Epic Of Caterpillar

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Luminous began to reprimand me as he saw what happened.

"If you didn't get into their own personal affairs nothing of this would had happened, Kireina!" He said angrily. "Stop peeking at people's status so much!"

"Huh? So it's all my fault now? I just spoke the obvious." I sighed. "But yeah, maybe I ended causing conflicts. I should act mature and apologize."

"Ah, no… It is not your fault." Sighed Halberd, quickly stopping our discussion. "You're our saviors, I cannot really get mad at you, without your help, our village would be in ruins… I just… since Brunhild's mother died, my wife… she had been like this."

"Maybe… she only wants to help like her mother did?" Wondered Fiere.

"Everyone has their own talents…" Said Sol. "Although sometimes, such talents are not really what we would had wanted to have…" Sol seemed to recall his own past, looking into his hands.

"Well, when we are born with a certain talent, skill, or power, it becomes something like a responsibility. Once we realize its potential and what we can do with it to change other's people's lives, we feel obligated to use it and improved over it. I am not telling you to forbid your customs or something, but wouldn't it be better to be open minded with her, even if a little bit? She's your daughter after all, Halberd." Said Luminous.

His presence became like that of a wise sage, as Halberd lowered his head while he sat down, seemingly recognizing his own flaws rather quickly.

"I know… I just…" Halberd sighed. "I just don't want to lose her. She's been so reckless all this time… She wants to live up to her mother's expectations but… She'll end up dying the same way her mother did."

"But why?" Wondered Fiere.

"It is something about magic… Her mother used to be a powerful magician, a battle witch as they're known here. Magic wasn't that well recognized here because most of us had no talent for it, but she developed incredible magic and saved our village many times since she was a young girl." Said Halberd, sighing. "She was someone incredible which I always followed, I stood behind her to protect her at all times, she was my moon and I was her sun… But such things don't last forever, not in this unforgiving desert."

"Did Brunhild inherited her mother's magic?" Asked Luminous.

"Yeah." I answered. "Her Class is also Battle Witch."

Halberd quickly gripped his fists as he seemed to react to that.

"So that's how it is… She has been hiding this from me all this time…" Halberd sighed once more. "I just… I wanted her to be stronger than her mother. Her mother was gifted in magic, but much like her daughter, she was weak physically. She was sickly, even, growing tired many times and sometimes requiring resting for several days after overusing her magic and emptying all her MP… Her death happened several years ago when an invasion of Wyverns happened, led by a Giant Wyvern Emperor… Luna… She… she died protecting all of us."

We suddenly fell into silence, everyone felt quite saddened by such harsh reality.

"She managed to fend off the Emperor and with her magic, almost killed him. However, she lost due to emptying her Mana. In that moment, the wyvern… it inflicted a lethal blow on her. I was unable to do a single thing… than watch her die." Halberd sighed. "Since then I've been trying my hardest to teach Brunhild how to fight physically, to not rely on magic as much as her mother did, so she wouldn't have such an obvious weakness. But even now, she…"

"I think she might be stronger than her own mother, or at least has the potential to be stronger." I said.

"Eh?" Halberd asked.

"She was too strong, look." I quickly wrote down the status of Brunhild, as Halberd looked at it and grabbed an old book which belonged to his wife, where she had written her status and her magic skills to remember them. He compared his wife's status with his daughter, and suddenly realized that, indeed, Brunhild already had two times more MP than his mother even while being low level.

"T-This is… How strong is she?" Asked Halberd in shock. "S-So much Mana…"

"This isn't merely talent; she has been using magic since she was very little. Your daughter must had been exhausting herself very night using as much MP as she could until she collapsed in her bed. This way, although it exhausted her body every morning, she developed her MP and Intelligence stats to completely insane numbers over the years." I said. "I can tell because I do the same stuff from time to time."

"Brunhild… Is this why she's always so sluggish every morning… but her mother couldn't even stand every morning when she over exceed herself, yet Brunhild pushes herself so hard…" Halberd said.

"Well, she really doesn't want to disappoint her father." Fiere said.

"Not only you saved our lives today but you've even opened my mind in this little time, I can't help but thank you for enlightening me…" Sighed Halberd. "All in this little time…"

"Well, we were doing something that just happened to be in front of us. Sorry if we ended disturbing your peace." Said Luminous.

"No… I think I should go see Brunhild, she's… Ugh…" Halberd tried to stand up but the wounds over his body really hurt, we had already healed him, but the pain seemed to still be there haunting his body.

"Where did she go? We'll go look for her, don't worry." Fiere said.

"She's at the mine… She always goes there…" Sighed Halberd. "I don't know why the monsters always want to go to that place, but usually it is empty aside from small creatures crawling here and there…"

"Okay, let's go there then." I said with a smile. It was time to mine some blood crystals and recruit a new party member, what a deal!

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