Absolutely Do Not Touch Eldmia Egga

Chapter 12: Lagnis Lien da Levien

If one talked of the most dramatic change that happened in Owgen in 3 years, it definitely was the fortress wall.

The wooden fences disappeared, and when people thought small stone walls were appearing, they slowly got sturdier and taller and then a gate was built. Unless an idiot, it was a point on which one could tell how the Ithysiel Kingdom viewed Ogwen.

Although there hadn’t been a single attack around Ogwen since the assault 6 years ago, it had no plan to naively neglect it. Ogwen was slowly attaining the capabilities of a fortress city.

“Halt. This is an identity check.”

“Wow, this is really too much. Big bro, do you have to stop me like this every time you see me?”

“Kulkulkul. Is this noncompliance? You got a problem with your big bro stopping you to see his little bro’s face, eh?”

I didn’t particularly take out and show my travel pass to gate guard Alec who was smiling and brushing the horse I was riding. He was joking, after all. But Alec, who really stopped me even as he brushed my horse, awkwardly coughed and spoke up.

“Hm. Hey, if this bothers you, introduce your big bro to a girl.”

“I’m speechless. Big bro who’s lived 20 years in the village is asking the mountainside boy Eldmia to introduce him to a girl?”

“Ah, you know. That one living in aunt Alisha’s…”

“That’s not one or two, you know?”

The war had continued on, and the city began to have more orphans than runaway kids unlike 3 years before. I’d no idea just what policy the city was running, but quite a lot of refugees had moved into Ogwen and, although I tried hard as well, it wasn’t a level a mere one person could handle alone. Even then I gave chances to the kids that came and went, but the ones that remained were around twenty kids.

Now aunt Alisha’s inn was an inn in name only, and acted a role closer to an orphanage for those kids. With the help of its neighbors, the inn that originally had a capacity of 7 people got expanded to accept up to 25 people, and with a partnership with the Holy Light Church, the sole religious institution in the village and worshippers of the god of light Ete, was enthusiastically providing aid work for the poor. And our expletive-spitting madam, as if to prove her kind personality, looked far more passionate and joyful than before. I felt it all the time, but she really was a saintess. What else could be a saintess if not this?

Anyway, this guy saying those words to me definitely meant that he, in short, was head over heels for one of the six girls within that twenty people.

“Shit. That brown haired miss! Slightly thick!”

“Ah. Remiri?”

I reflexively snorted a laugh.

“Good luck with that on your own. Why would you ask me that? I’m going.”

“Oh come on. Hey! Hey! Ah, seriously man!”

Remiri the girl with braided hair was already popular in the nearby market streets thanks to her outstanding competence at work and her gentle personality. Since she worked really often enough to be called the front girl at Tex’s clothing store that now had gotten slightly bigger, she probably made the eldest son of the Tex Miller family, Alec Miller’s heart flutter as she came and went.

But fucking hell, why would I help someone else’s love affair? I’d no plan to hand-feed the moron who didn’t even get the hint on why Remiri was working at Tex’s clothing store when there were better jobs.

Fucking spoling the mood right from the morning. Shit.

“Big bro! What brings you today?”

“Oh just fucking why am I your big bro? Please don’t embarrass everyone. Have some shame when you’re 4 years older than me.”

A tall young man who would be about the same height as me if I got off the horse spoke to me while carrying and moving goods in front of Milena’s grocery store. This bronze-skinned guy with striking maroon hair, who introduced himself as Jinn when we first met, was a guy that came into Ogwen about 1 year ago. From what I’d heard, he wasn’t a native of the kingdom but a foreigner from a foreign nation across the sea called Radan.

Putting aside me getting speechless from failing to even imagine how he came at that young an age to Ogwen, which wasn’t even a port city but instead located at a far inland edge, at the time he was struggling despite really diligently looking around for work due to problems like merchants avoiding him out of wariness at his looks and expressions that at the time were haggard and a little feisty.

He got caught by the eyes of Eldmia Egga, the man who didn’t judge people based on appearances, and as I passionately brought him jobs, that fuckery happened.

“Age doesn’t matter at all! You know more than me, are mature, and even got me a place to live! Of course you’re a big bro!”

“Fucking hell.”

The problem was he’s fucking noticeable. He was already eating well due to earning especially well from his energy overflowing and working a lot, but even his voice was loud and in many ways was noticeable. That might’ve meant nothing if only the villagers were going around, but Ogwen now boasted a traffic of half villagers and half outsiders. Meaning there were a lot of people even for an early morning. It shouldn’t look weird in others’ eyes since I also had a similar height, but… it’s simply embarrassing.

In the end, the call that an explanation should be faster than a persuasion was reached.

“I’m checking if the kids are working well and going to the guild on the side.”

“Hm? You mean the adventurers’ guild? Why there?”

“What d’you mean why? I’ve said it multiple times. I’m going to become an adventurer in just 2 years and go out into the world.”

“Eh?! That wasn’t a joke?!”

“No wait, why would you take that as a joke?”

When I asked back instead in bafflement, Jinn who looked at me with a dumbfounded expression as if even more baffled spoke as if it was obvious.

“No but, just why would big bro live that dayfly of a life? And not be a knight?”

Dayfly of a life. It wasn’t particularly a wrong expression. It wasn’t a job with only adventures and dreams, after all.

Although I didn’t know what Jinn’s past was like, this guy had instantly noticed that I’d trained not a little, and had baffled me the second we first met by asking me if I was an apprentice knight. He probably had believed that I was training to become a knight. But seemingly having some senses at the least, he spoke in a quiet voice unlike before.

“I told you, I gotta pluck the Demon King Army commander’s head that ruined my village.”

“So shouldn’t you be aiming for a knight?”

“And become a knight in just how many years, and meet the bastard in just what year and which battlefield?”

The war with the Demon King Army had entered its 6th year, but anything that could be called progress was nowhere to be seen.

Obviously the kingdom would at least have widely sent around an official announcement if an event that could surely raise the morales broke, but there wasn’t a story going around of beheading the historic assaulter of Ogwen’s outskirt village. The finding of the hero was the last good news.

It meant the nameless perpetrator was ultimately still alive.

“As expected of big bro, even the way you think is exceptional. It’s an idea most can’t even think of since a commander would surely be leading an army. Why such an idea?”

“Isn’t the idea of catching him with an assassin act far smarter than catching that army-leading guy by enlisting into an army?”

“That’s why I said it’s as expected of big bro.”

I wasn’t sure just what he saw to act like that, but this guy didn’t brush aside these kinds of words that I’d spewed out. He really thought that I’d try them and succeed. It was because of that reaction that I needlessly found him uncomfortable.

“Anyway, I’m going. Good luck with the work.”

“Okay! Let’s have a meal together if you stay until lunch.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Waving adequately, I got back on my horse and headed to Yans’s smithery. The shiny head of Yans, who was leisurely smoking a pipe while his apprentices lit the smithery furnace’s fire, was easily discoverable.

“I, with Asileye’s permission, have arrived!”

“Already? Isn’t Asileye pampering you too much?”

It was the most significant business in today’s visit. At the end of multiple duels with Asileye, she had finally allowed me to carry around a real sword.

‘You don’t use the sword lightly in the first place, and… you aren’t a kid who can’t kill someone without it either.’

Though it was more a morality check than a test of skill.

“My diligence has merely shined.”

I passed the longsword I’d carried on my back by the scabbard.

“Now there’s no reason to carry it on my back! Give to me! The belt!”

“Huh. I thought you only had the looks, but you’ve been properly thinking ‘bout it.”

“What the? Mister, you’ve looked at me with that kind of eyes all these years?”

“Kulkulkul. Honestly yeah. Even so, it’s a relief that you’re a brat with a proper thought stuck in your head. It’ll take about an hour, so go play and then come back.”

Yans tapped and dusted his pipe, and then immediately went into his smithery. Like that, I held my beating heart and leisurely headed to Alisha’s inn and, once I arrived, a scene bustling right from the morning spread before my eyes.

From priests wearing the uniforms of the Holy Light Church to all sorts of vagrant kids to even the kids who now had completely taken off the vagrant looks, it was dizzyingly busy enough to wonder if this really was the crack of dawn.

Although I did hear that they were periodically receiving goods from the Holy Light Church, I was rather taken aback ‘cause it was the first time I saw it in person, but it seemed it wasn’t merely that.

“Sewer cleaning group gather here. And get the bread honorable priests and priestesses are handing out.”

“Boys picked for fort wall reinforcement work, your lunch bags are ready!”

“Delivery guys, come inside the inn. There’s still time left, so rest inside.”

I recently didn’t have any need to come early in the morning and merely visited when I sometimes remembered it, but before I knew it, Alisha’s inn had become an employment agency for vagrant kids.

No wait, really? There was a wiz who could do this hiding among the kids?

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