24. the Map

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"C-A-T" said Aunt Freya by spelling out the letters in a picture book to teach me to read.

"C-at" I repeated Auntie's words while looking at the letters and the picture of a cat alternately. To be honest, my brain is still trying hard to remember every letter in This world.

"E-A-T"

"E-at..."

"F-I-S-H"

"Fi-sh..."

"Okay, let's put all the sentences together..."

"Okay, let's put all the sentences together..." I said, still repeating my aunt's words.

"Ah, not that one, dear. Combine the sentences we read earlier..." said the aunt while pointing at her picture book.

"The cat bit the fish!" I said. I don't know why that sentence came to mind and said.

Aunt Freya shook her head. She looked a little surprised and held back laughter.

"Pfft. Not biting darling, but eating. Cats eat fish..." explained Aunt Freya. She didn't seem angry at all when I was wrong and actually laughed at me because I read differently.

When Aunt Freya read following the letters, I actually read following the pictures. What I saw in the picture book I thought was a cat biting a fish, not eating a fish.

"But the cat bit the fish, auntie. It didn't eat the fish!"

"You're right honey, the picture is like that, but you have to learn to read the letters, not the pictures dear ..."

"Um" I nodded.

"Okay. We've finished studying because you seem tired. We'll continue again tomorrow. Now we have to get ready for dinner..."

After returning from the capital, Aunt Freya wanted to teach me how to read. Even so, today I actually remember the letters more than reading. I hope tomorrow I will remember all the letters, so i can reading.

In the dining room.

At dinner, I felt the dining room was quieter than usual because my daddy wasn't sitting in his chair or he hadn't come to the dining room. There were only me, Aunt Freya, and Vio who were invited to sit down for dinner together.

I looked at a lot of foods that I liked, but none of them made me feel like eating. I just stared at her for a long time and finally Aunt Freya noticed my attitude.

"Honey, why you don't eat?" Aunt Freya asked.

"Is there something missing, Young Lady?" Vio asked, looking worried.

I shook my head, "where is dad?" I asked and the dining room became completely soundproof. Vio and Aunt Freya didn't seem to want to tell me about my daddy and Uncle Carrion's departure this morning.

"Your daddy went hunting and won't come home until tomorrow. Cellia is with aunt today, okay?"

"Where is Dad hunting?. What are daddy hunting?. Cellia wants to go to daddy!"

"No way, darling. Hunting is for adults only. If a child like Cellia hunts, it will be eaten by monsters, you know..."

When I heard the word 'eaten' I was again reminded of the incident when a little girl wanted to be eaten by a devil or about the nightmare in the ruins when a girl was also eaten until her body was split in two.

As soon as I remembered those things, my body trembled and felt cold. A feeling of dread started crawling through my body. My mind started wandering badly.

How is dad's condition?. Aunt Freya said uncle Carrion's and daddy were hunting?. But for what and where daddy hunt?. What if they meet a terrible monster like Aunt Freya said?!.

"Daddy ... daddy ..."

My tears were already dripping on the table to accompany the food I didn't touch. I don't even know how dad eats dinner out there?. What do they eat when hunting?. Do they eat hunted meat?.

As soon as I opened my eyes, I realized that I was already on my bed. It seems like I was crying until I was sleepy and suddenly fell asleep, then Aunt Freya had to take the trouble to take me to my room, even though we were in the middle of eating dinner last night.

What time is it?. How long did I sleep?. Is daddy home yet?.

I drew back the curtains and stared out the window to see the moon in its final phase.

Looks like it's past midnight?.

I rubbed my eyes which were still blurry because I had just woken up from sleep. I think I fell asleep not because I cried for too long but because I was tired after almost half a day walking around the capital square and then spending the rest of the time learning to read.

Oh, right. Read!.

I saw the picture book that my aunt bought at the shop this afternoon when we were still in the capital square. That picture book my aunt especially bought for me to learn to read.

I took the picture book on the table and took it to the sofa near the window which felt like it had enough light for me to read because unfortunately I couldn't turn on the light myself in this room. The lighting throughout my own residence uses magic that I've clearly never learned how to use.

Forget about how to use magic. I have to master the ability to read first!.

Cuit~

Cuit~

Without realizing it, I had reached the final page of the book and on this bright morning I finally mastered the ability to read in just one day and night!. It's not in vain that I didn't sleep all night!.

I got off the sofa excitedly at the same time Vio opened the door to my room.

"Young Lady, you are awake?" Vio muttered. It seems that she is also starting to get used to me always waking up early, thus reducing Vio's one task.

Vio does her job as usual. Comes, opens the curtains and windows in the morning, prepares my needs before showering, until the last one, namely taking me to the dining table for breakfast.

But when I arrived at the dining table, I didn't find anyone there. There is no daddy or aunt Freya.

"Vio, where is Aunt Freya?" I asked curiously.

"Oh, Lady Carrion, your aunt left early this morning because of urgent business, Young Lady. She said she would come back here in the afternoon..." explained Vio. Her hands didn't stop from putting on a napkin and pouring me a glass of milk.

This morning too, I missed breakfast alone. Dad didn't come home last night either. So I decided to wait for my daddy to come home all day, but even until midday my daddy showed no signs of coming home.

Is daddy not coming home today?.

What if dad doesn't come home tomorrow either?. Then the next day?, and who knows how long...

I shook my head.

No!. Dad will definitely come home!.

But I'm still curious, where is dad actually?. Hunt?. Does daddy really hunt like Aunt Freya said?. What if it's not actually hunting but looking for mommy?!.

Right!. Why am I just thinking about this now?!.

All this time, dad has always done that, right?!.

But if it's true, daddy is looking for mommy. Where did he go to look for it?. To the place where dragons live?. But where?.

Suddenly I thought about daddy's office room and went there to look for something that might tell me where father had gone or where the dragons lived.

"Young Lady, what are you doing here?. You can't play here..." Asked a guard on duty outside my daddy's office.

"Do you want to meet your daddy, Young Lady?" Another person asked which made me hope that my daddy was in his office room, but unfortunately the reality was that I was broken by I had my own hopes again. Of course there was no daddy inside, but I had to go in so I tried another trick to get in. What if I didn't use my abilities?!.

"Cellia wants to meet daddy!" I said then without saying excuse me, I immediately ran and pushed the door past the guard while imagining the hands of the clock stopping moving.

Ting!.

It worked!. It turns out I can use it freely, right?. But I wonder why. His Highness Yvone said I have to keep my magical abilities a secret?. Is it because the ability to time magic is something special?.

Who knows. I'll think about it later. I want to explore father's study first. I hope I find something.

I climbed onto Dad's work bench and saw how amazing Dad's work desk was filled with lots of things. I also saw a photo framed and displayed on my daddy's table. It was a photo that showed a portrait of a mommy holding a baby and that baby was me before it was this big!.

OK, forget about that photo for a moment. I found another interesting thing on my daddy's desk. It was a pocket watch that I gave my dad at that time, but next to the pocket watch I gave him there was another pocket watch that had a picture of a lion engraved on it. Maybe it's a pocket watch that my daddy already had before I gave him another?.

Then I saw there were lots of books and rolls of paper that didn't know what was inside because they were still sealed.

"Map!" I muttered. I suddenly became happy when I saw a map tucked between the open books. It seemed that my search in my daddy's office room was not in vain.

I took the map and looked at it carefully. And far beyond my expectations. This map turned out to be just contains the land of Yevin which looks so simple surrounded by lots of forests and mountains. Nothing looks special.

I'm trying to guess. Did daddy go to a place on this map?.

Now I'm trying to read the names of places on the map, including the names of two forests that caught my attention.

"Celestial Forest - Aetheria and Glathiaz Forest"

What is this forest?. Why is it called a forest but the shape of the picture is very different from the other forests on the map, especially this Celestial Forest called Aetheria. The shape of the image on the map is dots that stack up vertically. Meanwhile, the Glathiaz forest is depicted on the map in the form of thorns wrapped around snakes.

While I was busy guessing why the two forest symbols looked strange, I accidentally knocked over a book whose cover looked very dull.

I took the book and looked at the letters on the cover of this dull book. These are not letters that I learned and mastered overnight, but miraculously I can read the writing!.

From the writing that uses foreign letters, I know that this looks like an old book that no one will ever read. I mean, a book like this would just be ignored by most people because, who cares about the story of the creation of the world. It's better to be busy thinking about how to eat tomorrow than to think about why this land was created dark, right?.

But I, who didn't lack food and was still small, didn't think about the first thing, so I was interested in reading books about the creation of this world.

Everything in this world begins from fragments of the land of heaven and fragments of the land of hell ....