Ch 16

"Let's get out of this smelly place for now."

Lan nodded his head in strong agreement. "Right! My head hurts so much!”

I snatched Perseus' bag and headed to the nearest sewer exit.

"But why are you pickpocketing? Does your dad not give you any pocket money?"

Judging from his hand movements, it was not something he had only done once or twice. Perseus avoided my gaze.

"It doesn't matter to you."

"What's the age difference between you and me? Why are you talking informally? Speak formally."

"I don't think it matters to you.” he spoke informally once more.

I reared back to hit him on the head again. In response, Perseus smiled slyly and switched to honorifics. “I don’t think it matters to you, sir! Hehe." [1]

I smirked at him, "You ran away from home, didn’t you?"

"Oh!"

When Perseus looked at me wondering how I knew, I hit him on the back of the head again and magically removed his hair grease from my hands.

"It's obvious. Your clothes are luxurious, but they're not washed at all. Your face and hands seem to have been wiped roughly in a fountain, but you probably could hardly bathe so your hair is still greasy. My aunt couldn’t have left you like this, so you must have run away from home."

Few inns would accept a dirty nine-year-old, no matter how rich he was. No inn would want to take the risk of letting in a child who could be related to some crime. If anyone showed any favor to him, everyone would think he was there to swindle them, or sell them into human trafficking.

Perseus pouted his lips, "Even if I'm messy, my mom won't care at all. Sir."

As Perseus awkwardly spoke with honorifics and climbed up the sewer ladder, I immediately followed and asked, "No way, my aunt is a clean freak."

Once upon a time, when my first brother tried to touch a newborn Perseus with muddy hands from playing outside, she freaked out and kicked my first brother, sending him flying dozens of meters. Of course, my first brother was already an adult at that time, so it had been his fault.

Perseus was furious. "Mom's not interested in me!"

When I slightly raised my hand again, he shrank and switched back to formal speech awkwardly. Seeing that, I snorted at him. When he was a baby, my first and second brothers had played with him by throwing him high into the air. My aunt would freak out and beat them severely when she saw them. There's no way she wasn’t interested in her son, when she had doted on him so much. There were probably only a few situations that would cause such a person to not be able to pay attention to their child…

"Oh, do you have a younger brother?"

Perseus flinched at my sudden question.

"Did you run away because you felt left out because your parents were giving all their attention to your younger brother?"

Perseus's face turned red as I looked at him, dumbfounded.

‘What a reason to run away.’

"But...! My mom always only takes care of my younger brother! Dad always goes to Olympus Forest to find baramasel honey!"

Search "pawread dot com" for the original.

"Baramasel honey? That’s not easy to get."

In Olympus forest, which was a restricted land, baramasel honey was collected by baramasel bees living in the extreme conditions of the forest. Even with just a small amount, it could improve mana when consumed. To be honest, it was not much compared to Mirpa Elder's medicine, but the taste was legendary and was said to feel like tasting heaven. I had only tasted one drop when my father had managed to get fifty milliliters of it and offered it at my grandfather's eightieth birthday party. It had tasted so good that I, who had always been pessimistic about life, thought it would be worth being reborn if there was something like this in the world.

"Come to think of it, didn’t they say that my father always got honey for my mother after she gave birth?" said Perseus.

Certainly, the honey was a perfect remedy for when you were weak. Although, my aunt, a Crow, wouldn’t really need it. Maybe my uncle was also looking for honey because of my father. Lan agreed with Perseus and spoke up indignantly.

"That's right! My parents always did that when I got a younger brother. It’s true!"

‘Come to think of it, Lan had a younger brother too, right?’

When I was young and used to play with Lan, the younger brother would waddle after us so we played with him too. Lan would treat him like he was some bothersome baggage, but from my point of view, both of them were just kids. Even if my body got smaller, my brain stayed the same! A fearless past-lifer! That's who I am.

With Lan to back him up, my cousin nodded enthusiastically, "Typical, right? It’s mom and dad’s fault! You think so too, right, Sir?”

When Perseus asked me, I shrugged.

"If you're already about nine years old, be sensible. Maybe it's something to be sulky about, but it's not something worth running away from.”

It would be fine for him to run away from home once he became more of an adolescent. Given the current era, he’d be at an age that was recognized as an adult by then, so that would be more becoming independent, not running away. To be honest, because I was the youngest and I was an only child in my previous life, I couldn’t really relate to him.

Perseus pouted his lips at my point. I looked at him pitifully and asked, "So how many days have you been running away from home? Where are you sleeping?"

"… It’s been a little over a month since I left the house, and now I'm hiding in a lighthouse warehouse in the harbor… Sir."

The location of the Crow tribe embassy was in the capital of the Republic, which meant that he had come all this way alone. A month ago, the Empire had been preparing for war, and that would have had a significant impact on the Republic as well. In addition, because the council of elders of the Crow tribe was coming out of Olympus Forest as well, it would have been very busy and hectic. Among the chaos, it would not have been difficult to run away from home.

I sighed deeply. ‘My aunt must be out of her mind by now.’

Perseus noticed my expression. "Are you going to drag me to my mom? Sir?”

He hesitated as if he knew it was not possible to escape. Since he knew I had run away from home, he also knew that I was the small chief and how I had escaped from the village, so it was a natural reaction. I looked up at the changing sky and sighed again. "Let's go to my accommodation for now, since it's late. At least you’ll be able to sleep more comfortably than in the lighthouse warehouse."

Above all, I needed to wash up. Although Lan had a good sense of smell, I smelled so bad that anybody could track me from my smell alone.

"Come on, let's go."

I returned an empty bag to Perseus and led the way.

* * *

As the sun went down and darkness fell on the street, Cheldeg looked through the office window, watching the secretary walk off. "I think the story will be a little long, so would you like to have a cup of tea?"

The man dressed as an ordinary delivery man standing across the desk smiled lightly and nodded.

"It's been a long time since Sir has called us, so I will happily have some tea."

The man in the delivery outfit was a member of what Cheldeg called a ‘service company’, an organization that was entrusted with dirty work that couldn’t be done openly by a member of congress. The service company did not hesitate to incite riots, manipulate public opinion, act like violent political gangsters, and even carry out assassinations. Cheldeg poured hot water from the kettle into teacups and placed them on the table. "I called you because I wanted to entrust you with a ‘secret big deal' today."

The delivery man sitting on the guest sofa carefully blew on his tea and replied. "A secret big deal?"

When the service company received requests, the contents of the request were spoken in code in case they were being listened to. ‘Secret’ meant leaving no trace, and ‘big deal’ meant killing, which, put together, meant assassination.

As Cheldeg nodded, the man in the delivery outfit asked with a smile, "I see. Then who is the recipient of the delivery?"

"It's the son of my close friend. Can it be delivered by tonight?"

The service company's member nodded. Cheldeg wanted to assassinate the son of the person who got in Cheldeg’s way the most.

"Oh, since it is your request, of course I will do it. However, because time is tight, I will have to charge a little extra. Is that okay?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Then, is there anything I should be careful about when delivering?"

Recalling the new report the secretary had brought up before leaving work, Cheldeg responded, "I heard that they recently got a new watchdog. Were there three? With this new one, it'll be four."

It was said that an unknown party had come into the city in a shabby wagon, with women and children. Cheldeg just mentioned the three men in the party who seemed to be able to fight.

"I don't know the details, but one of them is said to be very fierce. To the point where even the Crow is interested." added Cheldeg.

The man in the delivery man's outfit looked startled. He knew what ‘Crow’ Cheldeg was referring to. He pondered for a moment before smiling once more. "Well, he must be a very scary dog. There could be more surcharges thanks to him."

Cheldeg said firmly, "I don't care, as long as it's delivered."

No matter how much he had to pay, it was nothing in comparison to what he could get if he succeeded.

* * *

As soon as I arrived at the villa, I headed straight to the shower room with Lan and Perseus. I felt like the smell had been engraved into my body from being in the sewer for just a bit. When I came out, Damian stood there as if he had been waiting.

"I'm sorry." he said.

While drying my hair with wind magic, I replied, "No, it can happen. Everyone just did what they had to do."

The reason Damian apologized was simple. The villa managers had heard about me, but they hadn’t heard about Lan and Perseus, so they had blocked us from entering. Fortunately, Damian had come out quickly, so we had been able to enter the villa without much fuss.

"Oh, the items that we are supposed to receive as a reward will come as a delivery from the Asteria market in the morning. Please let me know as soon as it arrives."

Damian nodded, then said "It's a little late, but the meal will be prepared soon. Let's eat together."

Damien led me into the dining room, which was quite noisy.

"Ah! Ah! It hurts! I was wrong so stop hitting me!"

Arwen was hitting Caesar with the magic wand I gave her, and the others in the party were laughing without any intention of stopping her.

"What’s going on?" I asked.

Arrieta turned around and looked at me with a smile. "Oh, are you here? We are watching a sibling quarrel. Those two seem to have a deep bond. I envy them."

Their bond was strong, like the wand that Arwen was beating Caesar with. When I looked at Hillis, she said with a smile, "It just so happened that the story about Caesar using the Dance of the Fireflies came up. At the time, she had let it go due to how hectic things were in the aftermath. Then, she forgot about it for a while when he wasn’t present and she was worried about him, but now that things have regained stability, she is scolding him like this."

I didn't think you could really call it just ‘scolding’, but Caesar did deserve to be hit for what he did, so I decided to laugh with them. Caesar knew what he'd done too, so he seemed to be letting himself get hit by attacks he could avoid.

“But Master, who is the little one next to you?” asked Tristan.

I briefly introduced my cousin, "Oh, this is Perseus, Uncle Hermes' son, and my cousin. I ran into him by chance and brought him here."

Tristan laughed playfully, and responded to me through thought transmission.

- Isn't that kidnapping?

I smiled back.

- I can't say it isn’t.

Perseus would be strong as reserve insurance. My cousin suddenly trembled when he saw my smile.

"Ugh, I don't have a good feeling for some reason."

As expected, Perseus had also been born with the instincts of our family. But it was too late for him.

1. The honorific ending goes at the end, but it doesn’t really work in English, so to indicate the formality, I will be using ‘Sir’. ☜