Chapter 50: Yeah... I Thought So

Ring ring, ring ring, ring ring!

“Intruders!”

One night, the alarm system in our property detected invaders on the premises. It may have just been a normal visitor or a wild animal, but it was generally best to expect the worst in these situations.

...And, even then, reality tended to take you by surprise.

I was relaxing in the living room with Reiko at the time, so our response was quick. I checked the position of the sensor potion container that detected the intruder using the surveillance panel potion container. I aimed the infrared camera potion container that I had installed on the roof and zoomed in. Then I used the LCD monitor potion container to...

Okay, enough! I’m skipping the “potion container” stuff from now on!

Anything that shouldn’t exist in this world was made as a potion container! I don’t compromise when it comes to our safety! Safety first. That went without saying!

And on the monitor, we saw...

“Kids?”

I saw a boy who was about five or six years old and a girl around ten years old on the monitor. The two looked around cautiously as they slowly approached the building. They looked a little older because of their Caucasian descent, but I was used to seeing that by now, so I was pretty good at estimating their ages. Unless they happened to be extraordinarily large or small compared to the average size, that is. And when determining someone’s age, I also factored their environment into the equation. Orphans were often smaller than average because of their lack of nutrition. Fat orphans weren’t really a thing, after all.

“...Orphans?” Reiko asked.

“Probably.”

They were pretty much the textbook image of typical orphans. Their clothes had probably been decent at one point, but now they were looking a bit dingy. They weren’t completely ragged or anything, but they probably would have been laundered if they were living in a normal household. Judging by the fact that the clothes hadn’t been washed, it was safe to assume that they were orphans. Not only that, but these kids weren’t even in a fit state for an orphanage.

...Come to think of it, this place used to be an orphanage, huh.

“Still, there are five- or six-year-old thieves and ten-year-old killers, so don’t let your guard down!” I warned.

“I know!” Reiko nodded.

That was just how things were in this world, and it was the same in some countries on modern Earth. We were nothing but frail women who had grown up in a peaceful country. It was entirely possible that someone who had been desperately fighting for their life from an early age could take a moment’s opportunity to stab us with a knife. There was no guarantee that we could use potions or magic in the split second that the blade was thrust at us, either.

Both Reiko and I occupied more of a back-line role, as long-range fighters. Besides, Reiko had never killed anyone before. I couldn’t say with certainty that she would be able to do it when necessary. That’s why we had to kill the enemy before they got too close. So...

“The intruders have reached the first line of defense. They are taking the main route...”

Huh, they were heading straight to the front entrance instead of trying to sneak in. They would have been greeted with trap holes and all sorts of surprises if they had gone around the side, but we obviously hadn’t rigged up the main entrance like that. We may have had occasional visitors, after all, and we didn’t want to accidentally trigger our own traps.

But considering the two were coming right up to the front, maybe they weren’t here to steal anything. I figured the only time children would visit a stranger’s house at night would be to steal or beg. And if they were beggars, they probably would have come by during the day or evening, when it was more likely that we would have leftovers. They definitely wouldn’t have come so late at night.

I didn’t want to reveal my secret unnecessarily, so I held a dagger in my left hand, with a bottle of explosive potion at my right hip. Reiko equipped herself with a short sword and a crossbow.

...Apparently, she had been training with all sorts of weapons in Japan to prepare for this day.

Damn it, I would’ve made preparations if I knew I was reincarnating, too!

In any case, we were fully geared up as we waited for the visitors to arrive.

Knock, knock!

Some time later, the knocker rang out. It seemed they really were just visiting, not burglars. But they were still two dirty-looking children arriving at such a late hour with no appointment. They definitely weren’t what you’d consider proper guests.

Still, there was no point in pretending we weren’t home. That would just be delaying the issue, and next time they might not try to come in through the front entrance. It was better to respond normally—no, with a friendly demeanor, so we could gain more information.

“Coming!”

So, I opened the door and greeted them cheerfully, and...

“Eek!!!”

The two kids fell back on their butts.

“D-Don’t kill us!”

Oh.

I had a dagger in my left hand, and Reiko was behind me aiming a crossbow at them. I couldn’t blame them for getting scared...

“...So, you two used to live here?”

“Y-Yes, I grew up in the orphanage here... I was taken in by a merchant in a neighboring territory, but I was put to work as a slave instead of cared for as a foster daughter as was originally promised... Then I started to feel like I was in danger, so I ran away as soon as I had the chance. He was just recently brought in from another orphanage, and I took him with me...”

Oh, that’s heavy...

It sounded like whoever took them in intended to enslave them from the get-go... How evil.

“And you had nowhere else to go, so you came back here with a report on whoever took you guys in.”

“Y-Yes...”

The girl had carried that younger boy all the way here, in a desperate attempt to escape with her life, and when she finally arrived, she was greeted by a dagger and crossbow instead of the caretakers and the other children at the orphanage. No wonder she fell on her butt...

The nine-year-old girl, who was named Mine, desperately explained her story as the six-year-old Aral hungrily dug into his bread and soup.

I could have offered them some meat, but I heard that eating something that’s hard to digest after eating nothing for a long time can make you puke, so I opted to give them some soft bread and soup instead. The soup was full of nutritious ingredients, though.

Mine also had some bread and soup before she started talking. She didn’t eat much, so maybe she wasn’t a big eater, or she knew that she wasn’t supposed to stuff herself too quickly. But, seeing how she didn’t try to stop Aral from eating, maybe she had a different reason.

Mine’s real name was Minette, but she went by her shortened name in accordance with the rules at her orphanage. I found out that the kids at the orphanage were given short and easy-to-pronounce names, so the young kids could pronounce them, and so the caretakers could call them quickly to stop them from doing something dangerous.

If a child’s name was known when they were taken in, they were often given a nickname if their name was too long or too difficult to say. Long names put you at a disadvantage when it comes to survival, anyway. There’s even a Japanese cautionary tale about that called Jugemu...

Anyway, I decided to feed them and let them bathe and stay the night. Tomorrow, I’d ask the realtor where the owners of the orphanage had gone and then decide what to do about these kids. I’d feel pretty awful if they were to die in the streets or ended up in the slums just because I threw them out.

And most people may have seen them as “just orphans,” but to me, they were just like Emile and the others from the Eyes of the Goddess. Pushing these kids away would be the same as pushing Emile, Belle, or Layette away. I had to at least find a place for them to stay before sending them off...

Come to think of it, this place had been an orphanage. Why had it ended up being sold as a vacant house? You didn’t normally see orphanages go out of business. They weren’t really commercial operations in the first place, so I doubted they’d had a downturn in revenue or that a rival company had driven them out of business...

Considering the country, lord, and people of the city all seemed fine, it seemed unlikely that an orphanage would get shut down so abruptly under normal circumstances. Maybe their operations had been funded by the national government, or possibly the local lord, or even donations from local residents, and their source of revenue had suddenly gotten cut off? Hmm, it was probably best to ask the realtor tomorrow...

I should have asked why this place had been sold off in the first place before I bought it. Maybe there had been some sort of an incident here, or it was one of those Oshima Teru properties...