Chapter 97 : The Little Cecil Is Cute…! (part 2)

 

「Father, who is that weird girl? What have you been talking about with her?」(Cecil)

Perhaps Cecil decided to enter the room because her father looked somewhat distressed.

Bazel turned around and glared at Cecil for a moment, but then he immediately smiled.

「What’s wrong, Cecil?」(Bazel)

「I’m just wondering who you are talking to… Eh?」(Cecil)

Cecil took her eyes off Bazel and turned her gaze to the side, but she couldn’t find the mysterious girl with a clown-like outfit.

No way… She disappeared…?

「Wh, Where did that person go…?」(Cecil)

「Hm? What are you talking about? More importantly, did you come to show me your new sword technique? Show me then. I’ll give you advice if necessary.」(Bazel)

Bazel talked to Cecil one-sidely as he put his hand on Cecil’s shoulder. He was smiling, but his eyes looked slightly dark somehow.

From that moment on, Bazel’s attitude toward Cecil began to change day by day.

He had been treating Cecil with love like his own daughter so far, but then he began to treat Cecil coldly. What’s worse is he also became much more strict when he taught Cecil swordsmanship.

At first, he let Cecil decide whether she wanted to practice or not, but then he turned to harshly trained Cecil until she reached her limit every day.

Cecil was instructed to swing a sword from early morning until midnight and sometimes was forced to duel Bazel until she didn’t have the strength to even stand up. Also, there was a time when Bazel told Cecil to survive in a forest full of monsters with only a sword for a week.

I felt sorry for Cecil that she was forced to train until she was worn out body and soul every single day, but Cecil never complained.

Bazel just didn’t stop training her. He even hired a professional healer so that Cecil could keep practicing when she got seriously injured. He didn’t allow Cecil to get some rest just because of injuries.

After such harsh days continued for a while, Bazel finally hired the Seven Spears, Slad Arkman, to be Cecil’s instructor.

However, Bazel didn’t realize that with Slad-san becoming Cecil’s instructor, Cecil’s harsh training which was on the level of surviving a situation between life and death, turned into a decent one.

I thought it was good that Cecil could finally relax a bit on her training, but Cecil was dissatisfied, perhaps because she was used to training really hard.

「Master, I don’t think I can be stronger with your child’s play level training menu!」(Cecil)

Cecil complained during the lecture session that usually started in the morning.

She began to distrust Slad-san, thinking that she would never be stronger with Slad-san’s inefficient training menu.

It looked like she thought that suffering was the way of becoming stronger, so she strongly believed that she couldn’t be stronger with easy training.

「Hahh… Cecil-chin, why don’t you stop trying to be recognized by that old man?」(Slad)

As he closed the textbook in his hand, Slad-san bitterly said that.

「It’s painful watching you try so hard for that old man. You have talent, so you don’t need to rush. By the time you turn 20, I believe you can become one of the five strongest sword fighters in this kingdom.」(Slad)

「One of the five strongest sword fighters, huh…? That’s not enough. To be recognized by my father, at least I have to be on the level where I can beat Laney in a duel!」(Cecil)

「You? Beat Laney in a duel? No, no, no. That can’t be done. Look, she is an elf. She has been living for hundreds of years, meaning that she has been refining her sword techniques for hundreds of years. There’s no way you can reach her level even if you spend your whole life practicing swordsmanship.」(Slad)

「That’s not true! If I practice much, much, much harder, I canー」(Cecil)

「Cecil-chin, why do you always push yourself too hard? Hahh… I bet it’s because that old man trained you awfully hard.」(Slad)

「My father trained me hard because he thought it was for my own good!」(Cecil)

「Listen, that person has changed. We don’t know what he’s thinking about. It’s been a while since he came back from the Demon Land and I’ve heard quite a few rumors about him saying that he uses his position as the chairman of the Adventurer School and his fame as a legendary adventurer to do some wicked business in secret.」(Slad)

「That’s all nonsense! Master, why don’t you trust my father!? He was your comrade, right!?」(Cecil)

「Being his former comrade has nothing to do with trust. Cecil-chin, that person no longer thinks of you as his daughter. You’re only being used by him.」(Slad)

Slad-san knew that Cecil is not Bazel’s real daughter since he was in the same party when Laney found me and Cecil in a ruined village. He also probably knew from Laney that Bazel’s wife and real daughter were killed on the way to the kingdom from the Demon Land.

That’s why he sympathized with Cecil’s circumstances.

Me too. It’s painful to watch her like this, honestly.

If I were the one who Laney entrusted to Bazel, my life would have been really painful.

I don’t even have confidence that I can endure Bazel’s training.

I thought I was second to none in terms of the amount of effort…
I thought I was the one who practiced swinging a sword the most since I entered the Adventurer School…

That was why I was jealous of Cecil for being talented and becoming an adventurer easily without any hassle while I couldn’t even swing a sword properly after putting a lot of effort.

I even despised the gods for giving the sword talent to this self-centered, stubborn, father complex girl.

But now I know that I was wrong… that I misunderstood her…

Certainly she is talented, but she also trained really, really hard, even much harder than me.

Even before she entered the Adventurer School, the number of times she swung a sword has already surpassed the number of times I swung a sword in my whole life.

「Stop speaking ill of my father! I won’t forgive you even though you’re my master! If you insult my father more than this, you will be my enemy from today on!」(Cecil)

「Hee… I don’t care though.」(Slad)

Slad-san threw away the textbook in his hand and left the room.

So this is the reason why they have a bad relationship, huh?

I remember March-san said it was because Slad-san trained Cecil way too strict, but apparently what actually happened was completely different.

「Ugh… Ghh…! HuuUuUuu…!」(Cecil)

Cecil, who was left alone in the room, started crying.

She bit her lip, trying to refrain herself from crying, but she couldn’t.

Tears kept flowing out from her eyes no matter how she refrained herself.

「UuuUuuUuu… Hiks! Father became strict to me for my sake… I’m sure of it…! Hiks! …If I get stronger, I believe he will become a kind father again… Hiks…」(Cecil)

Aa-ahh… Cecil really misunderstands her father.

It looks like she didn’t really get the conversation between Bazel and the mysterious girl in the drawing room. Well, she was still ten years old at that time, so she probably didn’t really understand what they talked about.

That mysterious girl said, “It’s for your beloved wife and daughter”. Perhaps Cecil thought that the daughter she talked about was herself.

Well, it can’t be helped. There’s no way she realizes that she is not Bazel’s real daughter.

Even Slad-san who knew the fact never told her the truth.

It looked like various misunderstandings and her belief that Bazel would return to be a kind father if she did everything Bazel told, had distorted her personality and nature as a human being.

When her belief started to change her personality, Cecil met Rozelia for the first time.

「You’re Cecil Sortlarc, right? I’m Rozelia Schultz! In the Elven Forest, people usually call me Roze! Nice to meet you~☆」(Rozelia)

 

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