Also, his condition as an old wrinkled fart, those were his words, didn’t help either—constantly traveling with old bones proved tedious indeed. With two children to care for, the poor old man who evoked but sympathy was so overwhelmed.

That was a fun fabricated story, I liked it. Well, we didn’t have to go so out of our way to keep up the appearance, but anyway.

At any rate, as the princess could imagine, our life had been tough. Thankfully, so many hardships ended right here, with the princess as our benefactor.

“Good heavens! Had I known you poor folks’ story, by the King whom I serve, I should have liked to offer you and your children shelter and food before you even let me blabber the nonsense of an agreement or contract between me and my little soldier.”

The royalty put it like this, but she sure found it convenient to call me her “little soldier” anyway.

And after a few words addressing the topic of the poor old man’s story trying his utmost best to even get by in the wilderness of the world, their conversation drifted toward the “granted education” the most esteemed uncle had mentioned.

“Any question about this matter, esteemed Uncle, or the affair of your grandson serving as my, how to put it, servant knight, is of course welcomed.”

With me being what I was, a unique monster-type creature, he had questions. Was it okay to grant me citizenship, as well as an education at the Academy and a permit to act as a monster-hunter of the Guild, or did it come with hard restrictions? Also, did the effect of the reward she offered to me could also be extended to the elf maiden? Specifically, would the same prestigious chance at an education, and stuff, also be granted to the sleeping lady? And so on.

The flow of questions never ended, except most of them were more on the trivial side and non-important.

And to all the worried old man’s questions, she had an answer. An interesting fact was that the old man seemed genuinely worried. Wasn’t he a good uncle? And so, to the questions, the noblewoman denied all the old man’s worries about whether or not it would be a truly okay experience for his grandchild and stuff. He did fit the role of the anxious and ignorant parent worried about his children’s safety.

With explanations on her part, she continued. Now that it had been unleashed, the woman’s tongue never stopped dancing. This time, I didn’t bother to listen to what was being told between the two grown-ups. This was information I already had about the “contract.”

Also, the royalty spared a little time to diving into the topic of a non-human person—a monster-type, demi-human, and the like—obtaining citizenship and everything that came along with it in a human society. That was obviously a sin in the State’s eye, but it was more common than people think, so we were okay.

Also, I had the chance to look so human-like (well, that was my Character) that the noblewoman had very little to be arranged for the sake of my blending into society easily. In a demi-human’s case, to see the contrast, it was tough to be even allowed not to wear complete armor at all times so that the demi-human’s appearance be fully concealed all the time.

So naturally, there were restrictions, lots of them, on many things the demi-human could normally do. It could be a stupid example, but to go to high-class restaurants, you were required a certain dress code, so that would be off-limit if I were an orc or something.

Basically, you weren’t given free access to everything a human city had to offer… but my human form happened to be near perfectly human-like.

Not perfectly but near perfectly human-like, yup. Due to having the “Claw” skill, all my nails looked slightly different than regular nails, kind of thicker and sharper on the edge with a sharp point on the end, basically animal-like, so that could account for a slight difference. But that much wasn’t so noticeable.

And if it was noticed at all, people would just start calling me funny names like Freaky Finger or something. Another difference was about the cat-like irises I had within my blue eyes, but again, it wasn’t anything to worry about.

After that, my two humans’ conversation gradually died down, up till they discussed not even the trivial things of life like the weather and whatnot. At the end of their long conversation, my old man’s worried curiosity was satiated, and he knew everything he “had to.”

Minutes passed, and I was the one who had something to talk about now. It wasn’t anything important, but I asked the old uncle about the technique he used back then against all the orcs, bringing dozens of them down in one go.

“Any chance you can teach me? Or let me copy the skill by means of Dwelling or something?” At all times, I had better not forget I needed to get stronger… or otherwise, it meant I would die.

And, remember how the old man can feel so off sometimes? Back in the forest where I met him, he had two modes: the Ho ho mode and the Ha ha mode. While he was being Ho ho, he was the usual hearty old man I knew and liked. When the Ha ha mode showed through, however, he turned overly cold and icy, like he was dead inside, expressionless, and soulless.

For a split second, he turned Ha ha. Right after I mentioned my using the Dwelling Passive Skill on him, he laughed. “Ha… ha… ha. You must not let him,” Ha ha said to Ho ho. He looked cold, stern, and distant. Somehow, he also had a look of disgust on his face.

Telling the noblewoman sometimes the esteemed uncle became like this but it never lasted more than a few seconds, I waved her confusion away. She whispered we were a weird bunch, and I told the old man off for being a freak. If both he and I were weirdos, I’d start to worry about whether any of us could be in charge of our new family. Before long, a hearty, embarrassed look was displayed on the senile old man’s features, and I smiled at him.

I was told he couldn’t let me learn any skill he knew by means of Dwelling, and explained that the technique he used back then wasn’t a skill, but a stored spell within a scroll. So that was that. After the old man explained to me what a stored spell, or scroll, was, I was given more information about the outside world and what people used to fight.

Life was complicated: Magic users didn’t solely use what they called “skills” in order to fight. There were tons of other sciences I didn’t know anything about. I decided to, for the time being, only concentrate on gathering skills anyway.

“Incidentally, this old man should disagree with you, young man. You say that a lot—’The weaker the trickier’—but it is not only the weak who should like to get tricky, as you seem to imply. The strong must also learn to be tricky.”

That comment was out of context from a little debate we had, but the old man tried to teach me that I shouldn’t look down on any available tool I was offered to win a fight. When I learned that what he used was a scroll he bought rather than a skill he learned, and could wield at any time, I lost all interest, and the old man tried to correct me.

But that was that.

At some point during the travel, the feverish Cetha spoke. “F-Fa…ther…” Both I and the old man tensed up at once. “Th-They… a…ttack… us… F-Father… The… de…mons… a…ttack… anh…”

Oh how I wished I could barge in her feverish dream, take her into my embrace, and tell her that everything was all right. If Cetha had any demons, I’d beat them to a pulp. If she had any sorrows and tears, I’d comfort them away. The elf was mine.