Return of the Unrivaled Spear Knight

Side Story Chapter 252

Isaac didn’t remember Zactor as a good father.

She had a memory of when she was around seven and had started to take interest in martial arts.

* * *

“Daddy, let’s play.”

“Go socialize with other girls like a girl should. Stop bothering me.” Zactor flicked his hand at his young daughter dismissively.

The servants anxiously watched Isaac from the side.

“M-My lady, why don't you come with us? We'll play with you.”

“No! I want to play with Daddy!” Isaac pouted. She brandished the ball in her hand.

Despite her protest, Zactor didn't even glance at his daughter. “Balls aren't meant for girls. Do knitting in your room or something.”

“I'm going to be strong like you, so I need to exercise!”

“Ridiculous. Where did you get such an absurd idea? Women are born weak. They cannot surmount the limits they were born with.”

“No, I can do it!” Isaac shrieked.

“You just can't understand what I'm saying, can you?”

“Huh?” Isaac's eyes widened.

Her father suddenly picked her up and strode outside the mansion with her dangling from one of his arms.

“Hehehehe!” Isaac giggled excitedly, thinking that her father was finally going to play with her.

It didn't take long for her to realize that she was mistaken. She was left hanging from Zactor's arm for at least three hours. Isaac was just a child, so she was exhausted quite quickly.

“D-Daddy, I'm tired…”

Zactor promptly threw Isaac to the ground, where she sat, stunned. Fortunately, she wasn't injured because she had landed on her bottom, although it still hurt. It would have been far worse if she’d landed head-first

“I'm going to leave you out here if you start crying,” Zactor said as Isaac’s eyes started to water.

Isaac hiccuped. She couldn't even shed a tear.

It had been three years since she met her father, so was it really wrong of her to ask him to play with her?

“To be honest, I never wanted to have you, girl. You’re just a liability. You said you wanted to be strong like me? Prove it—then I’ll admit that there is hope for you after all.”

Zactor turned around and slowly walked away, leaving his young daughter in the middle of the pitch-black forest.

“Yo-You said you wouldn’t leave me if I didn't cry!” Isaac shouted with a quivering voice.

She didn't know where she got the courage from. Perhaps it was her survival instinct. She felt so cold that she could barely move, but she managed to bring up their promise.

Zactor paused. “…I'll come back in half a day. If you're still alive by then, I'll make sure you can at least protect yourself.”

It was noon, which meant that Zactor was coming to pick her up at midnight. That was madness. She was seven—it was preposterous for her to survive half a day on her own in a forest teeming with beasts.

“Keep in mind that I had to survive a week in a much harsher environment when I was your age. And as you can see, I'm still alive,” Zactor said with a shrug.

Isaac desperately held back her tears. It was difficult to argue with Zactor knowing that he’d been through worse, but…

“It's not fair!”

“What?”

“You said that there’s a big difference between men and women! You should at least teach me how to protect myself first!”

After some pondering, Zactor actually nodded in agreement. “…Well, I didn’t go through survival training until one month after I started to learn from my teacher.”

“Then teach me for a month too! That’s the only way this is fair!”

“…Fine, but to make it fair, I have a condition too.”

“Huh…?”

“One week. I'll come back after a week,” Zactor declared. It was clear that Isaac was not going to escape his test. “At least there aren't monsters around here. I survived a week in the notorious Black Monster Forest. A forest like this is basically a walk in the park; you should be able to handle this much at least.”

“…Fine. Teach me anything first then. I'm going to survive no matter what!” Isaac yelled, determined.

In the end, she survived. She fed on rotten tree roots and endured the bitter cold in the woefully inadequate shelter of a cave. On the fourth day, a pack of wolves picked up her scent and nearly killed her. Even after that, she had to suffer through many crises before the week’s end.

By the time Zactor returned to the forest, Isaac looked like a mess. He examined her for a long minute with gleaming eyes.

“I guess there’s more hope for you than I expected.”

The moment Zactor picked Isaac up, she fainted.

She thought her nightmarish week was finally over—but once again, she was mistaken.

When Isaac opened her eyes again, she was astonished to see her mother slap her father in the face. Everyone else in the mansion was covering their mouths in shock. They had never seen Isaac's mother raise her voice at Zactor, much less outright defy him.

Even though he had seen her hand flying toward his cheek, Zactor hadn't dodged. He just narrowed his eyes.

“…What is the meaning of this?”

“I could ask you the same question! Did you really try to kill your own daughter?!” Isaac's mother shrieked.

Zactor merely sneered. “No one told you to have a daughter. Girls are useless.”

“...What?”

“I don't need a weakling for my child.”

“You’re her father! How can you say that in front of her!”

Glancing at Isaac, who blankly looked up at him,

Zactor glanced at Isaac, who blankly looked back at him, and smiled contently. “But she isn't totally hopeless. There is hope for her, as I would expect from my child.”

“Zactor!”

“But that doesn't mean you can be forgiven for slapping my cheek as that isn't a light sin.” Zactor's eyes slowly filled up with murderous intent.

“Agh!”

Even though Isaac's mother was his wife, Zactor mercilessly beat her over and over until she almost died. Isaac's mother was already emotionally unstable, but the beating left her stranded in her bed until she died three years later…

After that day, Isaac erased her emotions because she thought that the tragedy stemmed from her immature actions. Was she angry? No! She was afraid. Nothing guaranteed that she wasn't going to meet the same end as her mother, so she focused on her training to survive.

“I thought you'd be bored, so I brought you a friend. Say hi. He's much more useful than a girl like you.”

That was how Isaac met Bel for the first time. Isaac wasn't sure why Bel was grinning at the time, but she immediately wanted to stab him in the face with a knife.

“Get married, you two,” Zactor suddenly said.

“…What?”

“What is up with the look on your face?” Zactor frowned, so Isaac quickly looked at the floor. “A girl like you just has to say yes if her father tells her to do something. Make that face one more time and I'll beat you so hard that you'll wish you were dead.”

“…Yes, Father.”

That was how Bel was decided as Isaac's first and last fiance,

* * *

“What’s got you lost in your thoughts?”

It was only after Kireua spoke up that Isaac returned to the present. They were still surrounded by the cape. The longer Isaac observed the cape, the more amazed she became. Judging from the reactions of the people outside, they couldn't see or hear a thing and yet she could clearly see them…

“The Martial Emperor left behind his favorite gauntlets and a letter to his family,” Kireua continued.

“A letter?” Isaac's lip trembled, the first slip of her stoic expression. She hadn't expected this in the slightest. “You’re mocking me…”

“I can tell that you didn't really have an affectionate relationship with your father, but you can see it for yourself.”

Isaac held her tongue.

“How does that sound? Do you feel like accepting my proposal now?”

“…It's too late,” Isaac mumbled.

“What?”

Just then, Kireua heard the faint sound of horse hooves from a distance.

“Have the trackers already found us?” Kireua said, instantly serious. He focused on the sound for a moment and his eyes slowly widened as he realized that the sound wasn't coming from the Hubalt side of the Black Monster Forest.

“It's the opposite...?”

Kireua's lip trembled. The impossible had happened. Somebody had traversed the nefarious Black Monster Forest and was coming toward Kireua. Although Kireua and the others had done the same, they had been quite lucky and also had the Combat Emperor to protect them.

“Who in the world are they?”

“Several days ago, Bel sent a message to the palace that reinforcements were coming and that we shouldn't get in their way.”

In other words, the reinforcements were from outside Hubalt—which only made Kireua more confused.

“Reinforcements…?”

“There they are.”

The sound of hoofbeats was now loud enough for the nearby knights to hear it. Before long, a large group of people appeared out of the trees.

Kireua focused his mana into his eyes and his face immediately went pale when he saw what flag they flew.

“…That’s S-Swallow's flag! Hubalt and Swallow formed an alliance again?”

“That isn't the real problem,” Isaac said.

Kireua quickly turned to look at her. “What do you mean?”

“According to Bel, those knights are led by a former Absolute, the living monster comparable to my father.”