The Max Level Hero Has Returned!

Willow gradually made a massive snowball about three to four times the size of a person.

She crossed her arms and spoke with a sneer, “You call that a head? With that tiny ball? Honestly... you’re kind of lame, Dad.”

“Dad...”

“Ahem. Cough! Ahem! That just slipped out. Anyways, you really are lame.” She scoffed and laughed at the ball of snow Davey had rolled.

It was a little overdone, but she didn't know that he had been controlling his speed and intentionally letting her win from the start. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

With her teasing voice as a soundtrack, he slowly finished his own snowball and gently placed it on top of hers.

“Looks boring, right? That's why you decorate a snowman. Like with this.” He snapped some nearby branches to make arms, eyes, a nose, a mouth, and eyebrows.

Willow, fully immersed in her first building experience, began to show the dedication of a master sculptor, lost in concentration.

“No! That's not right! If you do it like that, the eyes will be uneven! And why are you touching the arm again?! Don't you know where the joints go?!”

Willow flew around, giving orders like a dictator to Perserque and Davey.

After a long time of messing around, they completed a snowman several times larger than one would normally expect.

Since it was artificial snow they'd, there was the nice bonus that it didn’t easily melt.

“Want to name it?”

“Snowman,” Willow resolutely responded.

“Doesn't that seem a little... Lazy?” He asked again, but she said it once more, as if her mind was already made up.

“Snowman!”

“A-alright. Snowman it is.”

Willow was so satisfied that she didn't leave the snowman's side for a long time.

“What a relief that she can enjoy herself like that.”

“While the only thing she had left was resentment, that doesn't change her true nature. Perhaps her resentment was closer to a tantrum than we expected.”

It sounded positive, yet to the two of them, it felt sharp, like a dagger. It meant that even in her pain, she couldn't bring herself to truly hate them. Her aggressive language was simply a form of self-defense.

As the sky grew dark, Davey worked so diligently that he didn't even realize that his hands had turned red from the cold, his eyes staying glued to Willow.

Seeing she was still tinkering with Snowman, he called out to her, “It's getting dark, so let's go inside and rest. And eat dinner.”

Hearing that, she suddenly recalled what she was doing and flinched. “Ahem! W-who said I was enjoying myself?”

“You looked like you were having a pretty good time for someone who wasn't enjoying themselves. Still, looking at Snowman, it's pretty amazing. You've got some serious skill.”

She looked down, unsure how to respond.

“Then, since it's getting dark, how about we do one final activity before heading in?”

Willow couldn't help looking at him, but tried her best to hide her curiosity.

“Hmph. Hmph! What is it now?”

Davey turned to the side and asked, “Perserque, are you ready?”

“Yes, I just finished preparing.” She slowly walked over and handed Willow a controllable mana stone.

“Is this a controllable mana stone?”

“You'll see what it is when you use it.”

Her curiosity finally got the better of her, beating out her caution. She slowly activated the mana stone.

Bang!!!

A loud explosion instantly rang out nearby, and she flinched, taking a few steps away from the two.

She was about to get angry. Then, she paused as she watched five-colored beams of light shoot up into the sky.

Pop! Pop!

A beautiful fireworks display painted the night sky. Though they were fireworks created from magic, unlike the Alfland fireworks she had wanted to see, they looked just as spectacular.

As the explosions spread across the sky, she let out a quiet gasp, her mouth slightly open, captivated by the view. “It's beautiful...”

There were many things he had wanted to do for her, but couldn't ever achieve.

The fireworks were merely just a small part of it.

“Pretty awesome, huh?”

“I... guess it's okay.” She blushed, muttering reluctantly, and looked away.

Even so, she was staring blankly at the fireworks that continued to shoot up into the sky. It seemed that seeing them in person felt different than seeing them through Super Ribbon.

Looking at Willow in that moment, he became sure of one thing—the wall inside her was slowly crumbling.

It was only the beginning.

* * *

After their snowmen and fireworks event, Willow slowly began to change without even realizing it.

She had initially only been left with the feeling of resentment, but her happiness and love had never vanished entirely. If they were gone, they just had to be refilled.

Willow had been cold at first, but in the weeks following the fireworks, she was unconsciously opening up.

Perserque and Davey made sure she could smile happily. They worried if she was uncomfortable when she slept, even staying up all night racking their brains trying to figure out what delicious foods she might want to eat.

Davey had already known parenting was hard from his kids, but it hadn't been quite as difficult compared to how the two were fully dedicating themselves to handling everything Willow wanted.

Of course, it wasn't all good times. She would sometimes feel hurt over small things, often leading to extreme cold wars that lasted for days. When she, who stood on the verge of disappearing, suddenly fell ill, they stayed by her side all night and took care of her.

They devoted themselves to her without an ounce of false pretenses or intent.

Just like that, three years passed in Willow's deep inner world.

Good times weren't the only thing that happened during that long period, however. They felt that the root of her resentment was thicker than expected, and at times, it exhausted the two to the point where they wanted to give up.

Yet, even then, they never quit. It was a stubbornness closer to instinct than mere tenacity. Their selfless devotion became the starting point for many changes.

Many things began to change slowly—very slowly.

Willow asked, “Dad, what are you doing?”

“Tonight, we're going to feast on some serious meat,” Davey told her.

Willow accidentally let out a small bit of drool as she watched him wrap a large cut of pork with other ingredients and tie it tightly with a string to let it age.

“Huh... that looks good,” she remarked with shining eyes.

“Doesn't it?”

“Yeah, it does.”

“Since we're already doing this, let's go all the way and open a bottle of wine. We'll all eat together, just the three of us. You can look forward to the Gourmet Research Society's recipe I'm using. Those guys can be nuts sometimes, but they're absolutely obsessed with cooking.”

She flinched at his words. It seemed like she had a lot she wanted to say. However, she only spoke up after dinner was served, the wine was poured, and a little alcohol had gotten into her system.

“How much longer are you going to stay here?” she asked.

Davey and Perserque, who had been laughing and chatting moments before, instantly made a serious face.

“Willow? What do you mean?”

“This isn't the world where Mom and Dad belong. Why are you living here?”

They had no response.

“Are you just going to avoid everything and live here forever?”

“If you want us to,” Davey solemnly replied.

Willow’s head silently lowered. “What is this, seriously...”

“Willow?”

“It's been three years... Don't you guys get tired, spending three years not even taking a proper break, only worrying about me?”

They struggled to find the right words to say. “That's...”

“You have to be real with me! Do you think I don't know how hard it's been for you two?! Do you even know how long three years is?!”

Facing her outburst, Davey quietly lowered his head, then answered, “How much pain did you suffer in the past?”

She went quiet.

“Three years is nothing,” Davey continued. “Parents always live for their children, even to the end of time. It's the same for everyone—Super Ribbon, Blue Ribbon, Red Ribbon, Abel, Darian, and even Evangeline. It's the same for you, Willow. Three years is nothing. The love you missed out on isn't something we'd just leave behind and wave off with a hand, saying that we'll stop here now since a few years have passed.”

Davey then looked straight at her. “Willow, I want you to know...”

“D-don't say it. Don't you dare...!”

“We’ll be your home, your nest, forever. We were foolish enough not to know your pain. In the interest of making up for it, we’ll spend many, many times that amount to embrace the hurt you’ve been through. We'll make you so happy that you'll completely forget the time you spent suffering.”

No parent in the world wanted their child to fail.

Well, maybe not absolutely zero of them, but most parents were like that.

“We're still relatively inexperienced parents. No matter how long we've lived, our experience raising a child is practically zero.”

“That three years of time, though...” Willow muttered to herself.

“It's just three years. We're going to be your home and your pillar of support for your entire life, so spending three years doesn’t matter. If you disappear, we’d spend the rest of our lives grieving in your place.”

To worry about and love their child forever was the essence of a parent.

“I won't tell you to get over your anger. Nor will I tell you not to resent us. Indeed, you can resent us all you want. However, if you'll have us, we’ll give you so much happiness it’ll overshadow all that time you spent in pain.”

That was the life that Davey and Perserque as parents, along with Illyna and Aeria, all envisioned.

“No matter the reason for what happened, you’re our irreplaceable and precious child.”

Finally hearing those words from him, Willow covered her mouth and sobbed. She had been quietly choking back tears before, but finally cried out like a child. She screamed about the pain she went through and how miserable she had felt.

The two silently held her, letting her have her tantrum until she calmed down.

Once she finished crying, a change began to take place throughout her body.

The authority of sacrifice was not a simple equal exchange. Some of the prices involved were enough to make people question reality.

The unwavering devotion they had shown her over the three years became the trigger for her transformation. During that time, she had recovered the price that had been stolen from her.

The incomplete authority resonated as if it had been oiled, paying an even greater price than the one that was stolen from her.

“Dad... Mom...”

Her scattered, lost memories began to slowly return like a miracle.

It wasn't about giving up something. Davey hadn't expected the act of wholeheartedly devoting themselves to her for so long to be enough to do the job, but the result was distinctly different.

“I'm sorry... I love you.”

Her firm mental wall finally crumbled completely, and Perserque wept tears of relief, regret, and happiness as she hugged her back.

Watching the two of them, Davey realized that the Goddess's higher-tier authority of sacrifice within him was fully prepared for activation.

He instinctively recognized that it was time to leave the inner world and perform the miracle that would revive her.

Though activating the authority of sacrifice through the score Mute prepared for him was all he had to do, he didn't do it right away.

He simply waited in silence and comforted Willow, who was sobbing and clinging to Perserque and him.

It took three years for her to finally tear down her wall and regain her will to live.