The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 391 - Craterous Ogre Stomp For ’Traitorous’ Hero Daddy

Chapter 391: Chapter 391 - Craterous Ogre Stomp For ’Traitorous’ Hero Daddy

For Ondua er Goltbred, the morning summons to the administrative office of his assigned fort had been phrased as routine review by the messenger. But the hero of the last Descent for his local region recognized the timing as slightly improper. Every day since being here, the adjutant had arrived roughly five minutes past the time he just did.

Despite what his daughter sometimes secretly thought of him, decades of military service had taught him to read between the lines of any official communication. A change that ’could be nothing’ was often anything but... it was just a matter of finding out what it was about.

’I hope they’ve found something about my little girl...’

With that piece of news coming in only days ago because of the distance he was posted... and because of the sort of information control around the issue... the man had not fully been himself since. He felt agitated and wanted to rush to his wife and make sure nothing would happen to his remaining family.

All things considered, he had confidence that Elua was fine. His eldest was very capable. And very, very strong. He thought back, as he walked through the corridors, to what he was shown the day before they were to leave on the train.

<⦑ ⟠ ⟠ ⟠

"Why did you want to come all the way out here?"

The brunette-haired father on a walk with his daughter surveyed the empty plain beyond the competition grounds. His daughter had specifically requested he accompany her for some ’bonding time’ after some light morning training. But her mint eyes held an uncharacteristic hesitation in them when she looked .

"There’s something you should see. About my Physique."

She moved several paces away before turning back.

"I’ve kept quiet about it because it’s... impractical. Though I did tell you before that it’s something like extra grip strength as a Trigger Action... that is not the only one I have."

His oldest child lifted her knee, with a small foot up primed to stomp down. Once again, her spirit fluttered with some sort of ’insecurity’.

"You might want to step back further."

She gestured with her fingers to send him a little more away and once the broad shouldered man complied, Elua brought her heel down with precise force while lowering the spiritual barriers. Physical energy exploded downward through her leg the moment before impact.

But the ability was more than just force aimed in one direction. On contact with the surface, *all* that force did not just keep going down - much of it pulsed outward. Like a piercing explosive shell, it rapidly expanded in a cone of kinetic energy that ripped through the ground.

Earth fissured and blasted upward like a tiny meteorite impact. Leaving a slightly ovular shape nearly two meters wide. Brown eyes widened at the display of raw power... but something in his daughter’s posture drew more attention.

The slight tremor in her legs. The way her breathing quickened. What she just did clearly took a lot out of her. He was certain this might be a case of trying to attempt something too far above her ability... simply because she retained some memories of a past life according to his wife.

"Impressive, but... are you alright?"

"No. It’s very wasteful. The energy expenditure of doing something like this leaves me feeling ravenous. Using it more than once or twice in succession before I can safely eat would be foolish."

Reaching into the satchel she carried, the heiress began to munch on the calorie dense cakes their chef made for her. He’d seen her carrying them but had no idea there was such a reason. The dad merely thought she was an adorable glutton!

’With this sort of power, she could have been the next-’

"You know I’m not interested in front line fighting. I’m showing you this so you understand both what I’m capable of - that way you can worry less about me - and also why I rightly prefer not to use it."

The monotone assertions came quickly, as if she expected the sort of vain hope forming in his eyes. Elua brushed some of the dirt from her dress while keeping her mint gaze steady on her father. There wasn’t actually any that stuck to the silvery protection, but that would look suspicious - so she’d filled some of that missing detail in with illusions.

"But with this kind of strength-"

"You’re thinking I could follow in your footsteps. That maybe between this and being able to crush things with my grip, I should take on more responsibility on a warfront."

Hands spread to indicate the crater beside her and emphasize her point. There was an undercurrent of ’necessity’ in getting him to understand her point of view. And about half of that feeling was true.

"Look closer, father. I had to test this dozens upon dozens of times to gain any sort of control. Each attempt left me with barely enough energy to walk home. It’s a trump card. But I can do more with my mind than be a surgical weapon with my foot, dad."

The middle part was a lie - it really did take a lot of physical energy that would need replenishing, but the reborn cultivator was nothing if not a master of efficiency. Be it turning what she consumed back into near perfect accumulation or simply using almost none of it to go about her days.

’Unlike the wasteful residents of this supposedly physical focused continent. They swing their weapons and build their bodies, but they don’t use their minds for it as much as they should!’

Still, she felt it better he believe the technique drained her more than it did. The lie helped reinforce her true desire... to only be the hidden force behind her Qat. To not upstage her husband-wife, who was the true person that deserved to be called a hero.

Not some ancient cultivator who would feel *almost* nothing if she learned half the continent died tomorrow at the snap of a Divinity’s thumb and fingers. The girl performed just such a motion in her other hand as she sighed an produced a stick of dried meat from her satchel.

"And as much as I love eating things that taste good, I’d rather have my hands free to make things. I’m a scholar and an artisan father, not a fighter."

Ondua’s eyebrows pinched together as he studied both the upheaval from before and his daughter’s relatively flat, ’real’ expression as she chomped and tore at an amount of food that would be well beyond the bounds of war rationing. Little did he know, while taste was preferred it was very much optional to his cultivator firstborn.

"So you say, yet you’ve clearly worked to master this ability. So-"

"No, stop right there before you continue, father. You remember what I do on accident with my tools when I get distracted and activate the grip property. Do you think I had a choice except make sure how to do it and how *not* to do it?"

"Well, that answers another question I had. It’s something you’ve become capable of recently or else there would be holes in our floors at home. Why show me now, if you don’t intend to use it?"

"Because I... respect you enough to be honest about my capabilities today. We’re about to go into fighting that some of the people who have been here, on these grounds, may not survive. And because I want you to understand why I still choose not to fight knowing that."

She took a deliberate last bite of the dried meat, which let him see the slight tremor in her hands. A dramatic flair that she’d only wished she’d cultivated specifically for this ’performance’. But her plan had been to sound confident when she said this, not ashamed.

’Well, plans change. Roll with it.’

"If I’m busy keeping others’ safety in mind, then who is there protecting Qatrand?"

The simple question carried a weight of intent that Ondua tried to weather... but still found himself taking a step back. ’Honesty’ and ’ambition’ left no room for argument. For a few seconds, he felt like he was standing before a youthful Yatrel declaring that she would ’be his woman forever’.

’I guess the memories of hers didn’t prevent my little girl from taking after the one who birthed her.’

"You make it sound like my son-in-law needs protection."

A soft huff escaped the brunette teenager at his attempt to lighten the mood. Her face turned toward the practice fields in the distance behind the little hills and the bustle of tents coming down. Not too far for her spirit to watch the Yecine forces training and force her monotone truth to grow quieter but more ’intense’.

"Qat works constantly to get stronger at as fast a pace as they are able... and I would sooner see my love never have to use any of it on either mortal or cultivator. But when you’ve seen things like I have, you realize that all the nice looking societies in the world cannot escape from base nature."

Dull mint eyes turned back to meet her father’s warm brown. Eyes like her sister’s... and both of them people she could claim to care for. Just as she knew he cared for her. Stubbornly, perhaps -and potentially out of a biological sense at the forefront of it all.

The pursuit of legacy and the continuation of a species existed in humans as well as beasts. It just took on other ideas of what needed preserved and what was valued past mere survival. Qualities of continued life that became tradition... that could stifle and corrupt what the next individual felt was *their* necessary preservations.

"So if you’re asking me if I think Qatrand er Yecine has or will have any enemies that I will need to deal with... then I think you know the answer well. After all, people tried to bring you down when you rose up, father. Don’t think I didn’t do my research on every bit of that."

⟠ ⟠ ⟠ ⦒>

The assembled officials waiting in the meeting room confirmed his suspicions. A representative from the Earthen Fellowship sat with a set of ledgers spread before him with a hawkish look on his face... like a prosecutor preparing evidence. Beside him, the Continental Army’s regional supply coordinator held a stack of documents with the sort of grim expression reserved for unpleasant duties.

And rather familiarly, a Void Defense Society specialist on document archiving was occupying a chair in the far corner. The same one who had handled Ondua’s case during the rapid fire accusations made against him nearly eighteen years ago.

Her bored presence suggested that something serious was happening.... again.

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