The next day we headed off towards Edgeworth Village.
I had originally planned to go by myself, but Alicia and Fate made a fuss the moment they realized that I was going outside of the country. My plan was to only be away for the day and be back by night, though it would be squeezing things a little tight depending on what was going to happen.
Folding space all the way to Edgeworth was beyond the current me. Flying would take a few hours each way so anything less than the whole day was unlikely to work for me.
Though, a part of why I allowed them to come with me was because it was reassuring as well.
It would be the first time I was away from the two for so long, and that fact made me nervous. Even if Claret was used to caring for them for a few hours at a time, this would be several times that.
So in the end, Claret and I flew through the twilight hours while I carried my babies.
It would be their first time seeing a place outside of the Hourai Commonwealth. The first time they see humans or beastkin. Depending on who it is that wanted to see me, maybe even dwarves.
Though fortunately the light races that they haven't seen didn't look too different from us so they probably won't have much trouble there. But they would be meeting strangers up close, so it did make me worry a bit.
It was probably best I hold onto them the entire time.
We made or way through the air towards the village. Fortunately it was to the west, so the rising sun was at our backs, easing the burden on our eyes.
It didn't take too long before we got close and made the rest of the way on foot to avoid looking too suspicious. Orphne could fly all the way without problems, but it would be weird for someone not a fairy to enter the village airborne. I'd have no way to explain it as they didn't know I was a vampire, and entering while invisible was pretty rude when I was invited.
I greeted the guard at the gate and passed through without incident.
Or at least, nothing that appeared to be trouble. The guy dashed off right after letting us through and closed the gates.
Since he left me without a parting word, I just continued my way to Mint's store. Since Orphne only received his message just the day before, he should have still been in the village rather than already out on his trade route.
"Holy shit they're real."
"Umm...hi?"
When I entered the store, the bored looking man behind the counter gave me the rudest greeting I've ever had. It was so rude in fact, that I wasn't even sure how to take offence to it.
Whack!
"Just what in the world are you saying to a customer!"
After a few brief moments of awkward silence, another figure came out from the back room and slugged the man in the back of his head.
"I'm terribly sorry about that. I don't know what got into this moron's head."
"Uh, no. It's fine."
"Ow! Ow! It hurts!"
The figure proceeded to put the young man into a headlock that even a professional wrestler would be proud of.
"If you have any suggestions for punishments for this idiot, please don't hesitate to tell me Miss Scarlet."
"No, umm, I'll leave that to you."
Personally, I'd rather just forget about the incident entirely and pretend it didn't happen, so making any memories regarding the fallout of the event worked against me.
"Thank you for your kindness. Hey! What do you have to say to Miss Scarlet?"
"Ow! Okay, okay! I'll say it! Thanks for your kindness Miss Scarlet!"
"Umm...no problem."
"Ow! Stop it! I can walk on my own!"
Bang! Crash!
Still in that headlock position, the older figure slowly dragged the younger back to the adjacent room before the younger was roughly tossed through the entry and the door was slammed shut. There was the sound of tumbling past the heavy wooden door, but I pretended not to notice.
"Really, I'm sorry about that idiot son of mine."
"I said it's fine. Let's put it behind us already Mint."
The owner of the store, and the contact I had developed here in Edgeworth Village, Mint. The other man was his son, and the few times I had met him, he did try to hit on me. It was quite annoying, but for the sake of my relationship with Mint, I tried to brush it off as gently as possible. Maybe that was the reason why he never got the message?
Or maybe he was just that stubborn.
"Thank you Miss Scarlet. You really more than live up to your namesake."
"Ahaha..."
It's been quite a while, but I had forgotten that a lot of people constantly connect me to the Scarlet of the past who was known to the public as a saint, even though it brought enmity to the church, and likely ended up getting her killed.
While I didn't like it that people put undue expectations on me because of the association, there wasn't much I could do when I end up living up to those exact expectations. The fact that it results in the public line between her and me being blurred, as annoying as it was, wasn't really something I could do much about. Especially at this point.
I could only hope that as time moved on, I'd eventually step out of her shadow.
Though I wasn't exactly looking to becoming a public figure in the first place, so being forgotten by the greater populace wasn't exactly a big deal. Or rather, if that's what it took for me to escape the previous Scarlet's shadow, I welcomed it wholeheartedly.
"Still, I have to say that your twins are quite adorable."
"Oh, thanks!"
Mint stepped around the counter and came over, leaning in to get a good look at my cute little babies.
Both of them sat in my arms, but Alicia turned to look straight at Mint. Fate on the other hand hugged me tighter and buried her face in my chest. The difference in reaction, it might have had to do with the fact that Alicia had reincarnated like I had.
Since she was blind in her previous life, she was less capable of recognizing people than normal even if she could remember. But even then, it was possible that she recognized Mint's voice, as this was the village she was originally born and raised in.
Fate on the other hand, she reacted exactly as I had figured. Expecting her to react well to new people was asking for too much. I just hoped that she wouldn't get startled to the point that she'd start crying.
"Yes, they take after you so much, I have no doubt that they'll become incredible beauties in the future."
"Ehehe, yea. I bet they'll be as beautiful in the future as they are cute right now!"
The corners of my lips rose to the point that my cheeks hurt, and still they continued to rise further. Having my babies complimented like that went right to my head.
"Oh, I see. You ended up becoming THAT kind of mother huh?"
"What kind?"
Hearing the odd mumbled statement, tilted my head as I asked Mint about it.
"No, it's nothing. Don't worry about it."
"Oh, alright."
Maybe he didn't mean for me to actually hear it. It was quite quiet after all. Maybe if I was still human, I wouldn't have even noticed it.
"Oh yea, how's things been going with Orphne? Has there been any problems?"
"No, things have been going quite smoothly. The transfer of goods with Lady Orphne has been quite uneventful, thankfully."
"LADY Orphne?"
"Is, is something the matter?"
(A ton of things! Or rather, why lady?!)
"Umm, why do you call her Lady Orphne?"
"Isn't that how everyone calls her? When she introduced herself, she said that it was how everyone called her back home. She said that she was part of the noble class."
(That lying bitch!)
On one hand I was glad that she wasn't causing trouble over here where I couldn't see her, but at the same time, that was some lie she had made for herself!
"She's not nobility or anything. Just my subordinate."
"Oh, is that the case..."
"It is. Make sure everyone knows. While she does represent me, that's all there is to it. You can think of her as an errand girl. If she causes trouble, feel free to do what you think is right."
It looked like I needed to come here once in a while to make sure that Orphne wasn't hiding anything from me.
I sighed at the extra work that little fairy had suddenly made me.
(At least what she's done so far isn't really a big deal.)
The potential consequences was big, but as long as it didn't get out of this village, it wasn't really anything serious.
I'd have to give Orphne a bit of a talking to, but hopefully that'll be enough.
"Anyways, you said in your letter that someone wanted to talk to me?"
We were getting quite derailed. Though it might be a good place for Alicia to get her memories back, Fate was clearly uncomfortable being in such a foreign place so I didn't want to stay here longer than I had to.
"Oh right. Actually, the ones who wanted to talk to you aren't here, but they're actually waiting for you in Linsington City."
"All the way out there?"
Frankly, the thought of going back there was making me nervous. Last time I went there, I ended up killing the lord of the city. And while it didn't seem like anyone suspected me specifically, I didn't want to take any risks I didn't have to.
"I would've figured that it was someone who had business with me, they'd take the extra step to come over to Edgeworth."
"Normally, I would agree with you, but their numbers would make taking them in for any extended period of time quite difficult for us. Things have become incredibly good here thanks to you, but even then suddenly having to feed so many at once is beyond our ability."
"There's that many people wanting to see me?"
One or two people I could understand. I had met quite a few people since I started travelling, so it made sense that someone I met would want to see me. But if the numbers were that great, I couldn't think of who it could be.
"There are. And due to the fact that the difficult journey just to get this far had taken its toll on them, so I thought it would be better that they rest somewhere more comfortable."
"I see. That makes sense."
It made sense, but made things more annoying for me.
"If you'd like, I can get my wagon ready and we can head out at any moment, though I imagine that you would be faster on your own."
"Yea, I'd rather head off on my own, but..."
Going there on my own was fine. I could make the trip in under an hour. The problem was the fact that I had no way to find the people who wanted to talk to me without Mint being there.
"Yes. It's good then that Miss Philia knows how to contact them then."
"Philia?"
(What a nostalgic name.)
It had been years since I last met the director of one of the orphanages in Linsington. That old dwarf lady had taken quite a liking of me, and I liked her as well. The orphans that she took care of as well. They were all pretty fun little kids to play with. Some of them would have left the orphanage by this point, and there would have been some new ones as well, but I should recognize most of them.
"Yes. I introduced them to Philia. I figured that should could help them if something came up. Especially since I had to come back here to send the message to you."
"I see."
While relying so heavily on Philia made me a bit nervous since she had so much on her plate already, there wasn't exactly anyone else we could rely on. The only other people I knew was a few at the local Adventurers' Guild, but that was about it. My relations with them was purely professional as well, so asking them to help out here would be pretty difficult.
"I think I'll go head over right now."
The sooner I get this done, the better after all.
"Oh, I think that might be a little difficult..."
Mint looked away while sweating for some reason.
(Now that I think about it, it's getting a bit noisy outside.)
"Is there something else?"
"Oh no. At least not on my end."
"Oookay..."
Well, with my business done here, I turned headed out...
Only to be greeted by a giant crowd.
"It's really her!"
"It's Saint Scarlet!"
"She came herself!"
All around me were the villagers of this little settlement. While due to our height difference, I couldn't see how far the crowd went, but [sense presence] suggested that almost the entire village was here.
The people all were making noisy exclamations about this and that, mostly related to me somehow. As for why, it couldn't just be because I was here, was it?
(It would be annoying if they did this every time I came to this village. Maybe I should start avoiding this place?)
But after a few moments, everyone quieted down, then along with the volume, their heads were lowered.
Alicia and Fate on the other hand, got bored and just snuggled against my chest. Maybe crowds like this wasn't really much to concern themselves with, since it was quite common in the commonwealth. Though this level of reverence was unusual, it was possible that they just didn't recognize the difference at their age.
Finally, Claret...she was simply behind me with her arms wrapped around my shoulders, invisible to everyone but myself and perfectly content ignoring them while being unnoticed.
"Hey, there's no need to lower your heads like this."
Slowly, one by one, they raised their heads. But the reverence in their eyes didn't fade in the slightest.
(Geez, I didn't create a settlements of fanatics or something, did I?)
I was really hoping that some sort of weird cult wouldn't pop up due to my actions. Fortunately everyone at the Hourai Commonwealth had accepted me as one of the elders, so that title and status managed to quell any potential of blowing their image of me out of perspective.
But such a thing didn't exist here. Not only that, but I had actually saved the village and the lives of many here due to the new industry and trade I had created virtually singlehandedly. The scale combined with the lack of a natural limiter was just begging for everything to explode in the one direction I wanted to avoid.
"Look, I think I get what's going on, but you're all making too much of a deal of it. In the end, all I did was get you guys to work for me, to make something I needed."
"Miss Scarlet, I don't think those words of yours are very persuasive."
"Why not?!"
It wasn't like I disagreed with Mint who came from behind, but if I didn't know how I was doing it wrong, there was no way for me to fix it. If he could tell me that, then I'd be pretty grateful.
"Well, everyone knows that not only did you create the paper mill here when you could have made it anywhere else, but also set things up so you'll buy all the paper produced here. I don't know how much it could be worth elsewhere, but you are buying it at quite a decent price."
It was a bit hard to argue. The whole point at first was to buy the paper at a price point what wouldn't hurt my bank too much while making sure that the village could survive on it for the meantime until the people here got back onto their feet.
"I mean, that's just good business though."
"That maybe true, but when you add in the fact that not only are you buying the paper for goods which we here desperately need rather than purely with coins which would make it difficult to transport the food we need from elsewhere. On top of that, you've donated quite a lot to this village. From food to buying our local goods, you're practically the patron saint of Edgeworth Village."
"Seriously? A patron saint?"
Mint nodded.
"I don't think that it's much of an exaggeration at all."
"It's true!"
"Saint Scarlet, you've saved us all!"
"We're forever thankful for everything you've done!"
"Ah...ha...ha...ha..."
All I could do was laugh at myself. There was no digging myself out of this. When you added everything up, including the things I did on a whim as well as the things I did secretly, once all of it was exposed, it was hard to say that my actions weren't massive acts of charity that had seriously benefited this village.
In the end, I had to go around and greet the people here like some sort of celebrity. Or rather, I really was a celebrity here once you forcibly described my situation.
It wasn't what I wanted, and frankly made me want to run away, but at the very least for now, I'll shake their hands or kiss their babies or whatever. Leaving in a way that soured our relations wasn't something I was willing to do, not when all everyone had was good intentions for me.
But by the time things were over, the sun had already started to set.
Not like such a thing was a big deal for me, but it was a bit tough convincing everyone that I was in a hurry and that it was better for me to just camp out rather than delay my trip.
Of course, it was pure BS. I didn't have to sleep, so there was no need for me to camp. Leaving in the evening meant that I could easily get to Linsington City by the next morning when the gates opened.
And so, to a crowd of people waving their hands at me, I left the village in the hopes that I wouldn't have to return for a long time.
Ninetailed_Furball
Hi everybody! It's your usual furball! (^o^)／
Sorry for the late release. This has been a weird week for me, and I forgot what day it was. It was even finished early, making it that much more absurd. m(_ _)m
Anyways, I'll do my best to get the next chapter out for tomorrow on time.
Hope everyone enjoyed this chapter, and stay safe!
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login