Chapter 3: 3 – Safe

“What is Japanese? My lady”

Martha asks with a strange look.

“It’s a foreign word. Maybe in the far east?”

I just answered it halfheartedly, but on this world’s map, the east is an unexplored land.

Even the most expensive maps do not depict the whole picture of this world.

“More than that, are father and the others okay?”

Martha said earlier that they were safe, but I want to reaffirm.

“Other than the young lady, everyone regained their consciousness in an hour and started to live like usual the next day. It seemed everyone only ate a little bit… Young lady is the only one who ate the whole thing…”

She implicitly said I am a glutton. But it’s matsutake mushrooms, you know? Even in my past life, I didn’t eat it that much. Even if I don’t remember, I will eat matsutake by instinct!

“But everyone’s a little weird… They all have a perplexed look on their face. Even though they are accustomed to Young lady’s eccentricities.”

Hey Martha! What do you mean by eccentricities!

Martha is always so cold… Can you be more gentle since I have just recovered?

“I always say this but, Young lady will be 12 years old this year. Even though starting next year you will live in the royal capital, Martha is worried! Please stop having interests in insects or mushrooms or insects or insects-“

Crap! She starts nagging me again.

This will be long… and Martha hates insects too much.

Taking the chance of father’s younger brother graduating from Royal University, our family plans to shift territory management and live in the royal capital. Our land is a borderland that will take 15 days of a carriage ride to the royal capital.

Our main industry is silk goods, from sericulture until weaving, we produce fine quality silks. There have been changes in the royal capital’s fashion trend, and silks from Count Stuart’s Palace has been called as the highest quality products within the clothing industry.

And so, I, who was born and raised in this territory, is good friends with silkworms. Not bad, me. The usual excuse floats to my mind.

“Besides silkworms, Young lady also collects caterpillars, centipedes, spiders, and spiders right?”

I haven’t say anything though… And why mention spider twice?! Does Martha have some kind of grudge against spiders? … I have no idea.

In our mansion’s backyard, there’s an insect shed commonly called ‘Emma’s Shed’. It’s a too big and too imposing building to be called a shed.

Other than to accommodate Emma’s hobby of researching silkworms, the shed was built to collect and breed any insect that spews out thread and all kinds of insects that she found.

To Emma, it is a hobby that she enjoyed in her personal room, but the servants (mainly Martha) started complaining and the research scale has also gradually grown, so Emma’s father, who is overly soft on Emma, built it a year ago.

“Huh, I haven’t take care of my treasures (insects) for ten days.”

I started being impatient at this shocking fact… The feed would be enough if it was for 2, 3 days, but if it was 10 days, they might have started eating each other. Silkworms are on a separate research room, but I keep other insects in the same room.

I wonder if that beautiful violet spider okay…? That spider that was found in the forest two weeks ago was Emma’s favorite. I remembered I used to walk around and show it to everybody.

“Young lady…”

Martha’s eyes are even colder. I won’t ever forget Martha’s scream when I showed her the spider.

There’s a knocking sound that interrupts Martha’s nagging, then Martha goes to open the door. This nice timing is surely…

“Older sister, I heard that you have awake so I come to see you.”

The one who unexpectedly appears on the door is, a shining transient pretty boy*. No, that’s my younger, William. He has blond hair and purple eyes… which are inherited from Father. There is a big insect cage in his hand.

(*T/N: she says bishounen lol)

“I’m sorry, I completely forgot about the insects… During the time older sister was unconscious, the silkworms are fine since they are in a different room, but in the room for all other insects, only this spider is left…”

It’s too late, my treasures have already been eaten by my treasure… Grasshoppers, praying mantis, crickets, centipedes, millipedes, pillbugs, this and that, a great battle royal must have unfolded between them… At least, I wanted to observe that great event.

“Uuh… It’s a pity but there’s no helping it…”

Inside the insect cage, the violet spider moves with a rustling sound. This is my favorite child.

The victor of the battle royal is this kid, huh.

Is it just me…? It’s a little? …kind of…? I feel like it’s getting huge.

Eight round pupils? are looking this way.

Yeah, you’re not bad. Sorry that I couldn’t feed you…n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Taking the insect cage, I want to confirm the spider’s condition. Because the spider has always been treated affectionately, when it saw Emma’s face, it approaches Emma too.

“Hiiiiii”

Looking at the spider who comes out of the cage, Martha runs away… It seems she will not come back in a while. Martha can’t understand the spider’s greatness like always, huh.

Even so, younger brother… To use your sister’s treasure to clear out people, what a guy!

Well…to say clearing out people… it’s more like clearing out Martha…

William has been looking this way with a searching gaze for a while now…

Even if I want to say it, I can’t. Even if I want to hear it, I won’t. I want to know, but I don’t want to know. Without any conviction, I hesitate.

What I was thinking about, maybe… you too are thinking the same. William properly meets my eyes and opens his mouth like he has determined something.

“… Mina-nee?”

(T/N: –nee from onee-san which means older sister. Mina-nee = Older sister Mina. But it sounds weird to me so I just left it.)

Emma too is determined and opens her mouth.

“…Peita?”

The two’s voice overlapped.

” “Is this another world reincarnation!!!” “

Author’s note : The unfortunate younger brother appears