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Episode 06
The next early morning, Letty met the old man and began by confirming the appearance of his daughter.
'Gathering as much information as possible is the absolute basic,'
“Hmm. White hair and violet eyes.”
“Yes, not because she’s old and her hair turned gray like mine, but she originally had white hair, as if woven from eternal snow.”
Her eyes were as beautiful and violet as violets.
Letty nodded seriously while listening to the old man’s additional descriptions.
"Does she look like you, Grandpa?"
White hair, violet eyes. Age: late 30s.
Last seen in the nearby region of Rayoli.
Letty meticulously reviewed the crooked notes she had taken and asked,
“Does she resemble you at all?”
The old man hesitated before answering.
“Not in the slightest... My daughter was beautiful!”
Letty tilted her head in response to the old man’s outburst.
"But Grandpa, you're handsome too."
At first, Letty had been intimidated by his stern appearance and aura, but upon closer inspection, the old man was quite a handsome man.
Letty examined his prominent facial features, which remained sharp despite the wrinkles, and opened her eyes wide in surprise.
"Grandpa, your ears are red."
“Well, I never thought I’d hear someone calling me handsome at my age.”
The old man cleared his throat, pretending not to hear Letty's comment, and continued.
"Anyway, my daughter has a palm-sized burn scar on the back of her neck, so it shouldn’t be too hard to recognize her if you find her."
“Yes! You can count on Letty!”
Letty shouted energetically and left the inn with the fairy.
✦ ✦ ✦
“So, how do you plan on finding the old man’s daughter? Do you even have a plan in mind?”
The old man had even paid for their room and board, so Tinker decided it would be immoral to run away after eating.
"I do have some sense of decency, you know. Even though I’m a demon—or, no, a fairy!"
"Did your mother teach you some secret trick or something?"
Feeling obligated to at least pretend to look for the daughter, Letty scratched her chin with her stubby little finger.
“Yes. I’ll use the method my mom used.”
As expected, Letty's mom wasn’t an ordinary character, even as a supporting role.
Having grown up watching such an extraordinary mother, Letty's bold claims always had some thought behind them.
Tinker watched Letty, who confidently puffed out her chest, its eyes sparkling with curiosity.
“So, how did your mom find people?”
“Like this… by snapping her fingers.”
“Snapping her fingers?”
Letty, receiving Tinker’s expectant gaze, wiggled her thumb and index finger before snapping them together.
Snap!
“Someone who can help just appears!”
Letty, who had snapped her fingers, turned triumphantly toward Tinker, even lifting her chin proudly. However, no one appeared.
Snap. Snap snap!
No matter how many times she snapped her fingers, no one, not even an ant, showed up.
“…Nothing’s happening?”
“Hmph.”
Letty, flustered, pressed her chubby cheeks with her hands.
‘That’s strange. Why isn’t it working?!’
When her mom snapped her fingers, shadowy figures in pitch-black cloaks would emerge out of nowhere.
“Why isn’t it working?”
As Letty mumbled, biting her lips in frustration, Tinker laughed incredulously.
“How should I know? Maybe it’s a method only your mom could use?”
Letty couldn’t argue against Tinker’s scolding.
There were still many things her mom could do with ease that Letty couldn’t manage yet—like blowing out birthday candles in one go or picking up beans with chopsticks.
Letty hadn’t even awakened her red panda abilities yet.
“That could be. After all, Letty is still just a child.”
Not wanting to appear incompetent in front of Tinker, Letty tried to play up her young age, lowering her head sullenly.
“Doesn’t the book say anything about finding people?”
Mom had always said that books were like teachers.
Recalling how Tinker had once pulled out a book from thin air and hurled it at Lingling, Letty cautiously brought up the idea.
“Hmm. I’ll check if there’s anything useful.”
After pondering for a moment, Tinker glanced around and created a subspace at its feet.
The subspace, filled with books floating like wings, was a sort of library where the fairy stored the books it managed.
“It’s not in this book... Oh, maybe these ones will help.”
With only its upper body sticking into the subspace, Tinker rummaged through several books before pulling out three with extravagant covers and placing them in front of Letty.
“These books all have protagonists searching for someone or being chased. So, they should have some methods for finding people, right?”
Although managing books was its job, it didn’t remember the contents of every book. Its responsibilities and powers were strictly confined to the [Panda Daughter-in-Law].
Faced with books it had skimmed through or read ages ago, Tinker nodded confidently at its own choices.
《I’m Pregnant with the Northern Duke’s Child, But I’m Running Away》
《The Obsessed Male Lead’s Trap is Too Tight》
《A Sickly Sub Hides Triplets》
Letty reached for the closest book, her eyes wide with curiosity.
“I’ll give it a read!”
The book 《A Sickly Sub Hides Triplets》 had much denser text compared to the fairy tales Letty usually read, but it wasn’t difficult to understand.
Flip.
Skipping quickly through the parts where the protagonist was running away, Letty opened to the scene where the two main characters reunited.
“Aha! Here’s the part where they find someone.”
【"How did you even find me?"
Elbert asked in shock, to which Daniel smirked crookedly.
"How? Because your pheromones are so strong.
Daniel took Elbert's hand and placed it on his own.
"See? Even when your scent barely brushes my nose, I can..."}】
Lesi was in the middle of reading how the character 'Daniel' managed to find 'Elbert.'
“Ahh!”
Tinker, who had flown beside the child to read along, gasped and launched a flying kick at the book.
“No, no, no! Absolutely not!!”
“Hmm?”
Letty tilted her head in confusion, staring at the closed book in her hands, and then at Tinker’s pale face.
“Why can’t I read it?”
“T-this book is no good. Now that I think about it, none of the books I have are useful.”
The fairy, in a hurry, shook its head while hastily putting the books back.
“But… we could have read more together…”
“I said no! Read it when you’re older or something.”
Letty, confused as to how reading later could help when they needed to find the old man’s daughter now, puffed out her lips in frustration.
“You’re so mean, fairy!”
Ultimately, Letty, whose books had been snatched away by the yelling fairy, sulked with her lips sticking out.
‘I think the book mentioned something about finding someone by scent.’
Although not as sharp as carnivorous beastfolk, Letty's sense of smell wasn’t bad.
‘But I don’t even know what Grandpa’s daughter smells like.’
Sniff sniff.
Just in case, she sniffed the air around her, and a fragrant scent of wildflowers mingled with the breeze.
‘Violet scent…?’
Raising her head abruptly, Letty saw a woman with white hair pass by.
“White hair!”
Startled, Letty tugged on the hem of the fairy’s clothes, who was still peeking into the subspace.
“Fairy! A white-haired woman just went into that building over there!”
The fairy scoffed at Letty's words.
“She probably has a different eye color. Do you really think Grandpa’s daughter would conveniently walk past us before we even start looking properly? Makes no sense.”
The fairy sharply criticized the implausibility, saying that such a coincidence would make even a novel seem unrealistic.
“Besides, you’re just a supporting character, so you don’t even get protagonist buffs.”
Letty didn’t understand what 'protagonist buffs' or 'supporting characters' meant, but she could tell the fairy was saying something unpleasant about her.
She narrowed her small eyebrows, glaring at the cynical fairy.
“But she had violet eyes.”
White hair at a young age was already rare, and the combination of violet eyes was exceptionally uncommon. And furthermore—
“She had a burn scar on the back of her neck.”
At Letty's decisive testimony, the fairy’s attitude shifted instantly.
“Well, who cares about realism! The easier, the better!”
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