Absolutely Do Not Touch Eldmia Egga

Chapter 13: Lagnis Lien da Levien

I could tell just from watching from afar for a second. It was incredibly systematic.

Just by looking at the kids moving as if familiar with it to their bones, I could tell they hadn’t been doing it for a mere one or two days. But that and thinking up a proper division of labor process like this were a different story.

It honestly was difficult to hold back my skyrocketing curiosity, and when I got down from my horse and approached with a plan to ask Alisha about it, kids from all directions who recognized me began greeting me.

“Good morning, big bro!”

“Morning, big bro!”

“Yeah yeah. You all look busy, so don’t mind me and go on with your work.”

Excluding the vagrant kids who didn’t know me at all, the kids who greeted me at the least looked well. Them having rooms to smile and overflowing with energy should be proof that the kids were eating and sleeping well. I’d planned to meet Alisha as quickly as possible, but due to that parade of greetings, even the honorable priests and priestesses who were amidst busily passing out bread to the kids recognized me. They were familiar faces, but thankfully we could only pass simple nods at each other due to being busy.

“Alisha sis! I came!”

“The fuck’re you doing coming here when busy!”

As expected, she’s an unchanging curse-spitter of eternity even when right in front of the honorable priests and priestesses. The kids who were working inside heard that curse and exploded out a laugh. They must’ve gotten used to it now after experiencing those unwavering expressions of affection.

Because it looked like I was talking with Alisha, even the kids who saw me simply nodded their heads in greeting and began focusing on their own work, and I could comfortably ask her the question.

“Sis, I never saw this before. Since just when have they been working like this?”

“Have you not? Well, you did not come very often these days saying you’re busy as well. It hasn’t been long. About half a year?”

“That’s actually quite long! Who thought it up? Did the Holy Light Church suggest it?”

“No. Levi suggested it first.”

Levi? That was definitely the sole orphan who was there when I first helped the kids 3 years ago. The red haired, and slightly freckled kid.

She was the audacious kid who alone had by now even dropped all formalities when talking to me. But that kid suggested this?

“Really? I thought she simply worked well, but she’s actually smart, huh?”

“Yeah. She explained all this and that when she first spoke of it, but I could understand none of it. But the honorable priests and priestesses understood it right away and then helped us out like that.”

This… was a bit eerie.

It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that most people’s knowledge in this world was concentrated around their jobs and lives. It wasn’t easy to learn new skills and knowledge, and because of that, learning the skills and knowledge of someone else was something difficult and costly even just from getting the chance to learn them.

Obviously efficiently calculating and making people work wasn’t something anyone did. To move this many people and order them around as well as have the idea and ability to draw in an outside organization, they had to have at least an experience working at a major position in a company or something bigger. I could at least chalk it up to somehow doing it with previous experiences and working chops if they were an adult, but a kid that just now turned mere 16 and worked trivial chores for 3 years in the village was a nonstarter.

Levi becoming an orphan was when she was 13 years old. Who in the world would place a 13 year-old in that kind of position? It was something even more improbable when considering the time it took for education. The most probable case was where she received early education from a really young age because it was certain she would work that kind of a job.

The ones that could do that kind of education were at most merchants successful enough to run a company or nobles.

“She ain’t like before these days as if she’s in her rebellious phase, but her head about work is unchanging as ever, so she’s real reassuring.”

“What do you mean?”Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m nov𝒆lb(i)n.c(o)m

“Dyeing her hair with something weird out of nowhere, cutting her hair short like a boy when it wasn’t even long in the first place, don’t even get me started.”

Suddenly the chat I had with Asileye in the morning brushed through my head.

The story that a noble was discovered in the village. And the obvious imagery of hiding until they became an adult and whatnot that I’d thought up alone.

That kind of repertoire was common enough for even me to take as ‘something obvious’, and it was also an event that had actually occurred enough to be used commonly.

“Isn’t it just her prettying herself whichever way she likes ‘cause she now has the room for it? How old was Levi?”

“She’s 16 year-old this year. Apparently her birthday is coming up.”

Fuck.

It in every way didn’t look right. It fucking seriously didn’t look right. At that moment when my thoughts kept rolling towards the bad direction in my head.

“Hm? Did Eldmia come?”

When I turned my head at a voice coming from the stairs, Levi was walking down. A pair of tightly stretched leather pants, a shirt with a neckline cut low enough to worry that her cleavage exposure was a bit too much, a short-cut hair dyed a dirty maroon color. From top to bottom there was a gap from the clothes Levi usually wore.

It was a look far from that of a girl or a noble lady. As if intentionally dressed up to show the look of a village vagrant or a vulgar image…

But because her behaviors, expressions, and voice calling me were the same as always, in the end I immediately grabbed Levi’s arm and went up to the 2nd floor.

“Follow me a sec.”

“Eh? Eeeh??”

“Y, you brat! I’ll kill you if you rut against Levi!”

“What’re you saying in front of kids! What do you take me for?!”

That’s a crime, I tell you!

🔷

“You were a noble?”

When asking kids something like this, slamming the topic straight at them when they hadn’t even expected such a topic to come up was the best. Putting aside etiquette and entering Levi’s room, the instant I closed and locked the door I clenched and fixed still both her shoulders with my hands and, looking down at Levi 20cm smaller than me, asked point-blank with our eyes looking straight at each other.

For a briefest of an instant the simple surprise lingering in Levi’s eyes for a moment dyed with shock and then turned back. And barely controlling her face, she feigned calm and replied.

“R, ru, ru… hah! W, why are you suddenly asking something ridiculous right from the morning? A noble? Me?”

I completely wouldn’t have been able to tell if she was a little more adept, but thankfully she was still lacking. Most of all, her voice got faster as if she was more shocked than she thought.

“You shouldn’t lie to your big bro.”

“I, I’m older than y… and te, technically speaking it’s o, op…”

“And don’t change the subject. I saw you trying to hide your surprise just now. I’ve already half-confirmed it with just that, you know? Quickly say truthfully what’s going on right now with your own mouth. Your birthday is coming up soon.”

In this world one was an adult after their 16th birthday. For commoners it was a point people simply celebrated and passed by, but for merchants who passed contracts back and forth and nobles beyond, it was an incredibly serious event.

Because becoming an adult meant they could inherit the house’s fortunes and rights when a problem occurred. For inheritors who hadn’t become an adult, a relative or a servant of the house became their deputy under the name of guardianship.

It’s an obvious story, but in that case there were an infinite number of stories where the fortunes disappeared into thin air before the young inheritor even moved their hand.

“Eh? You remember my bir… no wait! I’ve no idea what you’re saying, I tell you!”

“You probably did it based on what you’ve learned, but the charity work unfolding below there can’t even be imagined in an ordinary commoner’s head. Madam Alisha not understanding it when you talked about it. You remember that?”

Levi’s eyes shook enough for me to not even need to particularly look close. Yeah. It was a common mistake. A mistake thinking that what I knew was universal.

It was a mistake that, more than merchants who traded with commoners and nobles alike, nobles who lived within a world of their own would make.

A kid that became an orphan from the war not only had that kind of knowledge but also around the time her 16th birthday neared, and even though her acts hadn’t changed from a late puberty, changed the skirts she had picked up and wore the moment she had the room to do so back to pants, increased the exposure that she hadn’t even done before, cut her hair short, and even dyed her hair? Even more so at a moment when a rumor was going around that a noble was discovered in the village?

“The rumor going around in the village that a noble was discovered. Your clothes that suddenly changed. Your hair cut even shorter. Hair dyeing. Isn’t it impossible to call this not a disguise to run away from the rumor right now?”

The people living normally day by day through ordinary lives might simply accept it as was and let it be. Since it ultimately shouldn’t be anything more than a continuation of events commonly found nearby when looked at one by one. There was neither a reason, nor a need, to think of connecting them.

But I was already someone who, since that day I fell into this fantasy world, found every day extraordinary, found everything suspicious, and saw everything as an extraordinary event.

However much of a genius one could be, they weren’t born with knowledge they didn’t have. Genius aptitude only flourished when the conditions to understand and take in that knowledge were present. In that sense, the chance of Levi being a genius at directing people and a genius of business organization was infinitely low.

A coincidence? So long as I didn’t know that the scene this morning was Levi’s work, I too would have simply accepted Levi’s unprecedented change in looks as a whim of the moment.

With the two overlapping, this was closer to a truth than a coincidence. If not, then this kid too had to be a reincarnator like me, but then she too should’ve already been suspicious or realized it from my behaviors.

“You wouldn’t have tried to hide yourself if it was something you could handle. But if a kid as smart as you simply changed her appearance and didn’t run, does it mean there is another trick you’re aiming for? Trying to buy time? Because you only need to fool people until someone who can help you arrives? Until when… no, that obviously is until your birthday.”

“Just…”

I felt strength leaving from Levi’s body I held. When I hurriedly sat her down at a bed behind us because she looked like she was going to collapse right there, the face that just a moment ago was feigning calm and smiling was nowhere to be seen and a hollow expression stared at me.

“How do you know that…?”

TL note: sorry about the wait. I was a bit busy last week.

• Twitter
• Facebook