Each One's Circumstances
Each One's Circumstances
Another week had passed since I turned down Diocesan Bishop Hiseyena's request and sent a provocative letter to Siegfried. No particular news had reached my ears, but I was certain he had swallowed the bait nicely on his own.
Nothing much else happened in the meantime. Just trivial matters—splitting the reward from the Holy Light Cross Order, parting ways so everyone could head off again, giving Seneran a firm promise that I would absolutely visit once things were roughly settled, and reporting the details of the Englem incident to Sir Ekaf. Even that had produced quite decent results despite the loss of two warhorses, thanks to how thoroughly I'd handled things in Englem, and Sir Ekaf had been privately pleased.
Something about how, more than the money, Bwyngseu—an agent tied to the treason—had given them an opportunity to firmly secure Englem's loyalty.
But compared to how uneventful it had been, my time had been pretty tight. That was because, at the same time as I finally moved out of the Ogatorf manor completely, Asilie and I had obtained a small house to live in.
"To think I'd realize my dream of owning a home this way."
"You had a dream like that?"
"Nah. Just saying."
There was nothing especially extravagant about it, but it had everything it needed: a two-level house in the adventurer district with a small yard, a stable, and even a basement, provided as compensation by the royal family. Apparently the royalist faction had thrown a massive fucking fit, insisting I should be granted a title and gifted a manor for cutting down a traitor in one stroke. But thanks to Duke Lesrom's forceful recommendation, it ended with this neat little house, a medal of honor, and prize money.
That old man had only seen me a handful of times but understood me far too well—that was the problem.
If they had tried to grant me a title, I had been planning to raise absolute hell, so how had he wrapped it up so perfectly to my liking? From my perspective, a small piece of real estate and a royally guaranteed bank account were far more appealing than a huge mansion that would be a pain to sell and maintain once I inevitably left anyway. A house of this size, whether I used it as a villa later or rented it out, required far less upkeep.
Above all, the house's layout was a custom design for adventurers who didn't keep livestock and the like, so the impressive cleanliness of it pleased me. Around here, it was pretty common for regular family homes to have the barn connected to the living quarters. Thanks to that, I had upgraded my internal assessment of Duke Lesrom from 'troublesome old man' to 'decent old man' and was busily setting up household with Asilie.
"Hng. Maybe it's because winter's coming, but more money went out than I expected."
In my previous life, I had lived without ever properly keeping a household ledger, and when I had lived with Asilie before, I had mostly left the financial management to her. But having worked as a butler in the Ogatorf household, assisting the head butler with accounting and building connections with suppliers, I could confidently say that when it came to managing money in the capital, I had surpassed Asilie.
At first, Asilie had watched with a smile, as if observing a clueless child trying to manage finances, but she soon opened her eyes wide and patted my head with pride.
"As expected, it's a bit regrettable that we couldn't prepare food supplies in advance."
"Still, didn't we get this pretty cheaply? If Eldi hadn't known the Ogatorf family's suppliers, I think we would've spent about one and a half times as much."
"That's true, but... it's also true that it's a shame. The time that got taken up, what with the demon and Englem, was longer than I thought. If we'd moved just a few weeks earlier, we could've saved."
Although the concept of a refrigerator didn't exist as a piece of furniture, a food storage system via freezing magic was well-established. So when noble manors ordered ingredients, they ordered a significant amount of food all at once. It was considered part of a noble's dignity to never be lacking when entertaining guests, and during that season, the comings and goings of merchants heading to the capital with cartloads of goods naturally became more frequent. With them competing against each other, goods became easier to get. If I had targeted the food that inevitably ended up unsold after dealing with the nobles, I could have gotten it cheap without even haggling.
Of course, I would've had to play a game of wits with restaurant owners thinking the same thing, but I had more than enough connections to hold the advantage, so I'd been confident. Too bad it didn't work out.
"Good heavens. Eldi, hasn't your domestic survival skill leveled up way too much while in the capital?"
Asilie, having lived her own long life, wasn't lacking in life skills by any means. But she wasn't accustomed to figuring out the necessities of settling down and living in one city. And so, feeling my nose practically touch the sky under her praise, I diligently inspected and cleaned the house.
For better or worse, this was the house we'd be living in until winter was completely over, at the very least. Depending on my lessons with Mr. Widra, I might end up spending even more time here, so I figured I should maintain it as though it were truly my own home. Of course, it wasn't like they'd given me some dilapidated shack. As I described earlier, it was an incredibly nice house that radiated an upper-middle-class vibe with its yard and stable. But still, mindset was what mattered most, right?
"Yeah. Looks like things are roughly sorted out."
"Seems so. We just need to chop and stack firewood tomorrow, and the rest we can buy as needed."
Looking at the house now neatly organized, I felt calm yet strangely tickled inside. It seemed owning my own home really did strike a chord after all.
It wasn't even lunchtime yet, so I quickly washed up, changed clothes, resolved to go see Seneran as promised, and headed out of the house alone.
[Master! A walk!]
"Alright, let's go for a walk."
Over the past week, Laika had undergone a change as well. The appearance that had once looked like a wolf helmet was changing day by day until it genuinely resembled a Welsh Corgi, and now there was nothing about Laika's outward appearance that looked unlike an ordinary dog. Every time I fed Laika Magic Power as a regular meal, the damn Demon Sword used to shit out lumps of metal, for fuck's sake, and now Laika had become almost impossible to distinguish from a normal dog.
"But seriously, is your body really okay?"
[Completely fine!]
Thanks to that, Laika could no longer return to sword form, but I didn't particularly regret it. I just wanted to make sure this phenomenon was actually safe. Seneran was the closest thing to a magic-tool expert among the people I knew, so I planned to take Laika along and have the change examined.
[I don't even shit anymore! I feel great!]
I wanted to answer that it was good news, but since I didn't want to become a lunatic who talked to his dog, I just nodded my head appropriately in response. I would've liked to think that no one would pay attention to my muttering to myself, but... unfortunately, outside of the residential districts, I was a celebrity citywide.
I'd done far too many things by now, so it was a fair outcome. On top of that, with the Holy Light Cross Order's official thanks and the exposure of the Englem adventurer branch and the traitor Bwyngseu piled on, word had spread far and wide. As a result, I was no longer rumored to be a three-meter giant carrying a greatsword or a barbaric warrior with fangs reaching his forehead.
My appearance had become known in excruciatingly specific detail.
Tall, muscular build, an earring worn on only one side, and always accompanied by a Welsh Corgi—just those details alone were enough that there was clearly no one else in the capital whose image overlapped with mine. So lately, a bizarre phenomenon had been occurring where merely walking a short distance down the street made people clear the way on their own.
Just like right now.
[Master is strong! Everyone avoids!]
Laika. They're not avoiding me because I'm strong. It's because, unlike my appearance—which has finally been pinned down in detail—my deeds are still wandering around inside all kinds of bullshit rumors.
I'm not joking—there was even some bastard who considered me a madman that, the moment our eyes met, would behead every person within a three-meter radius centered on my target. And he was a red-rank adventurer, no less. I hadn't bothered to go to the trouble of correcting that bullshit misunderstanding, so who knows how much further the crazy rumors had spread through him. Even Lady Epaga wouldn't know.
"What an odd feeling."
Well, thanks to that, I could stroll down the street at a leisurely pace, so I didn't really care either way. I wrapped my coat tighter against the pervasive cold that was so widespread it wouldn't have been strange for snow to start falling at any moment, and looked up at the overcast, cloudy sky.
It was a winter I'd been greeting for years now, but this time, I was getting a little sentimental. As I walked, entertaining the pleasant fantasy of building a snowman in the yard with Asilie when the first snow fell, someone suddenly blocked my path and abruptly spoke to me.
He was clearly an adventurer, looked like nothing special, and was one of those guys who gave off the same stench as the punks back in old Ogwen who had tried to shoulder-check me and gotten their teeth knocked out. He threw a question at me along with a sneer.
"Hey, Guillotine. I hear you've been flying high lately?"
"Go where you're going."
Since I was in a good mood for once, I moved toward the building side to avoid them and let it slide. But the guy standing at the end let out a scoff and suddenly shoved me back.
Naturally, I didn't get shoved. A dull thump just sounded, that was all. I looked at him with an expression that fully conveyed my sentiment of 'I've seen some ridiculous bastards in my time.' The guy hesitated momentarily at the sight of me not being pushed as he'd expected, but he started saying his piece anyway.
"You little shit, you think we're a joke just 'cause your reputation's gone up a bit? You think you're untouchable 'cause you know some red-rank adventurers? You wanna die?"
"One punch."
"What?"
"One punch is all I need to knock your teeth out and knock you unconscious, you fucker."
He wasn't even worth hearing an answer from, so I put my words into action and slammed my fist into his mug.
"Gck!"
That single strike to his philtrum sent his two shattered front teeth flying with a spray of blood from his nose as he collapsed on the spot. He couldn't even react, and I hadn't used any Magic Power, so the result seriously made me question his physical durability. My bewilderment lasted only a moment. Feeling my mood start to sink through the floor, I wondered about my own wild emotional swings and asked them.
"I was in a good mood for the first time in a while, and you absolute mongrels have to ruin it in one shot. What the fuck are you?"
"Y-you, you son of a bitch, do you know who we..."
"Forget it. I'll probably find out who you are later, so just shut up. I'll make sure you're sipping nothing but gruel for about three weeks."
Guys who showed such predictable reactions were bound to keep doing predictable shit later anyway.
I was busy with where I had to go, the way they talked wasn't exactly endearing in any way, and it was obvious they were going to pull some kind of shit with me regardless of the form it took. I didn't want to waste any time on them, so I swung my fists to treat the remaining four as fairly as I had the one already collapsed on the ground.