Chapter 7
Chapter 7
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 7
Chapter Title: Is This a Saintess? (2)
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What the hell is a friend fee?
"It's money paid to hire someone to be your friend."
"...So it's like hiring a partner for a ball?"
She could interpret it that way, huh. Hey, delinquent, I'll hire you with this money. To be my friend, heh heh.
'Feels like she'd turn even a good person into a delinquent.'
Anyway.
"Miss Cynthia, you have friends, right?"
"W-What are you talking about all of a sudden? Of course I do!"
Yeah, figured as much.
No matter how messed up her personality had gotten, any normal person would have at least one or two friends.
"Do you remember our young lady from earlier today?"
"Eek!"
"Calm down. Have some tea first. And our young lady might be dim-witted and hot-tempered, but she's harmless. Mostly."
"There's some ominous fine print after that 'mostly'..."
"Who in this world is completely harmless?"
She had a point... Cynthia tilted her head thoughtfully.
"What I want from you, Miss Cynthia, is to act as a practice partner so our Tiona can make some friends."
"...Ah, so you want me to be that young lady's friend?"
"...Whose friend did you think I meant?"
Cynthia waved her hands frantically, her face flushing red.
What the heck had she been imagining?
"Miss Cynthia, you can read and write, correct?"
"Y-Yes..."
"When we need to recite poetry, read it in my place. Stay by the young lady's side during lessons or mealtimes."
In the process, our friendless young lady could get some practice approaching girls her own age.
"That's the job I have in mind for you."
I handed her the prepared contract.
"The pay and benefits, work hours, days off, and so on are all listed here."
About twice what she made at the bakery, specific shift times...
"And we'll provide one of the estate's spare rooms, plus three meals a day."
Gulp...
"By the way, the young lady enjoys afternoon tea every day. It'd be great if you joined her for that too."
Gulp...
Just really hungry, huh?
"What do you say?"
Cynthia's head nodded slowly up and down.
>
>
>
And the next day.
"This is Tiona, lady of House Krishantimaiu, Duke's daughter. And this is Cynthia, whom I've personally hired to assist in attending to the young lady."
A flawed candidate saintess—circumstances unknown—and the flaw itself in the form of a candidate witch.
Two strong pride geniuses... no, a hotheaded girl with strong pride and an ordinary one whose self-esteem was in tatters.
My heart pounded fiercely as I introduced them. Was this really the right move?
"Ah! The one from yesterday!"
She remembered, and so politely too.
"H-Hello..."
Even after Cynthia's greeting, Tiona's face remained sullen.
"What's wrong?"
"Jarvis, what exactly is this woman supposed to assist with?"
"Specifically, preparing materials before lessons, helping with workbooks, or reading romance poems to you."
"Reciting poems!?"
Tiona rebelled immediately.
"No way! You read them from now on too, Jarvis!"
"...Why?"
I was genuinely curious. Why me, of all people?
If she'd just said she hated commoners like Cynthia, that would've been easy to understand, good or bad. But why insist on me specifically?
"It's just..."
Tiona hesitated.
Seemed like even she didn't know.
'Just a whim, then.'
Nothing to be done about that.
"As long as it's not romance poems, does it matter?"
"...What are you talking about?"
"You've only been reading romance poems so far, but it's time to move on to other poetry, prose, and epic literature. Does it have to be me?"
"I-I never said it had to be you!"
"...Then Miss Cynthia can do it, right?"
"That's..."
Tiona scowled fiercely.
"Hmph! Do whatever you want!"
Looked like "whatever" was the last thing I should do.
What a pain. Seriously.
"For today, we'll start with two-digit addition and subtraction."
I handed out the workbooks.
"Miss Cynthia, please stand by near the young lady."
"Ah, yes..."
As Cynthia moved behind her, Tiona shot her a side-eye and grumbled.
"Eek..."
Cynthia immediately started trembling.
"...Hmph."
For a while, the only sound in the room was Tiona working through her workbook.
"...Done."
"Excellent. Take a short break."
As soon as I spoke, Cynthia—without any prior instructions—went to the pitcher of cold water and offered some to our young lady.
"W-Would you like some water?"
"...Yes."
"Right away!"
Tiona gulped down the glass of cold water, then slammed it down.
"...Hmph."
A much milder "hmph" than before.
'At least that's progress.'
Tiona was a villainess lady, but her shallow wits meant her villainy was equally shallow.
The original story featured far more sinister, vicious female antagonists.
For instance, levitating water only to immediately dump it on the floor and make someone clean it up, then doing it again but splashing it in their face while mocking them.
Compared to that, Tiona had a lot of innocent charm, for better or worse.
If she hated something, she'd say so outright—no pretending to like it, or slyly drawing someone into her circle just to isolate them later. No such devious tricks.
'She doesn't have the brains for it anyway.'
I started grading her addition and subtraction workbook while having her work on multiplication tables.
"Mm..."
Scratch, scratch.
"Umm..."
Scratch... scratch.
"Ngh!"
Scratch.
I could picture exactly how she was solving them without looking.
Then, our young lady's pen paused for a long moment.
"Huh...? Uh...?"
'Looking at the order, probably 7×8.'
The sevens were tough.
If you knew 2s and 3s, 4s, 6s, 8s, and 9s were comparatively easy, and 5s always ended in 0 or 5.
But 7s stood alone, easy to mix up.
I'd forgotten them my whole life until reteaching them to Tiona jogged my memory. Come to think of it, I'd struggled with them as a kid too.
Tiona scribbled her workings in the workbook's corner.
Later, it'd show 7+7=14 (7×2), 14+14=28 (7×2×2=7×4), and so on.
One more calculation, and just as she confidently went to write the answer...
Cynthia bent down slightly, as if picking something up.
And lightly brushed Tiona's back.
"?"
Cynthia subtly shook her head.
Tiona scowled at her own workings, then...
"!"
She hurriedly corrected it and glanced at me.
But I'd turned my head away the moment Cynthia bent down. The timing made her intentions obvious.
Tiona sighed in relief.
After that, she finished the multiplication workbook without further incident.
"Good work. Take another short break while I grade this."
In the corner of the multiplication workbook, just as I'd guessed, were the workings for the 7s.
But at the end, she'd written 28+28=50 before crossing it out and fixing it to 56.
'Mixed up the 2 and 8 summing to 10?'
I circled it and moved on.
A little help like that now and then wouldn't hurt her progress. If anything, the specific incident might make it stick better.
Only possible in one-on-one tutoring without rankings, of course.
After finishing the error notebook for two-digit arithmetic and multiplication tables, we reviewed just the multiplication tables.
"Six times two?"
"12!"
"Four times eight?"
"32!"
"Seven times eight?"
"5... 56!"
See? It stuck even better.
"Excellent. We can wrap up basic arithmetic soon."
"Eheheh...! See? I'm good at this stuff!"
She was so happy her tough-girl act cracked.
And.
'This might go more smoothly than expected.'
Cynthia was timid, but she had a keen eye for those around her and a natural knack for caregiving.
She'd given just the right subtle nudge without overstepping, boosting Tiona's mood, aiding her studies, and greatly reducing the hostility directed at her.
The original heroine, alright. Terrifying.
"Now, then, time for afternoon tea—"
"Um, sir?"
Isabelle, one of the maids, knocked and cracked the door open.
"Sorry to interrupt the lesson, but... someone outside is looking for Miss Cynthia."
A man's bellow echoed from the direction of the front gate.
"I'm telling you, that bitch borrowed our money and won't pay it back!"