34. Gwen (4)
34. Gwen (4)
Hello.
I am Niv, the oldest one at the orphanage run by Saint-nim!
Just because I'm the oldest doesn't mean I'm an adult! I'm just the oldest among the children.
Still, at 18, I help Saint-nim and the other adults take care of the kids.
I lost all my parents to Spider Monsters and lived in the Medherun City slums, eating rat carcasses and food waste. I thought I was going to die, so I was even going to sell my body to survive, but then I met Gwen-nim and came to the orphanage.
Today, I'm going to introduce the orphanage!
The orphanage is basically an abandoned cathedral that Rhea-nim and Amber-nim repaired and cleaned up.
So, there's a basement, a first floor, and a second floor. However, we aren't allowed to go up to the second floor.
There are many things in the basement. First, there's a place where we study, a place where we can exercise, and a place where we take showers.
And there's one amazing secret. It's the Bathhouse where Rhea-nim bathes!
Actually, it's not really a secret.
Everyone knows about it. Even though it's a bathhouse, it's not for everyone to use; it's exclusively for Rhea-nim.
That place is like heaven. It's a sacred place, a sanctuary that children like us shouldn't enter!
Of course, Rhea-nim doesn't seem to mind, but we don't even think about entering the bathhouse where Rhea-nim bathes.
Sometimes, children who aren't feeling well use the bathhouse to warm their bodies.
And miraculously, they get better the next day! This must be because it's a bathhouse Rhea-nim's body enters, so it clearly has holy power!
The first floor, believe it or not, has our rooms.
Plus, we aren't crammed into one place without a spot to sleep; there are four of us living in one room!
It's not just the bare floor either; there are two bunk beds and individual desks, so there's no discomfort in living here.
Compared to sleeping rough in a place full of homeless people and vagrants with a weak child's body, this place is heaven.
The second floor is where Rhea-nim, Amber-nim, and Gwen-nim, who brought me here, have their rooms.
We aren't allowed to go up to the second floor carelessly. There's no punishment for going up, but since we were told not to, everyone keeps that promise.
Since everyone lived miserable lives alone in these slums without parents or family, we follow and trust Rhea-nim, who saved us, more than anyone else, so it's only natural.
That's the end of the explanation about the orphanage, and now I'll tell you what we do during the day.
First, wake-up is at 7 AM. It might be a bit early, but since we go to sleep around 10 PM, we get enough sleep.
We wake up in the morning, make our beds, wash our faces, and then gather in the orphanage yard at 7:30 AM for morning exercises.
After about 30 minutes of morning exercises, we all eat breakfast together.
The adults who volunteer to cook our breakfast make delicious food, so we eat well, do a short morning cleaning, and then it's free time until lunch.
Rhea-nim has provided us with lots of things to play with.
People who want to read books read, kids who want to play ball play ball, and kids who want to become Adventurers exercise, study, etc.—everyone does what they want to do.
After lunch, a teacher comes and teaches us useful things so we can walk through the world on our own, like how to read and write, how to calculate money, and so on.
In the evening, after dinner, it's free time again until bedtime.
During this time, everyone doesn't do anything active; we pray, read books, spend time talking with friends, then all go to the shower room to shower and go to sleep!
Everyone is living in the orphanage with happy faces, enjoying a daily life we couldn't even imagine when we were abandoned in the world alone.
Of course, it's not like there are no fights between the kids, but everyone understands and considers each other's situations, so even if we fight for a moment, we reconcile well.
The orphanage's daily life usually flows like this.
Since I'm of a certain age and have grown up, I've been spending my time acting as a leader for the kids so the adults aren't troubled, and speaking up for things the kids find hard to say.
But oh, today is different!
Starting today, I've been given the role of guarding Rhea-nim's side...!
Amber-nim, who protects our orphanage more reliably than anyone, and who is Rhea-nim's guardian and maid ensuring Rhea-nim has no inconveniences in her daily life, had something important come up and had to leave Rhea-nim's side.
So, Amber-nim called me aside and asked me to stay by Rhea-nim's side.
I said I'd do it right away!
Rhea-nim was different from what I thought; I had thought she was the most diligent and cool woman of all.
For starters, Rhea-nim loves sleeping very much. She can't sleep if she doesn't have something to hug.
She originally slept while hugging Amber-nim, but as Amber-nim's time going out with Gwen-nim got longer, I automatically became Rhea-nim's pillow.
Far from feeling bad, I was actually happy!
Warmth, soft skin, and... heh, even her big breasts!
Rhea-nim is like a little kitten.
When waking her up, I have to dress her while she's dozing off, and when washing, I have to wash Rhea-nim's body in the bathhouse.
Taking care of a person is a very hard job, but because of Rhea-nim's beautiful and cute appearance, I don't even feel that hardship!
And thanks to Rhea-nim, I get to use the bathhouse with her once a day, and the tea Rhea-nim makes for me before bed makes all the fatigue from taking care of Rhea-nim all day disappear at once.
Plus, it tastes incredibly good, to the point where I want to drink only this tea instead of water.
It seems that's the same for Gwen-nim.
When she returns after patrolling hard with Amber-nim, she always waits for Rhea-nim, who is praying, and they go up to the second floor together to have tea time.
I don't know if it's okay for me to be there, but I still worked hard to carry the tea Rhea-nim made and did my best in my role as a maid!
==
I've become stronger.
It's not just a simple delusion.
It's been 3 days since I started staying at the orphanage.
I've become stronger in just 3 days.
Of course, it's not the feeling of having simply grown stronger, but rather that all the fatigue accumulated in my body, knowingly or unknowingly, has vanished, and my physical condition has improved, making me stronger.
No matter how long I've been accustomed to waking up at dawn, a little bit of fatigue is bound to be felt.
It's not that I don't have thoughts like, 'Should I sleep a little more before getting up? Should I skip it today?' However, because I am the Knight Commander who protects this city, I just steel myself and get up.
But ever since I came to the orphanage, I haven't felt that fatigue.
I haven't slept much. In the first place, sleeping in a place that suddenly changed, in an unfamiliar environment, naturally means the quality of sleep is bound to be low.
Yet, I can't even remember the last time I felt such refreshment the moment I opened my eyes.
Mana moved faster than usual, and my whole body felt light. No, it became light.
I was in top condition, to the point where I felt like I could even defeat that Monster right now.
I had been questioning why my condition suddenly improved, but that question didn't last long.
When I drank that delicious tea Rhea brewed herself, my condition improved, and on days when I was too busy to drink it, my condition was bad.
To be precise, it wasn't that it was bad, but that I had returned to my original body.
However, my body, having already tasted the top condition, started to think of my normal body as being in the worst condition, even though it was just returning to the body I had until now, because my body was already thinking based on the top condition.
'It's amazing. How can it just be tea and have this kind of effect?'
I was curious about what kind of tea it was, so I asked Rhea.
However, the tea ingredients Rhea showed me were very common and cheap tea.
Tea that even ordinary citizens can enjoy. To put it badly, it was cheap tea. But the taste I felt when drinking it was heavenly.
'It's clearly just regular tea, but it's this delicious...?'
Today, as always, we returned in the evening and gathered together to enjoy tea, but the moment it entered my mouth, a cheap taste wafted through.
"Ugh-?"
"Huh? Are you okay, Gwen-nim?"
Rhea asked Gwen, who suddenly covered her mouth with her hand and recoiled backward, if she was okay.
"This tea is a little strange."
"The tea...? Uh, I definitely made it like usual?"
"That can't be."
Gwen lifted the tea she had been drinking and carefully smelled it.
As expected, the smell wafting from it wasn't the smell Gwen had in mind. It was just the smell of regular tea.
"Amber-nim. If it's not too much trouble, would it be okay if I checked the tea you are drinking?"
"Yes."
Gwen lifted the teacup Amber had taken a sip from and smelled it the same way.
'This is the smell.'
Just by smelling it, a delicious and cool scent that seemed to create a sense of refreshment throughout my whole body filled the air; I slowly inhaled and savored the aroma of the tea.
Rhea was flustered by Gwen's actions.
"Uh... I definitely brewed the tea like usual...?"
Rhea genuinely didn't know what was going on.
She didn't understand why everyone was so happy, saying they had never tasted such delicious tea before, when she was just brewing ordinary tea.
But it was a bit strange that Gwen was suddenly reacting like this.
"Gwen-nim's tea is definitely clearly different from the tea I'm drinking."
When even Amber showed such a reaction, Rhea was dumbfounded.
Clearly, all the tea was being brewed with the same ordinary tea leaves bought in town.
But why was there a difference?
'What is it? Is there something I don't know?'