(Cai Hong POV)
Big sisters went out to punish the bad men who were bad to Papa. They told Cai Hong to stay behind and 'dish thract' Papa if he asks where big sisters go.
Cai Hong hugged the towel with Papa's smell, Cai Hong wants big sisters to come back fast…
Muuu… At least Cai Hong has the stash of Papa's clothes. The kind snake lady gave Cai Hong all of Papa's clothes she had.
She was nice.
Cai Hong sniffed Papa's towel again.
Ehehe~ Cai Hong can feel Papa's warmth~ It's shooo comfy~
"Cai Hong?"
Muuu~ Cai Hong can even hear Papa calling Cai Hong~ Ehehehe~ Maybe Papa will say Cai Hong is a good girl?
"Cai Hong?"
Mnn~ Papa's voice~ Call Cai Hong good girl~
"Cai Hong?"
Cai Hong felt something tap on shoulder?
Cai Hong looked behind. Mmm? Papa?
"Where is everyone?" Papa asked. "Why are you alone?"
Cai Hong slowly put Papa's towel away carefully with the rest of Cai Hong's treasures before turning back to face Papa.
"Muuu! Papa! Cai Hong has an ouchie…" Cai Hong cried.
Papa immediately came to Cai Hong's side, "Where? Where is Cai Hong's ouchie?"
Cai Hong pointed to Cai Hong's head, "Papa… Cai Hong's head ouchies…"
Papa patted Cai Hong's head, "Oh… My poor girl, what happened? Why ouchies?"
Ehehe~ Papa's patting Cai Hong~ Ah! No! Must keep Papa 'dish thracted'!
"Umm… Cai Hong miss Papa!" Cai Hong hugged Papa. "Cai Hong head ouchies because no Papa!"
"Awww~ You cute little dragon, you. Come here, Papa will pamper you a little."
Ehehehe~ Papa is hugging Cai Hong and patting Cai Hong's head~ So warm~
"But… Where did your sisters go?" Papa asked while still patting Cai Hong's head.
"Umm… Big sisters… Ehehe~ Papa warm~ Ah… Big sisters went to bathe?"
Papa's hand stopped, "So late in the night? Why did they still leave you here though? What if something comes here while you were alone?"
"Umm… Cai Hong said she didn't want to go… So big sisters let Cai Hong stay."
Papa huffed, "Leaving my little Cai Hong here to bathe by themselves? The least they could do was tell me about it first. Papa will punish them later."
Cai Hong did an oopsie?
"Umm… Papa no need punish big sisters? Cai Hong wanted to stay and not disturb Papa! So Cai Hong told big sisters not to tell Papa!"
Papa continued patting Cai Hong's head, "Cai Hong is a good girl. Well then, does Cai Hong want to sleep on my lap while we wait for big sisters to come back?"
"Yay! Papa's lappy! Cai Hong want!"
Papa patted his lap and Cai Hong dived into it, snuggling into Papa's warmth.
Ehehehe~ So warm~
(MC POV)
I watched Cai Hong drift to sleep while I stroked her hair, the little dragon muttering something about marshmallows and camping.
Seriously though, what were the girls thinking leaving such a cute, defenceless girl alone?
Sure, Cai Hong has trained in being a Practitioner, but you can't expect a little girl like her to fight big mean bandits right?
What if those slavers from this morning came back and took Cai Hong away? Surely my cute Cai Hong couldn't bear to hurt other people right?
How irresponsible… No matter what Cai Hong says, I'm definitely punishing them when they come back.
Speak of the devil, I think I hear their footsteps coming back here already.
Hmm? These sounds… Aren't they a bit too heavy to be made by a group of girls?
The tent's flap was pushed aside to reveal a weird looking man wearing dark leather armour inspecting the interior of our tent. His eyes locked onto mine and we just stared at each other for a few seconds.
"Two kids in a tent… Without any adults around… What the hell are you–"
I raised a finger to stop him, "Could you keep it down? She's sleeping."
The man moved his gaze down to my lap to see Cai Hong sleeping peacefully, one of her hands gripping the side of my pants loosely.
He lowered his volume, "Sorry about that. But you two really shouldn't be here. There's a group of slavers in the area and it's not safe to be camping around here. Where are your parents?"
I shrugged, "I'm on my way to Heaven Sect with my dis… er… My elder sisters. They are away right now but should be coming back soon. Who are you?"
"I am Mordred of the Circular Round Flat Surface party, we accepted a Request to take care of these slavers."
Ok… I won't even comment on that name then. I'm already half expecting him to tell me he betrayed his previous party leader to get to where he is or something like that.
Not noticing my reaction, he continued, "When I saw your tents, I had thought that this might be a group of them camping out here so I investigated."
I gave him a purposely blank look, "Well, I don't know about any slavers around here, so I guess you guys will have to look elsewhere."
He smiled at me, "Oh no hurry, I'm sure my party members wouldn't mind staying around here for a bit until your older sisters come back. Just in case some unscrupulous people come here with ill intentions, you know?"
I raised an eyebrow at him, "And how do I know you're not one?"
His smile grew wider, "Heh, a smart one aren't you? Here."
He fished out his Adventurer Guild's card from his vest, showing me status as a certified Adventurer from the Adventurer's Guild.
I checked his Request completion and it numbered in the four hundred range with the title "Law Enforcer" beside it, so he should be a rather reliable Adventurer.
This may come as a shock to you, but our Adventurers aren't ranked by the alphabets, precious metals or even colour here.
Instead, there is a record on how many Requests someone has completed that is displayed on their guild card. Here, we prioritise experience first since the main factor Adventurers look out for is survivability.
Upon reaching their first hundredth completed Request, they will gain a 'title' that shows what kind of Requests they are specialised in, be it hunting monsters, herbalism, bodyguard escort or even explorer. In this guy's case, he's a 'Law Enforcer', meaning he takes more Requests that has to deal with national security or aiding with the local law enforcement.
As for Request grades, it is entirely up to the Adventurer Guild in charge of the Request to decide if an Adventurer team is suitable or not to take on a certain Request.
Unless you are a recognised Adventurer or party, you would usually need to go through an interview process on convincing the Guild to let you undertake a Request. Seems quite convoluted, but honestly the process is rather laid back.
To put it bluntly, there are more than enough Adventurers to go around. It doesn't really put much strain on the Adventurer Guild's resources if a few were to overestimate themselves and perish somewhere.
If you ask me, it's probably some roundabout way of keeping the population numbers in check, not that I really care about it anyway.
They know the hazards and are paid for it, that's why Adventurers look at the number of completed Requests that someone has as a sign of expertise.
With that said, I know that this Mordred guy should at least be the real deal and not a slaver pretending to be one.
"So shouldn't you be going out there to tell your party not to go through our stuff?" I asked him, my hand still busy stroking Cai Hong's hair.
"Oh, yeah. Of course, I'll just be–"
"Mordred! We got contact! Five of them coming from the road!" Someone shouted from outside.
"Stay here," Mordred instructed me before withdrawing from the tent before I could even stop him.
What's with people not listening to the full story?
No bets on who those five might be though.
I should go out and settle any misunderstandings but… Looking at how Cai Hong is comfortably snuggled on my lap I just can't bear to wake her.
Ah well, I'm sure they can sort it out themselves.
