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“Y-Yes, yes. Please send this to the annex as well. You can say it’s for personal use by Young Master Ed… I mean, Ethan.”
“Alright, I understand! I’ll pack it well and send it over~!”
“Yes, thank you. Have a good business~”
About two hours after starting to shop for travel supplies with Ethan in the market…
Despite clearly buying many things, Ethan and I were still walking around empty-handed, except for the snacks we were holding.
The fact that Ethan and I were staying at the annex largely eliminated the need to carry heavy luggage. At the first cheese shop we visited, the owner, recognizing that Ethan was no ordinary noble, asked where we were staying and, upon learning it was the annex, offered to send our purchases directly there that day.
As it turned out, this market street was where maids from the Imperial Palace or annexes often came down to buy groceries. [Only on DarkStar Translations! / Axiomatic]
It was impossible for the maids alone to transport ingredients to feed the 300 or so royals, nobles, servants, and others staying in the palace, so they created a transport carriage system to move goods from the market to the palace.
The shop owner kindly explained that it was a facility that transported items that needed to go to the palace or annex twice a day, so the maids just came to the market, asked for various items to be packed and sent, and returned.Since adding our luggage to the carriage carrying supplies and necessities for 300 people wouldn’t delay the transport, we naturally made full use of this facility. After all, the cheese shop owner brought it up because he knew that nobles staying at the palace or annex often used this system.
As a result, while we should have been carrying baskets full of groceries in both hands by now according to the original plan, our hands were completely empty.
[Hoo… Hooo, hooo…]
{Hehehe, he, heheh… Heheheh…}
Thanks to this, Sei, who had come out to help me with my work, was sleeping on my shoulder instead. Sally, who had followed Sei, was flying around next to her, watching her sleeping face with apparent joy.
By the way, I didn’t end up using a single gold coin from the travel budget I had brought. To be honest, I had expected this to some extent from the moment I brought Ethan along.
‘Given Ethan’s personality, there’s no way he’d quietly watch me spend money.’
I tried opening my wallet as a test at the cheese shop, but Ethan immediately stopped my hand and paid for the cheese himself. It was the same at other stores we visited afterward.
Although I was pretending to be an ordinary noble lady now, the relationship between Ethan and me was still that of a young master and his exclusive maid. It would have been a matter of pride for a noble to let his servant pay, so his reaction was natural. [Only on DarkStar Translations! / Axiomatic]
In the end, with nothing to carry and no money to spend, I was truly leisurely enjoying shopping without any burden as we walked around the market. If we saw something that might be needed while walking, we’d buy it and ask for it to be delivered to the annex, and if there were snacks, we’d buy one and share it between Ethan and me.
…Going around like this, it was as if we were on a real date rather than preparing for a trip.
Well, it was because Ethan had asked for a date that we were walking around together like this in the first place.
“Lili, say ‘ah’.”
“……Ah.”
Even now, as he fed me a fruit skewer bought from a street stall, it was unmistakably a date.
It’s good we didn’t bring Agnes along. If she had seen this, she would have made a fuss about us being lovey-dovey in public, not just today but for days to come.
As I savored a strawberry skewer coated in a sweet sugar film, Ethan asked me about the remaining schedule for today.
“It seems we’ve bought almost everything we need. Is there anything left, Lili?”
“We’ve nearly finished preparing the food ingredients and camping equipment, and now all that’s left is the ‘bug-repellent perfume’.”
“Bug-repellent perfume?”
“Yes. I’ve heard there are many dangerous insects in the Witch’s Forest. We don’t know if Rara will have bug-repellent perfume for our share, so we should prepare it just in case.”
The biggest reason was that I disliked bugs. Thanks to my long experience as a maid, I could kill most creepy bugs with my bare hands, but creepy things were still creepy.
I really didn’t want to experience bugs swarming around me while I was hot, sweaty, and humid. Seriously.
“I think we might be able to find it at a general store or a magic tool shop. Usually, though, these kinds of shops might be located in remote parts of town rather than in the market streets.”
Moreover, since this town was a large city that could fit two castles, it seemed quite difficult to find one right away.
To begin with, it was an item I rarely used when playing Luminor Academy, so I wasn’t even sure if it was sold in the Imperial capital. As a player, I didn’t think it was necessary because I wasn’t the one encountering the bugs.
As I was thinking about circling around the Imperial capital in the afternoon to ask where there might be a general store selling bug-repellent spray, suddenly, someone appeared in front of us, blocking our path.
“I saw a somewhat strange sign on the way here earlier, maybe that could have been a general store…”
“Ex-Excuse me, big sister…!”
“Eeeek?!”
“Kyaaah?!”
Startled by the sudden appearance of a girl half my height from a blind spot, my body momentarily leaned backward, and Ethan, who had been quietly following behind me, supported my body.
“Are you alright, Lili?”
“…Ah, yes. Thank you, Ed.”
Fortunately, I didn’t end up in an unsightly position like falling backward onto my bottom. Ethan, who had been walking beside me, supported my body faster than I could fall.
Rather, it was the girl in front of us who had fallen down, startled by my scream, so I apologized and carefully extended my hand to her.
“I’m sorry for screaming. Are you hurt anywhere?”
“N-No…”
The girl, wearing a red hood over her head, carefully got up holding my hand.
As I was thinking that her appearance reminded me of Little Red Riding Hood, the girl stood up, carefully dusting off her bottom. [Only on DarkStar Translations! / Axiomatic]
Judging by her appearance, she seemed to be about six or seven years old.
Of course, this was just an estimate, and there was a good possibility that her actual age could be older. The world of Luminor Academy wasn’t like modern society where food was plentiful and there was no worry about going hungry.
There was a possibility that she might actually be around 12 years old but looked younger due to not eating properly during her growth period.
“It seemed like you were calling me earlier, did you have something to say?”
“Well, um, that is…”
“Did you perhaps lose your parents? Or are you lost and unable to return home?”
“Big sister… are you perhaps an adventurer?”
“…Pardon?”
A stupid answer slipped out at the unexpected question from the girl’s mouth, but I soon regained my composure and quietly shook my head.
“No, I’m not an adventurer.”
“Th-Then…”
“I’m just an ordinary maid… no, a noble… Anyway, I’m not an adventurer, not a noble, just an ordinary person who’s nothing in particular.”
“……”
Since I wasn’t a maid right now, it felt awkward to introduce myself as one, and I wasn’t even sure if this child, presumably a commoner, knew of the existence of the maid profession in the first place.
But if I said I was a noble, it felt like it might unnecessarily provoke wariness, so I ended up introducing myself as just an ordinary person.
…Though I felt that a truly ordinary person probably wouldn’t introduce themselves like this.
“L-Liar…”
“Pardon?”
“An ordinary person couldn’t fight that well. I-I saw you dodging that bad man’s knife like this and that in the alley over there earlier!”
“Um, well…”
“I, I saw everything! The strange man was swinging his knife at you, and then he fell, and then the big brother went pow! and swoosh! and cut off the man’s hand!”
“……”
It seemed she was a witness to the incident with the pickpocket (main job: robber) that happened in the back alley earlier.
I remember it wasn’t exactly an educational scene to show children.
No, since it’s a medieval fantasy setting, could she be rather nonchalant about it? Come to think of it, in a crowded Imperial capital like this, it might be normal for crimes involving killing people and swinging knives to occur once or twice a day.
“Then, let’s say I’m an ordinary person with… a slightly higher evasion rate… no, an ordinary person who’s a bit good at fighting.”
“……”
“So, where are your mom and dad? If you’ve lost your parents, I can help you find them…”
“…They’re not here.”
…It wasn’t intentional. Usually, it’s normal to come to a crowded market alley like this with parents, so that’s what I thought. [Only on DarkStar Translations! / Axiomatic]
Of course, I don’t think this child is abnormal or anything, but anyway.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that…”
“Mom and Dad are lying down right now. Even if I asked them to come to the market with me, they probably wouldn’t have come.”
“Y-You startled me. When you said they weren’t here, I thought I had made a slip of the tongue…”
“It’s been about a year since both Mom and Dad have been lying down. They probably won’t be able to get up from now on.”
“……”
“It’s a joke. Actually, Mom and Dad are both over there if you go straight ahead.”
“Oh, it was a joke. Y-You really scared me…”
“That’s where the graves of my Mom and Dad are. Actually, it’s been about three years since they passed away.”
“……”
“……”
“…Was that not a joke just now?”
“No. So, Mom and Dad are not here.”
…In the end, my initial slip of the tongue remained unchanged.
She should have just said they had passed away from the start. Why go around in circles and make self-deprecating jokes like this?
I couldn’t get angry at a child, and if I got angry now, I’d become too much of a bad person, so I barely managed to suppress my inner emotions.
“…Then, do you perhaps have any family you’re living with now?”
“My grandmother. I’m living with my grandmother.”
“…Your grandmother hasn’t passed away, right?”
“No. She’s still alive. Just yesterday morning, my grandmother made potato and carrot soup for me. I asked her to leave out the carrots though…”
…Fortunately, it seemed her grandmother wasn’t a subject for a punchline.
Having somehow found a breakthrough, I roughly grasped the situation this girl was in and immediately turned the topic in that direction to change the subject.
“Then, shall I help you find where your grandmother is?”
“Yes!”
“Alright, when and where did you lose her? If you think back carefully…”
“Last night, at our house!”
“…Pardon?”
“The night before last, a big bad wolf suddenly appeared at our house and took my grandmother away!”
“……”
…Wait, is she really Little Red Riding Hood?
T/N
Hello! Axiomatic here.
Medieval strawberry tanghulu question mark?
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