Chapter 89 – Rules of Barbarism.
At first, Usher thought nothing of what the children were doing. I had no interest in the other children anyway, and I thought I wouldn’t run into them in this large castle. At least until recently.
“It’s so damn annoying!”
A few days later, he shouted, gnashing his teeth at the gazes that kept stabbing him. It was because of the explosion that piled up and piled up. At first, he didn’t even notice the gaze, but as he grew more sensitive, he realized for the first time that he could tell that someone was looking at him without looking at him.
“Did I say I was persistent?”
Mediah said it as if to look at it, but Usher couldn’t refute anything. He admitted that he should have listened to her more closely. He thought he would be fine if he just ignored it. However, as time went on, he did not lose interest, but instead tried to bully Usher more and more persistently, as if something had happened. It was not a matter of falling flower pots or getting needles in shoes. It was enough to simply shake off your shoes or watch over your head.
In the case of food, when Donar and Sif, who noticed that he kept leaving his own and sharing Belka’s, began to worry, he stopped touching the food, but he developed a habit of checking it carefully. On the other hand, however, they began to act more boldly and thoroughly. On the second floor, something like water from a mop was sprayed instead of a potted plant that was easy to find, and a strong smell lingered on the shoes, as if they had been peed.
Because of this, washing and bathing became a daily routine. Then, I carried my shoes so that I wouldn’t think of doing anything stupid, so when I walked down the hallway, I was shoved away or tripped. Another thing that hits the bone is that when he is alone with no other people around, he comes to work like a ghost. In particular, if you get hit in the back, things that might hurt or bother you will fly in, and when you look back, there’s no one there, so at this point, you’re confused as to whether these are really the sons of knights or assassins.
But even so, he didn’t budge, so now the scale has increased.
“How many people are bothering me by bothering me?”
The scope of what happened was so wide that it was impossible to act easily anywhere with only three people. The behavior of the children who are thoroughly harassed as if they had undergone some kind of training is too clear to treat them as simple pranks. Like worms eating a wound, like water slowly rising from the tips of their feet, the malice of the children tried to eat him. It was even worse that there was no evidence that could identify anyone.
“Maybe most of the kids are involved.”
Medea spoke casually as if she had nothing new to say. Her tone of confidence, as if she were right, made Usher stare at her, losing her words. Medea was looking at the distant mountains as if she was detached or not interested. And she thought, well, she answered him.
“Do you know how to solve this?”
That’s why I was able to ask.
“Oh, are you asking me that?”
“I think you would know.”
She asked him back with a look of surprise, but Usher nodded her head. It was just a feeling, though.
“Is that so.”
She quickly erased the dejected look on her face.
“Then there is one condition.”
“Kek, are there any conditions for this?”
“Nothing is free in this world, right?”
She hated Mediah for saying that, but she couldn’t help it because she didn’t see anything sharp about him.
“So what’s the condition?”
Usher, who then heard of Mediah’s conditions, was stunned, but accepted them because they weren’t that difficult. Her terms were simple.
“After all, straight hair suits you well.”
“Oooh, but.”
Belka glanced at him as she hugged her red hair, which, unlike usual, was not tied up so that it almost reached the ground below her feet. Seeing that, she also thought that it was fortunate that she accepted Medea’s offer.
“Usher…?”
“It doesn’t really matter. No matter what you look like, you’re Belka after all.”
Mediah’s condition was the girl’s hair. She wanted to change her Belka’s hair periodically to whatever she wanted.
“Can’t we just ask Belka?”
She asked if it was necessary to make such a condition, but Medea shook her head.
“That’s it. It’s what Mr. Usher likes, and she’s exceptionally stubborn, so I couldn’t convince her.”
Come to think of it, she remembered that when she was younger than she is now, she thought it would be nice for a girl to tie her hair up, so she gave her a braid as a gift. She hadn’t been aware of it since it had become natural for her from some point on. Now she tied the string around her wrist like her bracelet instead of using it to tie her hair. As she watched it, one side of her breast felt itchy, so she changed the subject.
“So what does that have to do with us getting out of the castle and how to solve it?”
And now that they accepted Mediah’s conditions, they were out of the castle. Gazes gathered from all over the place and pricked their cheeks. Of course Usher was just an ordinary boy, but Belka and Mediah with him were pretty enough to be hard to see anywhere.
“How about it? It’s a change of mood, isn’t it bad?”
“That’s it, but…”
These gazes also made me feel bad, but I felt comfortable because there were no openly malicious gazes like the children in the castle. But don’t you feel like there’s a solution?
“Then let’s go buy something simple.”
Usher responded vaguely to a feeling that was difficult to explain, but she led them as if it was okay. Something about her felt uneasy, but her group followed her.
“How about refreshments? They’re popular because they’re sweet?”
“I think this is very expensive.”
The cookies he was looking at cost far more than the bread he could eat for a meal, and Usher backed away. 2 silver coins. The unit of currency was different. Seeing his frightened appearance, Mediah doesn’t seem to know what the problem is.
“Isn’t that expensive? It’s sure to cost an ordinary farmer 15 days’ worth of living, but if it’s a driver’s salary, it’s not that unreasonable, right?”
“I’m not a knight!”
Donar was a knight, but he was not.
“Then who bought the shoes Belka is wearing?”
“I bought it.”
Then, Medea became even more puzzled.
“Isn’t there any problem then?”
“Where?!”
For a while, we hoped that each other would be frustrated by the conversations that kept going side by side. The look on her face made her realize something.
“Mr. Usher, just in case. How much do you think an ounce of iron is worth in copper coins?”
“That.”
Usher remembered for a moment the old man who was selling her shoes. 150 fairy tales? Did you say before 155? I couldn’t remember. But he said it was 12 iron battles.
“12 ago? 13 ago?”
“Hmm, then how much do you think silver coins are worth in iron coins?”
“About 10 years ago?”
“So that’s what it was!”
Medea clapped her hands, nodded, and pulled out a silver coin from her pocket. It was the first time I had seen it, but it was shiny enough to tell that it was a silver coin at a glance.
“Now, this is a silver coin. Although it fluctuates according to the price, it has a value of about 5 iron coins.”
“…Just?”
“It’s not just that.”
Then she took out two more silver coins and then took out a gold coin.
“And this gold coin is worth three silver coins.”
“Isn’t it necessarily 10 units?”
“That’s right. In the first place, the usefulness of iron is almost impossible to replace, but if there is a country with a strange waterside where one silver coin costs 10 iron coins, it would only be a country that is extremely hungry.”
It was the moment she finished her explanation and put her money back in her wallet. I heard someone running towards me. It seemed to kill the sound of footsteps, but Usher, who has become very sensitive these days, heard it clearly. At the place where the sound came from, someone wearing a tattered robe was running towards them. In terms of size, he seemed to be about the same age or older. The moment Usher got ahead of her, as if protecting her, in the face of her targeting them, more precisely, her Mediah.
Someone’s arm came out of the crowd, grabbed the person running this way, and dragged him away. It happened in an instant, and he looked again at the place where he was, but even after washing his eyes, there was not even a trace of the person running towards this place.
“Why is that?”
“Huh? Nothing.”
Usher somehow erased her sense of incongruity and evaded her medium’s question appropriately.
“Anyway, it’s decided to make a cookie.”
“Oh yeah, but it’s not even a meal, but 2 silver coins seems too expensive for a snack.”
Although she paid for 12 iron coins when she bought a girl’s leather shoes, leather shoes are something that can be worn for a long time. It was a pity to eat a little and buy snacks at the end of the day for less than 10 iron coins.
“Hey, who told Mr. Usher to pay? Don’t worry, I’ll pay.”
Then she went into her shop and bought a small box of cookies neatly packed.
“Belka, let’s eat together.”
“Thank you.”
The girl carefully picked up a cookie from Medea’s box. Although the smell was savory and sweet, it didn’t mean that it didn’t stimulate her appetite, but she thought it was a rice cake and didn’t even look at it. She said that if Medea hadn’t called him.
“What are you doing without taking it?”
Turning around, she was holding out a box of cookies to him with a fresh look on her face.
“Me too?”
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to eat it.”
“Who wouldn’t eat it!”
He quickly took a cookie out of the cookie box that Medea was trying to sneak back. The first cookie I saw was strange. It’s like dry or failed bread. If it wasn’t for the sweet and savory smell, I might have mistaken it for a small version of the very hard and tasteless bread that Aunt Kate had made. So, I cautiously asked for a cookie, but I was amazed at the taste of the cookie that spread in my mouth as it was easily broken apart.
I liked the strong sweetness of the fruit, which is different from the mild sweetness of the fruit, and the salty taste that does not seem to match at the same time. It must have been made with similar ingredients to bread, but it was amazing how it tasted so different. One cookie was gone in just two bites. Looking at Medea holding her cookie box, her eyes met immediately. Then, Medea smiled.
“Oh my, it’s such a waste before I bought it~ It’s a waste~ Where did the person who sang the song go?”
“When did I?!”
I thought it was expensive, but it wasn’t enough to sing. But it wasn’t that I didn’t like cookies, which made me even more annoyed. Yes, it was a snack worth that much. Still, the only problem was that it was a waste of money to buy and eat. Mediah, perhaps recognizing him, provoked him even more.
“Didn’t I just give you one to taste? Why don’t you buy the rest yourself?”
“Ouch! This is really!”
And the way she gently shook the cookie box was so nasty that Usher wanted to take it away. Seeing Medea teasing him by picking up a cookie and biting it proudly, Usher gnashed her teeth and remembered Belka, who had been quiet until now.
“Belka! Mediah’s cookies…!”
She looked at her thinking that she would be by her side, but Usher could not follow her further.
“Now tell me…”
Medea also looked at the scene at a loss for words like Usher. Belka ate the cookie, licking it lightly with her little tongue, not biting, as if it was a pity that it disappeared so quickly. In the end, the girl gnawed at the soft part and looked at her empty hands as if she was sorry to see the cookies that disappeared after all, even though she ate slowly and sparingly until it felt frustrating. Mediah and Usher, who watched the scene until the end, handed over the cookie box with the remaining cookies to Belka without saying anything.
