Episode 4
“To call out to Shino in a loud voice right after saying you’d keep your distance… what’s wrong with you?”
“No, I’m sorry… I panicked when I saw the blood-soaked bed, and when it comes to making beds, I thought of maids, and the only maid whose name I knew was Shino, so I just…”
“……Haa.”
The morning after Shino somehow dealt with the blood-soaked bed and I went to sleep.
After seeing off Father, who scolded me as soon as we met, I was immediately bored.
I was told again to behave myself, but there’s nothing to do in the first place.
No internet, no games. No manga. Of course, there are no movies or TV. I was excited about the dream of being a NEET, but this is just a large prison.
There are books, the king of time-killers, but they’re all aimed at collecting and systematizing knowledge, in other words, academic books, far from entertainment. I don’t feel like reading them at all.
I ate breakfast, searched for books and despaired, and ate lunch.
“Ah… I’m so bored…”
I had already turned into a living corpse. The cause of death is boredom.
Now, I’m trying to become a slightly healthier corpse by basking in the sun in the garden.
“What’s with that listless face?”
“Ah…?
When I turned to see who was talking to me, there stood a noble.
But on closer inspection, even though he looks like a noble, he’s not just pretending like Geld… no, this guy is a real noble.
Since he has features similar to Geld and Father, this guy is probably my older brother.
“……”
“……”
What’s with this guy? He started talking to me, but he’s not saying anything. He’s just staring at me.
“…Not even a sarcastic remark… Geld, have you really lost your memory?”
“Ah, yes. Um, so you are… my… brother? Bro? Older Brother?”
“Wha!? S-Stop it, that’s creepy! What’s with ‘bro’!”
I didn’t know what to call him, so I tried a few options, and it seems this was critical for my brother, who quickly distanced himself with a terrible look on his face. Bro is no good, huh.
“Haa, then is Older Brother alright?”
“…Ah, I’ve always been called that, so that’s fine. …So? What are you doing in a place like this?”
“Basking in the sun. I’m bored.”
“B-Bored… You’re still… Ah, right. You’ve lost your memory.”
“Yes, I don’t know what to do, and I have nothing to do.”
“Hmph, then you should devote yourself to training. For a noble man, daily training is like an obligation.”
“Training, you say?”
Training, training… Training, huh. I see, he’s telling me to train myself.
Certainly, when a young man with too much time and energy has nothing to do, it’s either masturbation or muscle training. It’s a reasonable suggestion.
“Heh, heh, heh.”
“…What are you doing?”
“Squats. I thought I’d try training as Older Brother said.”
“What’s that? You don’t even know how to train… Ugh, wait a moment.”
With that, Older Brother went somewhere. What’s up with him?
But that Older Brother also seems to have a hard-working nature, or rather… a tendency to be pushed around. He might be the type of person who suffers because he’s so helpful.
Anyway, he doesn’t seem like a bad person.
They said we didn’t get along, but that’s probably because Geld was always saying something sarcastic whenever they met. If that’s the case, there might be room to improve our relationship in the future.
While thinking about that and resuming my sunbathing, Older Brother came back at a trot. He could just walk slowly, but he seems like a serious person.
And in his hand… is a sword. He’s holding a sword sheathed in its scabbard.
“Here, use this.”
“This is…?”
“A sword. Use it for practice swings… Ugh, I’ll show you how.”
Of course, I know what a sword is, and I know what practice swings are, but more than that, it’s Older Brother’s practice swing.
He raises the sword, which is a heavy-looking metal stick, into an overhead stance and swings it down. He raises it into an overhead stance and swings it down.
It’s just that simple motion, but the sound of the sword cutting through the air… it seems like a pretty sharp sword stroke. If I took something like that to the head, not only my memory but my very life would disappear.
“That’s about it. Try doing the same.”
When I took the sword, I was surprised at how heavy it was. I thought it would be heavy, but swinging this around would be tough.
And when I look at it up close, I’m overwhelmed by its presence. This is a tool for directly taking human lives. This presence… is it because it has drunk so much blood?
“That’s a blunt sword for training. The blade is also dulled. You don’t have to handle it carefully.”
Perhaps because I was cautiously receiving the sword and staring at it intently, Older Brother threw heartless words at me as if he had read my mind.
So it’s an item that has absorbed sweat instead of blood. That’s still a cursed item in a different sense.
“H-Heavy… Ununu, fun! Nuooo!?”
I immediately tried doing it as I saw, but it’s fine from raising it to swinging it down, but I can’t stop it after swinging it. Stopping it suddenly is beyond human ability…
“That’s how it is when you first start. But if you keep doing it every day, you’ll eventually see a big difference.”
“Haa…”
After that, Older Brother went on and on about how this sword was brought from the training grounds but I could keep it, but I shouldn’t swing it around inside the room, and other safety precautions, before leaving. What does he think I am…? A senseless brat? Ugh.
“Fununu, fun! Mumumu, fun!”
I tried practicing my swings again, but no matter how you look at it, it’s a weak-kneed, flimsy sword. I can’t imagine that this will ever become a sharp sword stroke like Older Brother’s… but well, I’m bored, so I’ll keep doing it.
But to say that I can kill time all day with this is, of course, impossible. No matter what, the muscles in my shoulders and arms will reach their limit.
Even if I spend the morning doing this, there’s still a whole afternoon left.
“Uーmu…”
I’m pretending to worry by saying “Uーmu…”, but to be honest, I know what I want to do.
People. I want to talk to people and play with them.
Or rather, maids. I want to get along with maids.
After all, there are more than ten maids working in this Waslein Family mansion, as far as I’ve been able to confirm. The First and Second Maids I saw yesterday were just the tip of the iceberg.
There also seem to be burly warriors in armor and butler-like people in tailcoats wandering around the grounds, but I don’t really want to get close to them. Or rather, their responses are too formal and I feel suffocated.
So what’s left are the maids. If they’re cheerful, friendly, and cute girls, that’s even better.
“What should I do…”
I’m pretending to worry by saying “What should I do…”, but I also know that worrying won’t do any good.
After all, I’m the man who tried to rape one of the maids yesterday. No matter how much I try to approach them, the maids will only distance themselves.
Since the fact that I’ve lost my memory is widely known, all I can do is continue to prove my safety day by day.
It was two weeks later that a turning point came for me, who had made that decision.