“Excuse me, miss?”

A young boy approached me as I sat under the pavilion.

“Hm? What is it?”

I looked at him as he stood in front of me. It had gotten quite busy the past few days - merchants, adventurers, all manner of people were coming into Diamûn - most to simply see it exists, but some to actually venture in. Mother was keeping watch of those; she wanted me to talk to the people coming in.

“Do you know where my dad is?”

However, one group we didn’t see much of were children. The boy was twelve; him following his father wasn’t entirely out of the question. I looked down at the boy.

“What does he look like? Can you give me a description?” I asked.

“He’s big, and strong… and he has a sword… oh, and he has horns on his head!” the boy answered.

So he’s an adventurer type? Okay… that’s easy enough to look through Diamûn for.

“What kind of hair does he have?”

The boy paused to think. While he was thinking, it dawned on me that unlike his father, the boy was a human.

“Oh! It’s light hair… umm…” he trailed off.

While he was trying to find the word blonde, I found a blonde-haired demon with a sword in a group of three exploring the first floor.

“Does he not have a beard?” I asked.

“No, no. Did you see him?” the boy asked.

He looked at me expectantly. I wasn’t sure if the boy knew that he was in the dungeon - though, I had a hunch that he did not. Given that no one else was trying to talk to me at the time, I decided to humor the boy a bit.

“I can do you one better. Come with me,”

I got out of the chair I was sitting in and started making my way to the beach on the other side of the island. After taking a few steps I motioned to the boy to follow me, which he did. I ran ahead to sit down on the beach.

After a few moments, the boy caught up to me and gave me a confused look. Yep, he didn’t know that his dad’s in the dungeon, I thought. I patted the sand next to me to tell him to sit down. The boy did and I pulled up a view screen of what his father was doing.

“You’re dads in the dungeon, getting stronger,” I explained.

The boy looked at the screen at his dad. The other two in the group were an archer and some kind of support mage. He looked on with his mouth wide open. What a good kid.

After a few moments, the two of us heard a voice call out from behind us.

“Danny!”

The boy turned around suddenly to look for the voice and I looked in the same direction. A woman was walking towards us.

“Oh, there you are,” she said.

“Mom?” the boy asked.

The boy got up and ran over to his mother. I stood up as well, closing the view screen I had opened earlier.

“Don’t run away from me like that!” she cried.

“I’m sorry…”

I walked over to the two as the boy hugged his mother.

“Sorry about that. He asked me where his father was, so I was just showing him,” I explained.

The boy’s mother looked at me as I spoke. She let out a sigh.

“Sorry. He looks up to his dad, but he’s not old enough to go with him on missions and trips.” she said.

She turned her attention down to her son again for a moment.

“I told you, you dad’s busy! You can’t follow after him today,” she admonished.

She gave him a pat on the back and let out another sigh.

“But… but she was showing me dad getting stronger!” the boy said.

His mother looked down at him.

“She what?”

The boy’s mother looked back at me and just stared for a moment. I just shrugged.

“...so you’re the one they’ve been talking about,” she sighed.

“If by ‘the one’ you mean Maya’s daughter, yes. My name’s Kaya,” I explained.

 

We moved back over to the pavilion area. I took a seat and Danny’s mother sat on a chair next to me. Danny was running laps around the pavilion itself while we talked.

“I’m sorry for my son bothering you,” she apologized.

“No, don’t be sorry, if anything, it’s a nice change of pace from adventurers, merchants and other important types,” I explained.

She chuckled.

“That’s how it’s been for you, huh? Can’t say I’m not part of the problem, then,”

She looked over at me and held out her hand.

“The name’s Martha. Martha McNellan. I’m a merchant with the Perta Trading Company,” she said.

I grabbed her hand to shake it.

“It’s good to meet you, Martha. You’re not the first merchant from Perta I’ve met,” I said.

“I’m sure of it. Our northern operations run out of Berta, so it’s not exactly the longest trip out here.” she mused.

Martha let go of my hand, and leaned back into her chair. She simply sat for a moment, as I leaned back in mine. There were others sitting under the pavilion and Danny was still running laps.

“It’s quite a stir in Berta, you know? I was curious what the Guild was doing, sending out a bunch of staff north early in the morning…”

Martha paused for a moment.

“And then Tokra - bless him - comes out and announces that the lost dungeon of Diamûn is found! I’m sure there are a bunch of groups who are fuming at not catching wind of it,” she laughs.

“Are you not annoyed with yourselves, too?” I asked.

“Sure, a little. But our speciality is goods. We buy and sell. Personally, I think it’s probably best that the Midlands Guild seems to have staked their claim first,” she explained.

After a pause, she added:

“Though, can’t say we’re a little annoyed about not being on the ground floor,”

The two of us continued to lean back in our chairs. Meanwhile, Danny came over to where we were sitting. 

“Mom, I’m tired,” he said.

“You’ve been running around,” Martha said.

She picked him up and put him on her lap. He looked over at me.

“Hey, miss, can I see what dad’s up to?”