eating and were staring at us blankly, while the younger wolves, including the one that licked me, had just started eating.
“Dear?”
Among the people who had arrived from the Barony was my mother.
She took one look at the wolves sitting calmly while watching us, then at me, who was spinning and turning pale, and then at my father, who was swinging me around. She looked like she didn’t quite understand the situation.
As my mother cautiously approached, still watching the wolf pack, my father proudly lifted me and declared in her direction.
“Dear, our Elsie has awakened the power of a druid!”
He said something completely out of the blue.
What?
Power awakening? A druid?
Wasn’t this development a little too sudden?
But before I could think to say anything, I remembered that I was still only seven.
That’s right. I was still way too young to know all of my family’s secrets.
Now that I thought about it, just learning to write was hard enough at my age.
I had heard old stories and studied a little about our family, but it wasn’t as if I’d learned everything there was to know.
“…Really?”
Upon hearing my father’s words, my mother’s eyes widened in surprise.
Judging by her reaction, the druid power must indeed be a part of our family history. Or at least a story from this northern region.
But my mother quickly turned her gaze to the wolves, then back to me, and then to my father, wearing a fierce expression.
“So, why isnt there a single injuried wolf?”
“Huh?”
My father flinched at her severe tone.
“You didn’t serioursly wait until our daughter came in direct contact with a wolf to see if she had powers, did you? That druid power is an ancient tale—we don’t even know if it’s real.”
“…Uh.”
“Surely, as a father, you wouldn’t just stand by without shooting any of the northern wolves that could devour your daughter’s head in a single bite, just to check if she had some ancient power?”
My mother was smiling.
But it wasn’t really a smile.
It was a terrifying look that seemed to radiate a murderous aura, almost as if a heat haze was rising from above her head.
“Oh, well, you see, dear, if I had shot the wolf before our daughter displayed any power, the wolves might have become even more dangerous.”
“Which is why I told you to take guards with you..”
“But, my father and I, and my son and I—”
A vein throbbed on my mother’s forehead.
“…”
My father clamped his mouth shut.
And at that exact moment, after spinning round and round in his grip, the smell of dog still fresh in my nose, my stomach decided it could no longer hold its contents.
“Ugh.”
Seeing me turn pale and throw up, my mother’s patience finally seemed to reach its limit.
Whack!
The sound of my mother hitting my father on the crown with the hilt of her sword was so loud that even the wolves watching us flinched.