Then he resumed his story.
Meeting Lauren, a girl around Jenna’s age, and being hunted by the hunters from the Newark Galleria.
He was in the middle of describing how he’d been snatched up by a Bone Drake at Prospect Park Station and taken into the White Dome when Walfred stopped talking.
He had no choice.
"J-Jenna?"
Because Jenna, who he’d thought was quietly listening, had her head bowed and was crying.
Walfred asked, his face flustered.
"What’s wrong all of a sudden?"
"...Sob."
"What is it? Hm?"
At his repeated questions, Jenna wiped her damp eyes with her sleeve. Then she answered in a tearful, halting voice.
"It hurts to hear how much you suffered..."
"It’s okay. It’s all in the past."
"Even if it’s in the past, you still went through it."
With a pained expression.
Jenna sniffled.
"How hard must it have been, all alone..."
"It wasn’t that hard."
"Don’t lie."
Out of habit, Walfred started to insist otherwise, then closed his mouth. The words were worn smooth from years of use, but under Jenna’s earnest gaze, they had nowhere to go. The lie simply wouldn’t come out.
Meanwhile, after wiping away tear after tear, Jenna spoke with resolve written all over her face.
"From now on, I’m helping too."
"Helping? With what...?"
"I’m a hunter now too. So from here on, stop pushing yourself alone and fight alongside me."
Walfred’s expression hardened.
At first blush it sounded admirable, but he didn’t want Jenna fighting.
Awakened hunter or not, the fighting was his job, the way it had always been. He’d carried it this long precisely so she wouldn’t have to. So he shook his head and answered firmly.
"No. There’s no need for you to..."
"No."
Jenna shook her head right back.
She looked him straight in the eye without giving an inch.
"I want to be useful to you too."
"Jenna..."
"So this is one thing I’m absolutely not backing down on."
Jenna answered with total conviction.
Seeing that determined look in her eyes, Walfred realized something. No matter what he said here, there was no breaking Jenna’s stubbornness.
’...Nothing I can do about it.’
He’d back off for now.
And try to talk her out of it later.
Having made his call quickly, Walfred let out a long sigh and quietly nodded. Then he looked at Jenna with a swell of pride.
"Wh-what?"
Was it the softness in his gaze?
Jenna narrowed her eyes at him.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"No, it’s just, how do I put it..."
Walfred trailed off.
Then he chuckled and said.
"I was thinking about how you grew up without me noticing."
"Hmph, I’ve always been like this. You’ve just been treating me like a little kid this whole time!"
"You are still a little kid."
"I am not!"
Jenna denied it vehemently.
The way she bristled was so cute that Walfred couldn’t hold back a laugh. Then, recalling an old memory, he said.
"Just look at the summer before last, when the thunder got bad and somebody said she was scared and wanted to sleep in my room..."
"Th-that’s...!"
Jenna’s eyes went enormous.
"I told you to forget about that!"
"It was too vivid a memory to forget."
"Walfred!"
Was it because her most embarrassing moment had been dragged into the light?
Jenna’s face turned as red as a tomato.
Watching his niece huff and puff, Walfred burst out laughing again. The silly small talk and teasing, the first in so long, warmed his heart.
A while later.
"Oh."
Fanning her face with her hand to cool it down, Jenna turned to Walfred as if something she’d been curious about had just come to mind.
"Hey, Uncle."
"Hm?"
"I’ve been wondering. How did you get here from New York? Don’t tell me you walked."
"Of course not."
"Then how?"
He’d actually been about to explain that when Jenna started crying and the story got interrupted.
So he debated whether to pick up the White Dome story he hadn’t finished, then decided to just skip to the conclusion.
"I rode here on a dragon."
"A dragon? Oh! Come to think of it..."
Jenna’s eyes went wide.
As if she’d just remembered something she’d forgotten.
A moment later, Jenna brought up something she’d experienced by chance before meeting him.
The scene she’d seen through [Eye of the Daydream]: Walfred riding a dragon and landing in front of the Coral Cave Shelter.
"Are you talking about that silver dragon?"
"...Huh? Yeah. That’s the one."
Walfred answered with a startled look.
To think she’d even foreseen him arriving here. He truly hadn’t expected that.
’Ah, so that’s why she came out to meet me?’
Because she knew he’d be arriving?
Framed that way, it made sense.
As he marveled at how remarkable it was.
"Where is that dragon? Outside the shelter?"
Jenna glanced around.
Her face full of curiosity.
The sight was so endearing that Walfred laughed in spite of himself as he answered.
"I was planning to introduce you anyway."
"Huh? Right now?"
"Yeah. She’s nearby."
Elsa had been waiting about a hundred yards away without budging an inch. Having sensed her presence the entire time, Walfred quietly closed his eyes.
And sent a telepathic message.
[You can come closer now, Elsa.]
Not long after he sent it.
Footsteps sounded from the direction of the cave entrance.
A moment later, what came into Jenna’s view was a girl with an exotic appearance: swaying silver hair and blue eyes.
And.
’Huh?’
Jenna tilted her head.
Judging by the context, that girl had to be the dragon her uncle mentioned, but why had she come out in human form? Jenna had been bracing for something enormous, wings and scales and all—not a girl who barely came up to her uncle’s shoulder.
No, more than that, her face was oddly familiar.
Just as an inexplicable sense of déjà vu washed over her.
"Ah...!"
She remembered where she’d seen it.
Jenna’s eyes flew wide open.
Because the girl looked astonishingly identical to Jenna’s own face when she was little.