A Brawl Over Pork and a Ten-Year-Old
“Jeanie, I’ll head down first, so wash all the way behind your ears before you come down, okay?”
Anelia said as she quickly pulled on her clothes.
“Okaaay.”
After everyone had rested, they agreed to gather once the sun set for a proper feast.
That was because Shabel had promised to treat everyone once he collected the transport fee.
I had originally wanted to explore the library, but the thought of delicious food was far more tempting.
The most urgent thing was to properly soak my body in warm water….
“Haaa, this is heaven.”
My long golden hair floated lazily across the surface of the steaming hot water that still bubbled with heat.
I had let it grow without much thought, and now it reached all the way to my waist, starting to feel cumbersome.
It was naturally so tightly curled that even when wet, the curls stubbornly remained.
My hair seemed to resemble my father from this world. My eyes took after my mother.
I wondered if they were doing well. I thought about them sometimes… but that was all.
What I missed more were my parents from my previous life. Having two sets of parents felt strangely unsettling.
The me of this world still didn’t feel entirely real, yet I had three older brothers here. I was the precious youngest daughter they had all longed for. A strange daughter who had never once properly called them mom or dad.
Even so, they always sent me gifts and letters, clearly missing me. Whenever that happened, my feelings grew even more… even more….
“I don’t know.”
Whenever my thoughts grew too heavy, I would sink completely underwater.
Maybe it was because I had lived longer in my previous life. These parents still felt unfamiliar. I had lived seventeen years over there, but only ten years here.
Still, I would live several decades more in this world.
“I just don’t know.”
When my body grew pleasantly limp in the warm water and drowsiness began to creep in, I finally stood up.
I roughly dried myself and put on the clothes that Undine had washed for me.
This single set had lasted me five whole days. And today was the first time they had actually been properly laundered.
There had been no chance to wash clothes when I could barely even wash myself. The only thing I could manage was rinsing my hair. The mercenaries weren’t particularly interested in bathing, so they never went near the lakeside.
I draped a towel over my shoulders and had Undine absorb every last droplet clinging to my hair.
Feeling much more refreshed, I left the room—only for Rai to slither over at lightning speed and wrap himself around my waist.
If he stayed still like that, he really looked like a snake-shaped belt. Rai was getting scarily good at pretending to be an accessory.
The dining hall was packed with fierce-looking faces, but I scanned for the familiar ones among them.
Though to be fair, they were still familiarly terrifying faces. Still, knowing exactly how those faces smiled made things a little easier on me.
The first one I spotted was Kenta.
With his massive build, he was impossible to miss. As I approached the table where the Shabel mercenary group was seated, one of the mercenaries glanced at me, then pulled out an empty chair beside him and gestured for me to sit.
“Huh? Where did my chair go?”
Just as I was about to sit, a man appeared holding a mug overflowing with foamy beer and looked around in confusion. Must be the owner of the chair.
“Sit down, kid.”
“Okay!”
This was how kindness worked among mercenaries.
I had hesitated out of politeness, but at the urging of the mercenary, I didn’t refuse twice. I plopped down immediately. The table was overflowing with food.
Most of it was meat, and there were plenty of drinks that looked like alcohol as well.
I was wondering what to eat first when a huge chunk of meat was placed right in front of me.
It was the hind leg of a plump young pig. A mouthwatering cut, roasted to a perfect glossy brown.
For a moment, I wondered if this was how I had looked to that ogre.
“Is this for me?”
It was the mercenary named Halk, who had been my test subject several times before.
Had he forgotten? I blinked at him. He answered with an expression that said I was asking the obvious.
“Of course it’s yours, kid. Children need to eat well!”
“Thank you! Hehe.”
Despite their scary appearances, the Shabel mercenaries were good people. Every last one of them, to an almost stupid degree.
Not that I was thinking that just because he gave me meat.
Rai’s question made me feel a brief pang of guilt.
I ignored Rai’s silent protest and tore into the meat.
I was hungry, and more importantly, this was proper food for the first time in ages. Manners be damned—I grabbed it with both hands and ripped in.
Everyone else was eating the same way, so there was no need to feel embarrassed.
While I had my face buried in the meat, I suddenly realized I couldn’t see Shabel or Anelia anywhere.
“Auugauugau?”
I opened my mouth to ask about Anelia and Shabel’s whereabouts, but the giant piece of meat got in the way of my words.
Somehow Kenta, who was sitting beside me, understood. He nodded and replied.
“Agaugau, gugaaga.”
I couldn’t understand a single thing.
I was already confused about what I had just said myself. I had zero ability to interpret anyone else’s gibberish.
I tried to swallow the meat so I could have a proper conversation when a hand suddenly landed on my shoulder.
It wasn’t Kenta. It wasn’t Halk either.
Who was stroking me like…?
“Hehehe. The more I look at her, the cuter she gets. Kid, you’re going to grow up to be a real beauty.”
The breath that hit me was so foul that I didn’t even have the courage to turn my head. Instead, I spat out the meat I had been chewing.
“Pfft.”
“Uh…”
The chewed-up bits of meat stuck to the disgusting man’s face, but I couldn’t stop the goosebumps crawling all over me.
Disgust won out over guilt by a landslide.
“Kyaaah! I hate it!”
“What the—?”
“What’s going on?”
“Kenta! This guy!”
“W-what?! I didn’t do anything!”
“Waaah!”
I burst into tears and clung to Kenta. Of course they were fake tears, but with Anelia gone, Kenta was the next best thing.
The previously cheerful Shabel mercenaries all stopped talking and glared in our direction.
They stared at me and the disgusting man, food still in their hands.
The man looked extremely wronged.
“I really didn’t do anything!”
“Liar! You suddenly started rubbing my shoulder!”
“It was just…”
Kenta swung the enormous leg of lamb he was holding and smacked the man across the cheek.
Well, that seemed a bit excessive. Satisfying, though.
“You perverted bastard! She’s ten years old!”
And just like that, a violent brawl broke out.
The moment that man and Kenta started throwing punches, the fight spread across the entire dining hall.
A massive brawl had begun between the sleazy man’s group and the Shabel mercenaries.
Um… this isn’t because of me, right?
At some point, mugs started flying and tables were flipped. The atmosphere turned downright murderous. I glanced around, then lowered myself and crawled under the nearest table.
I cautiously poked my head out from under the table.
“You gutless mercenaries who only take transport requests!”
“What?! You’re the creep who gets rejected by every woman you hit on!”
“You’ve said enough!”
The fight spiraled further and further out of control.
It seemed Kenta and that man had a long-standing grudge. Therefore, this fight definitely wasn’t my fault.
“Ow!”
Even my mom and dad never hit me!
I felt extremely wronged about getting flicked on the forehead, but Shabel’s terrifying expression made me keep my mouth tightly shut.
“Just what is wrong with you?! How do you cause trouble the second you walk in?!”
“I was just…”
“And of all people, you had to rile up the guys we’re already on bad terms with!”
“How was I supposed to know?”
“Why don’t you just throw the two of them into a fighting pit while you’re at it! Do you have any idea how much the fine and repair costs for the damaged property are going to be because of you?!”
Shabel’s eyes blazed with such fury it felt like laser beams were about to shoot out. But I wasn’t the type to just take a scolding quietly.
“Hic… hic! I was scared too… Anelia noonaaa! Uncle hit me. Waaah!”
“…Captain! That’s really too much!”
“But because of this kid, the losses…”
“That man has always had wandering hands! How terrified must this child have been?! Honestly, I want to praise Kenta instead!”
I burrowed into Anelia’s arms and stuck my tongue out at the captain from the safety of her shadow where she couldn’t see.
Anelia’s voice rose in anger.
“Captain, I’m truly disappointed in you!”
“But Kenta was taken away by the city guards…”
“When grown men fight, isn’t that their own responsibility? Why would you blame a child?”
“Ahem.”
Shabel, thoroughly scolded by Anelia, made an expression almost identical to Kenta’s when he had been dragged off by the guards.
A sullen face clearly fishing for sympathy.
But that kind of look only worked when you were a child like me.
“Making that face won’t help you! Apologize to Jeanie right now!”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“You’re really disappointing me as a person. Captain, if you keep this up, I might have to reconsider extending our exclusive contract.
I don’t want to work with someone whose values don’t align with mine!”
“…I’m sorry, Jeanie. Please forgive me.”
It was an incredibly fast apology.
Hmm… could it be that the true ruler of the Shabel Mercenary Group is Anelia?
I hadn’t observed them for long, but there were quite a few men who seemed to be in the group simply because they liked Anelia.
Take Kenta, for example. The way he followed Anelia around like a puppy was painfully obvious.
One thing was certain: I had chosen the right person to side with. I hugged Anelia’s waist even tighter.