Chapter 128: 7-11: C3: Dear Diary, I stowed away

Felicity, 8 Years Old, Eighth Month of 949

Stali Neechan grabbed Felicity’s arm and dragged her toward the big carriage door.

“Eeep!”

Felicity is so dead!

“…”

As had become more and more common since the start of this year, Claire Nee-san did not respond to Felicity. It wasn’t like she was gone; Felicity could still feel her somewhere deep inside, but her voice no longer spoke as frequently. And the few times that Claire Nee-san did speak were very deliberate.

“Now, where the hells have you been!?” Stahlia Nee-chan questioned in an almost frantic voice before suddenly pulling Felicity into a tight hug.

“Tell her.” Claire Oneesan’s voice echoed through Felicity’s head, startling her.

Tell her, what? What happened?

As had become the norm, there was no response. Her two tails flicked back and forth uneasily. Stali Nee-chan misinterpreted that as distress, and quickly released her before falling back onto one of the big-soft cushions, “What, just what were you thinking?”

Her voice shook, and judging by her face, she looked about to cry. Wether that was sadness, or anger, or happiness was hard to tell.

-Sniff-sniff-

Felicity tested the air.

Sadness and relief. …Stali Nee-chan was super-duper worried about Felicity…

Now Felicity felt terrible about hiding for so long. But, if she hadn’t hidden, then… then, what? She had only hidden because Claire Nee-san told her that she had to hide until they got across “the border,” whatever that was. Claire Nee-san had refused to tell her and just insisted that they hide.

“…Tell her.”

Felicity will!

She snapped back angrily at the stubborn older-older head sister.

“Satli Nee-chan… Felicity is sorry.” Felicity dipped her head like how Rosin Itouto-kun did. Then, she raised it up so she could meet Stali Nee-chan’s eyes, “But, Felicity would not have done anything differently.”

Felicity made the sternest, most resolved expression she could while taking great care to suppress her nervousness from betraying itself via errant tail and ear twitches. Stali Nee-chan sat back and, sinking into thought, bit her lower lip.

Finally, having arrived at some conclusion lost to Felicity, she nodded, “Then, why?”

Felicity’s ears twitched, happy that Stali Nee-chan seemed to understand, finally. That said, it was time to do what Stubborn-Claire wanted, and explain, “Felicity had a bad dream. Stali Nee-chan goes away, far far away. You promise Felicty that you will come back, but you never do. Slowly, everyone else goes away too; Rosy Imouto-chan, Rosin Itouto-kun, Tousan, Kaasan, everyone. Felicity is all alone.”

“That’s why, Felicity decided that she should go away with Stali Nee-chan, and make sure you come back.”

Stali Nee-chan appeared to take her words with some degree of skepticism; a fact which annoyed Felicity a great deal, prompting her tails to flick discontentedly, “Stali Nee-chan doesn’t believe Felicity. But, Felicity had this dream lots of times. The whole trip to Rosin Itouto-kun’s house, every night. Then, Stali Nee-chan announced she was leaving early, just like mom said you would.”

Stali Nee-chan’s eyes snapped open in surprise, “‘Mom?’ not ‘Kaasan?’”

Oops!

Felicity clapped her hand over her mouth; she was not supposed to mention her. Even Claire Onee-san did not know about that woman. The person who had appeared in Felicity’s nightmares claimed to be her mom. That woman had told her that Stali Nee-chan would go away and that Stali Nee-chan would die. Then, she had told her that Stali Nee-chan would leave early.

“…Mom told Felicity that Stali Nee-chan would leave early because nobody liked you and that if Felicity wanted you to be safe, Felicity had to go with you.”

Perhaps surprisingly, after a few seconds of hesitation, Stali Nee-chan seemingly accepted this new piece of information without questioning it, “Felicity, can you describe this ‘mom’ to me?”

Felicity hesitated; Levikun had told her not to talk about herself to anybody.

But, Stali Nee-chan isn’t just anybody. Claire…?

Felicity’s silent question hung out in the empty silence of her head. Just when she thought Claire Onee-san would again ignore her, the latter spoke.

“Tell her, and me. The fact that you… No, you wouldn’t have known. Damnit~! This is why I’ve been trying to stay silent!”

That was more words than Felicity had heard from Claire Onee-san in a very long time. And she sounded very upset about something. But, if Claire Onee-san felt this strongly about the issue, then there was no reason to listen to dad’s desire to be kept a secret.

Slowly, still uneasy, Felicity opened her mouth, “The last time Felicity had that dream, and after she was all alone, there was a voice. A woman came out. She called Felicity her newest daughter, and asked Felicity what she wanted most.”

Stali Nee-chan waited patiently, even though Felicity wasn’t really answering the question of what mom looked like.

“Felicity told her, ‘to not be alone, and for Stali Nee-chan to be safe.’ Mom told me that if that’s what I wanted, the only way was to follow after you, whether or not you wanted me to… …Sorry.”

“…It’s ok. I mean, it really isn’t ok, but I should have taken your own feelings on the matter into account… Sasha, can you get something for us to drink?”

The older not-Jacqueline dipped her head to Stali Nee-chan and busied herself preparing drinks. Stali continued, “But, what did mom look like? And do you know her name?”

Felicity shook her head, “Felicity doesn’t… doesn’t quite remember? She was pretty… but, she looked…”

Felicity trailed off; she honestly could not remember mom’s face, despite at the time feeling like this woman really was her mother. It was… even scarier than the dreams about being alone. A shiver wracked her spine, and her ears pressed flat.

“Felicity doesn’t remember what mom looked like… But, she said to call her Levichan.” That much, Felicity was certain of. She remembered how she had thought it was a rather strange name.

“‘Levichan,’ or, ‘Leviathan.’ Felicity, you should have told us…”

Leviathan…? Like the scary-man, Satan? One of the people Claire Oneesan said Felicity should never-ever talk to?

“Especially in your case, given your specific [Envy] skill. Sorry Felicity, I should never have abandoned you… I’ll make it right but, now, I need you to go to sleep.”

Claire, 8 Years Old, Eighth Month of 949

Felicity fell into a state of forced unconsciousness. Doing things this way made me feel incredibly filthy, but I needed to speak with Stahlia; there were a lot of things happening all at once, and the revelation that one of the Hell Kings had been in contact with Felicity meant she was now a potential liability…

I raised my head and experimentally twitched Felicity’s ears and tail. It had been a long time since I had last controlled any aspect of her body.

Stahlia picked up on the sudden behavior shift, “Claire? Then I guess my assumption was right? This ‘Levichan’ is the Queen of Envy?”

I nodded, “Felicity has the [Envy] skill after all… I’m sorry, Stahlia, a lot of this is my fault; I realized that Felicity was starting to depend on me way too much. Whenever she didn’t understand anything, she just asked me instead of trying to figure it out. Instead of thinking for herself, she would just ask me. Her general attitude was becoming something like, ‘Claire knows everything.’ I… I don’t want her to turn into my puppet, so I’ve been avoiding helping her at all, and she wound up doing all of this…”

It had not been my intention to come clean and apologize like that, but once I started speaking, everything just poured out like some sort of flood.

Stahlia even recoiled slightly, “…Ok, I can see where you’re coming from, but why didn’t you intervene when she stowed away? In fact, according to Felicity, you told her to hide until we crossed the border.”

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“…Sorry.” I felt my ears droop involuntarily, “I was hiding from Felicity. In a sense, I was hibernating. With the civil war resolved, I thought it would be safe for her to be left alone, to grow, at least for a time. By the time I checked again, she had already stowed away. That said, I told her to hide until you crossed the border, because she acted without my input; she made the decision to stow away on her own. Or so I had thought at the time.”

“So,” Stahlia crossed her arms irritatedly, “You told her to hide to reward her behavior in being independent. Despite the incredibly negative way that independence manifested. I think I need to rethink the way I have been considering a lot of things where Felicity is concerned…”

“Yea, maybe I didn’t use the best judgement, but there is a bigger issue at the moment; Franklin is in Zesten.”

“Haaa… You’re right, unfortunately. And I can understand why you’ve taken over, but, …no, forget it.”

Somehow, I can’t help but feel like I lost much respect in the past few minutes. …That’s fine; I deserve at least that much.

The truth was, despite being a teacher, I was pretty bad with kids. I was, after all, a university professor. The kind of formative teaching that Felicity needed was far from my area of expertise. While I would continue to do my best, it seemed that my best was wholly inadequate.

“So, Franklin is in Zesten, and something else other than that, otherwise Felicity wouldn’t have been so spooked.”

Stahlia seemed intent on moving past whatever quandry I had given her, so I obliged, “First things first, the way Felicity got into Zesten; she managed to copy one of Rosial’s Talents, [Shadow Walk]. That’s also where she was hiding after your men found her nest. She just slipped into one of the men’s shadows, and latter into Emmanuel’s.”

Stahlia frowned, “All right, I follow so far, but what does Emmanuel’s shadow have to do with anything? Why would she even consider hitching a ride into Zesten?”

“...Because I told her to.”

Stahlia facepalmed.

Felicity, 20 Years Old, Eighth Month of 949

Today, Stali Neechan had met with the strange-man again. She treated him with more respect than most people, so he must have been important. That said, Felicity did not like him; he smelled suspicious. That was why she had decided to follow him while he was in the camp; Claire Oneesan hadn’t told her anything about the man, so it was up to her to figure him out for herself.

That was why, when Emmy-kun revealed he was keeping secrets from Stali Nee-chan, Felicity couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit vindicated.

“And what about the ongoing disappearance crisis? Shouldn’t the Drakan monarch be informed?” Emmy-kun was speaking with his guard.

“No, I think not; she will not encounter any difficulty from it, and I do not believe we should go out of our way to involve her. It would not do to owe that country any favors, nor should we go out of our way to expose a potential weakness.” The guard answered Emmy-kun back, expressing far more authority than any of Stali Neechan’s guards ever did.

“Very well, then I won’t mention them. What about the adventurers, Taya and Franklin? Her majesty will undoubtably draw their attention if they see her disguise tomorrow; she looks an awful lot like many of the victims.”

“!”

The sudden feeling of surprise from Claire took Felicity by surprise of her own.

“Not an issue; why would the Queen of a country pay any heed to two adventurers? Besides, the guild will be instructed not to offer her any assistance should she show an interest. Talking about the disappearances on the streets is already a social taboo; we have nothing to fear.”

Emmy-kun still didn’t look wholly convinced, but he didn’t press the issue any further.

“Felicity, you need to go with them; hide in Emmanuel’s shadow.”

It had been a long time since Claire last gave Felicity such an explicit instruction, so she did not hesitate to follow through. Darting out from her hiding place as soon as it was safe, Felicity ran silently from cover to cover, then dove into Emmanuel’s shadow just as the man turned around.

“What’s the matter? Did you sense something?” Emmy-kun’s guard asked, placing his hand on his weapon.

After surveying the surroundings for a long time, Emmy-kun shook his head, “No, nothing. We need to depart if we are to beat the winds.”

Emmy-kun, his talkative guard, and his silent guard departed from Stali Nee-chan’s camp and walked in silence. Felicity, for her part, held as perfectly still as she could; Emmy-kun’s shadow would carry her as long as she had mana, so she couldn’t waste any by moving around unnecessarily. This version of the talent was much better than Jacqueline Oneesama’s version, though Felicity wasn’t sure why Rosy-chan had it.

Still, holding still for so long was very, very boring. To help pass the time, Felicity would ordinarily have had a conversation with Claire Onee-san, but she was back to being annoyingly-stubbornly quiet. So instead, Felicity watched the three men walking. It was strange, she realized; the silent guard seemed almost more wary of the talkative guard. He was regarding him the same way Rosy-chan regarded Felicity when they played Assassin-and-Guard. Then there was the way Emmy-kun had been speaking. It was different from how Stali Nee-chan spoke to her guards.

It doesn’t make sense. Claire?

“No, it doesn’t.”

Felicity was a bit surprised that Claire answered her, though the actual answer non-answer itself didn’t so enthuse her. Unfortunately, Claire was entirely uninterested in any further conversation and, before long, the three men arrived in the city.

Ok. Now what?

Unable to keep the discontent from creeping into her voice, Felicity questioned Claire Onee-san.

“…Follow an adventurer to the guild.”

Why?

“Please, just do it.”

Claire’s voice had a hint of pleading in it, so Felicity swallowed her mounting anger and did what had been asked of her. Taking the first opportunity, she slipped from Emmy-kun’s shadow and into the shadow of a building. Then, once the coast was clear, she jumped out of that and took up a position where she could watch for any incoming adventurers.

“Follow the Target” was a game she was very familiar with ever since Claire Oneesan had first introduced it to her, so it didn’t take a very long time for her to find someone. With her target in sight, all Felicity had to do was follow him until they got to the guild. That was super easy as the man didn’t even check his surroundings once, allowing Felicity to stay much closer than she usually could.

The whole time Felicity was behind him, she could feel a mounting desperation from Claire Oneesan, though she didn’t explain why. Then, all at once, everything went wrong.

First, the man met a woman.

“Franklin! Any luck on your end?”

The man shook his head sadly, “No. No luck.”

“I see, I was hoping that you would be able to get some answers since you’re a new face, but it was admittedly a long shot…”

“Franklin! It is him! Felicity, stay with-”

Claire was suddenly cut off by a tremendous pressure bearing down on Felicity’s head. A pressure that held her in place, utterly incapable of moving even as her target walked away with the woman he had met.

“Well well well, I thought I felt something familiar, but I don’t recognize you… You must be new.”

With a great deal of effort Felicity turned her head around, as she thought she should, and saw… a woman behind her. An utterly unremarkable woman. So completely average, even while looking at her directly, Felicity found that she forgot the woman’s appearance.

“Mom said you would be coming and asked me to ensure you stayed safe. I must say though, I am rather jealous; unlike me, you actually stand out.”

Felicity’s teeth began to chatter, and both of her tails stood up completely straight; something about this woman was setting off all of her warning bells.

“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue? Don’t worry, and I’m not going to hurt you; mom doesn’t like it when we fight each other. My name’s Eris, the Seventh of Envy. One of Lady Leviathan’s original companions.”

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