Sylphiette

"What's your name?"

"S-Sylphiette."

"That's a nice name. I'm Rudeus Greyrat."

Rudeus took Sylphiette's hand and helped her up from the ground, then used wind magic to dry her off.

Just then, Hilde came back too.

Rudeus hurriedly introduced her. "This is my little sister, Hilde Greyrat."

"Yo. Hi."

Hilde greeted her flatly.

"If they bully you again, just use my name. If they dare not to show me respect, I'll beat them up every time I see them."

"...You weren't this enthusiastic just now."

"It's mainly because those guys were asking for it. They destroyed my ability to tolerate idiots."

"..."

"Pfft—"

Sylphie couldn't help laughing.

Rudeus and Hilde both looked at Sylphie at the same time. She quickly stopped laughing and lowered her head again to thank them.

"Um, thank you for helping me. I..."

"It's fine. Starting today, we're friends," Rudeus said with a smile.

"Friends?"

"That's right, friends. If anyone dares to bully you again, just tell us, and we'll make sure to beat them to a pulp."

Rudeus gestured with both hands, like when he had used Water Ball earlier to turn them into drowned rats.

Of course, if something like this happened again next time, it wouldn't just be a simple Water Ball.

Adding a little something extra to it would only be natural, right?

"Ah, right!"

Rudeus suddenly had a flash of inspiration.

"Sylphie, do you want to learn magic?"

"Magic?" Sylphie froze for a moment.

"Yeah, like what I did just now..."

The day passed quickly.

After saying goodbye to Sylphie and agreeing to meet again tomorrow, Rudeus and Hilde headed home into the evening glow.

Halfway there, Hilde saw Rudeus looking absolutely delighted and couldn't help asking, "What are you planning to do with that kid?"

"What do you mean, what am I planning to do?"

Rudeus was puzzled by Hilde's question.

"Didn't I say it? From now on, we're all friends."

"Friends? Hmph. The way I see it, that one's more like a follower or something," Hilde said casually.

"I didn't mean it like that."

"That's the impression you give."

"Even if you say that..."

Rudeus was speechless for a moment.

He clearly hadn't had that kind of thought, but was that how it looked to Hilde?

Still, thinking about it carefully...

Having a follower or something didn't sound too bad.

Just as Rudeus was thinking that, they somehow arrived at the front of the house.

Paul stood at the gate with his arms crossed, like a guardian statue, his expression stern.

"Is Paul worried about us, so he came out specially to welcome us?"

"He sure doesn't look like it."

Hilde looked thoughtful.

"That expression means, 'I already heard my kid caused trouble outside, so I'm getting ready to beat them good.'"

"Why do you know so much? Wait, it's not because of what happened during the day, is it?"

"What are you scared of? We didn't do anything wrong."

Rudeus looked slightly uneasy, but Hilde did not care.

Though Hilde was not the type who enjoyed helping others, she did not think there was anything wrong with the act of "helping others" itself. In the end, she simply felt such things had nothing to do with her and therefore did not do them. But if someone else did, she would not refute them for it.

As for hitting people in order to help Sylphiette...

That did not matter either.

It was a classic variation of the trolley problem.

Faced with ten people who, because they were too busy playing, were standing on the track where a trolley would pass, and one person who had followed the rules and stood on a closed-off track, who should the trolley be allowed to hit?

There were all kinds of answers to that question.

But in the end, no matter what angle one looked at it from, there was no perfect answer, nor any argument that could not be refuted by anyone.

In other words, no matter what you did or chose, someone would find fault with it.

So the correct answer was: just act according to your own thoughts.

Hilde would choose without hesitation to let the trolley run over the ten children who had lingered on the active track because they were too busy playing. Of course, it was only playfulness, not a crime deserving death, but if someone died because they had followed the rules, that would be far too tragic.

People who walked the right path should not meet an end like that.

So before Paul could say anything...

Hilde spoke first. "Sylphiette."

"What?" Paul froze for a moment.

"Father, you don't know her?"

"...Rolz's child, right? What about her?"

The emotions Paul had just finished building up stalled, and he subconsciously followed Hilde's train of thought.

"Today, we saw several children in the village bullying him," Hilde said.

"And then?"

"Then Rudeus and I beat them up."

"..."

So that was what had happened.

Paul looked as though he had breathed a sigh of relief, yet also as though the train of thought he had prepared had been interrupted, leaving his mind stuck for a moment.

But thinking about it carefully, neither Rudeus nor Hilde seemed like the kind of people who would bully the weak because they were strong. He, who had arbitrarily assumed from the start that they had done something wrong, did not seem to have considered the issue from their standpoint at all.

Forget it. He could reflect on that kind of thing later.

In any case...

After a brief moment of thought, Paul crouched down and rubbed both children's heads.

"You did the right thing."

Sylphiette was Rolz's child.

Paul and Rolz were on good terms. Before Paul came to the village as its resident knight, Rolz had always been the one doing the work of driving off monsters. He was the village hunter. Though he was not as strong as Paul, he could still handle simple monster repelling.

After Paul arrived, Rolz had continued to support his work.

During the seasons when monsters were active, it would be difficult for Paul to handle things alone. It was all thanks to Rolz that there had been no dereliction of duty.

But Rolz had always been troubled because of his child.

His child had green hair.

In other words, his child had demon blood.

On this matter, he could not blame his wife, because Rolz was a mixed-blood Long-Eared Tribe member. He did not know where his other half of blood came from; perhaps it was the Superd Tribe, for all he knew. It was only a great coincidence that the traits of the Superd Tribe had not shown in him, but had instead appeared in Sylphiette.

He was also aware that Sylphiette was bullied by the villagers because of that green hair.

But he could not change the villagers' thinking. In fact, he was already very grateful that the people of the village allowed this child with green hair to remain there at all.

The adults at least, out of consideration for Rolz, would not show rejection toward Sylphiette, but children did not care about that much.

Unfortunately, when it came to scuffles between little children, neither Paul nor Rolz could easily step in.

In the end, it developed into this situation.

However, if it was Rudeus and Sylphiette, who were also children, then there was no problem.

After all, it was just children squabbling among themselves.

"We got praised, huh."

That night, lying under the covers, Rudeus wore a sleazy grin.

"How about it, Hilde? Doing good deeds feels pretty nice, doesn't it?"

"I didn't really feel anything."

Hilde didn't care about Rudeus's explanation.

As long as her parents weren't idiots, they would definitely take a positive view of something like this.

The important thing was still Sylphy herself.

"But you, on the other hand—you actually said you'd teach Sylphy magic, so you'd better take responsibility. I won't allow you to lose interest halfway through and give up."

"Like that would ever happen."

So he said.

The next day.

Rudeus began teaching Sylphy magic.