“Really?” In excitement, I tugged on my hands and leaned closer to her, my mouth wide open like a dummy.

With a smile, she replied, “Of course. But first, I need to know a little more about you.”

My mood had improved vastly so I felt ready to answer anything. I sat up and rested my back on a pillow placed against the headboard.

“Okay.” I gazed into her crimson eyes with anticipation.

Nodding lightly, Valerie released my hands and leaned onto my bed. After rolling to adjust herself, she looked at me while resting her chin between her palms.

“So, when did you meet Damien?”

Straight off the bat, she asked me something I didn’t want to think back on. Believing that she was asking out of relevance, I pouted a little before answering.

“Um, two days ago.”

She smirked before asking, “Where?”

I recalled being pursued by a member of the Church after getting ratted out by one of the female staff there. Trusting she had left trying to help me enter the Nether, I felt utterly betrayed, to say the least. A warning would’ve been nice.

“Near Arcadia’s exit.”

“I see. And he carried you away like a princess, right?”

I wanted to say that it leaned more toward the infantile side, but my embarrassment held me back from correcting her. Wait a second…

“H-how did you know?”

Valerie sighed deeply. “I was afraid that was the case… Hah! How risible this idiot is.”

I was just sitting there watching her slate Damien mercilessly, unable to follow at all. After a few minutes had passed, she seemed to have finally unleashed everything, and her uproar had come to an end. Having calmed down, she silently mused at me.

“Well, I can’t say I don’t relate with him…”

What was that supposed to mean? That she would’ve defied the Church like Damien did? Noticing my confusion, Valerie smiled and crawled on my bed over to me.

“Do you know of the previous hero?” she asked.

I remembered hearing a name from a group of adventurers while I was waiting in Arcadia’s lobby.

“Maria?”

Valerie looked pleased from my answer. “Correct! And do you know her relationship with Damien?”

I had also overheard this from the same group of adventurers.

“Damien was her disciple.”

“Indeed. Under the supervision of the Church, they were preceptor and disciple. Now, the main question: what does all this have to do with you?”

I had no idea. The only connection I could think of was the similarity of our names—Mari and Maria—but there was no way Valerie could’ve known that. After all, she had initially presumed I was his daughter, which couldn’t have been further from the mark.

Valerie, smug from my confusion, shifted herself again, this time resting her head on my thighs. I grabbed a nearby pillow, raised it as high as I could, and dropped it on her face.

“Pmph!” The pillow had muffled her yelp.

“Tell me why,” I demanded, bouncing my legs.

“Okay, okay!” After having removed the pillow on her face, she replied, “How can I explain this… you see, you and Maria are… miraculously similar in appearance. And it’s not only that. The more we talk, the more I think you’re both similar in character as well.”

Through her explanation, Damien’s apparent omniscience about me slowly started to make sense. It wasn’t that he knew everything about me; it was him treating me as if I was Maria. Still, how could we be so similar?

“You’re finding it hard to believe, right? That’s why I said it was miraculous. The minuscule probability of this happening naturally would require scientific notation to express. Oh my, excuse my jargon. What I meant to say was, it’s near impossible—unless…”

Valerie tilted her head, prodding me to complete her reasoning.

“Unless… I was her daughter?”

Clapping her hands together once, she said, “Yes. And now, the final piece…”

For a moment, she stayed silent. Then, with a sudden sorrowful expression, she lamented, “Maria passed away ten years ago battling the Demon Lord—how old are you?”

“Ten,” I replied softly.

“Mhm.”

Valerie had become despondent since her last question. I supposed that Maria was someone she cared deeply about, and perhaps I was causing her memories to resurface. Seeing her downcast like this, I couldn’t help but feel somewhat guilty. I smoothed her hair in an attempt to soothe her.

“… I see why he’s acting this way.”

Huh?

“Who?”

“Ah, never mind.”

After a while, I stopped smoothing her hair. When she whined, I continued while pouting. There were a few questions I wanted to ask her, but I decided to wait for a better time. For one, what was her relationship with Maria? If they were close, I could learn more about what kind of person Maria was.

Before I knew it, I had already started feeling obliged to know more about her. After all, my father, the Demon Lord, was the one who had ended her life. From her apparent prominence, I imagined that the despair her death had caused to these humans was rather rampant.

With how obsessed my father was over heroes, I wondered why he never told me about Maria. I had never seen any heroes enter his castle, so shouldn’t she have been the last hero he fought? It would’ve been much more interesting hearing about Maria rather than staring into his boring crystal ball. We might’ve even bonded a bit. Hmph.

A few knocks came from my door. “Dame Valerie Sylph, Little Miss Camay, dinner is ready.”

Well, I didn’t know about Valerie, but I was starving. Poking her nose a few times, “It’s time for dinner,” I said.

Valerie jolted awake. “Eh? Ah… okay.”

Having gotten out of my bed reluctantly, Valerie patted her trousers several times before extending her hand out for me.

✦✧

Abel guided us both to the dining room, where Damien was already seated. There were two empty chairs, one beside Damien and another across from him. Two maids led us to our chairs, and I ended up sitting beside Damien. With such a huge table, I wondered why we were sitting so close to each other.

“Begin the course.”

“Understood.” Abel signed the maids to begin serving the dishes.

“Valerie.”

Damien called out to her, but she seemed to be in a daze.

“Valerie,” Damien repeated.

“Eh? Ah. Sorry. What is it?”

“How is she?” he asked coldly.

After clearing her throat, Valerie said, “She’s completely fine now. Camay was just in low spirits due to a few misunderstandings is all.”

“Misunderstandings?”

“Yes, you heard right. You were quite inconsiderate to her, after all.”

Hearing this, Damien rested his jaw on a fist. “Elaborate.”

I didn’t like the direction this conversation was flowing. I thought we were supposed to be eating dinner.

Valerie adjusted her blazer in a grand fashion, leaned her upper arms against the table, and responded seriously, “Frankly, I question your ability to behave tactfully and moderately as Camay’s acting guardian.”

To say the least, Damien wasn’t amused. He had always been unreactive, but this time he quietly clicked his tongue. I hadn’t said a word yet, and I didn’t plan to. Couldn’t we have tabled this until after dinner, though?