121 What’s My Mother’s Age Anyways?
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Mother walked outside the tent as if she wanted some time alone.
“Maybe she needs some time alone,” Nepheline could not help but say.
“Yeah... she’s got some problems with her temperament... She’s had a long life filled with many troubles, after all. It’s normal for her to be like this sometimes.” father replied, sighing at the end.
“Long life? Isn’t mother around her late twenties?” I wondered.
“Huh? Hahahaha! Elves at that age are called toddlers...” Nepheline could not help but laugh at my words.
“No... Faylen is old,” said Shade.
“Old? H-How old... daddy?” I asked.
Father seemed nervous. It seemed like he didn’t want to answer me...
.....
“Allan, have you never told your daughter exactly how old Faylen is?” Nepheline asked him.
“Well, he might not know the exact age either... we don’t really know,” said Shade in response to her words.
“No, he knows. I’m definitely sure of it. After all, he knows how old she was when he bedded her,” said Nepheline soon after, chuckling.
“Don’t talk about such things in front of the children.” Of course, Shade reprimanded Nepheline for that.
“A-Ah, my bad...” Though, Nepheline quickly apologized.
“Daddy?” I asked.
“...”
My father gripped his fists before looking at me with a nervous smile.
“Your mother is... an adult for her race! That’s all that matters,” father eventually told me.
How old is my mother? I had not realized it, but elves were mentioned to be able to live for thousands of years.
“Tell me!” Well, I did not accept his answer that easily.
“Sigh...”
Eventually, my father looked at the ground and then back at me.
“Around... six... hundred... I think?” he replied, his tone unsure.
“EH?!”
This was worse than my assumption of her being in her 80’s... to think she’s actually six hundred?
What the hell? That’s insane.
How long has she lived?
I can tell she’s had such a long life, experiencing so many things... maybe this is why she’s like this.
But it’s even more surprising that she fell in love with a human whose lives weren’t that long... even going so far to have a child with him.
I wonder why... did she take such a risk?
Knowing my father might die before her... of old age.
Although he’s youthful right now, eventually... time is unforgiving.
“She used to be a librarian, a wizard, and a teacher in the Academy of Magic in her kingdom,” mentioned Nepheline.
“She worked like that for hundreds of years, accumulating enormous quantities of knowledge in the process...” Shade added.
“Yeah... she was something like our senior, a teacher of sorts,” father told me.
“R-Really?” I asked in slight disbelief.
“Indeed. We all reached out to her thanks to the Kingdom of Elves. They welcomed us to train us when we were younger. That’s the place where we all learned magic and awakened it,” said Nepheline.
“Hmm.” Shade nodded in agreement.
“I guess the only exception to that is the Witch. She’s also... quite old,” Nepheline said not long after.
“I met your mother when I was... around thirteen... she was already like you see her now,” father told me after that.
“Oh...” I could only utter those words.
After all, I can’t help but think... did my mother just groom my father?
Ugh...
A strange feeling filled my stomach when I thought about it.
Was I a bit disgusted?
No, I can’t act like this. My mother is my mother, no matter how old she is.
And my father is my father... no matter... how young he is?
“Wow, your mom is very old, Sylphy!” Aquarina could not help but say.
“I never thought elves could live for so long. They look so weak compared to us Amazon,” said Zack.
“They live long due to various factors. One of them is that their bodies naturally metabolize mana into themselves and regenerate their own tissue. Of course, they’re not immortal. They just have very long lives,” Shade explained.
“Huh...” Zack could only utter that in response. It was a given that he didn’t understand a single thing.
I guess my mother was really like that. Maybe it’s because she’s old is why she has such a short temperament? Then again, wouldn’t it be the other way around? The older, the more wiser and calmer a person would be?
No?
I guess everyone has different outlooks in life.
“I’ll go look for mommy,” I said after some time.
“I’m coming as well,” father said in response.
“No... I think I want to talk with her alone, daddy...” I told him.
“Eh? But she’s my wife...” Naturally, father didn’t expect such words to come out of my mouth.
“But... it’s a thing between girls, you can’t get involved,” I replied.
“Sylph, that’s...!” murmured my father as Nepheline and Shade petted his shoulders.
“Let her go,” Shade told him.
“Yeah, she wants to talk with her mother alone. Understand her for a bit,” Nepheline said soon after.
“...alright, don’t take too long then... for now, let’s cook dinner, alright?” asked my father as everyone else nodded.
With that, I walked outside the tent and began wandering around to look for my mother.
Surprisingly, I didn’t find her anywhere.
I looked around the nearby tents and the roads formed by the village.
Aside from the people roasting their hunts and gathering to talk, dance, and sing under the night’s calm and soothing atmosphere, I couldn’t find her.
Eventually, I decided to conjure some magic. To be more specific, tracking magic.
Mana Wave, a simple wave of mana, and then Mana Detection to enhance its effects even more. These two spells form the combination named Mana Sense.
FLASH!
By spreading my mana around, I share my senses with it and... there she was.
Mother, you may hide very well, but you can’t fight someone with endless mana. I simply spread my Mana Sense like an ocean until I found you!
She was sitting atop a tall tree outside of the village. I don’t know why she went so far away from everyone else. Come to think of it, she’s really crazy sometimes.
In any case, she was sitting while watching the moon.
Though, I’m sure she already knew I was making my way towards her.
With that, I used my Heavenly Sight to look at her with more detail even from a distance and found that her eyes seemed deep... as if many bubbling emotions were inside.
I cannot really understand the mentality of a person that has lived so long.
The countless memories rushing around her mind must be tiring for her.
“Mom?”
I quickly crawled the tree and reached her.
“Sylphy?!” she asked, her tone rather shocked.
.....
I had used some stealth magic such as Stealth, which was pretty much a no-attribute spell that decreased the amount of attention one radiated. In any case, it was of the lowest grade. I’ve seen better ones used by Shade.
Maybe she didn’t detect me? Was she relaxing?
“What are you doing all the way here?” I asked her.
“...”
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