199 - Reunion and Parting
I added a Leonardo side story before Aurelia's side story in Chapter 198. Since it was inserted as a page revision rather than an insert, it may be hard to notice.
In the midst of the chaos, I confessed that I was a reincarnator with memories of being Japanese, but my life didn't particularly change. I thought for sure I'd be sold to the capital or immediately made to read research materials on the Japanese language, but nothing happened.
...Well, when I calmly thought about it, Leonyaldo-san isn't strapped for money, right?
I hear Japanese reincarnators sell for a high price, but Leonardo earns well to begin with, so he's not short on money. There was never any need to sell a child from the start.
Still, even if the decision was made to sweep it under the rug, what I did wasn't forgivable. As punishment, Alf handed down a sentence of one month's confinement.
...The fact that he properly prepared a punishment makes him more brotherly than Leonyaldo-san, doesn't it, Alf-san.
When I told him exactly what I thought when the confinement was announced, Leonardo got sulky. He said he was supposed to be her big brother. But he understood that there was no way I could easily come to think of the man who came as a slave trader as my brother, so he only sulked a little. He quickly switched his thinking and smiled wryly, saying he'd just rebuild our trust from scratch. It's a secret that I thought that face was handsome.
One month's confinement was actually a rather subtle thing. I'm not an active person who goes out to play in the city to begin with, so the confinement itself wasn't hard at all. There were plenty of books in the residence to pass the time, my hobby is embroidery, and recently I've been practicing bobbin lace too. Unless Leonyaldo takes me out, I rarely go outside anyway.
...I can now weave the geometric patterns that Aurelia-san first taught me, but I'd like her to grade them.
I'm at a subtle point - should I include it in a letter, or wait until she comes to the city? We're still at the stage of asking about her room preferences by letter, so Aurelia won't be coming right away. Considering waiting for a reply, sending it with a letter for grading would probably be faster.
...Nah, but if it's done properly by Aurelia-san's standards, I'd rather have her praise me directly, you know?
Being praised through a letter isn't as nice as having her stroke my head with those wrinkled hands and praise me. Being praised is a given. I practiced the basic weaving patterns so much that even I'm amazed at myself, so if it's still not good enough, I'd want to receive Aurelia's guidance again.
Finishing one embroidery job, I put away the needle and thread in my sewing box. Today, Salisa is supposed to teach me cooking in the afternoon.
...Kalisa's sweets were delicious too, but Salisa's sweets and cooking are both delicious.
At the Mandez residence, they apparently divided work by personal preference, but that doesn't mean they have any fatal weaknesses. They have the skill to do any job perfectly, and on top of that, they did the work they preferred.
...Come to think of it, being allowed to use knives in cooking... is that a change, I suppose?
This is the small change since I told Leonyaldo that I'm a Japanese reincarnator. Until now, I was forbidden from using knives and other bladed tools because they were dangerous, but now I'm allowed. Of course, since no one in the residence other than Leonyaldo knows I'm a reincarnator, someone's hand hovers nearby when I use a knife, but still, progress is progress.
"Come here, Tina."
"What is it, deshu?"
I got permission to use knives, but today, just as I was measuring out flour with Salisa, who was going to teach me to make sweets, Leonyaldo poked his head in from the kitchen entrance and beckoned me over. Wondering what it was, I obediently approached, and Leonyaldo held out a cloth rolled up like a scroll.
"...You're giving this to me, deshu?"
"Yeah. Take a look."
Encouraged to look, I unrolled the scroll. The open cloth had its edges sewn into pockets, and each pocket contained small-sized cooking tools like a knife and a whisk.
"This is..."
"You said you wanted to learn cooking, right? A full-sized knife is still dangerous, so this is a child's set for Tina."
Before he could finish saying that I must always have an adult like Salisa or Tabitha present when using them, I hugged his waist with all my strength. I hugged him to convey my gratitude and joy, but Leonyaldo stiffened slightly, then, as if nothing had happened, placed his large hand on my head.
...Is this a change too?
Before, when I hugged him, Leonyaldo would hug me back normally, but after I told him I was a reincarnator, he's been strangely tense. Even though I'm a reincarnator, even though I'm a criminal, he said I'm family and his little sister, which made me happy, but I wonder why Leonyaldo's reaction changed subtly. I thought he'd go back to normal after a few days, but even after more than a week, Leonyaldo's tension hasn't disappeared.
"...Leonyaldo-san, you've been tense lately when I hug you, ne."
"Have you grown tired of your weird little sister?" I asked, looking up while still clinging to him, and Leonyaldo, with a troubled expression, patted my head once, then crouched down and brought his face close to my ear.
...A secret talk?
In Leonyaldo's own home, I wondered if a secret talk was necessary. But Salisa was at the workbench, continuing to prepare the sweet-making ingredients even though I'd stepped away. If it was something he didn't want Salisa to hear, a secret talk might be necessary even for the master of the residence.
"Being a reincarnator... that means you're not the age you appear to be, right?"
Looking reluctant to say it, Leonyaldo began like this.
A reincarnator is a person who has memories of a previous life. That means, even though I'm ten years old now, maybe the inside me is a mature adult. That would explain why I'm such a mature child. But once he thought that, he wasn't sure whether he should treat me as a child like before or as an adult, and he was troubled, he said.
...Personally, it's way too late for that! Seriously!
From the very beginning, he tried to strip me in Aurelia's bath, suggested we bathe together, slept in the same bed... as a woman with adult experience, there were too many things I had thoughts about. But it's all in the past. In the end, I gave up and decided to act like a child, and maybe thanks to that, recently that pride of having an adult mind from my past life has disappeared somewhere. I've come to feel no doubt or resistance about being ten years old. Being treated as an adult now, just because my inside might be a mature adult, would be a bit troublesome.
Suppressing the curses swirling inside me, I also covered Leonyaldo's ears with both hands as he whispered to me. Having me make such a childish gesture as whispering secrets, and then talking about being an adult now... there's no sense in that.
"...I don't think I'm the age I appear to be, deshu, but I don't think I'm that far off either."
If you asked whether I have the mind of a ten-year-old, I feel like I might be a little older, but I don't think I have a completely adult mind. I used to think I was an adult, but strangely enough, I've come to accept myself as a child now.
"I'm properly a child, so I want to hug my guardian (big brother), and I'm happy when he pats my head too, deshu yo."
So please pet me with affection, I said, offering my head, and the tension drained from Leonyaldo's body. It seems he really had been troubled these past few days about whether to treat me as a child as before or as an adult.
"...So treating you like a slightly mature child is fine, then."
"Even if you hear I'm a child, will you still let me handle knives, deshu ka?"
If he allowed me to handle knives because he thought I might be an adult, then if I declared I was still a child, his thoughts might change to thinking it was too early for me to handle knives. Just in case, I held out the scroll and looked up at Leonyaldo. Instead of taking the scroll, Leonyaldo's raised hand patted my head.
"I trust that my little sister won't do anything dangerous."
"Make sure you listen to what Salisa and Tabitha tell you," Leonyaldo said, admonishing me, and the strain and tension were completely gone from him.
From my perspective, Leonyaldo's attitude over the past few days seemed 'tense,' but apparently Hermine saw it differently. That his way of treating me had changed was a shared understanding, but from Hermine's view, it seemed like Leonyaldo had shifted to treating me a little more like an adult than a complete dependent.
...My request to learn cooking went through easily, but I didn't think much more of it than that.
Hermine apparently wanted to use this change in Leonyaldo's attitude to make me learn more ladylike behavior. Since the complete coddling mode was gone, she wanted to use that to build a brother-sister distance befitting a lady, she said.
The information that I'm a Japanese reincarnator was shared only between Leonyaldo and Alf. So everyone else's attitude toward me has been nothing different from before - treating me as the ten-year-old little sister of Leonyaldo. Maybe Jean-Jacques, who was standing watch outside, also heard the conversation, but I think it's strange that Jean-Jacques hasn't said anything about such a perfect teasing point as my body and mind ages not matching. Perhaps he really didn't hear anything.
After the Spring Blossom Festival, which ended with just sending Salisa on an errand to the Three Crows Tavern, the exchange of letters with Aurelia finally increased. To prepare a room for Aurelia, I contacted her about her preferred colors and furniture and arranged them. Preparing a room is apparently one of the essential skills of a lady, and Hermine enthusiastically offered to consult, saying it was practical training. When I peeked at the interior workers changing the wallpaper, I was scolded that supervising the craftsmen was a servant's job, not the role of a lady giving instructions. The craftsmen laughed, saying "children always want to watch this kind of work," but Hermine insisted that it wouldn't do for me to keep acting like a child forever. I don't particularly want to become a lady, but as Leonyaldo's little sister, I understood that Hermine's words were correct, so I left the supervision to Bart.
As for Aurelia, apparently she's been drilling management methods for the medicinal herb garden into her apprentices as part of the moving process. Yes, moving.
...I got Aurelia-san to definitively say she's moving!
At first, it was just a matter of her possibly staying for a bit as a visit, but as we exchanged letters several times, Aurelia snapped. She said letters were tedious. That it'd be faster to talk directly. Once it came to that, things progressed easily. Before I knew it, Alf arranged the formalities, and I wrote a letter to Aurelia. In the end, with backing from the Sedovara Church as well, I achieved the great victory of her moving.
As for her two apprentices, the plan is for Barbara to come to the city first to study pharmacy arts when Aurelia moves, and once Barbara is established, she'll switch with Paula, who will come to study pharmacy arts and manage the herb garden. Barbara and Aurelia often have trouble communicating smoothly, but they wanted me to act as an interpreter in between.
...Huh?
I wonder if the next reply will come soon. Around the time my confinement period was ending, replies from Aurelia stopped coming. Knowing Aurelia, it's possible she's started finding it troublesome to write replies since she'll be moving soon anyway.
I was taking it easy, thinking no news is good news, when Alfred came from the capital carrying a letter.
"So you really were a reincarnator."
Those were his first words when he saw my face after I was called to the reception room. His tone was exasperated, but he didn't seem particularly angry about being deceived. When I tried to take the letter he held out, he lightly chopped me with it. It didn't hurt at all, but this must have been Alfred's way of getting back at me. When he pointed out before that I was 'probably a reincarnator,' I had guided Leonyaldo to deceive him by saying I 'wasn't a reincarnator.'
"I've received a formal decision from His Majesty the King that your misdeeds will not be pursued."
The letter I was given was sealed, but for some reason Alfred orally stated the contents. As I wondered what the point of the letter was, Leonyaldo, who had also come to greet Alfred, made a rather complicated face.
"But what Tina did..."
"If what Tina did becomes public, Alfred's name would be stained."
At Alfred's suddenly tightening expression, I unconsciously straightened my back. Even I, who hardly understood, straightened my back, so for Leonyaldo, a knight whose liege lord is Alfred, the effect was immediate. The hesitation that must have been there in Leonyaldo about turning a blind eye to injustice cleanly disappeared.
...Alfred's name would be stained. Come to think of it, Alfred-sama was the one who first said I could look at the transcription, wasn't he?
Certainly, if my crime were made public and investigated in detail, Alfred might also suffer a disadvantage. If that's the case, as Alf suggested, sweeping it under the rug as if it never happened would probably have the least impact on those around us.
"In exchange, a summons to the capital has been issued for Tina."
"...Uwaa. I don't want to go, deshu."
"Honesty is a virtue, but you should accept this summons. They want to do a face-to-face check with a Japanese reincarnator."
When told that a summons had also been issued for Leonyaldo as my guardian, I couldn't very well say I didn't want to go anymore. The reason Leonyaldo was being summoned was undoubtedly my fault. I couldn't run away alone.
"Also, this is off the record... but you really managed to talk that Aurelia into coming! I praise you! With that achievement, this crime that hasn't even been formally established is truly not worth pursuing."
Alfred patted my head so much that my hair, which Salisa had beautifully braided, became a mess, declaring this with a thoroughly satisfied expression. It seems I've really been saved by Aurelia. Not knowing whether I should feel relieved or apologetic toward Aurelia, the entrance became noisy.
...What's that?
The kind of person who would make the entrance noisy (Alfred) was already inside the reception room. Unable to think of anyone who would disturb the place more than him, I vaguely strained my ears to listen, and busy footsteps came toward us. Even though a prince (Alfred) was visiting, the reception room door opened without any prior announcement or knock. The one who opened the door was Pearl, the gatekeeper.
"An express messenger has come to the fortress from the Restham Knight Order!"
Pearl's gaze swept the room, but perhaps because of the back of the sofa, I wasn't in his field of vision. His movement paused once when his eyes met with Alfred and Leonyaldo's, but he skipped over me.
"The Witch of Waiyakku Valley is said to have died!"
I know the upload date is April Fool's Day, but just because it's the 2nd doesn't mean the development changes. This was the development I planned from the beginning.
This concludes Chapter 5. Next is Chapter 6.
I'm thinking of taking about ten days off, combining the early Chapter 200 commemorative break with the chapter-start plot confirmation break. The next update is planned for the 11th. I've been feeling like adding a Leonardo perspective side story, so I might secretly add it before Aurelia's side story somewhere, but plans are undecided.
Typos and omissions again another day. Fixed any typos and omissions I found.