Leave a comment

「Right, right. Now, let’s head to the Hunter Guild, shall we? After all, it’s necessary to relay the matter of you two being my daughter. While this might not completely get rid of people who would underestimate you two, this way you can’t be blamed if, for example, you kill them.」

Fiiyanamia is being quite extreme right now. Still, even on Earth, there were time periods when insulting a prince could result in beheading for lese-majeste. Now whether the same could be applied to this world, it likely could. Actually, I can’t deny that I’m finding it convenient that killing is an option.

Still, I didn’t really think this way back on Earth. It seems like I’ve gotten quite extreme myself. In this regard, I’d say that Ciel is much more peaceful, since due to her general apathy, insults don’t really affect her at all. Although in her case, it’s dangerous to step on her landmines.

「But it’s better not to kill indiscriminately, right?」
『That’s right. After all, if you kill someone, it’s possible to gain the resentment of their friends. I think turning the tables on those who intend to kill is fine.』
「I see. Understood.」
『Still, this depends on the situation as well.』

I can’t really comment much on this. On Earth, or rather in Japan, just saying ‘You can’t kill people.’ is likely good enough, but in this world, it’s common for people to go for the kill and, honestly speaking, public order is terrible. Looking at Fiiyanamia, it doesn’t seem we would be punished for killing people within Central.

Actually, what’s the situation regarding rules, or rather laws in Central?

『Ciel, there’s something I want to ask Mother Fii, so can we switch?』
『Sure, I don’t mind.』

Ciel lent me her body without any hesitation. No, actually she seems more proactive about it. As for why… Well, it’s not that I don’t understand.

「My, my. What’s the matter, Ain?」
「On this subject, I was wondering about the rules here in Central. Are there any laws and such?」
「I see, how do I say this? You could say that there are, but you could also say that there are none. There are rules for the people borrowing this land, so to speak. However, those are rules they’ve decided on their own and are irrelevant to this mansion.」
「Then are there rules in this mansion?」
「Obedience to me. You two are going to be my family, so I suppose this doesn’t apply? As long as you don’t destroy this land or do anything that would force me to fulfill my duty as a divine messenger, I don’t particularly mind.」
「Well, of course.」
「In that case, whatever you do, I will permit it.」

Saying so, mother patted my head. Her combing through my hair with experienced motions is great and all, but please stop casually attempting to dispel a bit of my barrier. Thanks to that, I can’t really enjoy it. Is a new kind of torture?

「Mother, please stop trying to remove my barrier.」
「Fufufu. Each strand really is covered by a separate barrier. That’s not normal, if you ask me.」
「Mother, aren’t you also capable of doing this if you wanted to?」
「You normally don’t think of trying that. For a mortal child only slightly more than a decade old to reach this level, unbelievable.」
「I’ve borrowed the Creator God’s power, after all. Besides, I’ve existed for more than thirty years, you know?」
「From my perspective, it’s barely any different. But I suppose we’ll leave it at that.」

Fiiyanamia stopped combing her fingers through my hair and showed a gentle smile. That’s true, from her eyes, 10 and 30 years aren’t that different, but please stop with that all-knowing smile. Muu… While winning isn’t necessary, I don’t feel like I can win against her. Which might be because I let out everything that burdened my heart to her.

『I see, I see! So that’s how much older Ain is!』

Ciel, meanwhile, is in very high spirits. It’s quite adorable. I don’t feel like I can win against Ciel either.

『Have I not yet told you my age before?』
『I’ve had a hunch that Ain was probably older, but this is the first time I heard actual numbers, you know?』
『In that case, I’ll tell you the exact details that are in my memories, alright Ciel? On the planet called Earth, in a country named Japan, I died in an accident at 20 years old.』
『As I thought, you were an adult, right Ain?』
『I can’t really say. You see, in my country, you were considered to be an adult at 20. However, I was still a student when I died. I haven’t gone out into the world, gaining actual working experience.』
『Then that means Ain started working at the same time as I did, right?』
『That would be the case. Before I noticed it, we’ve gotten a lot of money.』

After answering so to Ciel, she let out a happy giggle, 『Ehehehe』

「Are we done now? We will be going to the Hunter Guild, but as for the compensation for the transgressions done by the fool we were talking about earlier, you will have to negotiate yourselves, alright?」
「Is there anything we have to keep in mind as your daughter?」
「As long as you are satisfied with the settlement, it doesn’t really matter.」
「In that case, I will have Ciel do the negotiations. After all, I have been the one generally in charge of it up until now.」
「In that case, I’ll help out just a bit, I suppose? After all, this is a big moment for my precious child.」

Mother instantly changed her mind. As I thought, isn’t she a bit too sweet on us? I’m thankful, so I don’t mind at all. Still, I don’t think it’s that big of a moment.

『I’m doing it? I’ll do my best!』
『In general, it’s fine as long as you are satisfied with the results, so please think of this as practice.』
『Understood.』

Now then, I wonder how Ciel will do? She didn’t seem much interested in the acting guildmaster, so it’s possible that she’ll just end it without much thought. On the other hand, she has seen how I negotiated in the past, so she might ask for some nasty demands. Thinking back now, most of my negotiations were pretty high-handed. Still, I have not a single regret regarding that.

「Now then, shall we go?」

Fiiyanamia is leading the way, so I switched with Ciel and, for the first time in a while, we left the mansion.

◇

While walking through the Central’s streets, Ciel’s eyes wander from one place to another. Come to think of it, this is practically the first time we walked through these streets. After all, we were surrounded by soldiers when we arrived and then after that, mother— Mistress Fiyanamia was guiding us and there was no opportunity to calmly look around.

Even now, we’re being guided by Fiiyanamia but we’re now in a different position compared to when we entered the mansion. Now that we’re her daughter, we’d probably be forgiven for looking around and occasionally stopping on our tracks for a bit. Mother is looking at Ciel with a warm gaze, after all.

Central’s town is, based on my impressions, like a quiet residential area… I think? The roads are spacious enough for carriages to travel on, and there are trees planted along both sides of the road. Compared to the other towns, its tidiness leaves a good impression.

The clouds are pretty high up, the sun feels gently warm, and the leaves changing colors makes it feel like autumn, it really lifts the spirits.

Ciel who’s looking around the area restlessly is probably feeling this too.

Taking a good amount of time, we reached the Hunter Guild. Fiiyanamia, seemingly not particularly bothered, casually opened the door and went inside. While there were hunters that raised their eyebrows upon seeing a blooming lady that by no means looked like a hunter suddenly arriving, the guild personnel were flustered the instant she entered.

「W-what might be the purpose of your visit for today?」
「Is Rhavelt in?」
「Yes, I’ll show the way at once.」

The receptionist said so and led us to a room with fixtures that are pretty high quality for a Hunter Guild. The receptionist said, 「I will call him, so please wait here for a short while,」 before bowing down and leaving.

Left alone with Fiiyanamia, Ciel muttered 「I wonder why we were led here?」 as she tilted her head.

「Right, right, I wonder why myself. It would’ve been completely fine for me if we were immediately led to where Rhavelt is. However, it seems like it’s not good for me to be the one going. Really, mortal society is such a bother.」
「It really is. But Fii is always involved in it, right?」
「While I may be involved, I don’t particularly associate myself with it.」
「Is that so?」

Ciel replied as she tilted her head. She probably doesn’t understand it at all, but, honestly, I don’t feel like I can articulate Fiiyanamia’s sensibilities either. After that, the harmonious chatting continued until the door was knocked.

「Rhavelt, right? You may enter.」

It was as if Fiiyanamia was the owner of this room, but now that I think of it, it is hers to begin with, huh. If she so desires, she can drive out everyone in the land of Central. And if you know that, you can’t really treat her lightly, so mother’s behavior isn’t particularly wrong.

While the way mother is acting may seem different from person to person, she isn’t mortal to begin with. So she probably doesn’t care about mortal perceptions.

Entering the room with mother’s permission was an old man. However, he’s not the weak from age type but rather seems to be one of the martial arts expert types. He’s like those weirdly strong old men who appear in stories.

「I’m honored to have you here today.」
「Enough of that. I only came here today to tell you about something.」
「Is it regarding that girl?」
「Yes. I have decided to take this child —— Cielmer as my daughter.」

Hearing mother’s words, Rhavelt’s eyebrows twitched and his gaze shifted to Ciel. This shift was so natural and it doesn’t feel like he’s staring at all. However, it does feel like he’s observing us carefully.

「This girl is…」
「Yes, the child that has been repeatedly troubled by the Hunter Guild.」

Fiiyanamia’s smile is blinding. Quite the smile, indeed. Which probably just inflicts damage to Rhavelt’s stomach.

「I… see. My apologies for the great trouble.」

Rhavelt lowered his head. Having someone clearly older than me lower their head personally feels somewhat uncomfortable, so I would’ve likely said 「Please raise your head.」 if I was the one negotiating. Unfortunately, both Ciel and Fiiyanamia don’t seem to be interested in saying the same.

「So, what will the Hunter Guild do about it?」
「As long as these old bones are able to do it, anything.」

Hearing Ciel’s high-handed question, it seems like she’s perfectly tainted by my methods. Specially-educated indeed. With Ciel’s current standing, she’ll at least need to be capable of doing this, so I guess this is a good thing. On the other hand, the Hunter Guild seems surprisingly on board with this. In reality, it’s possible that they’ll just be evasive about this but, really, I wonder what Ciel is going to ask for?

Hiya~! It’s been a while since we’ve been in the guild again! Any bets on how long they’ll be here?

Joking aside, on the next chapter, it seems like we’ll see how much Ciel has learned from watching Ain negotiate! And from what we have right now, it seems to be promising, lol. Ciel’s general disinterest + Ain’s high-handed “who cares about my reputation, we’re probably not going back here anyway” methods that Ciel has been exposed to repeatedly to, lol. I feel bad for the guildmaster, as I tend to.

Back to the earlier half of the chapter, it was cute how Ciel was so happy to learn Ain’s age. And meanwhile with Ain, I really liked how Ain explained why not to kill (needlessly, at least). In most isekai stories, the “Don’t Kill” morality is, honestly, badly handled. Just my opinion. Really? Just “Well, we don’t kill back in Japan, so I won’t kill here and so should my friends” isn’t a very satisfying answer. And it’s understandable, the protagonists tend to be so overpowered that not killing is a viable option for survival, since they basically don’t experience the difficulty and desperation that caused by the “Kill or be Killed” internal conflict. Also, they tend to first encounter monsters, and humans basically don’t do much against them. Now, with Ain, it’s an objective reason why you don’t kill much. Retaliation. The most real and grounded reason why you shouldn’t kill. Kill someone, and their family/friends will possibly retaliate. And even if they don’t, you are now seen as a threat to normal society. Now, even in Ciel’s world, you’ll still be feared, which in normal circumstances will be a problem, which is clear even from just what they’ve done so far. Previously, a guildmaster butt in between Ciel and a promising beginner because of Ciel’s track record on dealing with people. So yeah, while murder might be first and foremost morally wrong, it’s also an objective mistake *if* you are in situations where this can be avoided. Actually, it’s a bit more complicated, but the point is, it’s better for the story and the readers when protagonists think more about their morals and beliefs. Though ironically, Ain seems to be admittedly more open to killing than she was before, lol. Also, sometimes protagonists are on the “Murder is fine” side of things from the start, but I think in most cases it’s just a countermovement against the badly done “Don’t kill” characters and a bit jarring sometimes. Just my bad take. Even soldiers on the battlefield get PTSD from all that’s happened around them after all. Well, in literature, as long as it works, it works. Just a nitpick about isekai protags.

Now then, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please feel free to comment. Happy New Year! Stay clean, stay safe, and have a nice day~!