Absolutely Do Not Touch Eldmia Egga - Chapter 31: Ceril Tusin Orgatorph

Getting used to living at the Orgatorph Mansion was far smoother than I’d thought.

Personally, I thought that completely deleting the part about me coming here by being related to Lagnis, so that people wouldn’t awkwardly act considerate or wary, when I had introduced myself played a big part. The overflowing diligence that I’d shown after my introduction, which got simply wrapped up as ‘Ekav luckily meeting a rather talented-looking kid and somehow bringing him over’, was enough to win over the kindness of the house’s members and servants.

Excluding Ceril whom I’d end up fiercely fighting with, there was no one who disliked Eldmia the very definition of industrious-diligent-and-capable.

“Cold.”

Like that, around 1 year and 5 months had passed since I’d gotten hired by Sir Ekav. After having come to the capital, around this time of the year when the winter began to approach, I recalled the time I’d first met Asileye and became unnecessarily sentimental.

Even though I’d definitely lived quite diligently, this time it didn’t feel like time had passed by very fast. But even then, there were many things that I could say to have changed.

After becoming 15 years old, my height got a bit bigger to a point that really no one would now believe me to be 15 years old, and I also gained more muscles and advanced in my swordsmanship. I learned how to refine aura and utilize it, too, and consequently won the big achievement of learning to use magic power more proficiently.

I could also tell that not just me but Asileye, too, experienced changes through the letters we’d endlessly exchanged. Stories about the horse we’d raised for the long time looking like it would soon pass away, her cutting her hair a bit shorter, how she was now living together with Alisha at Alisha’s inn after Alisha had relentlessly asked her to move in, how she occasionally went to check on the cottage, and so on.

Besides the story about the horse I’d lived with since I was 8 years-old slowly nearing its end, they were all good news and I could rest easy thanks to it.

I thought that not hearing bad news despite it being the 7th year into the war with the Demon King Army was really fortunate.

Most of all, it was most fortunate that the bastard that wrecked my hometown didn’t seem to have died yet.

“Eldmia!”

Faintly sounding from afar, Ceril’s shout that was now utterly familiar instantly awoke my senses. At her shout that never called twice, I had to quickly show myself rather than react with words. I picked up the leather gauntlets and practice longswords I’d prepared and ran.

The garden Ceril was at wasn’t very far from the residence where the house’s servants slept. After about 30 seconds or so at running full sprint? I approached the girl standing in the center of the garden where roses were in full bloom despite it being February, and passed the gauntlets and a longsword I’d been rather courteously carrying.

“Here.”

The eldest daughter of the Orgatorph House, who’d been crossing her arms with her finely groomed light-blond hair tied into a ponytail and wearing horse-riding clothes, turned her head towards me and twinkled the same violet eyes as the master of the house, Ekav.

I looked straight back at her eyes and maintained my pose. Ordinarily, due to being a servant, the proper manner was for me to lower my head and raise it up to her while even kneeling on one knee, but she was an exception.

She whipped at my ear when I dodged her eyes and threw a knee-kick at my face when I kneeled. As for the reason why, I fucking didn’t know. She didn’t hit anyone else, but only me.

Even though more than 1 year had passed since our first meeting, this arrogant brat maintained her unshakable craziness. I could say for sure that this absolutely wasn’t something like puberty. She’s just born with it.

For 3 seconds when short to 10 seconds when long. Occasionally she executed eye-contacts cryptic enough for me to wonder if this girl was sick somewhere, and I just came to accept it as was and took it as a time to leisurely look over the girl’s face.

Hm. Looked like her red eyeliner fitted better than usual today.

I thought every time I saw her. That Ceril was cute.

‘Cause she would’ve been spanked ‘til her butts turned into flames yesterday if she wasn’t cute.

An event like that hadn’t happened yet, so this girl must be cute even a little bit.

Ceril Tusin Orgatorph the nutcase, whose name was notorious even in the Academy, looked at my eyes for several seconds or so like that, and then nodded her head and received the sword and the gauntlets. By now, that inexplicable act felt like some sort of a ritual.

“Go take your stance.”

There wasn’t even a need to particularly answer back. She really hated trite and meaningless replies. Therefore, I quietly stood opposite her and donned the gauntlets, and then grabbed a longsword and took a stance.

A short silence later, without any signal Ceril shot out forwards and swung her sword. Specifically, that was a signal. The sound of blade-less practice swords striking each other started to fully fill the garden. It was a morning routine that had been continuing on for the 1 year I’d been working as her personal butler.

It wasn’t a weird job like this at first.

I was simply a servant that diligently worked, diligently watched, diligently exercised when I had time, and did all my work.

Naturally I was good at work. Everything related to work besides etiquettes was ultimately things that happened within the bounds of common sense and knowledge, and with the memories of my last life, I was good enough to understand on the first try what others needed three separate explanations to understand.

I was basically a veteran construction engineer standing next to little kids who first had to wonder just what a leveling was when told to level a field. Naturally there didn’t exist any work that could really be called a complete first for me, and I instantly got treated as a quick-witted kid, a smart kid who could also do mental calculations, and began unwillingly showing my talents in all sorts of chores.

But before not even three months had passed like that, the balance that I had somewhat maintained even then began to rapidly shake after I’d won an abruptly offered duel.

He was a friend who was formally going through the apprentice knight process. He was also a friend who was being seriously careless at having to fight a child 4 years younger than him, and was also a friend either socially clueless or a bit slow enough in the head to not understand what it meant for the master of the house to personally set up the duel. He was a pitiable friend when I thought about it like that, but it wasn’t enough for me to feel like going easy on him, so I just won by smacking his chin and knocking him out in one strike.

I’d realized a moment later why Ekav, who already knew of my skills long beforehand, had specially set up an act like this, but by then I was already the personal butler of Orgatorph House’s little mistress.

That was the memory that abruptly popped up as I looked at Ceril, who did the same attack as that apprentice knight friend from back then and now got countered by me.

“Say it.”

She was an inscrutable little miss, but thanks to the past months, I’d gained the skill to comprehend exclusively Ceril’s bullshit as a clear thought.

This one meant, ‘I don’t know what I did wrong to get countered in a single strike like this, so you say it your mouth’.

“Unless people wrap themselves well with mana, they either die or get hurt when slashed with a sword.”

Ceril was a smart kid. She possessed the patience to wait first and listened ‘til the end even if someone she was speaking with said something obvious, and not retort back at the obviousness of it. Even though she was just 15 years old now, perhaps because of the difference in education she received, she was a world different from the ordinary kids her age in my mind.

It was fucking wild having to talk about dying this way and dying that way to that 15 years-old kid, but I just faulted the world for being this way and skipped past that thought.

“But they also die if their cuts stack up and up and bleed too much.”

“…I only aim for far too big attacks?”

She’s also good at listening and analyzing what she’s told. How smart.

“Exactly. It’s good to think of practices as a real fight and give it your all with an enthusiasm to kill your opponent, but that approach is too easy to read and isn’t very effective.”

When I loosened my pose and nodded my head as I again took on guard, Ceril, instantly having understood it, stepped in with a stab this time. But because even that came in a step too far with an intent to completely pierce her opponent, I lightly parried it to my side and then grabbed my sword’s blade and swung it with its cross guard aimed at Ceril’s forehead. It whooshed and stopped nearly right on top of her nose, but even then Ceril didn’t close her eyes. Her eyes were exactly on the tip of the cross guard next to her left bold-font eyebrow.

“They say it’s the entire sword in your hand that’s a weapon, and not just the blade.”

“Why is it ‘they say’?”

“Because I also only heard about it from somewhere?”

Although I reincarnated, I wasn’t some genius.

Even though I was walking the unbelievable and fucking-awesome path of losing my hometown at 8 years-old, cutting down a (presumed)drake knight in the sky at 14 years-old, and getting connected to a famous knight of the kingdom and endlessly training to achieve my revenge and goal, I merely had a little more mature head than the others.

I didn’t have something like the skills to smugly teach someone else. Because most of it was other people’s knowledge.

“Why don’t I hear about things like that?”

Ceril’s left bold-font line twitched and trembled. Ah, this, I didn’t know for what reason but she’s seconds away from getting miffed.

“Oi, you’re not only busy but even attending the academy, too. It’s all just puny and samey kids your age, so what would they know if the professors don’t tell them?”

Those words weren’t empty words. Looking just at swordsmanship, Orgatorph House was at the very least better than the Royal Academy and not at all lacking compared to it. The academy was merely placed on a higher standing since being able to learn various academic knowledge and experience things beyond them were an incredible benefit.

Even after Ceril had more or less accepted my answer and calmed her dissatisfaction, our practice duel continued with short breaks for 1 hour.

It wasn’t easy work, but Ceril only showed just a slightly exhausted look at its very end. Wondering whether that was a power of her bloodline or early education, I left Ceril, who sweated enough for the early morning’s cold to feel nonexistent, to the maids who aided her bathing, and returned as well to the servant’s quarters and then washed and prepared to change clothes.

Putting on a butler suit and a pocket watch that was worrisome whenever I looked at it and after having put on a business-appropriate perfume, I wore my longsword and its belt as well and hurriedly ran towards the main hall.

(1/3) of releases today.

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