At the Northern Fort V3C18

At the Northern Fort V3C18: Consulting Daphine-san!

Eventually, Hilg-papa was satisfied as he released me and then started grooming Kugalg.

I gasped as I distanced myself from Hilg-papa and rolled on the ground.

Even though I had just been trying to go see Daphine-san, I ended up suffering through a terrible fate.

“Incidentally, did you have some business coming here?”

After he finished grooming Kugalg’s fur, Hilg-papa finally raised his face and asked. I released the built up heat in my body onto the ground as I responded.

“I was trying to go see Daphine-san, but I made a mistake in my transfer.”

Upon hearing that it was a ‘mistake’, Kugalg went into a daze. You don’t have to be that shocked.

As I thought to myself that maybe it would’ve been better to not tell them the truth, Hilg-papa placed his large, baseball-glove sized forepaw on Kugalg’s back. 

“Daphine, huh! Kugalg’s been to Daphine’s place a number of times!”

“Is that so? She is his mother after all.”

I found that endearing, but Kugalg quickly escaped from underneath the heavy-looking paw and then punched Hilg-papa several times in protest. He was probably embarrassed that his visits to Daphine-san had been exposed.

“This is a good opportunity. Why don’t you take Milfiria to Daphine’s place?”

Even as Kugalg continued to hit him, Hilg-papa pay any heed to his strikes at all as he made his proposal.

“That might be good. Kugalg, is that okay?”

I said as I got up. Upon hearing my voice, Kugalg suddenly turned around, ceasing his attacks on his father, and replied, “Okay” as he cheerfully trotted over. 

“Then, please.”

Kugalg nodded and then tried using the transfer technique next to me. Kugalg’s body transformed into red flames, which then started to swallow me up. 

“Uwah, w-wait!”

I jumped before the fire could completely envelop me and hastily got away from Kugalg. In an attempt to blow away the heat that was coiling around my body, I quickly shook my body off.

The flames settled, and Kugalg also returned to his original form. And then, he tilted his head in confusion as he looked at me.

“What’s wrong, Milfee? Was it too hot?”

“I’m okay, it just startled me a little.”

It was just a transfer technique, so even if the flames touched me it wasn’t like they would burn me. However, I reflexively ended up running away as soon as I felt the heat. 

“Do it one more time, please.”

“Got it.”

Hilg-papa watched over him as Kugalg once again started to transform into flames. I let out a terrified, “Eek!” as I was surrounded by a flaming vortex, but this time I endured it and didn’t run away. 

Perhaps finding my face in that instant to be funny, just before we disappeared, I saw Hilg-papa laugh, “Hahaha! Do your best!”. 

“We’ve arrived!”

Hearing Kugalg’s voice, I opened my eyes. Before my eyes was a desolate-looking place, with reddish brown earth that seemed to extend endlessly. The sun was setting in this region, dying even the sky a pure red colour. 

And even beyond the horizon, there were no signs of buildings or humans. There were only rocky mountains. Just as I thought to myself, ‘So the earth spirit Daphine-san lives in a place like this’?

“My, the two of you came together today?”

I heard a calm, low, but feminine voice coming from behind us. Kugalg and I immediately turned around. 

Daphine-san was in her large, black sheep form. She walked across the red earth as she approached. While my fur was fluffy, Daphine-san’s wool had a distinctive, soft and lumpy texture to it. In addition, while she had the appearance of a sheep, she seemed kind of sexy for some reason. 

However, after batting her charmingly long eyelashes once, she transformed into a dark-skinned beauty wearing a black dress. 

“You look well, Milfiria. As always, you have such lovely fur.”

She picked me, who had a rather round figure for a fox, up and made a gentle smile as she stroked my body with her warm hands.

“Have you gotten a bit rounder?”

“I-It’s just my winter fur……! I haven’t gotten fatter. Really.”

I’d hate to be misunderstood, so I quickly explained the reason why I had become fluffily rounder. 

Daphine-san laughed as she nodded and tried to pick up Kugalg with her other hand, but perhaps because he was embarrassed due to my presence, Kugalg swiftly dodged her hand. Daphine-san made a wry smile, but didn’t pursue it. 

“What’s the matter? Did you come to play? I don’t think that I will be able to satisfy the two of you though.”

Apparently concerned over our inexhaustible supply of energy when it came to playing, Daphine-san said that with a troubled expression. There was one time when we had her play with us, but Daphine-san didn’t seem to like messing around with games like tag.

“Today we didn’t come to play. I had something I wanted to ask Daphine-san for advice about.”

“For advice? My, so Milfiria has worries as well. What might they be?”

She seemed to think that I didn’t have any worries at all, as she spoke in a surprised manner.

I talked about Tina-san and Rekka-san’s situation, and asked what Daphine-san thought about it.

“Why do you think Rekka-san doesn’t want to be in the same room as Tina-san?”

“……by advice, you meant you wanted advice regarding the humans of that fort?”

Daphine-san’s brows remained lowered as she gently laughed.

“I’ve been consulted about issues between spirits, and listened to complaints about humans, but this is the first time I’ve been asked for advice for an issue between humans.”

To begin with, who are Rekka and Tina? -such might be what Daphine-san felt, but as expected of Daphine-san, she did seriously think of a response for me.

“Perhaps their attributes don’t mesh well? But that isn’t something you can do much about. For example, even I have someone that I’d rather avoid. I have a pretty good affinity with most spirits, but I’m not very good with the Spirit of Lightning alone.”

Humans didn’t have attributes like spirits, but it was true that sometimes there were people who just couldn’t get along well.

However, while the fluffy and cute type Tina-san and the straight-laced, serious Rekka-san were complete opposites, both of them had a natural airheadedness to them, so I don’t think that they couldn’t get along. In reality, they were on quite friendly terms.

Hmm, I thought to myself. Daphine-san stroked my fluffy neckline with her finger and said.

“I don’t think I will be able to help much. I don’t know the knights there very well after all. If it were the soldiers of this country, then I might understand a bit better, but their way of thinking might be different over there. But if you want to discuss this with someone, how about asking Hyllis? Right now that child is in a different fort from the Northern Fort that Milfiria stays at, right? It’s also in the same country of Aridora too. She should probably know more about the knights of that country compared to other spirits.”

“Ah, I see. Maybe I’ll try asking Hyllis too.”

“Yes, that should be good.”

“Thanks, Daphine-san!”

After seeing Daphine-san pet Kugalg, who turned away from her embarrassment, I flew to Hyllis’ location with Kugalg. This time, I used the transfer technique.

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