Absolutely Do Not Touch Eldmia Egga – Chapter 9

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Yuziro
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No one raised their hand.

Instead, a cauldron of chaos unfolded with screams and terror.

“Aaah, the leader is dead!”

“Kyaaaah!”

“Mom!”

“Which bastard is calling for their mom in front of an orphan who lost his parents?! Is that the leisure of the privileged?! How dare you bluff in front of me?!”

When I shouted furiously, silence flowed through the warehouse that had become a chaotic mess.

“From now on, any bastard who looks for their parents will taste the wrath of a child who lost his parents. Who’s the one who just called for their mom?”

In an instant, everyone’s fingers pointed to one guy. The guy, who had been trembling in fear and looking for his parents, turned pale and started shaking.

“You bastard, you have the nerve to look for your mom while doing this shit here? Won’t you come here?”

As I strode down, the delinquents parted and rushed towards the warehouse door I had blocked.

Some even pushed a guy towards me as if offering a sacrifice, and the guy approached me, trembling, without even thinking of running away in the midst of it.

As soon as the guy with a frustrating hairstyle, a dirty blond mop that seemed to make it hard to even see in front of him, came within range, I gave him a hard smack on the head and grabbed his hair.

“Ack!”

“Ack, my ass. What did you do well to whine?! Are you a war orphan?”

“N-no! No, I’m not!”

“Then what are you?”

“…Uh, that…”

Even though he probably didn’t eat well, his body was less skinny than the other guys. His height seemed to be about 5 cm taller than me.

Fluffy skin and face, but relatively well-maintained hair compared to that. Top and bottom clothes that were definitely not bad at first, although now worn out.

As I noticed all the evidence, it was as if the kind Eldmia with a halo on his head was whispering in my ear.

-This bastard is a runaway teenager! Kill him!

Huh? It seemed the Eldmia whispering was not the kind one but the bad one, contrary to his appearance.

Then, the evil Eldmia started whispering in my other ear. Judging by appearance is indeed not a good habit.

-That’s right, that’s right! Make him regret not being grateful for having his parents alive and his family intact in this damn world!

What? Where’s the kind Eldmia?

“I-I left home… to become an adventurer…”

“What the fuck? Adventurer? Is exploring the sewers of back alleys as a delinquent your adventure?

You’re experiencing a life-or-death adventure right now, which is an adventure, but is this what you wanted? Do you want to end up like him?”

“Sob sob, p-please spare my life. I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

“I asked if you want to end up like him, why aren’t you answering, you bastard?!”

Is the delinquent trait non sequitur? It suddenly makes my blood boil again?

“No!! I don’t want to end up like him!! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry for talking nonsense!!”

“Do you think I’m a pushover because I’m an orphan who couldn’t even properly protect my parents? Do you think I’m easy because my parents passed away and your parents are alive? Is that why you’re ignoring my words and giving irrelevant answers?”

“No! Absolutely not! I didn’t know! I’m sor-! Wahhh! Please spare my life. Please spare me.”

As I grabbed his hair and shook him back and forth, he finally burst into tears again and started begging with his hands clasped together.

It’s interesting. Do they also clasp their hands together and rub them when confessing sins and seeking forgiveness here? It was unexpectedly a cross-dimensional gesture.

“How long has it been since you left home?”

“T-two months.”

“You became a delinquent in Ogwen in just two months? How old are you?”

“Fi-fifteen…”

A fifteen-year-old boy can beg for work anywhere and get paid for odd jobs.

Especially in Ogwen, where job opportunities have started to increase recently, there are so many jobs that even kids from decent families help out neighboring merchants to earn pocket money.

But this bastard didn’t even do that and was just lying around here like a bum, only doing things like plundering others.

“You fucking fifteen? Fif-fucking-teen? At that age, even if you can’t save money and dream of becoming an adventurer with a purpose by doing decent work, you’re doing this shit, you delinquent bastard?!”

“Eek. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being a delinquent bastard!”

“Go over there and lie face down!”

I let go of his hair to check on the other guys and was about to turn my head, pointing to the leader’s chair (which used to be one), but the guy’s eyes widened.

“Huh?”

“Huh? Did you just make a questioning sound?”

I glared at him, thinking he was resisting the punishment when he should be grateful to be spared, but fortunately, he wasn’t lacking common sense to that extent.

“I-I’m sorry! I don’t know what it means to lie face down!”

“Ah. I see. That can happen. I understand if it’s something like that. Lie down over there.”

You can’t do what you don’t know. I, whose anger had subsided, kindly corrected the guy’s posture.

“Yeah, like that. In that position, lift your upper body with your arms… Yeah. That’s the position for lying face down. Stretch your back. Now, if your body touches the ground, I’ll bury you in it, so endure it well.”

When I turned my head away from the runaway teenager, whose whole body tensed up at the final warning, and looked at the rest, I could see the urchins and delinquents all frozen as if playing red light, green light.

“So… are you orphans or runaways?”

Eldmia Egga’s chick identification center opened.

Asirye’s prediction was almost accurate. Among the 17 members, there was only one orphan, a girl.

Even among them, there were only one girl and two boys who ran away for reasons that could be considered valid, and the remaining 13 were just pubescent brats afflicted with adventurer syndrome.

Puberty in this world was truly full of ups and downs.

As I calmly watched 13 of them lying face down, 3 kneeling with their hands raised, and 1 just kneeling, I couldn’t help but sigh.

“Even I, the first victim of the Demon King’s army’s attack and the only survivor who became a war orphan, am trying to live decently, but you guys are crossing the line a bit too much.”

Come to think of it, it was a really grandiose and pitiful title. If it weren’t for Asirye, I would have had to go straight to a religious institution to survive.

I didn’t even know the location of Ogwen back then, so I don’t know if I could have properly found a village.

Why the hell did you run away from a decent home when you have no ability?

“If your home is really far away but you have to live here because you don’t have money for a carriage ride, raise your hand while lying down.”

No one broke their posture.

“If you think you will never return home even if it means dying here because that place is not a home but hell, and you’d rather be killed, raise your hand while lying down.”

Again, no one broke their posture. It means they’re not prepared to die. In the end, the reason they couldn’t return home was simply due to pride or liking this life or any other factor.

The average age of the guys lying down was 14, and the one who had been away from home the longest had only been away for 3 months.

Even that was exceptionally long, and the rest were less than 2 months.

“Who am I?”

“Eldmia Egga!!”

“Eldmia Egga is?”

“Someone!! You must!! Never mess with!!”

The indoctrination of beliefs was complete.

No one knew the name of the delinquent leader.

There was no need to call him by name, and there was no reason to, so he was just referred to as the leader.

In fact, it was the leader who was originally the reason for trying to steal my practice longsword. On that day he suddenly felt the spirit of a swordsman burning within him, and sent the kids to steal a sword.

They happened to run into me, and the guys, who had never properly seen a sword in their lives, just tried to plunder it without knowing if it was fake or real because a guy who looked easy was carrying it.

They were truly like delinquent bastards.

Moreover, Zikmel was the sneak among sneaks, so he had helped search for me and stayed behind, and the rest of the guys who were beaten by me that time had all run away.

In the end, when I heard that there were no other members searching and the ones present were all of them, I even felt a bit deflated.

Still, it was less deflating than the disappointing shallowness of puberty in this world that exceeded my expectations.

With a sigh, I left my spot, unfolded the practice longsword that was blocking the warehouse door, and opened the door.

“All you lying bastards, get lost and go home. I have a good memory. If I see your faces in Ogwen, I’ll shatter both your legs like that Zikmel bastard.

If you’re confident you can survive even after that, you don’t have to go home. If not, go home even if it means getting beaten like a dog with a stick by your parents.”

There was no need to look back at the guys running away from the warehouse at full speed without a word.

Rather, there was a guy still lying there instead of running away, so my attention was naturally drawn there.

It was the guy with the longest runaway record of 3 months. As I approached, he trembled visibly but didn’t get up.

“What? Why aren’t you leaving?”

“I-I can’t go home!”

“You didn’t raise your hand earlier.”

“I-I couldn’t raise it because I don’t want to die! I’m sorry!”

I had said that just to see if he was that desperate, but it seemed his fear was too great with a corpse lying on the floor.

Still, seeing him stay behind without any intention to deceive, it seemed he had his own circumstances.

“Kneel over there with them.”

As I watched the guy jump up and kneel, he even raised his hands without being told to, I stood in front of the remaining guys.

“Do you want a chance to live diligently or crawl out as a half-cripple?”

It was a moment of choice.

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