Chapter 292 A New Life and A Plan
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
It was the morning of the tenth fire-week of Ice Star, year 2223 of the Grigis calendar—five weeks since that whole incident with Golarf-san—when Diana and Lewya woke me up.
”Neil, it’s morning,” Diana said, her voice calm but insistent.
”Ugh… already? I feel like I didn’t sleep at all…” I muttered, rubbing my bleary eyes as I pushed myself upright and swung my legs off the bed.
Without missing a beat, Diana and Lewya began their practiced routine, stripping me out of my sleepwear and dressing me in my usual clothes.
”Neil-sama, please don’t try to fall asleep while standing,” Diana chided, straightening my collar.
”You’ve completely wrecked your body clock,” Lewya remarked, narrowing her eyes.
”Yeah… never thought there’d be a side effect like this,” I mumbled through a yawn.
”Which is why you should be careful not to overuse it,” Lewya added.
They were talking, of course, about that strange, timeless pocket dimension. I’d been using it almost daily for research, but for certain reasons, that work had been put on hold recently. Without it, both Mei and I had developed severe insomnia.
In that space, time was impossible to gauge, and hunger or fatigue never came. We could easily work a hundred hours without rest, and our brains got used to it. So, when research was suspended and we returned to a normal day-night cycle, my mind was still shouting: “It’s only been fourteen hours! You can keep going! Come on, come on, come on!” No matter how I tried, sleep wouldn’t come.
The first night was the worst—I didn’t sleep at all, and by the next evening I still felt wide awake. In desperation, Mei and I decided that exhausting our bodies was the answer, so we… let’s just say, engaged in some very intense exercise. Even then, sleep never arrived.
In the end, we had to resort to a specially mixed sleeping drug. But relying on it too much would eventually make natural sleep impossible, so we’ve been trying our best to sleep without it.
”Only managed three hours last night,” I sighed. “Still, that’s better than nothing.”
”You’re getting drowsy, so if you just avoid napping too much during the day, your body should readjust,” Lewya advised.
”I doubt it… I’m gonna crash hard,” I muttered.
”Please endure, Neil-sama,” Diana said firmly. “We’re busy right now, and it would be troublesome if you rested.”
”I know, I know,” I replied.
At the moment, I was working with Viscount Hedmar to establish a post town. That had been eating up my time.
About two weeks ago, I’d received a sudden letter from him. In it, he wrote that he wanted to build a town at the end of the road on his side of the territory—a place that could serve as a relay point.
From Denarl to the next town was nearly a four-hour journey. If you didn’t make it before sunset, you’d be stuck—riding a carriage at night was dangerous, with no lights and the risk of bandits lurking in the dark. As a result, afternoon departures were rare—only one in this season, when the days were short. The viscount had long wanted to solve this by building a relay point, but past negotiations with the neighboring lord had failed. That lord had basically said, “You build it, and I’ll just use it for free,” which was both insulting and politically unacceptable.
Still, as I read his proposal, my first thought was, “Do we really need to make it a full-fledged town?” A simple rest stop would suffice. Once the road was complete, the frontier settlement could serve that role anyway. I suspected the viscount had other motives, so I wrote back asking why a town was necessary.
His reply came quickly: two reasons—”mutual benefit” and “a warning to the neighboring lord.” That insult about freeloading was a serious slight among imperial nobles, and ignoring it would be a blow to his honor. For him, it wasn’t just pride—it was survival in noble politics.
Personally, I couldn’t care less about matters of face, and I preferred to avoid any move that might create friction with other nobles. But the benefit he offered was tempting: he would lease part of the post town’s land to me, with full freedom to use it as I saw fit.
Land shortage in the frontier settlement had been a persistent problem—especially the lack of places for people to sleep. Even after adding inns, we still didn’t have enough rooms. Some people were sleeping on shop floors. Yes, some simply couldn’t afford inns or preferred to save money, but without enough places to stay, the problem couldn’t be solved.
If we had lodging outside the settlement, we could free up central land for other buildings. There’d still be the matter of carriage fares between the post town and the settlement, but that could wait until the plan was in motion.
For now, we were still in the permit-approval stage, which required careful planning. The viscount and I were exchanging proposals for what facilities the town should have—ones that might interest Their Majesty. The trouble was, we hadn’t found anything we both agreed on.
”Hmm… food stalls would compete with the frontier settlement…” I muttered under my breath.
”What, still on about the post town?” Lewya asked, tilting her head.
”If we build the wrong facility, fewer people might stop at the settlement,” I explained.
”Then yes, better to avoid food-based ones,” she agreed.
While we were talking, I finished dressing. With Diana and Lewya at my side, I stepped into the hallway. That’s when—
”Stop right theeeere!” a voice bellowed from the entrance hall.
”Eeeeek!” another voice shrieked.
I thought I heard a voice coming from the entrance, and sure enough, a completely naked beautiful girl came sprinting down the south hallway toward us.
”Again…?” I muttered with a sigh.
I caught the girl mid-run—neck and wrists adorned only with crimson Magic Tools—and held her in place.
”Tris! Be a good girl and put some clothes on,” I said firmly.
”Yaaah!” she squealed, wriggling like a caught cat.
The naked girl was, of course, Tris. We’d been temporarily looking after her here at the mansion.
That story went back about five weeks. The day after I learned her name, Golarf-san came to me and said, “I’m going traveling. Please take care of my daughter for a while.”
At first, I thought he was still clinging to that same absurd request and I meant to refuse. But then I listened.
He told me, with a face far more serious than I’d ever seen, that if he kept living with Tris without telling her the truth, and she later came to accept him as her father, he wouldn’t be able to accept that himself. Pretending past sins never happened just because the other person didn’t know—that, he said, was something he could never forgive himself for.
If this wasn’t some easy way out but rather his way of facing his sins—his form of atonement—then I decided to take her in. That was when I began rushing the development of a Magic Tool to suppress the blue.
We’d originally aimed for a final product that not only suppressed the blue but also minimized Crimson consumption, lasting at least three days without a recharge. That way, if Golarf-san and Tris ended up living somewhere with limited Crimson supply, they’d still be safe.
The one Tris wears now is… not that. It can only run for about twelve hours—half a day—before needing a recharge. Risky? Maybe. But Crimson consumption isn’t constant; it drops considerably while she sleeps. As long as I refilled it three times a day—morning, noon, and night—it worked fine.
Of course, that meant I couldn’t be away from her for long unless I was asleep.
Research got put on hold because we’d already managed to stabilize the suppression. Until Tris learned to make proper decisions on her own, she’d be staying here with me, so there wasn’t any rush.
After topping up the Crimson in each of the three Magic Tools—one on her neck, one on each wrist—I approached a woman frozen in place in the entrance, clothes for Tris still in her hands. She bowed apologetically.
”I’m sorry, Neil-sama. I’ve troubled you again…” Stella-san murmured.
”It’s fine. I’ve gotten used to it by now, haha,” I replied.
Once upon a time, the sight of a naked beauty would’ve flustered me. But when you’re shown everything so often, so casually, you stop reacting. And besides, mentally, Tris was more like an infant than anything else.
”Have you gotten used to the work here, Stella-san?” I asked.
”Yes. It’s not much different from when I was just helping out, so I’m fine,” she said with a smile.
She’d been chasing after Tris just now. Stella-san had left the brothel and was now working here as a maid. Diana had initially opposed hiring her because there was no proof she’d truly left her… other work. But after repeated requests from Lewya and me, she agreed—under conditions.
Nothing drastic: she wasn’t allowed into the first floor’s south hallway, where the offices and reception rooms were. That was the same restriction she’d had as a helper, so she accepted without complaint.
Still, I felt bad—it seemed almost like excluding her from the household. But Diana had a point: you couldn’t just let someone who’d been lurking in a frontier settlement without scrutiny wander freely. Stella herself agreed.
”Muu…” Tris pouted, crossing her arms.
”‘Muu’ is not the right answer, young lady. A girl should have some modesty,” Stella-san chided her gently as she dressed her.
Tris had gone three hundred years without wearing clothes. She disliked the feel of fabric on her skin, so I’d given up on regular clothes and now put her in oversized shifts that barely touched her skin. She still looked displeased, but at least she tolerated them for a while—until I turned my back.
”By the way, Stella-san, have you had any problems since you started working here? It doesn’t have to be work-related. You’ve been living at an inn since leaving the brothel—if there’s anything inconvenient, tell me,” I said.
”Thank you, but nothing major. Well… except for the girls who tease me sometimes. Other than that, I’m happy. I have work I find fulfilling, food, and even a bath. Complaining would be ungrateful,” she replied.
”That’s good to hear… though I do feel bad about you using my leftover bathwater.”
”Please don’t. Being able to soak in a bath after work is a luxury in itself.”
The helpers left by evening because they had night jobs, but Stella worked until nightfall, so she bathed here before heading to the inn.
”Do you prefer baths over showers?” I asked.
”Yes. A shower’s fine for getting clean, but a bath warms you to the core and melts the fatigue away. I think most girls would choose it if they could,” she said.
”If they could, huh… thanks,” I murmured.
That was something worth considering.
Notes:
• Viscount Hedmar – Zora’s biological family
• Denarl – Known as the ‘City of Craftsmen.’ Now, just an ordinary city.
• Tris – Golarf’s daughter. The one who can’t control her azure origin.
• Stella – Female. A young woman from a village in the territory of Count Cordis. Her appearance is that of a young girl with a fixed smile, reflecting her traumatic experiences. She was renamed Remia by the brothel owner in Malm. Her relationship with others is marked by survival and adaptation, as she endures sexual exploitation and bullying. Her inner thoughts reveal a deep sense of despair and disconnection from her original identity.
Please bookmark this series and rate ☆☆☆☆☆ on here!
Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
Leave a Reply