Absolutely Do Not Touch Eldmia Egga

Chapter 6: Really Had to Do It to Feel Right

Going by the story heard, it looked like it wasn’t their parents.

The war with the Demon King Army didn’t seem to have an end, and although it wasn’t at a level of fighting day after day, she said that there were many fights in the last 3 years.

The ones that I beat up and the ones that were looking for me because of that were probably friends who had naively ran out of their homes saying they’d go on an adventure and were buying misery onto themselves, so Asileye guessed.

It was a world where the line of being an adult was 16 years old. They truly were donkeys of chaos that failed to get a hold of themselves within the egomaniacal idiot-disease of their roaring teenage years and ran out as if infected with a hero-disease.

“Isn’t there also a chance they are war orphans?”

“There’s no way those kinds of kids are in Ogwen.”

Asileye quietly stared at me and quietly conveyed through it that her words meant more than what they said, and I understood.

Well, yeah. Besides our village getting pulverized, there wasn’t particularly a war happening around here. It meant that, normally, the only one that fit the special case called a war orphan was just me. In the first place, even I couldn’t predict what would have happened to me if it wasn’t for Asileye. Even if they were four, five years older than me, it was clear that the chance of kids in that sort of situation coming all the way alone to this far away Owgen without any help was slim.

In short, it meant that those guys really were simply pitiful idiots who knew nothing of the world.

“Truthfully, the thing called a slowly growing city is probably a land of opportunity for those kinds of kids. Since there should only be a little or no violent gangs or similar, wouldn’t they reign like kings among vagrant children so long as they settle properly?”

“Is something like that common?”

“Of course. Because it’s a war.”

To think they’d aim for such a petty opportunity, and let alone forgo living honestly, it really must be the end of the world. Not only that, since not just humans but even an elf knew of it, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it an embarrassment of our race.

“So, what are you going to do?”

“Meet them, of course.”

When I immediately answered since it was an absolutely obvious problem that needed no contemplation, Asileye pressed her temples.

“Honestly, I don’t worry when looking just at your abilities. Even without something like aura, it wouldn’t be wrong to call you exceptional amongst kids your age. But the thing called reality always comes with surprises, doesn’t it?”

“That’s why I gotta at least experience it when I’m young. It’s not like they’ll actually pull out a sword, right?”

Beyond the question of being an adult or not, it was a problem of money. In the end, they were just kids that circled round and round like that and gathered to playact a ruffian. Kids that hadn’t even fully gathered and formed a faction yet, but still mid gathering.

It would be extraordinary if anyone besides their chief had even a dagger. And even if they pulled it out, in just what world would exist a lunatic that would even commit murder inside a city? 

“Rather, this is an opportunity. An opportunity of experiencing a perfectly safe real fight.”

In the first place, the reason I called those guys tiny kids included not only their mentality but their physics too.

The way we grew differed. I was a one that completely resolved myself and lived with a goal of training and refining myself from 8 years-old to until that 16 years-old day of stepping out into the world. And the time called 3 years absolutely wasn’t a short amount of time. Although there might be a guy taller than me, my body whose strengths also increased as I flipped past 10 years-old was the definition of tough, and definitely wasn’t common. It might be difficult with just my body if their numbers turned big, but in the first place it was a fight with an infinitely near-zero chance of losing. I had no hobby of bullying weaker kids, but I had zero thought of dodging a fight they called first. That was an act that crossed my creed.

Since it was natural for the body to stiffen regardless of however much practice if one wasn’t used to the feeling of being surrounded by people or being in a fight, this was a good experience. Since I wasn’t a genius, after all.

When I wholeheartedly smiled and got excited at the opportunity bestowed from the sky because of that, Asileye exhaled a deep sigh and spoke.

“I really can’t tell your thoughts.”

“Don’t worry about it too much, sis. Trust in your little brother. I’m not a hooligan who speaks with my fist first.”

If I didn’t have to fight, I could just not fight. In the first place my entire life would be that of fights if I lived and worked as an adventurer with the skills I learned, so for what reason would I want to dot this peaceful moment with violence? I didn’t want something like that. 

“Yeah. I might not know all about my little bro, but I do know that. There’s a talk that they stand fixed in front of Mister Yans’s smithery around lunch times. Try going there tomorrow.”

She didn’t treat me like kids my age based on her experiences until now, but it seemed she couldn’t help about being worried. At least for such Asileye, I resolved to solve it peacefully and vigorously cleaned the fireplace.

🔷

After that I worried about waking up too early from to going to sleep without straining myself in case of a possible fight, but unexpectedly I slept really well.

After the morning routine of exercise and checking the traps set in the forest like usual, and having finished the breakfast Asileye made for me, I picked a suitable time and rode a horse towards Ogwen.

Having sped up for once, it felt like it took about 20 minutes. When I waved at a familiar person standing guard, a reply came back.

“Isn’t this Eldmia? Miss Asileye definitely came yesterday, so what brings you here?”

“I heard someone was looking for me, so I came to play out of curiosity.”

“Hhm. Don’t cause trouble.”

“Mister really worry too much. What kind of trouble could happen from meeting someone?”

“Kids your age make trouble just from sleeping, you little rascal. Even without that, strange guys increased recently, so be careful.”

In the 3 years the number of guards who learned our faces increased a lot too. Having entered the village while casually chatting, I headed directly toward the smithery Mr. Yans ran. Would the strange guys be the brats that got beat up by me as expected?

It was a time slowly nearing lunch. When I neared the smithery while taking in the city animated in its peak, a group I could tell just from a glance was squinting at people passing by.

The six kids were emaciated, dirty, and the way they opened their eyes was really irksome. At the least, one guy was definitely one of those that got beat up by me.

When I casually got down from the horse and approached them after tying it in front of the smithery, that guy glared his eyes and picked a fight. 

“What you looking at? Get out of here!”

“I came for you ’cause you called, though? Should I go?”

The six brats’ eyebrows weirdly twitched and then united into an ‘Ah!’ expression. They probably couldn’t tell at first because I cut my hair. The one that had gotten beat up shouted.

“You son of a bitch! You’re here!”

The brats that were squatting immediately stood up and noisily swarmed towards me.

When I backstepped out since they obviously were trying to surround me, another guy shouted.

“Fuck, you running fucker?” 

“Are you an idiot? You’re moving to surround me, so obviously I’m moving to not get surrounded.”

When I backstepped like that and went all the way to where the horse was, they maintained their clumsily attempted encirclement and glared at me. They didn’t do anything even after several seconds passed, so in the end I had to open my mouth first.

“What are you looking at? Hurry and talk if you got something to say. I only came because I heard you were searching, and got nothing to do with you. I’m busy.”

When I sighed from being simply exasperated at their acts and spoke, a guy full of freckles snickered and opened his mouth. Seeing how even his eyes were dull, he looked a bit lacking somewhere.

“Shitty fucker. You scared?”

He truly was a guy who played like how he looked. At the jumbled logic I simply couldn’t follow, my brows unconsciously creased.

“No wait, don’t open your mouth if you’re an idiot. The smartest one among you, please, answer me a little. Why is he blabbering nonsense?

“The hell, you shit?”

“Just what’s the pebble-headed idiot who ‘asks back if I’m scared when I explicitly came to ask why you were calling’ saying? Got nothing to say? I can go if all you’re doing is glaring like this, right?”

“You son of a bitch!”

I really couldn’t understand, but the freckles crumpled his face and swung his fist. Well yeah, there wasn’t particularly a need to understand.

– Pphaakk!

“Kuk!”

That fist struck not even my face but my stomach, so I just got hit and directly fed a fist to his face. As expected it didn’t hurt very much and I just got a bit of dust from getting hit by a dirty fist, so I lightly dusted it off and checked out the rest of them.

The five brats’ gazes were all planted on the guy that fell and didn’t get up after taking a punch to his face.

“Alright. The greatest pebble-headed idiot has shut his mouth, so now let’s properly have a conversation. Why did you look for me?” 

“O, our chief is looking for you. Follow.”

The one that had gotten beat up finally opened his mouth after wavering a while, but the contents were real underwhelming.

“Why would I?”

“What?”

“It’s your chief, not mine. What’s he to say come and go?”

Was it because the words from my mouth were the fact? The guy abruptly shook sharply, then shouted as if spasming. Huhu, the sight of a one shivering from fact bombing was truly… 

“Fucking shit shut up and follow! If you don’t wanna see that elf bitch croak!”

“…what?”

What? Elf what?

I couldn’t tell what my expression was like due to my thought abruptly failing to follow, but it must’ve been an amazingly dumbfounded look. At that, as if it was a sign they won, the five of them began to laugh. 

“Fucking idiot. You thought we didn’t know? You live with that elf girl, ah? We know all of where that girl goes around. You understood, fucking shit?”

“That fucking bitch is raising you by selling herself, eh? Shut up and follow if you don’t wanna see her get passed around for free.”

Only after standing still for a while, I could understand what the bastards were saying.

And I could barely understand whom the ‘elf bitch’ and ‘elf girl’ and ‘fucking bitch’ they were talking about meant.

Aha. So those guys were just now calling Asileye an ‘elf bitch’, ‘elf girl’, and ‘fucking bitch’!

Did they finally screw their heads on backwards after squirming to croak themselves?

“I’m Eldmia Egga.”

“What?”

“The fuck is the shitty idiot suddenly saying?”

I couldn’t quite look straight at the bastards that blabbered on without grasping the situation. I shouldn’t be like this already at a young age, but the situation was as it looked and the back of my neck really turned completely  stiff. For now, I forcibly pulled down the blood crammed into the top of my head and continued my words.

“Just memorize it. That you absolutely shouldn’t touch Eldmia Egga.”

It’s a change of plans.

I should use these bastards as sacrifices to carve my creed into Ogwen.