Departure
“Big brother, have a safe trip ‘kay? Come back real quick!”
“Yeah, I promise. I’ll work hard to return quickly.”
Mel looked on the verge of tears clinging to me. I gently patted my dear sister’s back, speaking tenderly. Seeing our interaction, Father deliberately cleared his throat.
“….it’s about time we headed out.”
“Yes, understood. Mel, I’ll be right back okay?”
“Mm…”
Mel looks as if she is saying goodbye for the rest of her life, Mel was desperately holding back her tears. Noticing Father’s worried glance at Mel, I quietly whispered something to her. Mel immediately nodded before clinging to Father’s leg.
“You gotta come back real quick too ‘kay, Papa?”
Looking up tearfully, Mel’s adorable plea seemed to pierce Father’s heart as he grinned dotingly. In that moment, all who knew Father’s usual demeanor felt the atmosphere instantly freeze over.
When I picked up Mel who was hugging my leg, my father answered gently with a smile on his face.
“Yeah. We’ll hurry back as fast as we can.”
“Really? Papa, super quick ‘kay?”
The two made a [pinky promise] before Father slowly set Mel back down. I was slightly surprised this world also had the pinky swear custom. Just then my gaze happened to meet Sandra’s, who had come to see us off. Noticing my attention, she grinned teasingly before walking over and whispering in my ear.
“Lord Reed, the nail that sticks up gets hammered down, so stick out and pierce the heavens in Renalute too!!”
“C’mon, enough about that already. Anyway, please take care of Mother.”
“I understand. I’ll protect her with my life.”
Though she joked around, when it came to Mother, her expression grew taut and serious. If only she was always that solemn…
“You thought something rude again didn’t you? I’m always serious!”
“…wasn’t thinking anything.”
With a smirk she tacked on her go-to “Lord Reed is so easy to read,” before leaving. Slightly worn out from my exchange with Sandra, I slumped my shoulders and gazed towards Chris behind the carriage I’d be riding.
By the way, the carriage Father and I would be passengers in was followed by a Christie Company one. Ours felt more like a passenger coach while theirs had the impression of a covered wagon for transporting cargo, already holding trade goods apparently bound for Renalute.
Chris was coordinating escort knight positioning and convoy order of movement with them. She seemed busy so I shouldn’t disturb her right now I figured, limiting myself to simply watching from afar.
After taking a deep breath, I looked around at everyone who had come to see us off and called out loudly “I’ll be going now!!” before climbing into our carriage. Father boarded right after me and sat opposite from my seat. Then Danae outside spoke by the still open door.
“Pardon my intrusion. Please watch yourself, I’ll be closing the door.”
“Yeah.”
I nodded in reply as Father also nodded his head. Seeing our response, Danae gingerly shut the carriage door. Soon after, Reubens’s voice rang out.
“Departing for Renalute!!”
Accompanying his announcement, our carriage lightly rocked and began moving. I immediately stuck my head out the window waving at Mel while calling out “See ya~”. Mel waved her hand vigorously in return shouting “Safe travels!!” until the carriage left her sight.
And so, on this day we set off towards Renalute. Those headed there from House Baldias were myself, Father, Reubens and Danae along with other knight order members. Plus Chris’s group from the Christie Company including Chris as their representative. Our convoy numbered two carriages total for our side and Christie. Additionally, knight escorts surrounded and safeguarded those two carriages. Our total personnel was quite large in scale.
With my dear sister no longer visible, I sat back down only for Father seated opposite me to admonish:
“Brace yourself, this will be your first long distance carriage experience…”
“Wha…? What do you mean…?”
I asked back but Father simply smiled nastily like Sandra before answering. Uneasy about his words, I said “I’ll nap a bit” and pretended to fall asleep while chanting magic internally.
“Memory.”
” …… Hello, Reed. I knew you’d call me by now. “
The moment I murmured in my mind, his – Memoree – voice echoed there. When called, he can gather and present necessary information from my recollections. And the reason I summoned him now was thanks to a certain request some days prior. But judging by his tone, the results probably weren’t great.
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT GADGETIZEDPANDA.COM
“Well? Think you can make it in time? We’re already headed to Renalute.”
“….Didn’t I tell you? Info glimpsed from skip-read scenes is hopeless. I said don’t get your hopes up…”
I see, so it was impossible after all. Memoree actually has conditions on what memories he can draw out. Specifically – whether I had “consciously committed the Memoree to mind”.
Back in my past life, I’d rapidly skip-read through event scenes in the otome game “Tokirella!” to quickly access post-game bonus content. Before we left, I had asked Memoree if there was any way he could salvage those memories, even if it took time. He reluctantly agreed to try but seems to have failed.
“I guess it can’t be helped then. But is there anything at all you picked up from the current state? Anything is fine…”
I heard an irritated grunt in my mind before Memoree deliberate voice echoed.
“….If anything will do, how about a name? It was like, Raycis-Renalute.”
“Raycis…hm. Anything else?”
“Let’s see. Other than some facial expressions from his sprite I guess? He was a pretty boy.”
Oh, so you could reconstruct the character sprite! Then maybe the facial expressions give some hint about his personality. I conveyed to Memory my desire to know Raycis’s appearance details.
“In that case, just seeing the sprite would be fastest.”
“Wha…I can view the sprite?”
“Well, it is from memory. But since it wasn’t consciously recalled, obviously it won’t be a perfect match to actual sight.”
After he finished talking, an image popped up before my closed eyes.
“Whoa, amazing!!”
“….what is it, Reed? Why so impressed?”
Looks like my shock made me accidentally voice my thoughts. Unsure how to handle this, I decided to fake talking in my sleep to throw Father off and buy time. And dreams to please Father.
“Papa’s….swordsmanship…is amazing…whoosh whoosh…”
“Hah, sleep talking huh? Seeing this, you’re still just a child. Fufu…how adorable.”
Nice. My conscience stung a bit but I managed to smooth it over. Mentally, I called out to Memory again.
“What are you doing…”
Before long, his exasperated voice echoed in my head.
“It can’t be helped right? If sprites suddenly popped up inside your eyelids, anyone would be shocked.”
“….more importantly, wasn’t directly contacting me here in front of Father already reckless?”
Well, if he puts it that way I may have jumped the gun a little. But with how busy I’ve been lately, I just haven’t had time to chat with him so there was no helping it.
“Anyway, one more time please.”
“Yeah yeah…got it.”
With a “can’t be helped” attitude, he again projected Raycis’s sprite on my mind’s eye.
Hmm I see. Black hair, yellow eyes. The brown skin unique to dark elves. Is there any other info, I wondered peering closely, eventually noticing something – sharp…no, sinister eyes. At that moment, inspiration hit me. In maiden games and bishojo games, characters with piercing or evil-seeming eyes are usually [tsunderes]. Of course, that’s not always the case. [Kuuderes] or [yanderes] still have non-zero probability.
[Tokirella!] had followed a pretty orthodox story premise so high likelihood this guy is a [tsundere] type. Convinced of that, I happily reviewed this new intelligence. ……but, what exactly could I do with that knowledge?
Even supposing his personality aligns fairly close with classic tsunderes, should I brace myself for catchphrase quips like “Baka!”? And since he is the princess’s sibling, that would make him my brother-in-law. A tsundere for an in-law brother huh…what a pain.
Somehow, knowing my future brother-in-law’s disposition as “tsundere” in advance just made me feel exhausted about the whole thing. Dealing with him seems like it will be extremely troublesome.
But having some expectation of the personality belonging to someone I’m about to meet may position me at an advantage conversationally. I decided to think positively along those lines.
Even so….separate from my line of thought, an uncomfortable sensation seems to be welling up for some reason. Did chatting with Memory expend all my mana? No, that can’t be it. As I internally debated this, his voice echoed in my mind again.
“Reed, Reed! Oi!”
“…Yeah, what is it?”
For some reason, even responding felt nauseating now.
“You’re… experiencing motion sickness from the carriage. Best wake up properly now.”
“Huh…?”
“We can continue our talk another time. I’m getting all dizzy and nauseous over here too, probably since you’re sick.”
That was the last I heard from Memory before our connection cut out. And the very instant I stopped pretending to sleep, intense vertigo assaulted me along with awful nausea.
“Urp…”
“Reed, if you’re going to vomit do it out the window.”
Heeding Father’s advice, I rushed to open the window pressing my hand over my mouth, poking my deathly pale face outside.
“Uwaaagghh!!”
The knight escorts smiled gently at the sight of me retching out the window, warmth in their gazes. Just then I remembered Father’s earlier words.
“Brace yourself for your first long distance carriage experience…”
So t-this is what he meant!!!
On this day, I came to detest long distance carriage travel. I swore I would find some improvement for this, no matter what!!
Urp…uwaaaghh!!
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