The Full Story of the Orphanage Talent Hunt
“Damn it, my eyes hurt. How many hours has it been already?”
Back when I used to read comics and the like, there was always a scene like this.
Some old guy or grandpa character sitting behind a desk, with piles of documents stacked up like a mountain in front of him.
And there he was, slamming down seal after seal while groaning, “Aaaagh, I’m dying here!”
Honestly, when I only saw that kind of thing, I used to make fun of it hard—like, what kind of loser complains about dying just from stamping papers?
But now that I was actually in that situation, I realized this was no joke.
You couldn’t just mindlessly hammer stamps down and be done with it.
If you checked even one line of text or one number wrong on a document, the entire budget could go up in smoke.
Especially after I’d just seen the full scale of that double-entry bookkeeping scam the rat bastard Heinrich had been running, I couldn’t afford to treat a single number lightly.
Seriously, one stamp can decide whether someone lives or dies.
My fingers tightened around the papers.
And on top of the ledgers confiscated from the merchant guild, there were also the legal documents transferring the now-broke guild into my personal possession, plus the approval forms for the spring wheat seed loans to distribute to each territory.
“Stop whining and keep reading. We’re not even halfway done yet.”
Beside me, Lily mercilessly shoved the next stack of papers my way.
Back when I was swinging a sword and crushing monster heads, my body had it easy.
If I could just stop total ruin from happening, even if they offered me the title of Grand Duke of the North for free, I still wouldn’t take it.
Let that useless bastard Cedric over in the capital do this kind of thing until the day he dies.
“Come on! Let’s take a break. It’s been hours since breakfast.”
“Exactly three hours and twelve minutes.”
“Can I just go out and spar with Karina for a bit? I’m still a Sword Master, you know. If I don’t swing a blade at least once a day, my edge’ll get dull.”
Then Lily, dressed like a secretary, pushed her glasses up with one finger and glared at me.
H-hey... don’t look at me like that. Why the hell does that make my stomach tickle?
“Why do you want to spar with Lady Karina?”
“Huh? Well, because Karina is my nominal personal guard and all…”
That was the official reason, anyway. In reality, I’d stuck her there because I wanted someone who could play the role of an annoying, sarcastic babysitter I didn’t have to deal with.
“If you want to spar, spar with me.”
“Huh? Then sparring’s okay?”
“If that’s what you want, I’ll oblige you. Managing the young master’s urge to swing a sword is part of a secretary’s job, after all.”
Urge to swing a sword...? What the hell kind of phrase is that, Lily?
Anyway, that meant I could take a break, right? Yes!!
“Then let’s go already!!”
“No.”
“Eh, why not!!”
“I’m going to change clothes first, so keep working while I’m gone. Unless…”
With that, Lily suddenly flashed a seductive smile.
“...the young master would prefer it if I handled him in this outfit?”
Wasn’t sparring in a tight miniskirt and blouse kind of a bad idea?
Or was it? I might actually want to see that.
No, wait, that would just make me a pervert, wouldn’t it? Still, I couldn’t exactly say that out loud.
Whether she knew my inner struggle or not, Lily simply said, “Then I’ll go change,” and left the office.
As I reached for the documents again, I happened to notice Lily’s handwriting tucked into one corner of the final report, and I fell into thought for a moment.
Come to think of it, she’s the one who’s been handling the final sorting too, like deciding what matters and what doesn’t, right?
Just a few days ago, a grandfather who’d worked thirty years in the Heiden Grand Duke’s Castle as a finance officer had come to me and said, looking astonished,
- Young Master Edrick! What kind of training did you give your maid, Lily?
- I didn’t really teach her anything.
- No way. I was shocked by how much more accurately she reads ledgers than most of the finance staff working at the castle. We’re short-handed these days, so if you’d send her directly to the finance office as an official assistant, I’d even make her my successor...
- Absolutely not. Take that back.
If I sent Lily there, who was going to make my tea and who was going to abuse me...? No, scratch that. That one slipped out unconsciously, so cancel it.
Anyway, I hadn’t lied to that old man even once.
Of course I brought her back from the orphanage because she looked promising, but it turned out her talent wasn’t in that direction.
Suddenly, I remembered the day I first met Lily.
If I remembered correctly, that had been in winter, when I was about ten—roughly a year after I’d been reincarnated here.
- Cedric, Edrick. This afternoon, instead of sword training, you’ll come with me.
Even though he was busy, my father, Bernhardt von Heiden, the Grand Duke, would occasionally make personal inspections of the city’s major facilities.
That day, the place he visited was a small orphanage about half a day’s ride from Eisenburg, the capital of the ducal domain.
- My, Grand Duke Your Grace. To think you would personally grace this humble place with your presence...
- Hmm. This winter is especially cold. Are you having any trouble keeping the orphanage running?
- We’ve had no difficulties at all, thanks to the supplies Your Grace provides.
Of course, the mighty Grand Duke of the North hadn’t visited that remote orphanage because he had nothing better to do.
Whenever Bernhardt visited an orphanage, he would often personally show off by sparring with his guard knights.
Among the orphans who witnessed that performance as children, quite a few ended up enlisting in the Northern Army once they grew up.
Even apart from that, the Heiden family’s reputation—Sword Masters of the North—was enough to make every boy in the region look up to them.
So if I had to put it plainly, it was a bit like a division commander dropping by early to encourage the raw recruits.
Just as it seemed like the day’s peaceful orphanage tour was about to end—
- Headmistress! We’ve got a problem!
- Shut your mouth! The Grand Duke is right here, for heaven’s sake. What is it this time?
- That Lily girl is at it again with the boys!! She’s beaten, pinched, and scratched them to tears. It’s a complete mess. Honestly, how did we end up with such a wild little brat in our orphanage?
When the headmistress muttered and disappeared toward the back, I felt a flicker of curiosity and quietly followed her without telling my father.
And there, I saw...
WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK!!
To my shock, Lily was single-handedly dealing with three boys bigger than she was.
The moment the headmistress ran up in a panic, the boys immediately dropped to the floor as if they’d been waiting for it and burst into tears.
- Waaaaah!! Headmistreeesss!!
- How pathetic can you get? A bunch of boys ganging up on one girl and then bawling like this!
- But that girl started it first...
- Quiet! And you, you little brat! What in the world are you always so upset about, day after day? Goodness, Grand Duke Your Grace is here too. I ought to tell him and have him give you a proper scolding.
- Wait. Headmistress. What’s that girl’s name?
- Pardon? A-ah, Young Master Edrick? Why are you here and not with the Grand Duke...
The moment I saw Lily, I saw something other people couldn’t.
To put it simply, it was the kind of thing a swordsman could recognize—more specifically, a gifted swordsman.
If I had to explain it in a different field, it’d be like this.
With someone who sang really well, or an actual singer.
You could tell the skill level of an amateur singer before they’d even finished, no—before they’d even gotten through the first verse.
Even in a simple opening line with no high notes at all.
Because the power behind each syllable, the clarity of the voice, the way the final note was handled—there was so much information packed into even one line that it was obvious.
Swordsmanship was exactly the same.
To anyone else, she just looked like a wild girl using every dirty trick she could to beat a bunch of boys senseless.
But to my eyes, blessed with the finest talent in the Heiden family, I saw something else.
She instinctively read the direction of her opponent’s weight shift and used it to hook their lower body.
She slipped only into blind spots where the larger boys couldn’t see her and used that opening to destabilize their center with perfect precision.
Even amid all that chaos of punching and scratching, her lower body balance never once wavered.
That girl is exactly the kind of talent that should be a swordsman.
Coming to that conclusion on instinct, I quickly told the headmistress,
- I want to take her with me.
- Eeeh?? W-well, if you’d be willing to take in such a wild child, we’d be grateful, of course...
Of course, it wasn’t just because she looked like she might become a promising swordsman.
First of all, the cold, contemptuous way she looked down at the boys sprawled on the ground somehow felt like it might become my type when she got older... no, that wasn’t it.
At the time, I genuinely believed this was a low-power fantasy world, so I had every intention of living out the classic fantasy dream.
Raising a talented kid from scratch is a fantasy cliché too.
The moment Bernhardt came walking over after hearing the commotion, I asked my father.
- Father. I want to bring that girl to the castle.
- What’s this all of a sudden, Edrick?
- I’ll take care of her and make her into a great swordsman.
Surprisingly, my father looked Lily over, then gave his permission with a simple, “If you don’t take proper care of her, I’ll send her back to the orphanage.”
Maybe Bernhardt, being a Sword Master himself, had sensed some potential in Lily too.
After that, there wasn’t anything especially dramatic.
Because I needed a reason to take a child out of the orphanage, I basically gave her the title of my personal maid.
And after Lily had adapted to life in the castle, I started teaching her swordsmanship myself.
For the record, that ended up helping me more than I expected.
It turns out there’s a difference between simply knowing something and teaching it to someone else.
While teaching Lily swordsmanship, I ended up deepening my own understanding of everything swordsmanship required.
Maybe my father had intended that from the start.
Though after Lily hit puberty, the distance between us did start to feel a little different...
Well, she’s a teenage girl. I should understand that. I did live in the modern world, after all. I know that much.
She’d always been shy, expressionless, and cold.
Then she slowly started turning into some kind of abusive heroine, which I actually welcomed with open arms... damn it, there I go again, revealing my true feelings.
Just as I was getting lost in old memories for the first time in a while, the office door opened and Lily came back in.
“Young Master. I’m done.”
“Oh. Then let’s go—wait. You’re sparring in that outfit?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
Well, a maid outfit was obviously easier to move in than a tight office look.
Still, I’d assumed she’d be wearing something comfortable for sparring, not changing into a maid uniform.
Good or bad? If you asked me, it was good. Very good.
“N-no, nothing’s wrong with it.”
“And yet it looks like you didn’t get any work done while I was changing clothes.”
“Huh? No, that’s not true. I stamped several more documents.”
“The stack’s exactly the same as when I left.”
Ah, this girl really did have a terrifying memory.
And so, for the first time in a while, I spent a pleasant little stretch of time crossing swords with Lily.