“We got a letter from Lati. It’s about Ann.”
Ann was an Invited who had arrived after Sara had. She’d been dropped into Gardenia, where Nelly’s sister Latifah lived. She was six years younger than Sara, so she would be twelve now.
“She’s pretty small, but I suppose twelve is old enough to register at the guild.”
“Yeah. Well, regardless of whether she’s registering at the guild or not, it seems Ann knows what she wants to do when she grows up now.”
Ri tapped the letter against the table. He didn’t look upset, so it must not have been anything troublesome.
“Wait a second.” Allen interrupted Ri before he could continue. “Haruto can stay since he’s an Invited too, but Kuntz and I will step out.”
He and Kuntz stood at the same time.
“Going to act like you’re strangers after all this time? Just listen first.” Ri stopped them with an exasperated look on his face.
“But...”
“You became friends with Ann in Gardenia, didn’t you? And since this has to do with the Invited, it involves Sara as well. You really don’t want to hear it?”
“Please let me listen, then.” Allen immediately returned to his seat, as did Kuntz, with a wry smile.
“I’ll pass the letter around so you can all read it, but to summarize...” Ri took the letter out of the envelope and told them the most important part. “Ann has turned twelve and wishes to become a knight.”
An impressed whistle came from somewhere. It was probably Haruto.
Sara knew that Ann was interested in the knights, so she wasn’t surprised, but joining the knights would mean leaving her guardians and going to the capital. She was worried about Ann leaving home when she was only twelve, and about Lati, who would have to let her go.
“The Greifs are the lords of Gardenia, so it would be difficult for them to accompany Ann to the capital. Also, the knights have no women’s dorm, and even if they did, entrusting a darling girl of the age of twelve... Ahem, this part is a little long, so I’ll summarize again.”
Ri’s eyes traveled all the way to the third page of the letter before stopping. Sara smiled wryly. Lati must have really been worried about Ann. It was a hard habit to break.
“She wants Ann to stay at the Wolveriés’ townhouse in the capital. That’s fine, but Lati’s real request is this.” Ri looked straight at Nelly, expression flat. “A twelve-year-old child needs a guardian. They can send a servant with her, but they’d prefer she had a real guardian. They want us to send a member of the family. She named Neffie personally.”
“Me? I suppose I do get along with Ann.”
When they were staying in Gardenia, Nelly had a lot of fun with Ann, who seemed to have some potential for physical strengthening, so it didn’t seem like she was opposed to looking after the girl. Sara was happy that Nelly could come out and say it when she got along with someone now.
“I have my role as vice guildmaster here, though. There are a lot more Hunters visiting Hydrangea lately after the discovery of the new floor last year. I’m concerned about Ann, but just as my sister can’t abandon her work, I have the same issue. I’ll have to decline.”
“Yes, I thought it would be difficult for you to accept as well.”
Ri knew that Lati was asking something difficult for Nelly to accept, and Lati likely had known it, even as she wrote the letter. But no request would ever be accepted if you didn’t ask.
From Sara’s perspective as a Japanese person, Lati’s request was a bit selfish and didn’t take Nelly’s circumstances into account, but the Wolveriés were the type to help out whenever they could and to refuse clearly when they couldn’t.
Nelly had turned her sister’s request down, but there wouldn’t be any hard feelings. She had made her stance clear, and now the family would just have to work together to think about what they could do to help Ann.
Chris raised his hand immediately. “My family would be happy to look after an Invited, naturally, but that would extend to any person under the Wolveriés’ care. I could ask the Deltmonts.”
“You’re family to us, but the Greifs don’t have much of a connection to the Deltmonts. They may prefer to ask a family they have a personal connection to. Still, I’ll consider them an option, if that’s all right with you.”
“Of course. And if she wants to join the knights, I’m sure House Hills will volunteer.”
House Hills was the prime minister’s family as well as that of the vice commander of the knights, Liam, and the prodigy apothecary, Noel.
“She wrote about that as well. Uhh, House Hills volunteered, but they have a son around Ann’s age, so she turned them down to avoid any trouble. I guess she doesn’t want Noel getting confused for Ann’s fiancé.”
“I’m sure that’s exactly what House Hills is after.”
Chris had always been very pro-House Hills ever since they were interacting with Sara. Sara thought Noel was a really good kid, but she also thought House Hills wasn’t worth the trouble, since everything ended up being about marriage with them. At that age, couldn’t kids just be friends, regardless of gender?
The conversation moved on while her head was full of these pointless thoughts. The next person to speak up was someone she wasn’t expecting, however.
“What about me?”
“You, Elm?”
Elm was called a wandering Hunter since he didn’t tend to stay in one place for long, but he’d been operating out of Hydrangea ever since the dungeon collapse incident a year prior. He took short trips away sometimes, but always returned to the Wolveriés’ mansion before long. Nelly had just been telling Sara how rare that was for him, and how she expected him to wander off somewhere else any day now.
It must have been so unexpected that Ri had no idea how to react. He raised his hand and lowered it again meaninglessly before Elm spoke up once more.
“I spent some time in the capital last year with Allen, Kuntz, and Sara, and it wasn’t all that bad.”
“And by that, you mean...?”
“Well...”
The phrase “wandering Hunter” brought to mind an antisocial, self-centered type, but Elm wasn’t like that at all. He had saved Allen when they first met and introduced Allen to a knight instructor. He’d even traveled to the capital with them. He was more talkative than one might expect, and kind, with a good amount of common sense.
“Being with people and supporting the next generation. Plus, I stayed in Hydrangea for almost a year and never felt like leaving to travel somewhere else. I guess I’ve been thinking it might actually be nice to settle down somewhere lately.”
Ri and Nelly were both too surprised to say anything in response.
“If Ann, this Invited is twelve, then I’m old enough to be her father, and if we just want someone from the Wolverié family to escort her, then I should work, shouldn’t I?”
“Would you...?” Ri didn’t seem able to make a decision right away.
“Status-wise, there’s no issue. But as an unattached man, will you be able to support a twelve-year-old girl in an unfamiliar place like the capital on your own?”
Chris voiced a very reasonable concern. When I was a twelve-year-old girl in an unfamiliar place like Rosa, you weren’t particularly supportive yourself, Chris. Sara kept this criticism to herself, of course. She decided to be satisfied with the knowledge that it was thanks to her that Chris had been able to mature this much.
“Well, I’d appreciate it if Sara came with, that’s true.”
“Me?”
The subject turned to Sara at an unexpected time. The moment Nelly turned the job down, Sara had figured that this had nothing to do with her, so she wasn’t sure how to respond.
“Don’t just rely on Sara. Just as Nef has her work, Sara does too. She’s a full-fledged member of Hydrangea’s Apothecary’s Guild. And she has the crucial role of gathering supreme healing herbs. You can’t ask her to accompany you so easily,” Chris replied to Elm’s request on Sara’s behalf.
“Ha ha ha, who are you, Sara’s dad?” Nelly teased.
Sara was aware that people had an easy time asking her to do things and that she tended to go with the flow. It was probably because she wasn’t opposed to helping people out when she was able to. When it went too far, however, people could take advantage of her, and that did annoy her.
Sara was happy that Chris had stepped in before she went along with anything she didn’t want to do. And Nelly’s relaxed reaction seemed to indicate that she would support whatever decision Sara came to. So as an Invited under the care of the Wolveriés, Sara figured she should think about this in the Wolverié way. In other words, decline if she didn’t want to and accept if she did.