I Don’t Need a Dad Like This! - Chapter 53
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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【Chapter 53】
At the following words, Nelson’s feet stopped abruptly as if shackled.
‘…Huh.’
Startled Rie tilted her head back.
This was because Nelson’s hand holding Rie’s hand was trembling while applying weak force.
Even blue veins protruded from his large hand, but Nelson exhaled as if barely holding back something.
Clap.
Then the sound of clapping came from across the way.
When she turned her head, Serena’s eyebrows were drooping downward.
“Oh my, it seems I misspoke! The word ‘pocket change’ wasn’t appropriate. No matter how little money it is, money that supports a family is truly precious.”
‘Ugh! Auntie, you’re deliberately teasing Uncle!’
She had learned that it wasn’t polite to interrupt adult conversations, but this time she couldn’t help it.
Rie pouted her lips and shouted loudly.
“Yes- Auntie! Since you made a mistake, go study and come back! Go review too!”
“What? Rie. Sister isn’t an auntie…”
“Wrong! You’re not sister but auntie! Go study this again and come back!”
Rie forcibly led Nelson’s hand.
Nelson, who was dragged along weakly, went straight into the orchard.
* * *
“It’s fig season now. If the end of the fruit is split and has a sweet fragrance, it means you can eat it.”
“Ooh!”
“You can pick all the ones here. Come on, try it.”
Nelson used a dagger to prepare the fig for her.
‘Go, good smell.’
Rie’s expression became drowsy in an instant as she sniffed the scent. Then she opened her mouth wide and ate the entire fig in a flash.
“To harvest delicious figs, you have to remove weeds every single day. Abundant sunlight is also essential. And there’s a secret weapon that others don’t use.”
“Ooh, secret weapon-?! What is it?”
“Deliberately giving less water and laying fallen leaves on the soil. Also, in summer, I spread fertilizer that Uncle made himself.”
Nelson harvested the fruit as if nothing had happened. He was even more talkative than usual.
It was as if he was trying to erase the earlier incident from Rie’s mind.
But when night came and Rie was curled up in her warm blanket, she heard the sound of someone gulping down something in the next room.
‘…Alcohol?’
When she pressed her small ear close to the wall, she could hear the sound of wine being poured.
Though he didn’t show it to Rie, he was definitely upset about what happened during the day.
“…Uncle’s figs are really really delicious. The quantity is small, but if anyone tastes them, they would really really like them.”
Could Rie help somehow?
It was when Rie was looking at the moon outside the window and letting out a soft sigh.
“Why the sigh?”
Kami, who had secretly followed Rie, sat by the window.
Having stolen and eaten several figs, his black beak was covered with brown juice.
“Kami! Isn’t there a way to make the orchard fruits grow lots and lots? So they grow lots and lots, and we can pick way more than what other people’s fruits produce!”
“Hmm. There are two ways.”
“There are two?”
“Yeah. One is to expand the land to increase the harvest. And the other is to make the fruits grow faster…”
‘Faster?’
At that moment, lightning struck in her little head.
“Fast fast? That’s Rie’s specialty!”
Rie gripped the clock in her pocket.
* * *
Glug.
It was already his fourth glass.
Though he usually didn’t enjoy drinking, Nelson downed the next glass without hesitation.
‘Why did I bring Rie along. What did I show that child.’
Watching the family living happily in their modest manor, he felt like he had become a solid wall.
A sturdy wall that could endure any persecution and contempt.
But today, Rie had ended up becoming that wall alongside him.
Harsh words that the child shouldn’t have had to hear would have pierced through her tender skin.
“…Damn it.”
Having finished an entire bottle of wine, Nelson downed the next glass in a tipsy mood.
So he didn’t know. That at this dawn hour, Rie had left the house and was roaming around the orchard.
* * *
“If the orchard is small, then the fruits just need to ripen fast fast! Even if we pick the fruits, they’ll keep growing!”
Rie arrived at the orchard with tremendous ambition.
But.
“…How do I do it?!”
No matter how much of a time ability user she was, until now Rie had only tried time stop and time reversal.
“Waaah. Kami!”
When the tearful Rie asked for help, Kami let out a deep sigh.
Because he didn’t know everything either.
“Kid. Am I a time ability user? Do you think everything gets solved just by asking me?”
“Kami is Kami. You even have cool wings.”
“Geez. I’m a bird, so of course I have wings.”
Rustle.
‘But Kami, you smiled, didn’t you?’
Rie rubbed her hands together like flies, just like the men she had seen during the day.
“Kami, let’s think about it together with Rie. If the figs ripen quickly, Kami will have more to eat too.”
“I’m already thinking about it even without you asking, so just stay still!”
Kami, who had been fluttering his wings, waddled toward the flat dirt ground.
“A Time Ability User’s power utilization is a battle of imagination. Imagination. Do you know what that is?”
“Mmhm. Imagination is thinking about things even when you can’t see them.”
“You know it well. What you want is to make only the fruits in that orchard grow quickly, right?”
“Mmhm.”
Kami used his black beak to draw a circle on the dirt ground.
“This circular part is the orchard. We just need to make time move faster only in the orchard area.”
“How?”
“Draw a circle like me to mark the area. Then take out your clock and remove the hour hand.”
“Huh?”
Remove the hour hand? What if the clock breaks?
Though she was a little scared, Rie trusted Kami.
When she pulled out the clock’s hour hand with trembling fingers, there was a clicking sound.
“Don’t worry. It’s detachable.”
“Rie knows that word. Detachable means you can attach and remove it.”
“Pretty good for a four-year-old.”
Hmph.
Her shoulders shrugged proudly!
But what followed next was an ordeal.
“Hiiik, hik! Rie… can’t do it!”
Rie, who was duck-walking while drawing lines with the hour hand, started crying.
The problem was that she had to go around the entire orchard in that position.
For a child who only had soft fat to protect her bones, it was a great trial.
About 1 hour later.
Rie, who had finally completed one full circle, collapsed spread-eagle.
“Hik, hiiik. Hiiek.”
Her back ached. Her knees ached.
Even the black sky felt like it was spinning around.
‘One star, two stars…’
As she was counting the pouring stars one by one, Kami looked somewhere and opened his beak wide.
“Little One, look at what you’ve done!”
“Mmhm…?”
Rie, who had been dazed, struggled to lift her upper body.
The orchard that had been dark was now shining brightly.
More precisely, blue light was emanating from the circle Rie had drawn with the hour hand.
“Wow. It’s so, so pretty…”
“It means the area has been set. It means you drew a perfect circle! Now put the Hour Hand back in its original place and spin the Second Hand around and around.”
“Huh?!”
Forgetting all about being tired, Rie excitedly spun the Second Hand around and around.
Then something amazing happened.
The sky suddenly changed to day.
But when she looked around, the surroundings were still dark night.
“Only the Orchard’s time is flowing!”
‘If I wind it even faster than this…?’
Rie gulped.
And she used her finger to spin the Second Hand around and around.
Day, night. Day, night. Snowy days. Rainy days.
Time spinning madly. The Orchard passing through the four seasons.
When the Orchard passed one season and welcomed the harvest season again, the quickly ripened fruits automatically fell to the ground.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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