Chapter Chapter 30: RATH 30 TL: Eevee (1/2)
RATH 30
TL: Eevee
4. The others’ stories (4)
#6 Their story: No.1000’s story.
Unlike No.1 and No.17, No.1000 didn’t have a place to return to.
Meaning, she had to go back to the life where she couldn’t eat every day.
Once she realised that, No.1000 despaired.
“Kukuung!”
“There’s no need to make sound effects with your mouth.”
“It’s bad.”
“Re, really?”
When No.1000 started thinking with a dead serious expression, No.17 was going to ask whether she’d be interested in coming back to her house with her, but the one who stopped No.17 was Iris whose face was still sheet-white from shock.
“Hey, you. The princess said she’d be taking you. She refuses your refusals.”
“Huh?”
“The other kids might have their own families, but she told me to bring you back especially. Here.”
She brought out a small box specifically ordered from the imperial palace, and when she opened the box there was a fresh, steaming steak inside.
“Ca, can I eat it?”
“Of course.”
No.1000 gulped, and the moment when she put a bite-sized steak into her mouth.
“…!!!!!!!!!!”
In that instant, No.1000’s face turned bright red, and her eyes opened widely.
Her hands were flailing around in their air as if she didn’t know what to do with them.
“If you come with us, then this quality of meals will be your everyday…”
“I’ll come! I’ll come! I’ll come!”
And that was how No.1000 became the princess’s right-hand woman.
#7 Their story: No.17’s story.
“You did it!”
“Welcome back.”
At the warm gazes my family sent me, my heart felt… it should feel warm. How should I put it.
Why does it feel like I’m about to break out in goosebumps?
-Give up owner. Owner’s already, become accustomed to that place.
-No, no! It can’t be!
-Owner. Don’t deny it. Owner is already, one that this archdevil Surtr has acknowledged, a soul that is eviler and cruller than a devil.
-No! I’m a pure…
I suddenly shut up. That something, inside me is blocking it. No. it can’t be.
But!
-Now, owner. Pure… so. What?
-I’m still pu… krrrgghh… it, it can’t be. But, but!
What is this, the world’s will? Or is it the remnants of my conscience! Something is blocking from saying what I want to say.
-Urgh… I… am… not pure.
I was dirtied.
I was dirtied!
Only before I went to Howling there was a time where I simply enjoyed learning magic!
This is all the evil organization’s fault!
“I believed in you. Because among all my daughters you had the most talent to adjust to Howling.”
“Unni believed in you too. If it was you who lived less like a noble girl’s life than a boor… I mean free-spirited life you’d act like a scumb… I mean adjust and survive there.
-Owner. I think your family knew owner’s talents very well.
-No! Tha, that’s just unni lying! She’s just jealous that I’ve come back after completing a big job!
-Her eyes are way too pure for that.
-It, it can’t be… lies…
But the more I heard my family’s compliments the more I heard that they believed that I’d adapt well to an evil organization.
Moreover, Mother, the only one who didn’t say something along those lines.
“Now all you need to do now is get married.”
Went and said something like that!
What was the reason I went to Howling in the first place?! It was to get out of an arranged marriage!
But to be married off as soon as I got back!
“Mother, I am still lacking in knowledge.”
“It’s alright. Bridal lessons are something I can teach you quickly.”
“N, not that kind of knowledge, but I want to learn more magic.”
“Really?”
I barely convinced Mother who was looking at me with a slightly regrettable face and faced Father, the family head and announced loudly.
“I, will go to the academy for learning!”
I was someone who survived while feeling true pain.
A bunch of brats who simply played around in the fields going hahahoho would be no match for me!
But I didn’t know then.
That there would be existences whose academy lives were filled with even greater pain than mine.
#8 Their story: No.1’s story.
After returning home, and a bit of praise from Father I thought I’d be forgotten.
Well, of course.
Since mother passed away I have no backers, and I’m not the oldest, and I’m not famous either?
And so naturally like a rat in a hole, I thought I’d have to live quietly, and since my brothers seemed to feel sorry for sending a kid that wasn’t even much of a threat to Howling, plus they had other threats to take care of so they couldn’t be bothered dealing with me, and so it seemed like they were going to leave me alone.
But…
“Ha, so you’re saying you blocked my way for just this?”
When a visiting noble tried to destroy a food stall because it was in the way of his carriage, my thread of reason snapping was the problem.
“Pl, please stop!”
“Shut up! Just? Just this?”
Ahh, I wasn’t this kind of bastard. I wasn’t someone who’d step forward like this, I was someone who thought I could always fill my belly, but!
“The clothes you wear, the food you eat! Just where do you think they come from? You motherfucking leech, you dare cause trouble in a dining hall?! Do you have any idea how much it hurts when you’re starving!”
That was all I could remember.
From what I heard I cursed the noble and his entire clan with all the insults and curses I knew, and I beat down all his knights that tried to stop me by force and lectured him for about an hour on the importance of food.
And because of that, I became the most famous out of my brothers in the territory!
“His Excellence’s son Swin really thinks of us?”
“Yeah, apparently he understands our hunger well.”
“I heard he made huge achievements in the recent Howling incident as well, he’s quite the person.”
Whenever three or more people of our territory gather they start praising me.
The rumours became twisted and started to turn to something along the lines of me destroying the evil organization Howling that existed since the founding of the empire all by myself.
Because of this there were nobles that started to take note of me as well, and when it seemed that my brothers too, felt they couldn’t afford to leave me alone anymore.
“Let’s gap it.”