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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Yuziro
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I could tell just by watching from a distance for a moment. It was very systematic.
Just by looking at the kids which were moving as if they were already used to it, I could tell that it wasn’t something they had been doing for just a day or two.
But it was a separate matter that they came up with such a proper division of labor.
Honestly, it was hard to suppress the rising curiosity, so I slowly approached Alisha to ask her after getting off my horse, and some of the kids recognized me from all directions, and started greeting me.
“Hello, brother!”
“Hello, oppa!”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re working hard from the morning, so don’t mind me and go earn money.”
Except for the vagrants who didn’t know me at all, the kids who greeted me had a good complexion.
They had the leisure to smile and looked energetic, which must have been proof that the kids were eating and sleeping well.
I was going to meet Alisha as soon as possible to ask her, but due to that parade of greetings, even the priests who were diligently giving bread to the children recognized me. They were familiar faces, but fortunately, they were busy, so I could just exchange nods with them.
“Sis Alisha! I’m here!”
“Why are you coming and fucking around when I’m busy?!”
As expected, she was an unwavering foul mouth even with the priests right in front of her. The kids working inside burst into laughter upon hearing that swearing. They must have gotten used to it by now, experiencing that consistent expression of affection.
Since it seemed like I was talking to Alisha, the kids who ran into me also started focusing on their own work, just bowing their heads in greeting, so I could ask comfortably.
“I’ve never seen this before, sis. Since when have you been doing this?”
“Is that so? Well, you haven’t come often lately because you’re busy too. It hasn’t been long. About half a year?”
“That’s quite a while. Who came up with it? Did the Holy Cross Society propose it?”
“No. Levi was the one who proposed it first.”
Levi? She was definitely the only orphan among the kids I first helped 3 years ago. The one with red hair and a few freckles.
Now, she was the only feisty one who even spoke casually to me. But she proposed this?
“Really? I thought she was just good at work, but she’s exceptionally smart?”
“I know, right? When she first told me about it, she explained this and that, but I couldn’t understand it at all. But the priests understood it right away and helped out like that.”
This is a bit… substantial.
It’s no exaggeration to say that the knowledge of ordinary people in this world is focused on their family business and their own lives. It’s not easy to acquire new knowledge or skills, so obtaining someone’s knowledge and skills is difficult and costly, even just getting the opportunity to learn.
Of course, not just anyone can efficiently manipulate and calculate people.
The idea and ability to employ and move this many people and even bring in outside organizations means that one must have experience working in a key position in something more than a merchant guild.
At least if it were an adult, it could be seen as having managed it somehow with experience and know-how, but a young child who just turned 16 and had been doing odd jobs in the village for 3 years was out of the question.
Levi became an orphan when she was 13. Who would put a 13-year-old in such a position? Considering the time it takes for education, it’s even more impossible. It’s most likely that she received early education because it must have been clear that she would do such work from a very young age.
Such education is only possible for a merchant successful enough to run a merchant guild or a nobleman.
“These days, I don’t know if she’s going through a rebellious phase, but she’s not like before, but her work ethic is the same as ever, so it’s really reassuring.”
“What’s she like?”
“She dyed her hair with who knows what, and she cut her already short hair like a boy, not to mention her way of speaking.”
Suddenly, the conversation I had with Asirye this morning flashed through my mind.
The story of a nobleman being discovered in the village. And the typical imagination I had alone about him hiding until he came of age or something.
Such a repertoire was so common that even I accepted that imagination as “typical”, and it was something that actually happened often enough to be used frequently.
“Doesn’t she just have the leisure to dress up and is doing it on her own? How old is Levi again?”
“She said she’s turning 16 this year. Her birthday is coming up soon, right?”
Fuck.
It definitely doesn’t seem right. It really fucking doesn’t seem right. Just as my mind kept turning in a bad direction.
“Huh? Eldmia, you’re here?”
When I turned my head at the voice coming from the stairs, Levi was walking down. Tight leather pants, a shirt with a neckline so deep that it could be considered a bit too revealing, a short-cut hair dyed a dirty reddish-brown. Each one was different from the clothes Levi used to wear in the past.
It’s far from the appearance of a girl or a noble young lady. As if intentionally dressed up as a vagrant or rough in the image of the village…
But her voice calling me, her actions, and her expressions were the same as ever, so I ended up grabbing Levi’s arm and decided to go up to the second floor.
“Follow me for a moment.”
“Huh? Huh huh huh??”
“Y-you bastard! If you get horny for Levi, you’re dead!”
“What are you saying in front of the kids! What do you take me for?!”
It’s a crime, that thing!
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“Were you a noble?”
When asking kids about this kind of thing, it was best to catch them off guard when they didn’t expect such a topic to come up.
Risking rudeness, I entered Levi’s room, and as soon as I locked the door, I looked down at Levi, who was 20 cm shorter than me, holding both her shoulders with my hands to keep her in place, and asked bluntly while making eye contact.
For a brief moment, the simple surprise that lingered in Levi’s eyes turned into shock for a moment and then returned. She managed to control her expression and answered nonchalantly on purpose.
“Wh-wha, what, what the… Huh! Wh-what kind of nonsense are you saying out of the blue in the morning? Me, a noble?”
If she had been a bit more skillful, I wouldn’t have noticed at all, but fortunately, she was still lacking. Above all, she spoke faster because she was more surprised than she thought.
“You’re not lying to your brother.”
“I-I’m older than you… And st-strictly speaking, o-oppa…”
“Don’t change the subject. I saw you trying to hide that you were surprised just now. That alone made me half convinced. Quickly tell me in your own words what your situation is. Your birthday is coming up, right?”
In this world, when you turn 16, you become an adult. For commoners, it’s just a celebration, but for merchants who deal with contracts and nobles beyond, it’s an incredibly important event.
Becoming an adult means that in case of a problem, you can inherit the family’s assets and rights. An heir who hasn’t become an adult has a relative or a servant of the family as a proxy under the pretext of being a guardian.
Of course, in such cases, it’s common for the assets to be squandered before the young heir can even use them.
“Huh? You remember my birthday… No, that’s not it! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“You may have put what you learned into practice, but the charity work unfolding down there can’t even be conceived in the mind of an ordinary commoner. Remember when Auntie Alisha didn’t understand when she heard your story?”
Levi’s gaze wavered so much that there was no need to examine it deeply. Yes. It’s a common mistake. The mistake of believing that what you know is common knowledge.
It’s a mistake that a nobleman who lives within their own relationships is more likely to make than a merchant who encompasses both commoners and nobles in their dealings.
A child who became an orphan due to the war not only had that level of knowledge but also, when she was approaching the age of 16, her behavior changed due to a late puberty.
As soon as she had some leisure, she switched back from the skirts she used to wear to pants, increased the exposure she never used to do, cut her hair short, and even dyed it?
Moreover, at the timing when rumors suddenly spread in the village that a nobleman had been discovered?
“The rumor going around the village that a nobleman has been discovered. Your suddenly changed attire. Even shorter hair. Dye. Isn’t it a stretch to say that this isn’t a disguise to run away from the rumors now?”
People living their daily lives and living ordinarily day by day might just brush it off as a coincidence. After all, if you look at each one separately, they’re just an extension of things that are common around you. There’s no reason or need to think of connecting them.
But from the day I fell into this world, everything has been unusual for me, everything is suspicious, and everything looks like an incident.
No matter how much of a genius you are, you’re not born with knowledge you don’t have. The conditions to understand and accept that knowledge must be met for genius to manifest.
In that sense, the possibility of Levi being a genius at handling people and a genius at business composition is infinitely low.
A coincidence? If I hadn’t known that this morning’s scene was Levi’s work, I would have just dismissed Levi’s drastic change in appearance as a momentary deviation.
Now that the two overlapped, it was closer to a fact than a coincidence. If not, she would have to be a reincarnator like me, but then she would have already suspected me from my attitude or noticed.
“If it was something you could handle, you wouldn’t have tried to hide your appearance. But the fact that a kid as smart as you didn’t just change your appearance and run away means you have another trick up your sleeve.
Buying time? You just need to deceive until someone who can help you arrives. Until when… No, that’s obvious, until your birthday.”
“How…”
I felt Levi’s body go limp in my grasp. It seemed like she was about to collapse, so I hurriedly sat her on the bed behind her, and the face that had been trying to smile nonchalantly until a moment ago was replaced with a deflated expression looking at me.
“How did you know…?”
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Nothing he knows
he’s eldemia egga, he knows