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The first rest day arrived.
I said a quick word to Philip, then headed out toward town.
No real agenda.
I just wanted to wander.
Since coming to this world, I’d never actually had the chance to explore a big city on my own.
Saying I wasn’t excited would be a lie.
It was another world, after all, and I’d spotted plenty of Beastmen and Demon Race people on the road here.
If I could strike up a conversation with them in Demon God Language or Beast God Language, even better.
Problem was, I’d learned both languages without anyone to practice on.
I had no idea if my pronunciation was even passable.
The Beastmen servants at the estate certainly wouldn’t help.
They refused to speak to me at all.
Whether they were frightened of me or mistook me for some kind of high-ranking figure, they kept their distance either way.
“Hm…?”
Ghislaine surfaced in my mind.
Why hadn’t I asked her?
She was clearly of the Beastmen race.
The answer came fast.
Because Ghislaine normally looked so vacant it was hard to imagine her being fluent in two languages.
As for Demon God Language, I’d write a letter to Teacher Roxy.
She could definitely help.
Plans settled, I walked out of the grand castle.
I took a deep breath of fresh air, and immediately found Eris and Ghislaine lying in wait at the front gate.
“Where are you going!”
It was the first rest day, and Eris looked like she didn’t know what to do with herself.
Apparently, this was the first day in her entire life with no scheduled activities at all.
So naturally she was fixated on what I intended to do with mine.
Though, honestly, daily schedules hadn’t taught this young lady much of anything.
The educational philosophy in this world was painfully rigid.
“I’m planning to go sightseeing in Roa City.”
“Sightseeing…
so just wandering around?
Alone?”
“Do I look like I have company?”
“Unfair!
I’ve never gone out alone in my life!”
Eris stomped the ground in frustration.
“Eris is still small.
Going out alone, the chances of getting kidnapped are quite high.”
“Rudeus, you’re clearly even smaller than me!
You’re two years younger!”
Oh.
Right.
I’d been looking at Eris through a parent’s eyes for so long, I kept forgetting I was a child too.
“Because I’m strong.
I’d have a fighting chance even against Ghislaine.”
I said it with a smug grin.
Eris raised her fist.
I reflexively braced for impact.
She didn’t swing.
Rare.
This young lady had actually learned to hold herself back.
She lowered her fist and crossed her arms instead, looking down at me from above.
“I’m coming too!”
That was her verdict, apparently.
Up until recently, she would have hit first and declared second.
Looking at it that way, Eris really had grown.
“Then let’s go together.”
“Really?”
I had no reason to refuse.
“Ghislaine will come too, right?”
Eris looked up toward Ghislaine.
“Yes.
My duty is to guard the young lady.”
“Yes!
Then wait for me!
I’ll be ready in a second!
Alphonse!
Alphonse~!”
I watched Eris charge back into the mansion, shouting the whole way.
Still that loud.
Didn’t she ever go hoarse?
“Rudeus.”
I turned at the sound of Ghislaine’s voice.
She’d moved to stand right beside me.
I looked up at her.
At nearly 2 meters tall, that would probably still be the case even when I was fully grown.
“Don’t put too much faith in your own strength.”
A calm, direct warning.
She was probably responding to the comment about fighting her.
“I know.
I was just teasing the young lady.”
Because in any real fight taken to its conclusion, my head would’ve been on the ground long before the end.
“I see.
If you run into danger, shout.
I’ll come for you.”
“That’s reassuring.”
The topic wound down.
Then Eris came back.
She’d changed into outdoor clothes I hadn’t seen before.
“Very cute.”
Genuinely.
Not the parent’s-eye-view talking.
“…Hmph!”
I complimented her outfit.
She knocked me on the head.
What exactly was that about.
…
The fortress city of Roa was the largest town in Fittoa Territory.
In sheer area, though, Buena Village out in the sprawling farmlands was actually bigger.
Even walking the full circuit outside the walls only took about 2 hours.
Still, the scale here was considerable.
The entire town was enclosed by an outer wall roughly 7 to 8 meters high.
The wall wasn’t a perfect circle — it bent and jutted to follow the terrain — so an exact measurement was impossible, but the enclosed area was probably around 30 square kilometers.
By my old-world standards that wasn’t impressive, but I had to admit building walls of that scale was no small feat.
Was there construction magic that could raise city walls?
If so, it would have to be King-rank or Emperor-rank at minimum.
Or maybe they just roughed out the bricks and stones and stacked them by hand.
While I was turning these things over in my head, Eris had zeroed in on something in a shop window.
I drifted over.
She was staring at a short sword.
High-end merchandise, by the look of the place.
“Eris, do you want that sword?”
“I do!
But my allowance won’t cover it…”
Right.
Apparently Eris had once gone out with servants and blown through 430 gold coins in one outing, getting thoroughly swindled.
After that, she was capped at 5 gold coins whenever she left the estate.
“I see.”
I walked up to the shopkeeper.
“How much for this sword?”
“Oh?
Young master, excellent taste!
Only twenty gold coins!”
I ignored him and turned to Eris.
“Pay attention.
That sword is twenty gold coins.”
“Huh?”
I took her by the arm and found a blacksmith’s shop.
It was a proper one, swords of every kind on display.
Eris’s eyes went wide.
She looked left, looked right, practically spinning in place.
“Go on.
Pick one you like.”
“I can!?”
Her face lit up.
Then she was gone, diving into the racks.
“Yes, of course.
Pick one, and then I’ll decide whether to actually give it to you.”
She didn’t hear the second half.
She was completely absorbed.
No wonder her swordsmanship had come so far — she genuinely loved swords.
After nearly 20 minutes, she pulled out a slightly short sword with a ruby set into the hilt.
It suited her.
“This one!
I want this one!”
“Alright.”
I brought her to the shop owner.
“How much for this sword?”
The man looked up, opened his mouth, then caught sight of Ghislaine standing off to the side, the kind of person who very obviously knew her way around a blade.
He recalibrated.
“Uh…
eleven gold coins…”
“Eris, how much was that sword back at the other shop?”
“Umm…
um…
twenty!”
“Correct.
So how much cheaper is this one?”
“Huh!
Uh…
twenty minus five…
minus five more…
uh…”
She started counting on her fingers.
Come on, Eris.
This is basic addition and subtraction.
You had everything under twenty down two months ago.
I know you did.
I kept my inner screaming internal and waited.
“Uh…
minus one more…
nine gold coins cheaper!”
I stared at her fingers.
“Wrong.
The correct answer is nine gold coins cheaper.”
“It was only off by one!
So I just add one and that’s the right answer!”
Wait.
No.
Even adding one doesn’t make the method right.
Had she forgotten the entire logic of arithmetic?
What exactly had I been teaching for 6 months?
I let it go.
Praise her, at least she hasn’t forgotten her multiplication tables.
Yet.
Then again, that was its own kind of strange.
Forgetting basic addition and subtraction while progressing to multiplication and division?
I had a premonition that someday she would return every single thing I’d taught her, all at once, with nothing held back.
“Yes, that’s the right answer this time.
My, Eris is so clever.”
“Hmph!
Of course!”
“In honor of getting it right, your teacher will buy you this sword as a gift.”
“Oh~!”
I paid the man.
The money was actually from Philip, who’d handed it to me the previous evening.
He’d heard Eris would be coming along and, knowing her track record, had told me to hold on to it so I could buy her something and conveniently boost my standing with her in the process.
Eris spent a solid while swinging the sword around the shop, making excited sounds with every arc.
When she finally wound down, she came to stand in front of me.
“Uh…
ah…
mm!”
She fidgeted.
Opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
What was this about?
“Th…
than…
thank you!
Ru…
Rudeus!”
The words burst out of her all at once.
Then she bolted out of the shop.
Ghislaine followed.
I stood there alone, sitting with the warmth of it.
So that’s how it feels.
Was this what my mother felt, the first time I thanked her?
“Heh…
hehe…”
I caught myself grinning like an idiot.
I smoothed my expression, and walked out.
After that, the day became genuinely fun.
The 3 of us tried practically everything we came across that none of us had eaten before.
This world’s monsters were all bizarre looking, but the ones the vendors sold tasted surprisingly decent, they probably hand-picked the edible ones to begin with.
By the time dusk started bleeding into the sky, Eris was still bouncing.
“Rudeus!
Ghislaine!
Look at this!”
She’d climbed up onto a fountain statue and was posing with her new sword raised high.
“Come down.
That’s dangerous.”
“It’s fine!
Even if I fall, Rudeus will catch me with magic!”
“That’s not necessarily—”
She jumped.
Reflexively, I shaped the wind beneath her into a cushion.
“Hmph!
I wouldn’t have been hurt even without that!”
“Sure.
I know.”
My own instincts had made me look like exactly the sort of contrary person I was making fun of.
The tsundere heroines from those novels in my previous life.
Right.
“Rudeus.
Eris.
It’s getting dark.
Time to head back.”
“I know already!”
Same volume, all day.
Boundless energy.
The 3 of us turned toward the castle.
“Rudeus…”
Eris fell into step beside me.
“What is it?”
“Uh…
Rudeus…
did you have fun today…?”
This willful little terror was asking about someone else’s feelings.
She really had grown.
I felt something warm and a little foolish settle in my chest.
“I had a lot of fun.
What about you, Eris?”
“Me too!
And…
thank you for the gift…”
“You already thanked me for that.
If you put in the effort the day after tomorrow, that’ll be thanks enough.”
“I…
I know already!”
6 months ago, she’d been a wild, arrogant force of nature.
Now she was a little girl who’d somehow become, against all odds, kind of endearing.
It really hadn’t been easy.
But today’s rest day ended perfectly.
Just like that.
➤ Next: Birthday — The Conversation