Father Doesn’t Understand His Daughter’s Heart(10)

“I… brought tea…”

“……”

“……”

In the cabin filled with an uncomfortable silence in many ways, Meiyel, who seemed to be the only one not minding this atmosphere, placed the teacups she had floated over with magic on the table and sat down.

Meiyel sank into the chair as if burying herself and stared at me with an expression that looked like she might doze off at any moment.

I was grateful that it was much better than earlier when she had been questioning my identity with a serious face, but if possible, I wished she would do something about this atmosphere instead of just watching quietly.

To be more precise.

“If you say even one word wrong, I’ll kill you…”

“Since I got hit by big sister thanks to you, I’ll be looking forward to it.”

I wish something could be done about those two sitting in chairs and glaring at me as if they’d kill me.

Yeonhwa and Kama, who were showing clear killing intent, though to different degrees.

For now, Yujia had persuaded them to listen to my story and decide their next actions afterwards, but the moment I misspoke due to a wrong thought, it would be over, so I couldn’t help but keep my mouth shut.

Since every single word was related to my well-being, I unconsciously became taciturn.

But the inherent me, or more precisely, Aria sitting across from me, wasn’t like that, as she moistened her mouth by drinking the tea Meiyel had brought and slowly opened her mouth.

“You definitely said… father, right?”

“…Yes.”

Since I couldn’t not answer, I first nodded lightly to Aria’s question.

As I nodded and answered thus, the gazes of the two glaring at me intensified, but fortunately, Yujia, who had restrained them at an appropriate timing:

“Both of you, stay still. If you move on your own again, I’ll plant you in the floor up to your chins, okay?”

“Ugh…”

“Tch…”

At Yujia’s intimidating words restraining the two, they showed displeased expressions but soon clicked their tongues and withdrew their gazes.

Thanks to that, the surrounding air felt a bit lighter. I inwardly thanked Yujia and turned my head towards Aria, who continued questioning.

“There’s really a lot I want to ask… but I’ll start with what I’m most curious about. How did you come here…?”

“How I came here, you ask.”

How I came to this world.

It was an extremely simple question to answer. An answer that could be explained in just one word.

However, even though I wanted to give this simple answer, I currently had no grasp of what information the children knew.

This was something that could only be answered if one knew the concept of my previous world and games.

And because of this, as I was struggling to answer easily, Meiyel, who had been watching me with sleepy eyes, seemed to notice my concern and opened her mouth to speak.

“We know everything we need to know, so don’t worry… We’ve known we were game characters from the moment we were created…”

Meiyel said this while awkwardly scratching her cheek, seemingly uncomfortable with formal speech.

While inwardly smiling at her incredibly cute appearance, I reflected on what Meiyel had just said.

They know that where they live is a game and that they themselves are characters because they were created as game characters.

It was quite a shocking statement, but if it made sense while being so, I nodded and put the answer I had been hesitating to give until now into words.

“Yes, if you know, there’s no reason I can’t answer. The reason I was able to come here was thanks to the goddess Iriel. She brought me to this world.”

“Iriel…? That bi… no, she brought Father from the outside world to our game world?”

To be precise, she brought me to a real world where all life breathes rather than a game world, but there’s no need to tell this to the five living in the game world.

Even if I told them, there probably wouldn’t be a way for the five to cross over from their game world to my world on their own.

The only possible way would be to ask Iriel, who made it possible to view this past from the book of the Library of Records in this colorful world.

But even this is impossible as Iriel herself said it would be hard to see from now on. In the end, not giving false hope and not bringing up the story was the best I could do.

‘Still, if I happen to meet Iriel, I should ask her once.’

Of course, since the probability of meeting again isn’t zero, if I ever get to meet Iriel again, I will definitely make sure to ask.

After all, my world would be a much more ideal place than this game world.

With that in mind, I turned my gaze back to Aria sitting across from me, and at the sight of Aria I saw, I tilted my head.

“Iriel…”

I hadn’t heard properly until now because I was thinking of other things, but Aria was constantly chewing on Iriel’s name while endlessly swallowing.

No, not just Aria, but Meiyel and Yujia sitting beside her were the same.

All three except Yeonhwa and Kama showed meaningful expressions at Iriel’s name I mentioned and kept muttering that name.

Even Yeonhwa and Kama looked slightly flustered seeing the three showing displeased expressions like me.

And of course, at that sight, I couldn’t help but ask the question that had risen to my throat.

“What’s wrong? Was there some problem with mentioning Iriel?”

“Ah, yes?! No, Father, there’s no problem, but…”

“Then why are you making those faces?”

Aria hurriedly shook her head and answered my question. At her awkward appearance, my doubt only deepened, and when I asked, this time the one who answered my question was Yujia sitting on the right side.

“No, Father. It’s not that big of a problem, just that we had some unpleasant experiences with the goddess Iriel among ourselves. We felt a bit bad about that, and it suddenly came to mind.”

“What do you mean by unpleasant experiences?”

“You know, that thing. Among the quests given by the Pope, there was one called the goddess’s order to subjugate the Night Dragon’s dungeon 100 times within a week.”

“Ah, that was certainly a nasty quest.”

I couldn’t help but agree with Yujia’s words, who spoke calmly without any sign of fluster unlike Aria.

The 100 subjugation quest given by the Pope as a repeatable quest was a nasty quest even when recalled.

From the children’s perspective who experienced it as reality, of course they would frown. Who could smile at someone who gave a quest that arbitrarily controlled them?

But surely Kama and Yeonhwa must have done this quest too.

For some reason, the two showed a flustered reaction looking at the three like me, so I was about to ask about that as well, but before that, Yujia’s words blocked me.

“By the way, we haven’t asked the most important thing yet. It seems big sister Aria already believes perfectly that Father is Father, but Yeonhwa, Kama, Meiyel and I still haven’t clearly accepted it. You need to show proof that you’re really our father.”

“Honestly, my mind seems to have already believed it, but…”

Yujia asking me thus while looking straight into my eyes, and Meiyel looking up at me as if wanting an answer while muttering softly.

Additionally, as Yeonhwa and Kama’s fierce gazes also came towards me, I let out a short sound and folded my arms at those words asking me to prove that I was their father.

Clearly, proving myself was an essential element, if only because of Yeonhwa and Kama who were currently doubting me.

Proof was essential to ensure they wouldn’t attack me again and to make them clearly acknowledge my existence.

Therefore, at Yujia’s words which I had to agree with, I searched for a means to prove myself while keeping my arms folded.

‘Hmm… Honestly, there’s nothing that specifically comes to mind… Ah.’

As I was deeply pondering what would be good since nothing big came to mind, a memory from the past flashed through my mind like lightning.

At the time, it was an action I had taken thinking it was a game, but facing the living Yujia at this moment, I thought there was nothing better than this and said while clapping my hands:

“Come to think of it, during the festival in the Phara Kingdom, I made you dance on top of a tower in a place full of NPCs. Do you remember the limited event dance I bought separately just for you?”

“…!”

Yujia’s shoulders jerked at my words.

“Even when you went on raids with other party members, you always danced that dance after defeating the boss…”

“…!!”

And at my following words, Yujia’s face started turning bright red.

I guess it was quite embarrassing since it was reality for her even though it was a game for me.

“Really…?”

“Yujia did?”

“…Unexpected of you, Yujia.”

“You have no shame, big sister Yujia… I admire you… yeah…”

At my words, everyone’s gazes shifted from me to Yujia, and Yujia’s already flushed face turned even redder as if about to boil.

Yujia’s face was so red that it wouldn’t be strange if steam started coming out soon.

This should probably be enough of an answer. This was something only Yujia and I knew, so at least Yujia must have been completely convinced.

I nodded, satisfied with what I thought was a perfect answer, and.

“You…”

“You?”

“You’re the one who made me do it, you damn father!!!”

Whoosh───!!!

Yujia’s fist, filled with killing intent incomparable to Yeonhwa and Kama’s, flew towards the bridge of my nose.

It seems the conversation with my daughters will be a bit longer.