by J. J. Pavlov
I poked a part of a girl nobody should ever touch.
"Don't you ever do that again, or I'll ram this all the way up there and show you exactly how it feels." Balling up her small and scarred hand, she glares at me with her big blue eyes. A shiver runs through me at the thought, and I nod frantically.
Though, isn't that disproportionate retribution?
In the end, Senka chose a simple, long-sleeved white shirt, a gray pair of leggings, and a black coat with a white fur trim that reaches all the way over her knees. A capelet, coming in a set with the dress, covers her shoulders.
She also asked for bandages instead of gloves for her battered hands and selected a simple black hat to accompany her outfit. For some reason, she then picked out a pair of knee-high leather boots that had to be meticulously tied, too. It doesn't fit the rest at all, but I can't deny anything she's asking for, after what I did to her.
"The copyright claim will be my revenge..." She mutters with an annoyed expression still on her face. We're in the changing room again, and she's just about to finish gearing up, after the tailor-made some minor adjustments.
"Wait, huh? What's that about copyright?" I spin my head around to her, but she ignores me while putting on her shoes.
While I wasn't paying attention, she already finished with everything else. Now that I think about it, she skillfully avoided taking off her underwear, which must be hiding whatever modification Daica performed on her.
Actually, I'm grateful for that, since I don't really want to know...
When we leave the store with a newly-dressed cursed doll, the sun is already disappearing behind the houses around us. You really forget the passage of time when you have fun. I'm starting to feel hungry and remember that we only had brunch today.
"Let's go back to the guild and have dinner." It's not so much a suggestion but a statement. We had planned to meet with the others for dinner anyway, so it's the obvious course of action for us to take. As expected, nobody has any objections.
When we reach guild hall, Gram and the bard are already there. The latter is somehow always already there, it seems. Since I don't see Rolan and Luna, I assume they're still out on their quest, so dinner will have to wait. The big man has a jug of beer or ale sitting on the table in front of him, so in a way, he already started something on his own.
"What were you up to today, missy?" He asks me while signaling at the waitress to bring me one as well. Daica asks for a glass of water, as does Kamii. Even though the latter is old enough, I still wouldn't be happy with her drinking something alcoholic; she looks the way she does after all. Considering I'm still underage myself, I shouldn't be one to talk.
"We got Senka a new dress." I lift the doll girl up for the big man to see. It may not have been so apparent, because of its similarly dark color as her previous one, but at least it's no longer puffed up and full of frills.
"Oh, did Lady Nightwane buy it?" Gram obviously knows that I have no money on me, so he gets right to the point. The person in question nods in response. He suddenly reaches across the table and picks Senka up by her arm.
"Wait, you're-" I was about to say that he's hurting her, but stop myself. Not only would he look at me strangely, but I somehow don't believe that she can be hurt by something like that. Senka did say that she's quite sturdy, and if it hurt, she would most likely speak up. I know I wouldn't be able to pretend that I'm a doll if someone twisted my arm around.
"Hm, but I have to say, its design is really creepy." Looking at her face from close up, Gram comments while scratching his chin. He then hands her back to me without causing any problems. I hug her to me and hope she's not mad that I didn't do more to stop him.
"No..." Daica mutters beside me, and I turn around to her. She suddenly looks at Senka, then turns to Gram, before continuing. "She isn't creepy! She's creepy-cute!"
A kindred spirit!
"You think so too?" I can't help but feel happy right now. I hadn't expected that Daica, of all people, would think that way about Senka. Especially since she knows that the doll is actually alive. But it looked like she couldn't suppress her feelings and had to announce them. "Those scars combined with her otherwise beautiful smooth skin."
"The dark rings under her big blue eyes." The dark elf adds.
"She's so creepy-cute!" We say in unison with perfect timing.
"I-is that so?" Gram is taken aback by our outburst, as I cuddle Senka and Daica mutters more words of praise, more to herself than to anybody else. I guess she's still somewhat obsessed with the doll girl, even though she knows that the latter is alive.
Kamii is looking at us with an expression that suggests a combination of incomprehension and doubtfulness. Didn't she show that she liked her design before? Or is it just that she doubts our sanity for blurting it out like that?
Daica and I both soon regain our composure and go quiet again. To bridge the spreading awkward silence, I take out the little book I got from the saint and start looking through it. Maybe I can find a new topic in here and wash down the memory of what just happened; I have appearances to keep up, after all.
Obviously, it's not in Japanese, so I can't understand it at all. This is completely useless for me right now!
But since I'm already sitting with the book opened, I'll pretend that I can read it, so that it doesn't appear too dumb from the outside. Who opens a book, looks inside and then closes it again right away?
At the moment, I can't ask Senka to help me out, since the bard is present, and Kamii seems to have pretty good hearing, too. I just hope the lovebirds are coming back soon, as shocking as that may sound. Please release me from having to flip pages and pretend that I'm reading something that I can't understand in the slightest!
Luckily, they do come into the guild hall just minutes later, and Gram lifts his jug to greet them. I slowly close the book and stash it away, before turning to greet them, all the while keeping up a calm and neutral facade. In reality, I've been feeling incredibly awkward all this time.
"How'd it go?" The big man asks when Rolan sits down at our table, while Luna remains at the reception. She's the one collecting the reward since she was the one who fulfilled the request on her own for the most part.
"What'd you expect? Flawless as always." Bragging, the leader waves over a waitress and orders a jug of ale for himself and some kind of juice for his girlfriend. I noticed that just like Daica she never drinks alcohol, so I assume it's either a physiological or cultural thing for elves.
Luna soon joins us at the table, and we order dinner. I haven't been paying much attention to what we've been eating the past few meals since we've always been holding conversations, but today is different.
Since we're so many, Rolan just ordered a whole pigling, as well as a big helping of boiled potatoes - they look and taste exactly the same as potatoes, so I'm calling them potatoes. There's also a plate of assorted grilled vegetables, which had some of the oil and sauce from the pigling sprinkled over for garnish.
It's a feast!
Daica seems to be a vegetarian; she doesn't touch any meat, and only takes vegetables onto her plate. In fact, she isn't eating much for her size. On the other hand, Kamii isn't so picky about her food and piles up just as much as I do. And she also easily finishes it all, despite her much smaller size compared to her little sister.
Could it be part of their curses as well?
In either case, it tastes really great, now that I actually consider it. It's the kind of food I would have never gotten the chance to eat if I hadn't died and been reincarnated into this world. If that's not a silver lining, I don't know what is.
Oh, and I wouldn't have met Senka, Daica, and Kamii. That should be more of a reason than the food, actually.
After dinner, we talk about some meaningless things, and the subject of moving to the capital isn't broached for the time being. Even though Daica made her decision, we don't need to let the others know, yet. I'd like to get a grasp on the language first before we move out
from here.
I'm quite happy to find that tomorrow we don't have anything planned, either. When we return to the tavern, I'll get to work on learning to read and write in this nation's language.
"Mahkotoh." Kamii suddenly calls out to me when we get back to our room. When I turn around, I find that she's staring at Senka sitting in her usual chair, her face a few inches away from the latter.
"W-what is it, Kamii?" I walk over to her, a bad feeling about what's coming next.
"Name?" She points at the doll girl. Whew, so she wasn't going to ask anything uncomfortable.
"Ootsuki Senka." I reply with a nervous smile. No harm in giving her real name here.
"Senkah?" Tilting her head and pronouncing it the same way as she does my name, she continues to stare at the doll girl's big blue eyes. "Why... don't you speak?"
I feel my heart stop for a second and I freeze in place. Just from hearing a whisper once she was able to tell that it was neither Daica nor me, and deduced that the voice must have come from Senka. What terrifying hearing ability.
"... well, not like it'll cause any harm." I shrug and wonder why I'm getting worked up over this. Kamii is a cursed dark elf, so she shouldn't have any prejudices against a small girl that looks like a stitched doll. "She'll find out sooner or later anyway."
"If you say so." Suddenly, Senka turns her head with a creaking sound and stares right back at Kamii. Unexpectedly, the little dark elf doesn't flinch in surprise and keeps up eye contact. It seems to throw the doll girl off her game, as she blinks in return. "What?"
But the little dark elf only replies with a bright smile, as if she just found herself a new toy. I didn't think she could make such an expression so soon after being freed from eleven years of slavery. It goes to show that she feels safe here.
"I have a bad feeling about this." Inching backward, Senka frowns.
"Go ahead, pick her up and play with her." I encourage Kamii with a grin. It's not like the doll girl can't move on her own, but I'm sure it'll be fun for the little dark elf to be the one carrying her around a bit. Their size difference isn't that big, so it would look closer to young siblings playing with each other.
But then I remember that Kamii can't really use her right arm.
Just when I think that, she uses her pincer to grab Senka and lift her up from the chair. It seems she has quite some strength in that arm after all, even though her hit didn't hurt at all. Was she holding back at the time?
"Well, keep her company for a while, then. I'll have Daica teach me-" I turn around towards the bathroom, where she had disappeared into the moment we returned, and find that she has come out. She's wearing only a see-through nightgown, and her face is flushed reddish-purple as her eyes swim all over the place. "-the... lang-... umm, what are you doing?"
"H-huh? I-I thought that we could... y-you know..." Stuttering even more than usual, as she always does when she's trying to broach a subject she isn't entirely confident about, Daica's eyes swim all over the place. But apparently, she doesn't even notice Kamii playing with Senka behind me.
"You thought we could do what?" I loom over her with a gleeful grin and watch her grow more and more flustered. It's just so fun to mess with her like that.
"Y-you know... I would... umm... b-become yours... and..." She trails off into faint murmuring and is unable to bear my gaze, as she shrinks under it.
Really? In front of her older sister, who seems genuinely innocent and mentally appears to be as young as Senka looks?
"Well, let's leave that aside for now." Taking Daica's hand and pulling her over to my bed, I use my other hand to pull down the suspenders of my overalls. "I have something I need your help with."
"A-a-ah, yes!" She stutters with an even deeper blush, apparently expecting that I'm going to cash in on the contract now. Sitting down on the bed with a look of anticipation, she glances between her hands nervously entwining on top of her thighs and me.
"Here, I need you to teach me how to read." I pull the book Arcelia gave me from the pocket of my overalls, before completely slipping out of them. Then I sit down next to Daica, making myself comfortable for the reading session.
"Eh?" With a blank face and blinking her eyes repeatedly, she stares at me in incomprehension.
Apparently, the language is one based on runes that represent syllables, which is somewhat similar to Japanese hiragana. But unlike hiragana, many runes change the way they're read depending on whether they're used before or after certain keystone runes. The keystone ones are just vowels that always remain the same, and they represent sounds that can't be achieved through the combination of any other runes.
There's a total of thirty-two runes, so I can start with learning those first. In either case, since I can already speak the language, it'll take me no time to memorize them.
"Thank you, Daica!" I turn to the big dark elf and give her a radiant smile. She returns the smile but then heaves a long sigh. It seems she was really expecting that we would be rolling in the sheets tonight, but I don't plan on doing that anytime soon while Kamii is around. Let's mess with her a bit more. "Hm, what's wrong?"
"N-nothing!" Denying it so vehemently that it's obviously suspicious, she shakes her head and her wavy hair swings all over the place.
"Really, you helped me out there." I put my arm around her bare shoulders so that our skin touches, before pulling her closer. She yelps in surprise at the sensation, an incredibly cute noise for someone who looks so mature.
I give her a quick peck on the cheek, and her face practically blows up into the brightest red I've seen on her yet.
"Hwaa!" With that sound, Daica slackens and falls onto the bed.
"No fair!" Kamii, who has put Senka down at one point and began to peek over our shoulders, complains with her cheeks puffed up. Since she's the quiet type, I had forgotten about her presence after a while, but it seems she wants to join in on the fun, too.
"Come here~" I pull Kamii around to my front, where I cradle her in my arms and kiss her forehead.
"If you're going to do it, warn me beforehand." I hear Senka's cynical voice from behind me and turn to look at her. She's sitting on her chair motionlessly once again, but with her new outfit and her gradient hair properly combed, she isn't that scary anymore. In fact, she's more cute than creepy now.
"Nah, not tonight." I look at Daica, who seems to have gone to heaven and has fallen asleep. I really don't feel like doing it at this moment, which is strange. It seems that even for a tentacle monster there's actually 'the right mood'.
I press my lips to Kamii's cheek and give her a hearty kiss, after which she giggles contently. Then our eyes meet, and I'm drawn in by her mesmerizing irises. It's like they're lenses showing a distant, amethyst-colored galaxy.
"Let's sleep." I whisper to the little dark elf with a warm smile, forcefully pulling away from those eyes, before I lose myself in that otherworldly glow.
Chapter 18 - Living in Oblivion
About twenty-two days have passed since we arrived in Hovsgaerden. Since the day when Daica made up her mind to come to the capital with me, I've practically learned how to read without needing help anymore. When I was reincarnated into this world I somehow already know all the vocabulary, so reading the words out loud in my mind allows me to understand every word.
In this time, I also learned some common knowledge, such as that a week in this nation consists of fourteen days. It roughly corresponds to the moon phase, also called a fortnight - separated by either waning or waxing. The first set of seven days are each named after a celestial body in the night sky visible to the naked eye, and for the second set, they are repeated with a different prefix.
Two such fortnights make up a month, simply called 'moon'. Those moons are named after their gods, but I didn't pay too much attention to their names since they are too complicated. One of them is Belys, the Lady of Brilliance, though - whose purported scriptures I got from Arcelia.
Finally, an overall of thirteen months is one yea
r. If my high school math skills don't fail me, that means a year has three-hundred and sixty-four days. That's just one day less than what I'm used to. And three years to return to the demon castle means only three days less time than three Earth years.
Our party has stayed split up for most of the time since I started learning to read the language, only meeting during meals. Because Kamii would never leave my side, I haven't been able to go to the church and do work as a healer there - since they don't allow cursed people inside their so-called pure and sacred halls.
I'd rather not take money from them, if they ignore the plight of corrupted beings like this. Well, unlike the churches of the world I'm from, this one here apparently isn't a charity but a purely spiritual institution that takes itself too seriously.
Instead, I set up a small corner in the guild hall, where I would use the spell Arcelia taught me to provide healing to adventurers. It actually didn't take much to convince Ingrid to give me permission; I visited her just at the right time, when she had suffered a paper-cut. Holding her hand gently and casting my light magic was enough to persuade her.
When I grinned at her afterward, she hit me over the head with a stack of documents and said 'you're ten years too early to etc. etc.' or something like that.
But through this little job of mine, I now actually earn enough to pay the rent for the room we're staying in, as well as all our meals - but just barely. There's nothing left over to set aside for the journey ahead, let alone to buy new clothes and equipment. Neither Kamii nor Daica has been earning money over that time, and I told the latter to keep her savings, so I need to be the adult here and provide for the family.
In either case, with this, I started integrating into life among humans rather well. Rolan praised me for the fact that I could make a living on my own - making no real secret of how I must have been hurting the party funds by being a freeloader and even taking on two more alongside me.