The concept is to write what I like, as I like it.
Deep within a seldom-visited forest stood a middle-aged man and a young girl.
The man wore a filthy shirt and trousers that looked as if they hadn’t been washed in who knew how long. When he scratched his unkempt beard and hair, dandruff scattered.
He was a man akin to a wild beast, and indeed, he watched the girl with a vulgar smile, just like a brute.
“Heh, for an ojou-chan like you to invite me out. So, what did you want to talk about?”
The girl was the polar opposite of the filthy man.
Her hair, reaching down to her waist, shone like silver, and her eyes, framed by long eyelashes, were violet.
A slender, well-defined nose, and cherry-pink lips.
Her well-formed features were small yet perfectly arranged, and her snow-white skin was as smooth as porcelain.
The plain linen robe she wore draped over her had no adornments; it was a common type of clothing in this village, far removed from any urban center, and looked more shabby than simple.
Yet, when she wore it, it didn’t seem wretched at all.
Rather, the garment served as an adornment that highlighted her innocent beauty.
The girl—Crishet—who would likely draw people’s gazes just by existing, looked up at the man standing before her with a blank expression.
“…Um, I want you to stop… touching Crishet’s body.”
To the man staring at her with a lewd expression, Crishet simply stated her demand.
The man—Garo—showed a surprised look at her words, yet his smile only deepened.
Although the girl had shown displeasure on her face before, this was the first time she had voiced it.
“What’s the big deal? It’s just a bit of physical contact. It’s not like your backside will wear out if I touch it. You’re overthinking things, ojou-chan.”
Garo didn’t particularly have sexual preferences for young girls.
He preferred adult women with womanly figures; one could say he was a perfectly normal man.
However, this girl, who had been found and taken in by the village, possessed something that could drive even such a man to madness.
Her translucent eyes were always intelligent, and her smiles were merely a slight relaxing of her cheeks.
More than her beautiful appearance, her somehow graceful and modest demeanor was so captivating that one wouldn’t see its like even in a town, let alone the village; her mysterious aura somehow bewildered people.
At first, it was just a whim.
Garo was a former soldier, and his job in the village was to teach swordsmanship to the vigilante corps members and children.
His actions towards Crishet were also just a bit of fun, lightly touching her body on the side while doing so.
However, even when he did that, she remained calm and showed no sign of being bothered.
That was probably what started it.
Many found the unusual Crishet unsettling, so those around them didn’t actively stop Garo. Since she herself didn’t show much aversion, there were no restraints—and so it escalated to this day.
There had been no sign of her telling her adoptive parents about it.
Seeing that, as long as he didn’t go too far, she probably wouldn’t tell anyone in the future either.
In this deserted forest, a little mischief would be permissible.
“Relax, I’m not gonna do anything painful.”
As the man said this and tried to draw closer, Crishet took a step back.
Her gaze slid left and right, and she strained her ears.
The presence of others nearby, the state of the ground, the wind direction, her footing.
Perfect, Crishet thought.
“Won’t you stop?”
“Now, now, don’t say that. This ojisan just wants to get along with you, ojou-chan.”
“…Get along?”
“That’s right, get along. You understand, don’t you, ojou-chan?”
Crishet took a step back as if frightened—or rather, feigning it.
Two steps, three steps.
Then, as if losing her balance, Crishet fell onto her back, and the man lunged, looming over her—
“Are you alrigh—ah, ga…?!”
—she thrust a wooden practice sword into his throat.
It was one she had hidden beforehand, propped against a tree.
A thrust using the opponent’s momentum.
It wasn’t a bad strike, but it was a little shallow. However, her posture wasn’t quite right for delivering a finishing blow.
Twisting the handle, gouging into the soft flesh, she removed the man’s body from on top of her.
The man, not understanding what had happened, clutched his throat, squatted down, and writhed in agony.
Crishet stood up, put her weight into it from above, and thrust the wooden sword down, aiming for his cervical vertebrae.
The first time, because the man thrashed about, it slid off the bone, gouged flesh, and struck the ground.
She pulled it out and tried again.
Feeling a dull impact and sensing that this time she had indeed crushed his cervical vertebrae, Crishet nodded in satisfaction and took a breath.
“Mm, that should do it, yes.”
Smiling as she watched the man’s face contort and twitch strangely, she grabbed his clothes and dragged him away.
Nearby, she had already dug a large hole, big enough for an adult to stand in with room to spare.
Confirming once more that this way, beasts wouldn’t be able to sniff him out, she tossed the convulsing man into it. Then, shoveling dirt over him, she hopped lightly, tamping it down in stages.
When that was done, she next checked herself for dirt and examined the tip of the wooden sword.
There was a small amount of blood on the wooden sword.
She had only pierced his throat—the amount wasn’t that much, but there was a chance some had gotten on her.
She took off her robe, stripping down to her undergarments, and scrutinized herself, nodding in approval at the satisfactory result.
She had been thinking for a long time about how to dispose of this unpleasant man.
Simply killing him would have been easy enough, but she couldn’t let anyone find out, and she wanted to avoid any possibility of being suspected as much as possible.
Using a blade would cause blood to splatter, and yet, simply bludgeoning him with a wooden sword would be somewhat ineffective.
Crishet’s body was light; even if she put her weight into it, it would be difficult to kill him instantly with a wooden sword.
Even if she crushed his skull with a hammer or something, it would be troublesome if he screamed.
She had never killed an adult before, and their stamina was not to be underestimated.
In the end, she had concluded that using the opponent’s weight to pierce his throat was the most efficient method—as long as she could prevent him from screaming, the rest would be certain, and there would be no need to steal any tools. The result was excellent.
It’s wonderful, Crishet thought with satisfaction, her lips curving into a slight smile.
She liked such efficiency above all else.
With a knife, she lightly shaved the bloodstained tip of the wooden sword, then dirtied the shaved part with soil to make it blend in.
She felt no guilt or fear about having killed a person.
There was only a sense of accomplishment from having disposed of the unpleasant man who had been touching her body.
It was truly enjoyable when things went according to plan.
With this, a trivial daily unpleasantness would be resolved, and her life would become more enjoyable.
If a room gets dirty, you clean it.
If someone is unpleasant, you kill them.
“Ehehe, I need to go buy pumpkins quickly.”
For her, murder was just that, nothing more and nothing less.
The girl named Crishet was, without a doubt, abnormal.
A Hero’s Tale the Young Girl Did Not Desire
Kalka Village, whose livelihood depended on hunting, agriculture, and rock salt mining, was one of the outlying settlements.
The rock salt, in particular, was of high quality and was one of their main trade goods, likely one reason this village was more blessed than others.
Crop yields were somewhat poor, but the mountains provided enough food to compensate.
Half the village men went to the rock salt mines, the other half were hunters.
And the women tilled the fields and handled chores like laundry.
Crishet, who had been an abandoned child of about three, was taken in by a hunter from such a village.
Inside a bleak house with no kitchen.
In the central sunken hearth, a stew of potatoes and beans bubbled away as it simmered.
It was a simple dish, with only a token amount of dried meat scraps.
The silver-haired girl—Crishet—sat plopped down beside it, occasionally scooping some with a wooden ladle, blowing on it—foo, foo—to cool it, tasting it, and nodding repeatedly in satisfaction.
“…Mm, it’s wonderfully made.”
The boar meat in the soup had lent it a good flavor.
This was always the moment she felt glad to have been taken in by a hunter’s family.
Being able to use meat every day, even if only a token amount, was truly a luxury.
Just potatoes and beans with salt added was bland and lacked umami.
Soup really does need meat, she thought, sipping the soup she’d ladled, savoring the happiness as her cheeks relaxed and she checked its aroma.
The herbs she had gathered in the forest on the way, after killing Garo.
Thanks to them, the gaminess of the meat had been somewhat mellowed.
What remained in the meat, once the gaminess was gone, was concentrated umami—smiling at the satisfactory result, Crishet repeatedly filled her stomach under the pretext of taste-testing.
She had always made a little extra soup precisely for this taste-testing.
Crishet liked to be rational, and naturally, being swayed by animalistic desires like appetite was something Crishet considered shameful.
However, perhaps due to her innate constitution and memories of wandering the forest hungry in her childhood.
Unfortunately, Crishet’s desire for food was exceptionally strong, and she had the bad habit of being unable to resist nibbling.
—Just adding salt to hot water and tossing in ingredients.
The trigger was likely her adoptive mother’s disastrous cooking method, which could hardly be called cooking.
The food had been so incredibly awful that Crishet had proactively started helping with the cooking from a young age, and now she was completely captivated by its charm.
This was because she could season it to her own liking, and under the grand pretext of ‘taste-testing,’ she had the perk of drinking as much soup as she pleased.
For her, who got hungry quickly, the concept of ‘taste-testing’ was truly a gift from the heavens, and now, Crishet did all the cooking at home.
Her parents, who had been indifferent to seasoning, also became completely hooked on Crishet’s cooking, praising her greatly, exclaiming, “As expected of our daughter!”
Perhaps because of that, Crishet had a high reputation for being a domestic daughter.
Cooking was nothing but good things, Crishet nodded to herself.
She could eat food she liked, fill her stomach by taste-testing, and her reputation among others would rise.
For Crishet, cooking had now become inseparable from her life.
“But, it’s still a little unsatisfying… I wanted to make pumpkin soup.”
Crishet pouted in dissatisfaction.
Yesterday, a peddler had visited the village.
The peddler would spend a day in the village and depart the next morning.
Normally, she would have bought pumpkin yesterday, but while the peddler was there and attracting people’s attention, she had needed to dig a hole to bury the man, so she couldn’t.
Therefore, she had planned to go buy pumpkin this morning after finishing disposing of the man, but perhaps because it had taken more trouble than expected to take the man out, she had failed to buy the pumpkin.
The soup was delicious, as usual.
However, for Crishet, whose mouth was ‘set on pumpkin,’ it was a little unsatisfying.
—At least a little more meat. No, that’s no good. The rest is for tomorrow.
She brought the soup to her lips many times, calling it taste-testing.
As she was filling her slightly empty stomach and pondering such things, the door slid open with a rattle.
“Ah…”
The one who appeared was a woman.
Long black hair roughly tied back, and though she had a few freckles on her face, she was a beautiful woman with well-defined features.
“Welcome home, Kaasama.”
Crishet, still sitting flat on the floor, called out to her returned mother, Grace.
“I’m home, Crishet. Are you already preparing the meal?”
“It’s done. It was a bit hot today, so I tried using a little more salt, but how is it…?”
Scooping a little soup into a ladle, she offered it directly to Grace.
Crishet’s adoptive mother looked at Crishet—who was supposedly in the middle of cooking—with a wry smile, and tasted it.
She understood that the hungry Crishet had likely been continuously drinking the soup under the guise of taste-testing, but she deliberately didn’t mention it.
Crishet’s gluttonous behavior, apparently thinking she hadn’t been noticed, was, to Grace, truly adorable.
Excelling at everything more than an average person, serious, obedient, and hardworking—this was a childlike part of Crishet, and Grace watched such aspects of her with a warm smile.
“Mm, it’s very delicious, Crishet.”
“Really?”
“Fufu, what would I gain by lying about something like this?”
That Grace, the village’s greatest beauty, had married Golka, a skilled young hunter, was something everyone in the village rejoiced and blessed. However, unfortunately, the two were not blessed with children, and the child they were finally blessed with was stillborn.
At such a time, when they were overwhelmed with grief, the abandoned child her husband Golka found was Crishet.
The two decided to raise Crishet as a daughter bestowed upon them by God, doting on her as if she were their own true child, and Crishet, too, grew up exceeding her parents’ expectations.
Towards Crishet, who was now called the most capable girl in the village, Grace felt no dissatisfaction at all.
She was naturally aware that Crishet was a slightly odd daughter, bad at deciphering others’ emotions, but her affection did not change.
Rather, thinking it was a parent’s duty to guide those aspects, she patiently taught her various things—it would be fair to say that Crishet being able to live a normal life like this was thanks to her.
Crishet, likewise, had no dissatisfaction with such parents.
Except for being somewhat overprotective, Grace and Golka could be called ideal guardians, and Crishet also felt something close to affection for them.
“…Crishet, you’re truly good at cooking.”
“Ehehe…”
Crishet smiled as her head was patted.
Then she snuggled up to Grace, hugged her, and pressed her cheek against her breast.
The fact that she had killed someone just a while ago had already vanished from her mind.
What was there was merely a girl, appropriate for her age.
—Already three people.
Before today, Crishet had laid her hands on two other children her age.
Crishet felt no resistance whatsoever to killing people she found unpleasant.
She only hid it because murder was deemed wrong by the rules of this community.
She felt no doubt whatsoever in using it as a means to an end.
Unpleasant people were unpleasant just by existing.
Even if she killed people, she herself felt neither pain nor discomfort.
So, if she killed them, she’d feel relieved, and she wouldn’t have to meet them again.
Such an utterly shortsighted and self-centered thought process.
Possessing superior intellect, yet a heart lacking in empathy.
That indeed was the major flaw Crishet possessed.
However, it wasn’t that she was a pleasure killer.
Her thoughts were unique, and if one were to exclude the fact that her sense of ethics differed from others, Crishet’s senses weren’t so different from other humans.
Towards her parents who taught and guided her on various village rules, and treated and protected her as their daughter, she even felt something close to affection, and she wouldn’t spare any effort for such people.
“Kaasama, is there anything else I can help with?”
—Benefit and detriment.
She always thought about things in terms of profit and loss, and perceived them simply.
She thought it natural to ‘repay’ those who did good things for her, and for her parents who protected and raised her, she would strive to fulfill their wishes.
And so, within herself, she balanced the accounts of benefit and detriment.
Such feelings were not so different from the affection a child shows to a parent; if shown affection, she was obedient and pure, showing a reaction close to goodwill.
Thinking it natural to meet expectations, she, who did not shy away from the labor required for it, was, if anything, more hardworking and good-natured than an ordinary child—she appeared as an ideal child.
“Let’s see… The cleaning… and the laundry are already done, aren’t they…”
Asked by her like that, Grace looked around the room, troubled.
Belongings were put away, the air had been refreshed.
The room was quite clean, with no dust or dirt, and undergarments and the like were properly hung outside.
“Haa… Honestly. She truly requires so little looking after, it’s like I’m the one being taken care of instead. I wonder why she’s such a good child.”
Grace gave a wry smile and patted Crishet’s head again.
Her cheeks softening and eyes narrowing, Crishet pressed her body against her.
“There’s still time before nightfall, so go play for a bit.”
“…Yes.”
Savoring the sensation, the girl quietly smiled, nodded, and rubbed her cheek against her mother.
She was, without a doubt, an abnormal individual.
And yet, what stood there was a girl, just as she appeared.