"Father, have some water first." Ema, Lisa's little sister, said and offered a glass of water to her father the moment he stepped inside their tiny house, as if she was waiting for him to arrive.
"Oh, thank you so much, Ema." Marco uttered and gladly accepted the glass. He first settled on a chair before he downed the water in a few gulps, feeling better now that he had something cold running down his throat.
He handed back the glass to his daughter and then removed his hat to comfortably lean his back on the chair.
He had just finished working in the field and, because of his age, he could no longer work as much as he could when he was still young on the field. His body was slowly weakening as he aged. But because his daughters were still too young to help, he was enduring the back pain that he was getting from too much bending down his body.
"Father." Ema called again and reached out for her father's arm in worry.
Marco flinched and snapped his head in the direction of his daughter in surprise.
"E-Ema?" Marco straightened his body and gave his daughter an awkward smile.
"Is there something wrong? I have noticed that you've been absent-minded since we returned from there."
"O-Oh? I-I'm probably just tired but I'm okay." Marco assured his daughter, but the 13-yearold daughter of his wouldn't be fooled that easily.
"You're thinking about my sister, right?"
Ema was half right. Marco's mind was indeed wandering about Lisa, but not only to her.
The bigger part of his brain was thinking about what he heard that night when he walked past a room that he assumed was the beast's room from using the restroom.
He really wasn't purposely planning to eavesdrop on that conversation. It was just that he heard his daughter's voice and, because he was wondering where his daughter was, he walked closer to the door and glued his ear to it.
He didn't hear exactly what his daughter said.
The only word that's been clear with him is the word immortal. He was just curious about the person his daughter was talking to.
When he recognized the other person through her voice alone, he was beyond surprised, especially by what the beast said.
He felt bad eavesdropping on the conversation, but how could he ever leave if he heard the beast mention that there was a way to kill her? He just disregarded the word revenge because he didn't have any idea what that could mean.
Marco looked around the hallway, afraid that he would be caught. If he was, he couldn't imagine what would possibly happen. Seeing no one, and hearing no footsteps walking along the hallway, he returned his full attention to his daughter and the beast's conversation.
He also has zero knowledge about the Divine Tree that the beast mentioned. Like his daughter, he had never heard it before, but after that night, he swore that he would do everything to know everything about that tree.
