Mama~~!!"
"—!? Myuu!? Myuu!"
Running with all her might and with an expression full of smile Myuu jumped into the bosom of the woman — her mother, Lemia, who tried to steady her legs before the front door.
Seeing the figures of a mother closely and tightly embracing her daughter, expressing she didn't want to be separated again from her child made the surrounding people look at them warmly.
For so many, many times Lemia repeatedly said, "I am sorry," to Myuu. It was either because she had lost sight of Myuu or her incapability to come looking for her or may both.
Tears fell as Lemia both feel relieved from her daughter's safety and also the grief from being incapable of protecting hear. Looking at Lemia with anxious eyes, Myuu gently patted her mother's head.
"It's okay. Mama, Myuu is here. So there's nothing to worry."
"Myuu..."
Never did she thought she would be comforted by her four year old daughter, so Lemia's teary eyes unconsciously wide opened and she watched Myuu.
Myuu was also looking straight at Lemia and there's indeed worry about Lemia lodged inside her eyes. Myuu was a mama's girl and couldn't stand being alone before she was kidnapped, and although she also had painful times herself, she was more brokenhearted about her mother than herself in this reunion.
Surprised by that, Lemia was unconsciously watching Myuu in seriousness which made Myuu smiled, and this time she was the one who hugged Lemia tightly. Lemia wasn't that badly injured both in body and mind, but she was suffering from the sleepless night, overly worrying about Myuu, but it seemed her daughter had returned all grown up more than before.
This fact made Lemia inadvertently raised a wry smile. With her shoulders relaxed and her tears stopped, Lemia was looking at her daughter with eyes filled with love.
Myuu and Lemia once again hugged each other, but suddenly, Myuu raised a scream-like voice.
"Mama! Your legs! What happened!? Are you injured!? Is it hurt!?"
Apparently, Myuu noticed the state of Lemia's legs from over Lemia's shoulder. Both of her feet peeking from Lemia's long skirt were bandaged all over, they were in a miserable state.
This was the thing Saluz talked about, and it was what Hajime's party heard from the young man on their way to Elisen. The thing that made the Sea-dweller tribe agitated was not only was Myuu kidnapped, but also how her mother was seriously injured that it became impossible for her to walk.
Though Myuu said she was kidnapped when she was separated from Lemia, the Sea-dweller tribe wouldn't be able to say it was a kidnapping unless there's an eyewitness. They were able to declare so because it seemed Lemia had actually encountered the kidnappers.
Lemia had discovered suspicious men erasing their footprints in the sand near the coast when she was looking for Myuu when she got separated from her. Though she felt a bad premonition, she approached the men to ask whether they know her daughter... the men's faces were expressing "Oh shit" and began to chant all of a sudden.
Convinced the men had a part on Myuu's disappearance, Lemia tried to somehow get Myuu back, running along the footprints.
However, one of the men fought back by firing flame bullets. Fortunately, she avoided being hit on her upper body but her legs were hit instead, then she was blown into the sea by the impact. Lemia lost her consciousness from both the pain and impact. When she woke up, she was being helped by the people from vigilante corps who went looking for her because she have not returned.
Her life was saved, but as the time passed, Lemia still couldn't feel her legs, thus she became unable to walk nor to swim. Naturally, Lemia tried to search for her daughter, but she couldn't due to her legs. In the end, she could do nothing but to leave it to the vigilante corps and the Kingdom.