Ragnis Lien da Levien
Ragnis Lien da Levien
Just a brief glance from afar was enough to tell. It was incredibly systematic.
Even watching the kids who moved like it was second nature, I could tell they hadn't been at it for just a day or two. But that was separate from whoever had come up with a proper division of labor like this.
Honestly, my curiosity was so overwhelming that it was hard to hold back. I dismounted and slowly approached, intending to ask Alisha about it, when kids from all directions who recognized me started greeting me.
"Morning, Boss!"
"Hi, Eldmia!"
"Yeah, yeah. You're working hard from the morning, so don't mind me—go earn your money."
The orphans who didn't know me aside, the ones who did greet me had healthy complexions. Their ease in smiling and overflowing energy were proof they were eating well and getting good rest. I had planned to find Alisha as quickly as possible and ask, but because of that parade of greetings, even the priests who were busily handing out bread to the children recognized me. They were familiar faces, but thankfully, they were too busy to do more than exchange a glance of greeting.
"Alisha! I'm here!"
"What the hell, showing up when I'm swamped, you little shit!"
Even with priests right in front of her, her commitment to swearing never wavered. The kids working inside burst out laughing. They'd clearly gotten used to that unwavering display of affection by now.
Once it was clear I was talking to Alisha, the kids I passed simply bowed and went back to what they were doing, leaving me free to ask.
"I've never seen this before, Alisha. How long have you been doing things this way?"
"Oh? Well, anyway, you haven't been around much lately because you're busy. Not long. About half a year?"
"That's a while. Who came up with it? Did the Holy Light Cross Order propose it?"
"No. Levi proposed it first."
Levi? She'd been the only orphan there when I first helped the kids three years ago—the red-haired girl with a light dusting of freckles. By now, she was also the only one bold enough to speak casually to me. And she was the one who proposed all this?
"Really? I thought she was just a good worker, but she's pretty sharp?"
"You're telling me. When she first talked about it, she explained this and that, but I couldn't follow a word. Still, the priests understood right away and helped out like that."
This felt... ominous.
It wasn't an exaggeration to say that ordinary people in this world knew mostly what they needed for their family trade and daily lives. New knowledge and skills were hard to come by, so even getting the chance to learn someone else's craft cost time and money. Naturally, organizing people efficiently and keeping track of the numbers wasn't something just anyone could do. To coordinate this many people, get them moving, and even bring in an outside organization, you'd need experience in an important position at something at least as large as a merchant company. An adult might muddle through on experience alone, but a kid who was barely sixteen and had spent the last three years doing odd jobs around town? No chance.
Levi had become an orphan at thirteen. Who put a thirteen-year-old in a position like that? Once you factored in how long the education would take, it made even less sense. She had to have been trained for that sort of work from a very young age, which made early education the most likely explanation.
Only a merchant successful enough to run a trading company—or a noble—could provide that kind of education.
"Maybe she's going through a rebellious phase lately, because she isn't quite like she used to be. But she still has the same knack for getting things done. She's incredibly reliable."
"How so?"
"She goes and dyes her hair with some damn stuff—who knows where she got it—and even cuts her already not-long hair even shorter, like a boy. Don't get me started."
Suddenly, the conversation I'd had with Asilie that morning flashed through my mind.
The rumor about a noble being found in town. The cliché I'd imagined that morning about someone hiding until they came of age. It was such a familiar story that even I had dismissed it as a cliché—and clichés like that existed because things like it actually happened often enough.
"Maybe now that she has some breathing room, she's just dressing however she wants. How old is Levi again?"
"She said she's turning sixteen this year. Her birthday's coming up soon, I hear?"
Fuck.
Something was definitely off. Really fucking off. My thoughts kept spiraling in directions I didn't like.
"Huh? Eldmia, you're here?"
I turned toward the voice from the stairs and saw Levi coming down. Skin-tight leather pants, a shirt cut low enough to show what I thought was far too much cleavage, and short hair dyed a messy reddish-brown. Every part of the look was completely different from what Levi used to wear. She looked nothing like the image of a young girl, much less a noble lady. It was almost as if she'd deliberately styled herself to look like some rough street kid... But her voice, manner, and expression when she called to me were the same as ever, so I grabbed her arm and took her upstairs.
"You, come with me for a second."
"Huh? Wh-what??"
"You, you little shit! If you're getting horny over Levi, you're dead!"
"What the hell are you saying in front of the kids! What do you take me for!"
That's a crime, you know!
◈
"Were you a noble?"
When asking kids something like this, the best way was to hit them with it before they could even guess the topic would come up. I'd barged into Levi's room, and the moment I'd locked the door, I looked down at Levi—who was twenty centimeters shorter than me—gripped both her shoulders firmly with my hands, locked eyes, and asked point-blank.
For an instant, the simple surprise in Levi's eyes turned to outright shock before she recovered. Barely keeping her expression under control, she answered with forced composure.
"Wha—what... ha! S-suddenly, what kind of ridiculous talk is that? Me, a noble?"
If she'd been a little more skilled, I wouldn't have noticed at all, but thankfully, she still fell short. More than anything, she must have been more surprised than I thought, because her speech sped up.
"You don’t lie to your big brother."
"I-I’m older than you... and technically, you’d be my big brother, not the other way around..."
"Don't change the subject. I saw you trying to hide your shock just now. That alone already convinced me halfway. Now tell me, in your own words, what the situation is. Your birthday's coming up."
In this world, you became an adult after your sixteenth birthday. For commoners, it was just a cause for celebration, but for merchants dealing with contracts, or for the nobles over there, it was an enormously important event.
Becoming an adult meant that if anything happened, you could inherit your family's property and rights. Until then, a minor heir's relatives or household retainers would act as representatives in the role of guardians.
Naturally, it was all too common for the young heir's inheritance to be scattered to the winds before they could even act.
"Huh? You remembered my birthday... No, that's not it! I don't know what you're talking about!"
"You might have put your learning into practice, but the charity operation unfolding down there right now is something a mere commoner couldn't even conceive of. Auntie Alisha couldn't understand it when she first heard your plan. Remember?"
Levi's eyes darted so much I didn't even need to look deeper. Right. A common mistake. The mistake of believing that what you know is universal.
That was the sort of mistake a noble living inside noble society would make, rather than a merchant who dealt with both nobles and commoners. A war orphan with that much knowledge was already suspicious enough. Then, as her sixteenth birthday approached—not as some late rebellious phase, because her behavior hadn't changed—she suddenly got some breathing room, switched back from skirts to pants, started dressing more revealingly when she never had before, cut her hair even shorter, and dyed it. And all of that happened just as rumors started spreading that a noble had been found in town?
"There are rumors going around about a noble being found. Then you suddenly change how you dress, cut your hair even shorter, and dye it. It's pretty hard to argue that isn't a disguise meant to keep whoever is searching from recognizing you."
People living ordinary day-to-day lives might just let it slide. After all, taken separately, each thing was just an extension of everyday occurrences. There was no reason or need to connect them.
But from the day I fell into this world, everything was abnormal to me, everything was suspicious, everything looked like an incident.
No matter how much of a genius someone was, they weren't born knowing things they'd never learned. Genius only showed itself once they had the foundation to understand and absorb that knowledge. In that sense, the odds that Levi had simply been born a genius at managing people and organizing a business were extremely low.
Coincidence? If I hadn't known that this morning's scene was Levi's doing, I would've dismissed her drastic change in appearance as a momentary deviation. But with those two facts overlapping, it was no coincidence—it was close to the truth. If it weren't, she'd have to be a reincarnator like me, and if that were the case, she would've already caught on or suspected from my attitude.
"If this were something you could handle, you wouldn't be trying to hide your appearance. But a kid as clever as you changing only your looks instead of running away means you have some other plan, doesn't it? Buying time? You only need to fool them until someone who can help you arrives? Until when... No. Obviously until your birthday."
"Just what..."
I felt the strength drain from Levi's body in my grip. She seemed about to collapse, so I hurriedly sat her down on the bed behind her. The face that had been pretending to smile nonchalantly moments ago was gone, replaced by a bleak expression as she stared at me.
"How do you know...?"