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“—so this girl and I practiced sorcery together on the hill, and we parted ways with a promise to meet again the next day. But because my parents, either my dad or my mom, ended up telling on her, I guess she couldn’t come…”

As Cestlavie rubbed his stomach after wolfing down the food as ravenously as Vier, not leaving a single drop of stew nor a single grain of bread, he talked about how he met a noble girl once upon a time over an after-lunch cup of tea.

Incidentally, Vier hadn’t had her fill yet, so she quickly disappeared into the woods to procure more food for herself. Every once in a while, I could hear panicked oinks as though there were pigs in a slaughterhouse nearby, but it must be the wind.¹

Well, leaving that aside, I tried to objectively judge Cestlavie’s story. From the characteristics of the girl in the story, this girl had to be me; there was no doubt of it.

The problem is… I thought, as I put my index finger on my chin, trying to jog my memory.

“…my apologies, I don’t remember.”
“—Well, I won’t blame you. We were little kids, and it was a short amount of time too.”

When I looked at the clear eyes of the boy who smiled at me, a heavy feeling of guilt attacked my heart.

It was indeed just a brief moment in my childhood, so it was normal for me not to remember it, but to forget it completely when the other person still clung to it was quite heartless —then again, perhaps that was the norm for ‘Syltianna.’

(…get a grip, Syltianna (me)!)

Come to think of it, none of my family was with me that summer when I came to the summer resort, and I was prohibited from going out alone, but I managed to find a gap in the fence or hedge or something —my memory said that I was quite thin when I was five— and used that to play outside or something, and I had a feeling I was quite the bundle of energy back then (then again, my current consciousness had trampled over my past ‘self,’ so this memory was nothing more than pure information).

Also, I had a feeling that people never really called me Ragweed Princess back then, but more along the lines of Angel and Fairy and such as they pampered me…

“…ah, that’s right. When Mother died, all my maids and nannies were suddenly replaced, and they changed my diet to a high-calorie one. Before long, they already called me Pig and Ragweed and such.”

Seeing my shoulders droop, Cestlavie must’ve thought I was burdened by the guilt of forgetting him, and thus told me, “Don’t worry about it.”

“Even if you say so, I’ve practically ruined the memory of your first love, so…”

I am so sorry, I added with a sigh. That was when Cestlavie held his chest, nearly spraying out the tea he was drinking.

“KOFF! KOFF! First love?! What the hell are you saying?!”
“—? Am I wrong? However, from the way you tell your story, that is how it sounds to me.”

For the current me, that version of Syltianna was practically a stranger, so I could judge rather objectively.

“Nngh~~~~ I was a little brat, I wasn’t thinking about romance and all that!”

That was also the reason why I found Cestlavie blowing out his fuse like this amusing.

“Kukuku. You don’t realize that kind of thing by yourself, you know? Well, once you’re at my level, you can be perceptive to people’s subtleties and romantic feelings. I, for one, can tell when love is in the air right away.”²

♢♦♢♦♢

In the luxurious guest room of the Eroica³ , the Magic Sailboat of the Imperial Household.

Lucas, who was sitting alone at the table, somewhat listlessly eating his lunch of freshly caught seafood, suddenly felt an impulse to straighten his back and throw a retort in the direction of who-knows-where with all his might.

“—OBJECTION!!”

♢♦♢♦♢

Just as Cestlavie was about to argue back, Vier returned from the forest with something in her mouth. The thing was rampaging despite the considerable serious injury that Vier had inflicted on it, and it was—

“…a pig?”
“An orc, that’s an orc!”

Being corrected by Cestlavie, I finally noticed the five-fingered limbs that should’ve been impossible for a pig to have.

“How rare. Goblins and orcs around the road are exterminated on a regular basis, seeing one of them should be rare.”

As if waiting for him to finish, about ten orcs with clubs and stone tools in their hands came out of the woods right then.

“They seem to be quite numerous. Could they be the culprit behind the missing persons?”

“No chance. A mere 10 or 20 orcs wouldn’t be able to defeat a group of trained—” Before Cestlavie could finish his sentence, the furious howling of pigs echoed from everywhere in the forest that covered the surrounding area.

At the same time, the spirits of the forest came flying my way and verbally warned me of danger.

“here dangerous”
“one strong monster there”
“many weak monsters everywhere”
“scary scary”
“humans get eaten”
“run away run away”

“What do you mean? What are they?”

I asked the spirits, and after they looked at each other, they began to chant in unison.

“pig”
“pig”
“pig”

A blue streak of vein popped on my temple, and they must’ve found it amusing, as they started to jeer around even more.

*“pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” *
*“pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” *
*“pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” *
*“pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” *
*“pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” “pig” *

“…WHO ARE YOU CALLING A PIG?!!”
“What is it, what’s happening?!”

Cestlavie’s eyes opened wide in shock as he heard my scream, but I was long past my limiter. Not that I could hear anything afterward, but right at the next moment, an avalanche of orcs came rushing out from the forest.

—and thus, we returned to the present.⁴

1. Syl: Seriously… what’s wrong with pigs? Do you have a trauma with pigs or something? Tell me… how did she die again before the reincarnation? Was it by orcs? Is that why she has a trauma?
2. Syl: Right… poor Luke…
3. Mab: Beethoven’s 3rd symphony, not the kind of Eroi you’re thinking.
4. Lio: So you’re telling me this chapter was a flashback? Why did the author choose to do this? All it does is make it more confusing to follow with this reversed chapter order.