008: Mercy, Bartolo

September 13, 2020 - 10 minutes read - 1935 words

“Sei! Ha!” Eleanora

“Hey! Ha!” Silvio

Eleanora and Silvio are crossing swords in the courtyard. Eleanora’s shouts and the wooden sword impacts sound good. It’s fun to watch her ponytail shift back and forth vigorously.

Eleanora is training to be a knight to work with our father, Nord, and working with the village militia. She seems to have quite the talent, as she’s able to fight as an equal with the militia captain.

Nearby, my older brother Silvio’s swing is being intensely supervised by our father, with frequent corrections. Silvio is usually reading books or studying. I haven’t heard any talk about his future, but maybe he will become a high ranked manager or bureaucrat?

Although Silvio recognizes he’ll never be a sword master, he recognizes that he should have enough practice to be able to use it for self-defense. He is only six years old, so there’s only so much you can expect from him. Since I’m only three years old, I’m excused from sword practice. I wonder if I’ll be training with Eleanora and Silvio when I’m six?

Onto my advancements, I’ve been practicing Spatial Magic with more demanding distances. I’ve been able to transfer pretty reasonable distances now, so when I find a nice place, I imprint the location in my head for convenient transfer at a later time.

Silvio, who sometimes pursues me, isn’t my main enemy. Instead, somehow, my sister, Eleanora, has a mysterious detection ability, which gets better every day. Of my six favorite places to hide, she’s been able to locate four. There is no escape.

Since I use Spatial Magic to instantly transfer, there shouldn’t be any sound like as if I was creeping along. But she says things like “I think Al is over there” and pinpoints where I am. Although I’ve been transferring longer distances, Eleanora’s horse riding has allowed her to go further in locating me. Is this some sort of game? Is Eleanora a bloodhound trying to track me down?

“What are you thinking about? Elna

My mother, Elna, sits down next to me in the garden.

“Were you watching Eleanor and Silvio’s sword practice?” Al

“Oh, does Al want to start sword practice?” Elna

“No, not really. I’d rather live slowly and peacefully. I like to relax when I’m…” Al

I might have used this line too much. My mother is has a normal smile on, but it seems a bit mischievous. I don’t think my parents will go too far with discipline.

“Al has loved magic books since he could crawl, are you interested in magic?” Elna

“I like magic, I read magic books, and sometimes practice magic.” Al

I work hard each day to enrich my magic powers.

“Mom will teach you some magic sometime, would you like to try practicing with me?” Elna

Elna’s is really fired up about teaching her youngest son some magic, like she’s saying “Leave it to me!”

“All right” Al

I don’t know how much Elna can do magic, but I’m sure there is I haven’t used before, so I answered affirmatively.

“Al~ Let’s go play!” Eleanora

Eleanora’s practice seems to be over, a sweaty sister has come over to Elna and I. Nord and Elna are looking at Eleanora proudly.

“Freshen up and drink some water first.” Elna

“I’ll be fine, since we’re going to the river!” Eleanora

“No please freshen up at home.” Elna

“Eh?” Eleanora

“You’re a girl, so no.” Elna

“Yes. Al, let’s go for lunch! Wait for me!” Eleanora

Eleanora runs to the mansion without letting me respond.

I didn’t say I was going…

“Eleanora really loves Al.” Nord

Nord has walked over to join the conversation. He didn’t make much of a sound, has he worked as an assassin?

“That’s true. I’ll do a bit too~” Elna

Elna has a smiling expression that doesn’t look like she’s worried at all, but I know better. Elna and Nord usually have gentle smiles, but when they get angry, they are very scary. Elna can get angry with a smile on her face and keep her same tone of voice while making it explicit how angry she is. It may be the same smile, but you can’t feel anything but fear. Meanwhile, an angry Nord will squint more than usual silently. It would be worrisome if both of them were angry at the same time. I may have 30 years of memories, but I was still scared. In this case, they were angry at Eleanora.

“Al, let’s have lunch.” Elna

“Yes mother” Al

“Oh?” Nord

I’ll try not to provoke them.

After lunch, Eleanora took me down to the river. The river in Koriat village is captivating. If you scoop up some water with your hands, it would compete against any mineral water you can buy. Needless to say, the taste is refreshing and delicious. Unexpectedly, the water of Koriat village is shaming the world. Water from the upper side of the river is often collected by the villagers. Eleanora and I are vising the upper-middle reach of the river.

“What? What are you doing?” Eleanora

Eleanora asked me as I was attempting to skip some stones in the river. I was having only minor success due to my three-year-old child shoulders. I can’t get them flying well at all.

“How are you doing that?” Eleanora

I don’t want to be thrown into the river. I should probably tell her what I’m doing. This time I try using some body reinforcement to assist me with the throw.

Pish! Pish! Pish! Pishishish!

I wasn’t watching too closely, but that one may have skipped seven or eight times. The person who set the record on Earth managed to get 51 skips, if I recall correctly. I wonder what kind of person he or she was…

“Oh, Al what did you do? Interesting!” Eleanora

“Skipping” Al

“Yeah! That one where the bouncing off the surface!” Eleanora

I’ll toss another one. Eleanora watches intently and tries to imitate my movements.

Sploosh! Sploosh!

“Why didn’t that bounce?” Eleanora

She grabbed a nearby stone and threw it haphazardly.

“It might be better to use a stone that is thinner than a round or heavy stone?” Al

Eleanora picks up a thinner stone this time.

Pish! Pish! Pish! Pish! Pish! Pish! Pishi Pisha!

Well, now she’s done better than what I can do. Eleanora seems to be in tune with her body. I wonder when she’ll get tired of skipping stones?

Bash! Bash! Bash! Bash! Bash! Bash! Basha Shasha.

“Well, are you bored? Do you want to try fishing?” Al

I’ll make an attempt at suggesting a different activity from swimming in the river.

“Eh? Fishing is boring though.” Eleanora

It seems Eleanora is a child who doesn’t know how to appreciate fishing.

“Let’s eat the fish we manage to catch.” Al

“Ok, I’ll go grab some equipment.” Eleanora

I ran back to the mansion to get supplies and equipment. If we can catch it, then we’ll cook it up at the river, but we’ll need some salt from the kitchen. Bartolo is vigilant about the salt, since it is precious. If I find some, I’ll grab a bit for now instead of teaching Bartolo a new recipe. That’s what my plan was at the time, at least.

Since there may be people around the kitchen, I’ll just Transfer into the food storage instead. After I appeared in that slightly dim room, I peek into the kitchen. I notice that Bartolo is making a suspicious movement near the corner of the kitchen.

“Aha, I’ve finally got some.” Bartolo

What is Bartolo up to? I didn’t think he had weird proclivities? Bartolo is focused on whatever he’s holding… he’s rubbing a small jar on his cheek. Is he acting like a carnivorous beast who just caught his prey?

“What’s up?” Al

“Ah, the sugar I had been awaiting for so long finally arrived. I convinced the merchant to hide it in with some other supplies for security.” Bartolo

Bartolo is talking distractedly with a fierce smile.

“Huh, are we sharing it?” Al

“Oh, no way. I’ve been waiting to get a supply of sugar for a while. I’m sorry for Nord, but this is earmarked for several new recipes.” Bartolo

“I guess that works, everyone can enjoy the new recipes when you’re done.” Al

“Yes! That’s why it’s a secret! Was I talking out loud…” Bartolo

Bartolo seems to have realized what he’s been saying, he looks a bit stupefied.

“Nord, Elna! Sarah?” Al

“Ooh! That’s no good, Alfred is being a bad child.” Bartolo

Bartolo puts his had on my shoulder to stop me from leaving the kitchen, he’s faster than he looks. It seems like his adventurer skills aren’t all gone yet.

“What’s wrong? Bartolo?” Al

Perhaps I can get away if I act like a kid?

“Are you kidding me?” Bartolo

Bartolo thumps me on the shoulder as encouragement.

“Aha! Hahahaha” Al

“Ha ha! hahahahah” Bartolo

“What are you two laughing at?” Sarah

Asked Sarah, who just entered the kitchen room. By the way, Sarah is the strictest maid in the mansion. If it was Mina, we’d be able to deflect questions, bribe her with food, then send her on her way. Sarah is not that kind of maid. Sarah has a good intuition and has a major sweet-tooth. Some would say that Sarah can smell sugar from the other side of the mansion. I glance at Bartolo to see what his strategy is, I imagine that the maids will take a share of the sugar, but Bartolo’s face is turning blue?

“Mr. Bartolo looks strange?” Sarah

“No, I’ll be fine. Ha ha ha” Bartolo

“Is that right? Well, today I came to check the ingredient inventories.” Sarah

“Oh, yeah! Why?! Is the cook not responsible for that?” Bartolo

“Maybe Bartolo has purchased too much wheat and other ingredients to make spaghetti?” Sarah

“Oh…” Bartolo

Bartolo, it’s not good to dig your own grave like that. I guess I can try getting Bartolo to owe me a favor, let’s try distracting Sarah.

“Hey! Sarah. I came to look for a fishing rod, where are they kept?” Al

Bartolo seems to realize my plan, his face is going back to normal.

“If you’re looking for fishing rods, Eleanora had asked earlier, so Mina put some in the storeroom for you kids to use.” Bartolo

So close! That’s why Sarah is such an excellent worker. On the other hand, Bartolo is getting desperate after my plan failed. Bartolo is rapidly losing hope…

Wait!

I move closer to an area Sarah can’t see behind, then touch a wooden bowl on a shelf.

Clunk! Clunk!

We can hear something just fell from the corridor.

“What was that? I’ll need to check it out.” Sarah

Sarah turns and leaves the kitchen to check out the corridor.

“Hide it quickly Bartolo” Al

“Oh, oh” Bartolo

After my prodding, Bartolo quickly hides the sugar jar under a kitchen tile. Did he setup that place just for hiding sugar?

“Can you keep a bit back for me to experiment with? I also need to get a bit of salt before I leave.” Al

“Uh huh” Bartolo

After we agreed, I put a bit of salt in a small jar and left the kitchen.